Episode: 51
Reset Your Health in 10 Days: Advice From a Renowned MD
with Dr. Mark Hyman, MD
You have more control over your health than you may think, and it’s never too early or too late to start making simple yet profound changes.
- Having trouble sleeping?
- Brain fog and headaches messing up your day?
- Low energy?
- Anxiety and ADHD running your life?
Dr. Mark Hyman has written an incredible 14 (!!!) New York Times best sellers. He is the founder and director of The UltraWellness Center, and Head of Strategy and Innovation at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine.
In this episode, Dr. Hyman gives you the specific, actionable steps you need to start changing your life in real time
Listen on:
I want to make sure that everybody listening leaves with a better understanding of how their body is designed to heal itself and specific changes that we can make in order to activate that power inside of us.
Dr. Mark Hyman, MD
Featured Clips
Transcript
Mel Robbins (00:00:03):
Boy, do I have an incredible gift for you today. You are getting world class medical and research back simple tactics today to improve your health, to improve your energy, to improve your vitality. We are going to do some healing today from the inside out. Who the hell am I talking about? Dr. Mark Hyman. Can you just hear Dr. Hyman winding up?
Dr. Hyman (00:00:29):
I'm just winding up.
Mel Robbins (00:00:29):
He is so excited. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to a vibrant, phenomenal episode of the Mel Robbins podcast. Let's do this thing. Okay, everybody, I am so excited. Boy, do I have an incredible gift for you today. And for those of you that are brand new to the Mel Robbins Podcast, let me welcome you. My name is Mel Robbins. I'm a New York Times bestselling author and one of the most respected experts on change in motivation in the world. And I have a treat for you today because I have arranged to get you an appointment at zero cost
(00:01:13):
With one of the world's leading doctors and medical experts. I'm telling you, you are in for a treat. So I don't care what you're doing right now, you better pull that car over. You better sit your ass down. You better get a pen. You better bookmark this episode because you are getting world class medical and research backed simple tactics today to improve your health, to improve your energy, to improve your vitality. We are going to do some healing today from the inside out. Who the hell am I talking about? Well, I'm talking about none other than Dr. Mark Hyman, 14 New York Times bestsellers, people 14. He has a wellness clinic in Western Massachusetts in Lennox. He used to be the co-medical director at Canyon Ranch. I mean, we could just be dropping all, and he's laughing. He's laughing at his own credentials. And that's something that I actually love about Dr.
(00:02:15):
Hyman because he's relatable. And so we are going to break down the world of functional medicine and the science behind how you can have more energy, how you can use things that are in your house and in your fridge to help you calm your anxiety, to help you gain focus if you have a DHD. And more importantly, I don't care how old you are, I know we got a ton of college kids that listen to this. You should be thinking right now, no matter how young or old you are about what you can do to make sure that as you age, you also have the energy that you deserve, right, Dr. Hyman.
Dr. Hyman (00:02:53):
Absolutely
Mel Robbins (00:02:54):
Welcome.
Dr. Hyman (00:02:55):
Thank you.
Mel Robbins (00:02:55):
You're welcome. And one other thing I want to tell you guys. So about a year ago, I think you guys know this, I had this tsunami casserole of a breakdown that was a combination of anxiety, grief, overselling our house of 26 years and crushing symptoms from menopause.
Dr. Hyman (00:03:19):
That's always fun.
Mel Robbins (00:03:20):
Oh, it was a hot mess.
Dr. Hyman (00:03:23):
Literally.
Mel Robbins (00:03:23):
Literally.
(00:03:25):
And I texted Dr. Hyman and he texted me back immediately and I went to his wellness clinic in Lennox. And so I also want to say that I have firsthand experience working with his partners and his team and following his advice. And it has made a profound difference. And that's why I'm excited for you to be here. Amazing. And there's one other thing I want to tell you. So she's going to kill me. And I'm telling you this everybody before we jump in, because I want you to understand that we are getting pitched like crazy to have people on this show because the show has been really successful. And I want to make sure that the people that we bring to you are going to give you value and tremendous value by the time of this podcast. And so Donna, who's one of the producers here at 1 4 3 studios, she has something to tell you, Dr. Mark Hyman, a personal connection that I think you listening, you're going to love this full circle moment.
