Speaker 1: I'll get a team. It's bloody Harps and Tiff talking
Speaker 1: over the top of me. What's new? Just another day,
Speaker 1: Just a Monday, Just a Monday, Doctor Mark Cohen, who
Speaker 1: was recently on the show, and you all went, oh god,
Speaker 1: he's good, get him back. And of course we're not
Speaker 1: recording two episodes in one day. We're definitely not doing
Speaker 1: that because that would be deceptive. Height tif.
Speaker 2: He is good, though, isn't he?
Speaker 1: He is good? What do you like about him? What
Speaker 1: do you like about the good doc? While he's sitting
Speaker 1: in the top left square on my.
Speaker 3: Screen, I just like how different, you know, like down
Speaker 3: to earth but smart and I don't know, there's just
Speaker 3: such breadth to everything that he talks about.
Speaker 1: He's not too fancy. He's like an academic ug boot.
Speaker 1: You know, he's just comfortable, the academic ug boot. He's
Speaker 1: like an academic ugboot. You can just slip into him.
Speaker 1: It's just bloody comfy and he makes you feel warm.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: He's familiar and a bit wooly. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: that last bit means. I'm not sure that last bit.
Speaker 1: Good day, mate, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2: How are you I'm going to use that on my bio.
Speaker 4: I've been called you can just the academic ug boot.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 1: You're welcome as long as you put a tiny little
Speaker 1: asterisk with a ch next to it. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: copyright mate. Last time you were here, I introed you
Speaker 1: when we spoke about this kind of mission statement that's
Speaker 1: on your website. I just repeat it, Ibridge advanced science
Speaker 1: and ancient wisdom and offer simple, practical solutions that help you.
Speaker 1: And there was five key things. One finder fun to
Speaker 1: make sense of life. Three master your mind and body
Speaker 1: for tame your toxic load. I'm interested in that, and
Speaker 1: five live happy, healthy and long. So we've done the
Speaker 1: first two, we're going to lean into the last three.
Speaker 1: Number three is mastering your mind and body. And of course,
Speaker 1: for those who didn't hear the first one, have a
Speaker 1: listen and then come back to this or vice versa.
Speaker 1: But the doc is not only a medical doctor, but
Speaker 1: he's also got a PhD in Chinese medicine and engineering
Speaker 1: electrical and computer systems engineering, So you know, it's a
Speaker 1: little bit other than that fuck all though, I mean
Speaker 1: really other than that.
Speaker 4: Nothing. He's a dumb ass, but look, he comes cheap,
Speaker 4: so here he is.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about See no one else says that
Speaker 1: to you on a podcast. Bro, Let's talk about number three,
Speaker 1: which is mastering your mind and body. When I saw mastering,
Speaker 1: I'm like, he's mastering a good goal or is perhaps
Speaker 1: coexisting harmoniously with my mind a better goal or a
Speaker 1: better I don't know.
Speaker 4: Can we master our mind?
Speaker 2: I think we can absolutely, All right, let's go. I'm
Speaker 2: pack it well. I think the mind is a great
Speaker 2: servant but a terrible master.
Speaker 3: When your mind masters you, then you know, you end
Speaker 3: up with mental health issues because you can second guess yourself,
Speaker 3: you overthink. So I think you need to master your
Speaker 3: mind rather than having your mind control your life.
Speaker 2: And the same with your body. You need to be
Speaker 2: the master of your body.
Speaker 3: And and whether it's how you move or what you eat,
Speaker 3: or the joy that you get from your body is
Speaker 3: it's one of the great you know, the great things
Speaker 3: we do in while we're alive is we have this
Speaker 3: body and we live.
Speaker 2: In the world.
Speaker 3: So I think we do need to master our mind
Speaker 3: and body. And not that we have a mind. We
Speaker 3: are not our mind. You know, we have a body.
Speaker 3: We are not our body. So it gives you this
Speaker 3: meta level to live through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this which my listeners hate me talking about metacognition
Speaker 1: and that better awareness and met it. My PhD is
Speaker 1: met a perception. Trying to understand how others see you
Speaker 1: all that. That's like the funny thing about trying to
Speaker 1: master your mind is you've kind of got to understand
Speaker 1: your mind to master it. And then how do you
Speaker 1: understand your mind when the tool that you're analyzing your
Speaker 1: mind with is your mind? You know, it's a mind fuck.
Speaker 1: It's like you're trying to the thing you're trying to understand.
Speaker 1: You're looking at with the thing that you're trying to understand.
Speaker 3: So so my approach to that is trying to turn
Speaker 3: your mind off. And one of the things to both
Speaker 3: master your mind and body is, and I'll get a
Speaker 3: bit esoteric and spiritual here, is to really get into
Speaker 3: stillness by turning your mind off and actively doing nothing.
Speaker 3: And you might you might think you're doing nothing. People
Speaker 3: what do you do on the weekend? And I did
Speaker 3: nothing out the couch watching Netflix. But doing nothing is
Speaker 3: actually a spiritual dat of it. And you might think
Speaker 3: you're doing nothing, but there's always less you can do. Wow,
Speaker 3: if you look at these ancient practices. I mean the
Speaker 3: practice of yoga was I mean yoga physical arsenal, you know,
Speaker 3: yoga postures was really to get a comfortable seat so
Speaker 3: then you could meditate. And when you meditate, the aim
Speaker 3: of meditation is to turn your mind off, so you're
Speaker 3: actually not thinking. It's from that position of not thinking
Speaker 3: and not and being comfortable still that you get the
Speaker 3: greatest movement and activity. And that's also in a lot
Speaker 3: of Eastern philosophies, whether it's martial arts, but also in
Speaker 3: juggling in ballet, you get the greatest movement from the
Speaker 3: stillest point. So your physical center of gravity is just
Speaker 3: below your navel.
Speaker 2: They call it the dunti.
Speaker 3: En naval and the pubic bone. And that's the point
Speaker 3: where if you shove a spear through someone, they'll spin
Speaker 3: or if you know, that's the point where a ballerina
Speaker 3: will get held up, or an acrobat will spin around,
Speaker 3: or a juggling point still so they can juggle all
Speaker 3: the things in the air. That's the point where a
Speaker 3: martial artist will move from to kick and punch and
Speaker 3: be active. So have the greatest still point. It gives
Speaker 3: you the ability to have the greatest resilience and the
Speaker 3: greatest flexibility of movement. So cultivating a still point, and
Speaker 3: that's both in mind and body, that gives you that
Speaker 3: meta cognition, that meta analysis.
Speaker 2: Of you know, when I'm in movement, where where am
Speaker 2: I moving from? You know? Who are you when you're
Speaker 2: totally still?
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of ways to get to that
Speaker 3: still point, and I find that the best way to
Speaker 3: get to the still point is actually through activity and
Speaker 3: then come back to stillness. And again, I mean yoga
Speaker 3: is a great example where you'll do a yoga class
Speaker 3: and you'll stretch one way, you'll stretch the other way,
Speaker 3: and then at the end of the class you'll do
Speaker 3: a a shavasena, the relaxation, the corpse pose, and you
Speaker 3: can go into really deep stillness because you've exercised. If
Speaker 3: you just went to the start of the class and
Speaker 3: did that corpse pose and tried to still, you wouldn't
Speaker 3: get that same stillness. So it's by having getting that
Speaker 3: activity out of the way and go into the extremes
Speaker 3: of activity.
Speaker 2: And again, and.
Speaker 3: Yoga you've got to be you don't just stretch, you
Speaker 3: go to the extreme point of that stretch to the
Speaker 3: point where if you go a bit further you're going
Speaker 3: to hurt yourself. You have to stop yourself and know
Speaker 3: what is your limit, and that physical limit.
Speaker 2: Then once you know the edge, then you can find
Speaker 2: the middle. And that that works with physical exertion, works
Speaker 2: with hot and cold.
Speaker 3: You know, you go to a sword in a nice
Speaker 3: ba if you get to the point where you're either
Speaker 3: so hot or so cold, you.
Speaker 2: Think, hey, you know, I need to get out. And
Speaker 2: after you've done that, and I see.
Speaker 3: A lot of practices don't talk about this, and I'm
Speaker 3: one of the ones. I always emphasized you need to
Speaker 3: rest afterwards after you've done cold, you know, and just
Speaker 3: doing hot or just doing cold isn't as good as
Speaker 3: doing both. So do hot and then cold, But then
Speaker 3: you rest and because you've done the hot and cold,
Speaker 3: your body can come back into homeostasis. You know, that's
Speaker 3: a biological principle. Homeostasis is when you know you have
Speaker 3: a constant internal environment where you can have stillness in
Speaker 3: the midst of environmental activity and uncertainty. So cultivating that
Speaker 3: helps you master your mind and body. And there's a
Speaker 3: lot of ways you can master being still, but it's
Speaker 3: really setting aside time to actively do nothing. And I
Speaker 3: find so many people in the modern world, you know,
Speaker 3: they're always doing something. And now we've got phones and
Speaker 3: people just doom scroll on their phones. If the people
Speaker 3: don't be bored. When I was a kid, you know,
Speaker 3: in the sixties and seventies, you know, there were times
Speaker 3: when we were just bored and we just had to
Speaker 3: be with ourselves.
Speaker 2: You know, looking up of the sky and watching the
Speaker 2: clouds or whatever it was.