Donna (00:04:25):
Hi, Dr. Hyman. I am really excited to be here today, and this feels very much like a full circle moment because without you, there's a good chance that I actually would not be here today. Wow. About 12 to 14 years ago, I was living with excruciating back pain. I was on meds that are now illegal. They created heart issues. I had really horrible asthma. So even if I wanted to be active, I couldn't. I was wheezing terribly and I was allergic to everything. I was diagnosed with 43 allergies when I was eight years old. So I was just sneezing and wheezing and hunched over all the time. So quite miserable. And then around that time, I found one of your books called The Five Forces of Wellness. I believe
Dr. Hyman (00:05:21):
That was actually
Donna (00:05:23):
An audio,
Dr. Hyman (00:05:23):
Audio book
Donna (00:05:24):
Series. Yes. Yes. So I at that time was divorced. And so I was a single mom and had my son in the backseat, and I would play those same four CDs over and over again. I really needed to hear what you were sharing about how the body is impacted by food. I had never heard any of this before. I didn't realize that I was supposed to be eating. Who knew? Right? I didn't realize I was supposed to be eating greens, and I wasn't supposed to be eating all the sugar I was and all the soda was drinking. And so I changed my lifestyle because of you. And I started to go to the gym. And here I am now 14 years later and I have no more back pain. I'm not on meds anymore. I don't carry an inhaler because my asthma is now in remission. And no more allergies. I'm not sneezing. We have dogs here today and there's no way I could be in this place with dogs around. So I just want to thank you because I've now run 27 5 Ks. I climbed Mount Washington twice, and I've biked 75 miles in a weekend four times, and I just could not have done that without you. So thank you so much for
Dr. Hyman (00:06:43):
All that you've, that's such a great story. I think it's an amazing story because what you experience is not impossible to achieve for most people if they know what to do. And sadly, our healthcare system and our medical paradigm doesn't actually know how to get you from there to here. And it's all about activating your body's own innate, intelligent healing systems, which is really all I do. I don't really treat disease. I just help the body do what it's supposed to do by getting rid of the bad stuff and putting in the good stuff. So the body is really an amazing organism. It's a self-healing, self preparing, self-renewing system if you know what to do. And I mean, who's listening out there that got an owner's manual strapped to their leg when they're born? Probably not too many of you. You know how to use your iPhone and computer more than you know how to regulate and use your body. And that's really what this is all about.
Mel Robbins (00:07:37):
Wow, Donna, first of all, I freaking love you because what just happened here is the mission of this show. It is to truly connect people with the information, the inspiration, and the encouragement that they need so that they can take control of their life. And Dr. Hyman, you just said something that really struck me, which is that every single one of us, our bodies has an intelligent healing system built into it. And I immediately thought about the fact that we all know instinctively that if you cut your hand, your body knows how to heal itself.
Dr. Hyman (00:08:19):
Exactly. You don't have to go to the doctor to get that prescription to heal your hand. It just knows what to do.
Mel Robbins (00:08:24):
Yeah. And so can you just expand upon that for somebody who has never considered that concept that your body is designed when you know how to take care of it to heal itself, what the hell does that even mean?
Dr. Hyman (00:08:45):
It's really incredible. I mean, I literally get to be the witness to miracles every day and people who are either wanting to just optimize their health and live a long healthy life, or people who have end stage diseases like type two diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune disease, dementia, whatever it is, a DD, depression. When you know how the body works, you can learn how to optimize its function, which is what we call it, functional medicine. And then you get rid of the stuff that's impairing our ability to function properly. And you put in the stuff that the body needs to thrive. So you take out the impediments to health, you put in the ingredients to health, the body knows what to do, and that's what happened.
(00:09:27):
Is there no more asthma in that story we just heard? Why is there no more pain? Why is her life totally transformed? She said, I didn't know food had anything to do what I was feeling. Well, most people don't connect the dots between what they're doing in their life, whether it's what they're eating or the toxins they're exposed to or the stress they're under or the lack of sleep they're getting, or the fact that they may not move their bodies or learn how to all these things. They don't know how that's impacting them. They don't know how close they are to feeling good. We're literally only a few days, not weeks or months from feeling better.
Mel Robbins (00:09:56):
Okay, hold on. We're only a few days away from feeling better.
Dr. Hyman (00:10:01):
Yes. It's really remarkable. I take people all over the world and I put 'em in these groups. We do these programs around the world and longevity programs, detox programs, and we change their diet. We move them a little bit of yoga, not like running a marathon, but just general exercise, some simple body practices. And within six days, the average person reduces their symptoms from all diseases by 70%.
Mel Robbins (00:10:28):
Wait, what?
Dr. Hyman (00:10:29):
Yeah, I've done this so many times and I'm like, I even shock myself because whether you have migraines or irritable bowel or depression or insomnia or joint pain or fatigue or brain fog, whatever the stuff you're feeling, and I call it the FLC syndrome, which means you
Mel Robbins (00:10:43):
What's FLC, it
Dr. Hyman (00:10:44):
When you feel like crap, feel, there's a more serious version of that called FLS feel
Mel Robbins (00:10:50):
Like shit.