Speaker 3: But cultivating that stillness is actually a really high level
Speaker 3: of mastery, and that's confirmed in all my research into
Speaker 3: ancient you know, meditation traditions and spiritual traditions and martial
Speaker 3: arts traditions. Of cultivating that stillness gives you that mastery
Speaker 3: of the both mind and body.
Speaker 1: It's like being busy as a badge of honor these days,
Speaker 1: you know, the busy badge.
Speaker 4: How are you busy? What's going on? Busy? Everyone's busy.
Speaker 1: It's like that's like scoring social branding points. And if
Speaker 1: it's you don't want to say what are you up to?
Speaker 4: Nothing? Because that's bad. You can't say nothing because that's
Speaker 4: that's a negative.
Speaker 3: Well, I like to you to do extremes. I like
Speaker 3: to be I mean, I love to be busy. I
Speaker 3: want to be fully engaged and use my whole capacity.
Speaker 3: So you know, we talked I think last time we
Speaker 3: talked about having a capacity that matches or having a
Speaker 3: challenge that matches your capacity that means you're actually trying
Speaker 3: to deal with everything, but alternating that with being just
Speaker 3: totally in the moment and doing nothing. I think last
Speaker 3: week also talked about what we're talking about, being preser
Speaker 3: but also the future, hopping to be content but also
Speaker 3: not happy, you know, trying to change things. And it's
Speaker 3: this dialectic, this dilemma of being really busy at times
Speaker 3: but also having other times when you can just absolutely
Speaker 3: do nothing. And when I say doing nothing, there's not
Speaker 3: just lying on the couch just you know, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: like how little can you do?
Speaker 2: And going into that.
Speaker 3: And there are practices, whether it's breathing practices or doing
Speaker 3: hot and cold or yoga, where you can actually reduce
Speaker 3: your heart rate, you can reduce your respiratory rate, you
Speaker 3: can turn off your monkey mind, so you can actually
Speaker 3: really get into physiologically doing nothing as well as mentally
Speaker 3: and in terms of activity. And that's actually a really
Speaker 3: deep practice and the more you can master that that,
Speaker 3: the more you can actually do when you're busy, and
Speaker 3: the more productive you're.
Speaker 2: Going to be when you're busy.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine told me years ago, Doc, maybe
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, twenty five, Tiff, could you do me
Speaker 1: a favor and find out when the Power of Now
Speaker 1: came out? I think it was maybe mid to late
Speaker 1: nineties to read the Power of Now by Kattail, which,
Speaker 1: of course you know. And I remember I've read about
Speaker 1: five to ten pages. I'm like, this is fucking mumbo jumbo.
Speaker 1: This is such bullshit, pseudo whatever, spiritual psycho babble. And
Speaker 1: I put it away and I came back to it
Speaker 1: about five years later, I don't know, a significant time later,
Speaker 1: and I just picked it up again because so many
Speaker 1: people had said, oh it's incredible.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'll give it another go. And I started reading.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh my god, this is brilliant. How long
Speaker 4: has this been around?
Speaker 1: And it was funny, the same guy reading the same words.
Speaker 1: But I was something had shifted in me and the
Speaker 1: thing that didn't make any sense made all the sense.
Speaker 4: So got an answer.
Speaker 2: Tiff ninety ninety seven.
Speaker 1: Ninety seven, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, so that's what's that twenty
Speaker 1: seven years ago. But that idea, thank you, that idea
Speaker 1: of like being the observer of your thoughts, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the awareness of everything I'm not you know that I'm
Speaker 1: like what what? Well, if I'm not my thoughts, who
Speaker 1: is or what is the observer? Like what is the observer?
Speaker 1: Where the fuck's he?
Speaker 4: Or is it a he? Maybe it's not a he.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's just awareness.
Speaker 3: Well, you can't actually be totally in the moment and
Speaker 3: be thinking. Thinking is in the past or the future.
Speaker 3: I've got a I've spent thirty eight years writing my
Speaker 3: first poem I ever wrote. It took thirty eight years
Speaker 3: to rise, and a very dense poem about Chinese cosmology,
Speaker 3: Western physics, thermodynamics, mindfulness.
Speaker 2: And it's now a children's book called Bing and Bang Begin.
Speaker 2: But there's a.
Speaker 3: Lining there and it goes through nothing, everything, something, anything
Speaker 3: and king and thinking.
Speaker 2: There's a few lines here but says.
Speaker 3: Thinking can never know, can actually never be in the now,
Speaker 3: to just be in the moment.
Speaker 2: Thinking doesn't know how over the past and the future.
Speaker 3: Thinking has free reign, but the present is not part
Speaker 3: of thinking's domain. Wow dilemma because when you're in the present,
Speaker 3: you're not thinking. You're either in the moment or you're
Speaker 3: active at doing nothing. And it's when you're thinking, it's
Speaker 3: either you're thinking about something that's happened or something that
Speaker 3: will happen. And this is this dilemma we keep on
Speaker 3: coming back to, where how can we be fully present
Speaker 3: in the moment but still have ambitions for the future
Speaker 3: and still be forward thinking? And I think are totally
Speaker 3: He really made ancient philosophy popular by bringing people back
Speaker 3: into the moment because our society goes through this pendulum
Speaker 3: swing of you, we have to be busy, we have
Speaker 3: to be engaged, and that's that's how we rate ourselves
Speaker 3: of how busy are we have much money we're making,
Speaker 3: how much activity? And what have we accomplished and not
Speaker 3: realizing that by actively doing nothing and accomplishing nothing in
Speaker 3: that moment is a great accomplishment.
Speaker 1: M Yes, and back to just quickly met a cognition
Speaker 1: is like starting to become aware of your own thoughts
Speaker 1: and then getting curious about your thoughts. Why do I
Speaker 1: think that, Why is that that thing happened? And my
Speaker 1: story about the thing is this? Where did that story
Speaker 1: about that thing come from and does that serve me
Speaker 1: or sabotage me.
Speaker 2: Well, that's when you start healing back the layers of
Speaker 2: who you are.
Speaker 3: One of the things actually that really changed the trajectory
Speaker 3: of my life.
Speaker 2: I was in thirty medicine ninety eighty four, I think
Speaker 2: eighty four.
Speaker 3: I was in thirty medicine and we had this lecture
Speaker 3: on primal therapy, which is when you do a regression
Speaker 3: back to birth and you realize all the you know,
Speaker 3: the birth trauma that you have and for most people earth.
Speaker 2: Is traumatic, but how that actually affects your life?
Speaker 3: And I came up with a model then, and it
Speaker 3: actually it was because of doing that that I did
Speaker 3: an honest degree and that honestly we end up doing
Speaker 3: Chinese medicine and that set of a whole trajectory. But
Speaker 3: the idea that when we have situations we can't deal with,
Speaker 3: especially as an infant or as a child, that sort
Speaker 3: of ossifies part of our sort of closes a system,
Speaker 3: and we do that to protect ourselves, but then that
Speaker 3: closed system dominates our thinking for the rest of our
Speaker 3: life unless we unpack it. And that's when when you
Speaker 3: do this metacognition, you're saying why do I think that?
Speaker 3: And then you go back to a past trauma or
Speaker 3: a past event that actually set your.
Speaker 2: Thinking in stone.
Speaker 3: And when you can unpack that, you become more flexible
Speaker 3: and it opens up unconscious. You can make unconscious processes
Speaker 3: more conscious. That then gives you greater flexibility, because when
Speaker 3: you're dominated by unconscious processes, you're rigid and you think
Speaker 3: you don't have control.
Speaker 2: Over what's going on because it's not conscious.
Speaker 3: So it's a process of I'm healing me young and
Speaker 3: going back to why are you're thinking that, what happened
Speaker 3: in my life that made me do that?
Speaker 2: And unpacking that with patience.
Speaker 3: Often you'll talk to patients about when did you stop
Speaker 3: enjoying life or what traumas did you have, and then
Speaker 3: you can analyze that and realize that traumatic event really
Speaker 3: set the whole trajectory that ended up as a physical illness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really powerful. That metacognition is actually a really
Speaker 2: powerful process.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very high.
Speaker 1: Level self awareness, you know, self reflection, self awareness.
Speaker 4: All right, So we're not going to get through all three,
Speaker 4: but that's all right.
Speaker 1: So last time we did find the fun and make
Speaker 1: sense of life today we're going to do, which we're
Speaker 1: just mastering your mind and body.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about tame your toxic load.
Speaker 1: So what do you referring to when you say, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's not one thing, but many things.
Speaker 4: What is toxic load?
Speaker 3: So we have exposed to so much toxicity in the word,
Speaker 3: I mean our body makes toxins, I mean metabolic waste
Speaker 3: products and they have to excrete.
Speaker 2: So a lot of our.
Speaker 3: Organs, you know, liver and kidneys and sweat, and you know,
Speaker 3: we excreete toxicity. But there's and I break everything to
Speaker 3: five and we can talk about that another But there's
Speaker 3: a lot of toxicity we're exposed to with different types
Speaker 3: of toxicity.
Speaker 2: So that's a lot.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of chemical toxicity, and that's in our
Speaker 3: air and our water and our food.
Speaker 2: You know, in our environment everywhere.
Speaker 3: There's electromagnetic radiation, there's biological toxicity mold and all those
Speaker 3: sort of things. There are different types of toxicity. Then
Speaker 3: there's the dose, like how much do you get? And
Speaker 3: in the last probably fifteen years, we've learnt a lot
Speaker 3: about endocrine disruptors and how you can have very small doses.
Speaker 2: Have very large effects. Live phalates yeah, thalates and.
Speaker 3: The whole range of endocondristuffs A pfas and all the
Speaker 3: perfluorinated compounds, brominated compounds, and all the xeno estrogens. So
Speaker 3: you know, very very small doses and even heavy metal
Speaker 3: with mercury and things like that, a very small dose
Speaker 3: on lead can have a very very big effect. The
Speaker 3: type of toxicity, the dose, the timing of when you're exposed.
Speaker 3: If you're exposed as an infant or a fetuses, has
Speaker 3: much more long lasting effect than if you're exposed as
Speaker 3: an adult.
Speaker 2: Then you have the combination the cocktails.
Speaker 3: Because they when they look at toxicity in the lads,
Speaker 3: they look at one chemical at a time. They don't
Speaker 3: look at the chemical cocktails that we're exposed to. And
Speaker 3: everyone has a unique exposure history based on where you're
Speaker 3: born and what you eat, and you know who you
Speaker 3: are and the environment where you live, so.
Speaker 2: That that mixture has an effect. And there's there's something
Speaker 2: from nothing effect. We can get two chemicals.
Speaker 3: And individually they don't do any any damage, but when
Speaker 3: you put them together they actually do damage.
Speaker 2: That's the something from nothing effect. And then finally there's
Speaker 2: luck and the luck of.
Speaker 3: Who are your parents, and what are your genetics and
Speaker 3: where born and where do you live and where have
Speaker 3: you traveled in your life because there's environmental disasters and
Speaker 3: you know, industrial accidents and even natural you know, toxic
Speaker 3: from you know read it's radioactive elements in the well
Speaker 3: in your water well or arsenic or whatever in the
Speaker 3: natural environment and the industry that you're living around all
Speaker 3: have into play into our toxic exposure.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's the type, the dose, the.
Speaker 3: Timing, the mixture and luck impact on our life. And
Speaker 3: that toxic load that we build up over our life
Speaker 3: has a huge influence on what disease we're going to get,
Speaker 3: how healthy we are, our capacity to enjoy life, and
Speaker 3: how long we're going to live. And there's a lot
Speaker 3: of things we can do to reduce those things through
Speaker 3: being conscious of our choices of you know, what we're
Speaker 3: going to eat.
Speaker 2: And I've done research.
Speaker 3: Two thousand and eight, I think we published a study
Speaker 3: that showed just one week of eighty percent organic food
Speaker 3: will reduce your pesticide load by ninety percent.
Speaker 2: Wow. And that was allgano phosphate pesticides.
Speaker 3: And that's again of phosphate pesticides with a newer they're neurotoxins,
Speaker 3: are based on nerve gas, but they replace the organo
Speaker 3: chlorine pesticides, which are that soluble they're really hard to
Speaker 3: get rid of. But they're gano phosphate pesticides. They're more toxic,
Speaker 3: but they're water soluble, so eventually you pee them out.
Speaker 3: So if you stick put them in your body, after
Speaker 3: a week, ninety percent of them are gone. So that
Speaker 3: so there are ukn eate choices to reduce your your
Speaker 3: toxic load and enhance excretion, so you drinking good water
Speaker 3: and sweating and using your body and having herbs that
Speaker 3: will stimulate your liver and your kidneys to excrete things.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot we can do to reduce that
Speaker 2: toxic load.
Speaker 3: And we talked about having those unconscious processes conscious and
Speaker 3: then you actually get more flexibility in your life.
Speaker 2: When you reduce the toxicity in your body and your.
Speaker 3: Toxic load, your physiological unconscious activity becomes more responsive, so
Speaker 3: your mitochondria work better, you have more energy. You actually
Speaker 3: you get more enjoyment from life, and your pain levels
Speaker 3: go down, your disease levels go down, inflammation goes down.
Speaker 3: So toxicity is a major influence and when I did
Speaker 3: a deep dive, and I've got lectures on this, and
Speaker 3: it's really depressing when you start researching it. It's really
Speaker 3: like I got depressed for quite a few years because
Speaker 3: I went I really researched all those different elements and
Speaker 3: you realize the ocean, I mean some fascinating stuff. So
Speaker 3: there was one study they did on whale ear wax.
Speaker 3: So apparently whales have ears and they don't clean them.
Speaker 3: So after you know, whale came with eighty years and
Speaker 3: they end up with these big long candle of wax
Speaker 3: in their ears. And that wax is like tree rings
Speaker 3: because it gets laid down each year and waxes by substance.
Speaker 3: So whatever's toxicity in the ocean, it gets laid down.
Speaker 3: So they can look at the history of the toxicity
Speaker 3: of the oceans because whales travel over vast areas of ocean,
Speaker 3: and they can see that the level of toxicity. And
Speaker 3: what they notice is that a whale, just like a
Speaker 3: human infant, will get a big dose of toxicity as
Speaker 3: an infant when they're breastfeeding, because when you breastfeed, you're
Speaker 3: actually getting the concentrated toxicity, if that's soluble toxicity from
Speaker 3: your mother into the infant and then it continues. Then
Speaker 3: you get exposed through the environment, and they show that
Speaker 3: the oceans have become much more toxic over the last
Speaker 3: eighty years, and this whale ear wax is one of
Speaker 3: the measures they can actually look look at that.
Speaker 4: That's buddy, that's incredible.
Speaker 1: Well all right, what about what about it's going to
Speaker 1: sound weird, but toxic people or toxic workplaces or like,
Speaker 1: I feel like being around some people is bad for
Speaker 1: your health, not not just mentally but also physically.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's that that's sort of truism in popular culture,
Speaker 3: saying you are the average of the five people you
Speaker 3: spend most time with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's true.
Speaker 3: You can actually if you're around toxic people, negative people,
Speaker 3: and you know you know who they are in your life,
Speaker 3: they actually have a huge impact on you. So surrounding
Speaker 3: yourself by positive people, people who are on the same
Speaker 3: wavelength of.
Speaker 2: You, people that make you feel good. And again it's
Speaker 2: my focus on focusing on fun. You want to be around.
Speaker 3: People who you enjoy being around, who you laugh with,
Speaker 3: you can learn with, you can share with, and who
Speaker 3: you don't have to put up a front and be
Speaker 3: someone else with you, so you can be your totally
Speaker 3: natural self.
Speaker 2: And if you're a lot of people in their work
Speaker 2: environments they can't be their natural self.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have to put on a work suit and
Speaker 3: I work face and be around toxic people and often
Speaker 3: in toxic industries as well, doing jobs that they don't
Speaker 3: it's not about their passion. It's just about getting a paycheck.
Speaker 3: And even that's toxic. Just working in a dead end
Speaker 3: job or a job that's not aligned with who you are,
Speaker 3: that in itself is toxic and being around people who
Speaker 3: are toxic to you.
Speaker 2: Has an impact not just on.
Speaker 3: Your enjoyments of life, but your physical health, your mental health,
Speaker 3: and your longevity.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And conversely, tiff dogs and cats of therapeutic, aren't
Speaker 1: they They're healing.
Speaker 2: Because you don't have to have to be anyone else
Speaker 2: with your dog.
Speaker 3: You just be yourself and your dog will love you
Speaker 3: for who you are and the best And yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Can ensure your dogs make you happy.
Speaker 3: And I mean there's all the touch and the you know,
Speaker 3: the tactile sensation and that.
Speaker 2: Positive regard that you get from the dog and the
Speaker 2: fact that actually have to.
Speaker 3: Look after them and be of service and being of
Speaker 3: service is actually a great positive action in the world
Speaker 3: because it gives you purpose.
Speaker 2: So looking at for animals.
Speaker 4: There one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I feel like just like being around some people is
Speaker 1: literally I mean, there's there's been research showing that like
Speaker 1: being around some people can suppress your immune system, like
Speaker 1: like yeah, because you know, and increase cortisol and adrenaline
Speaker 1: and sympathetic nervous system action.
Speaker 4: And all that stuff. What about.
Speaker 1: Stimulants and booze and drugs in general, Like, what's your mean?
Speaker 1: I know that's a very vast playing field and there's
Speaker 1: a million different drugs, and what do you tell people?
Speaker 1: Because we live in a culture that is pretty heavily
Speaker 1: I was going to say, focused on, not focused on,
Speaker 1: but connected to booze. Like we're coming up to Christmas
Speaker 1: as we record this, there's going to be a lot
Speaker 1: of booze going on at most Christmas lunches and dinners.
Speaker 3: DoD Civilization has been built on sugar, caffeine, alcohol, right,
Speaker 3: they're the drink I mean, tobacco as well, and other things.
Speaker 3: And if you look at the whole history of civilization,
Speaker 3: it was all about the spice trade and getting drugs
Speaker 3: and opium and tea, I mean tea and caffeine at
Speaker 3: the whole East India Tea Company. It's all about tea
Speaker 3: and it's all about drugs. Drugs are an essential part
Speaker 3: of who we are as humans. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 3: the way that our culture has developedn't Isn't that actually healthy?
Speaker 3: And you look because and you look at that, I mean,
Speaker 3: most people aren't healthy. We have the huge range of
Speaker 3: chronic disease. Sixty percent of the population have chronic disease.
Speaker 3: And you know, sugar, alcohol and caffeine drive society.
Speaker 2: So we have a caffeine in the morning to hype
Speaker 2: us up.
Speaker 3: We have sugar to keep us active during the day,
Speaker 3: and we have alcohol in the evening to calm us down.
Speaker 3: And when you have it like that, it's actually not
Speaker 3: healthy at all. And I'm a big fan of me.
Speaker 3: And I'm not anti alcohol or you know, caffee. I
Speaker 3: mean personally, I don't drink coffee. I just don't need
Speaker 3: the stimulation. I hype enough as it is. I had
Speaker 3: alcohol rarely, certainly, not every day, maybe once a week.
Speaker 2: I have a drink.
Speaker 3: But I'm certainly not against alcohol, but I'm not a
Speaker 3: big proponent of it.
Speaker 2: And sugar. I don't have refined sugar.
Speaker 3: In my life, but I love you know, I love
Speaker 3: sweet things. But in Chinese medicine say you want to
Speaker 3: balance sweet, salty, spicy, sour, and bitter, So how do
Speaker 3: you balance those tastes in your life? And so having
Speaker 3: sweets important, but you want to balance this. And most
Speaker 3: people actually don't have enough bitter in their life. And
Speaker 3: if you don't have enough bitter, you'll crave sweets. And
Speaker 3: a lot of people get there bitter from coffee and chocolate,
Speaker 3: not from herbs.
Speaker 2: So a lot of people they think they love coffee,
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 3: Mean they do love coffee and chocolate, and you do
Speaker 3: sweeten them, but they're actually craving the bitters. And if
Speaker 3: you have enough bitter, you actually reduce your sweet craving.
Speaker 2: So there's some elements there. But coming into the holidays, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, alcohol is a it's alcohol is directly toxic
Speaker 2: to every organ in your body. As a medical.
Speaker 3: Student, came up a mnemonic for alcoholic liver disease, and
Speaker 3: the moonic is basically the whole alphabet. Every letter of
Speaker 3: the alphabet is one of the signs and symptoms of
Speaker 3: alcoholic liver disease. So it's directly every organ in your body.
Speaker 3: And that's not to say that you should never have it,
Speaker 3: but to have a society that's based on it, like
Speaker 3: you know in Australia, like any local town has a
Speaker 3: pub and maybe you know it's something else that the
Speaker 3: pubs like the center of the of the town and
Speaker 3: of our civilization has been built on this depressant, depressant,
Speaker 3: and that's that's played out.
Speaker 2: I'm used to.
Speaker 3: I don't know the latest staff when I was in
Speaker 3: working in the hospitals eased to say forty percent of
Speaker 3: all hospital emission were alcohol related.
Speaker 2: Wow, it might be more than that now and that
Speaker 2: includes you know the pfos.
Speaker 3: What they could use to do a PFO was piston
Speaker 3: fell over, you know in the emergency department. That's a
Speaker 3: PFO piston fell over on a Saturday night. But you know,
Speaker 3: whether it's some car accidents, alcoholic liver disease, obesity and
Speaker 3: all the all the sequeally of alcohol is really dominating
Speaker 3: our health system. So alcohol can be it can be great,
Speaker 3: but it's not something to have to overdo.
Speaker 2: But but it's part of our culture.
Speaker 3: I mean, as a doctor, I still do a little
Speaker 3: bit about doing that three hours a week in medical practice,
Speaker 3: and I prescribe medical cannabis and that can be again everybody,
Speaker 3: but can be a game change to the people, certainly
Speaker 3: for sleep and inflammation and pain, and there are certain
Speaker 3: conditions that it can be grateful gettings off for everybody.
Speaker 2: But I'm not against drugs, but I do think there's
Speaker 2: a you need to use them very consciously and not
Speaker 2: as a habit, as a.
Speaker 3: Habit if you're if you're habitually using stimulants or depressants,
Speaker 3: then you're really good.
Speaker 2: A question, you know, how do I have? Who am I?
Speaker 3: And how can I find stillness and happiness without that?
Speaker 3: If you depend on drugs for your your mental health
Speaker 3: and well being, then you actually in trouble.
Speaker 1: So if it's just dount of interest, because I've never
Speaker 1: had any drugs and I've never been drunk, so I'm
Speaker 1: the world's most boring man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've never.
Speaker 2: Go through life and I've been dragon. That's that's no.
Speaker 1: I've never had a glass of never been drunk, never
Speaker 1: been high. So CB D oil is that's am I
Speaker 1: right saying that's the non psychoactive THHC is the psychoactive
Speaker 1: bit and CB So cb D oil doesn't get you high.
Speaker 4: What is it is? It mainly for inflammation reduction, or.
Speaker 2: It's for lots of things.
Speaker 3: You can think of it as like really good fish oil,
Speaker 3: Like it's an oil that I mean, you have an
Speaker 3: endocannabinoid system in your body and see the oil matches that,
Speaker 3: so we actually have a system in our body that
Speaker 3: is receptive to that. So it can help with inflammation,
Speaker 3: it helps with mood stabilization, it.
Speaker 2: Can help, it helps with so many things. Again, it's
Speaker 2: not for everybody. But it doesn't get you high. You
Speaker 2: won't you don't get stoned off CBB right.
Speaker 3: And it's funny because in Australia and I just got
Speaker 3: back from Europe, and in Europe and England and in
Speaker 3: Americas and three times in America this year, you can
Speaker 3: buye over the counter and there's all these health products
Speaker 3: and supplements and even topical skincare that have CBD in it.
Speaker 2: In Australia it's only on prescription, so as.
Speaker 3: A doctor prescribe it, but you can't go to the
Speaker 3: health is stored by CBD products, whereas you can in
Speaker 3: a lot of the world.
Speaker 2: So it's really funny how drugs are regulated in.
Speaker 3: Different societies and how those societies adapt to that. But
Speaker 3: you can go to any bottle shop and buy as
Speaker 3: much alcohol as you want, which alcohol is psychoactive. You
Speaker 3: know you being drunk is a psychoactive state. So yeah,
Speaker 3: so CBD is there's always no downsides to it. You
Speaker 3: can't overdose, it doesn't have serious side effects, it doesn't
Speaker 3: really interact with other drugs, and it can have a
Speaker 3: great benefit. But it's restricted in terms of you need
Speaker 3: a doctor to prescribe, and there are different doses, and
Speaker 3: there's different formats and now there's you know you can
Speaker 3: there's inhalers, there's vabes, there's oils, there's gummies, there's all
Speaker 3: these different dosage forms.
Speaker 2: There's topical patches and things, and.
Speaker 3: It can be a game changer for a lot of people,
Speaker 3: but the bureaucracy makes it hard to access at the moment.
Speaker 4: So weird, so so weird.
Speaker 1: I'd love to do I'd love to do a show
Speaker 1: one day where we talk about all the the drugs
Speaker 1: or substances or treatments that you think should be legal
Speaker 1: that aren't and why Anyway, Hey mate, it's always good
Speaker 1: chatting to you. I appreciate you. Tell people how to
Speaker 1: find you and follow you and connect with you if
Speaker 1: if you're interested.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I have a website doctor mark dot com,
Speaker 3: Dr M A r C dot Co.
Speaker 2: I'm actually a little bit on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Speaker 3: I have a company, Extremely Alive, which makes probiotic kombucha,
Speaker 3: vinigar and herbs and Manuka honey. And one of the
Speaker 3: things I do with my products, like I have all
Speaker 3: these products, but I actually teach people to make themselves.
Speaker 3: And maybe we can talk about that another time where
Speaker 3: you where you know. I love making really high quality products,
Speaker 3: but I don't want to have them every exclusive. As
Speaker 3: you know, there's a lot of wellness very inaccessible to people.
Speaker 3: So I'll always have a product, right, I'll teach you
Speaker 3: how to make it yourself at home for free.
Speaker 2: Wow. Fan of empowering to their own.
Speaker 4: Horrible business man. Yeah, well again, I'm kidding. I'm only kidding.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not. I've never been focused on business.
Speaker 3: I mean I I do businesses because I have a
Speaker 3: water filtered business because I just wanted people to have
Speaker 3: good water. And I created this kombuchi company, Easha Vinegars
Speaker 3: because I wanted to make the world's best drink for myself.
Speaker 3: And I had a friend who had an incredible kombuci
Speaker 3: company that I did research on and showed we did
Speaker 3: the first ever clinical trial of kombucha.
Speaker 2: Wow, so extremely A live is our is our brand
Speaker 2: where we've just started off.
Speaker 3: We've just created ox Wolves, which are kimbucha, vinegar, honey,
Speaker 3: manuka honey and herbs and we've just launched them. But again,
Speaker 3: we'll teach people to make it themselves. This is an
Speaker 3: ancient medicine. It's it's not difficult, but a lot of
Speaker 3: that knowledge has been lost. So I'm about empowering people
Speaker 3: to do good stuff. So yeah, find me on my
Speaker 3: website reach out. I'm happy to converse with people.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: Will say goodbye here, but as always, mate, brilliant, thank
Speaker 1: you so much, appreciate your time, my pleasure.
Speaker 2: Great thanks