Dr. Hyman (00:10:51):
Yeah,
Mel Robbins (00:10:51):
Exactly. What's interesting is that I think about we're constantly looking at what people DM us and what they fill out in the forms@melrobbins.com. And I've started to wonder if part of the problem is that so many of us are used to feeling like shit.
Dr. Hyman (00:11:14):
Yeah. We don't know how better we can feel. We don't have any insight because we've never, it's like you have an elf and standing in your foot your whole life. You don't know what it feels like when the element gets off until it gets off. And so then people have the insight. And I've written many books about how to do this in my new book, young Forever, I explained how to do this. I've written a book called The 10 Day Detox Diet, which is really what I used in my patients to help reset autoimmune disease, reset the gut, turn off inflammation, and get rid of asthma, migraine, whatever it is. And people are suffering from depression. We know now depression is inflammation in the brain.
Mel Robbins (00:11:46):
Okay, I'm going to stop you right there because I want to go point by point by point because I can feel, can you just, Dr. Hyman winding up.
Dr. Hyman (00:11:55):
I'm just winding up.
Mel Robbins (00:11:56):
He is so excited. This is a 63-year-old man with a six pack for abs in the best shape of his life, who has just written young forever the secrets to living your longest, healthiest life. And this is a book not About Living to 170. This is a book about truly maximizing the years that you do have,
(00:12:19):
Being energetic, being strong, being vital, having your presence of mind, being able to tap into the full opportunity of your life. And so I want to back up a couple steps because we were talking about the fact that your work in functional medicine as a medical doctor, decades of work with patients of research, the books that you've written, we are going to link to all of this, everybody. So I know people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What was that 10 day detox? It will be in the show notes, don't you worry. We got you covered. But I want to back up a minute because you talked about the fact that our bodies are designed to heal. And so I want to give people a metaphor to start to think about, because you've already started talking about food and that we don't stop and think about the fact that the environment that we live in and the things that we stick in our mouth and put into our body and the stress that we endure are all things that we can change for the better, that have a material demonstrated impact on the quality of your health to the point where if you take this seriously within six days, you will feel better.
Dr. Hyman (00:13:29):
Yeah. I mean, what's so amazing, Mel, is that every cell in your body, your DNA, your microbiome, which are the bugs that live in your gut, your immune system, everything is listening to your thoughts, everything is responding to your environment in real time. We call it the exposome. Your life is not predetermined by some genetic destiny. It's the life and the exposome, which is all the sum total of all the experiences you've had, all the toxins, all the thoughts, all the relationships, all the food you eat, everything washing over your biology, creating the expression of who you are in this moment. And so that's a very empowering idea because it doesn't just something that just didn't happen to you. You can actually be empowered to understand what those things are and change them and radically reverse biological age, your health problems, your mental health, because the body has this incredible healing system, as we said.
Mel Robbins (00:14:25):
Wow. Okay. So would a good metaphor, and maybe you have a better one, but I keep thinking about, if you think about the fact that a car, brand new car is designed to drive, it needs fuel though. So you want to take care of your car, you put in the fuel that doesn't have a bunch of crap in it, or you plug your car in and you drive one of these electric cars. I think a lot about food as the fuel. And if your car drives best on electricity or gas, you would never put sand in your gas tank because it would clog it up. And so is that kind of a metaphor to get you thinking about what is it?
Dr. Hyman (00:15:06):
It's more exciting than that because yes, food is fuel, it's energy, right? You need it to run your body. But there's all this other stuff in food that we've ignored besides calories, and it's the informational molecules in food. Because food is not just calories, it's information, it's instructions, it's code that upregulates for biology or downregulates it, every single bite. It changes your gene expression, your hormones, your brain chemistry, your immune system, your microbiome. Literally everything is changed in real time by what you're eating. And it's the informational molecules, the medicinal molecules and food that are speaking to us and changing everything about how we feel. Like most people don't connect their food and their mood or their food and their asthma or their food and their irritable bowel or their food and their migraines or their
Mel Robbins (00:15:56):
Food and their depression or food and anxiety, depression
Dr. Hyman (00:15:58):
Or anxiety, depression or depression. I great story of a patient who was having horrible panic attacks, and this was a guy who was kind of chubby, had a big belly, so I knew right away he was insulin resistant and probably big swings of blood sugar, insulin.
Mel Robbins (00:16:13):
Okay, stop. So are you talking about that pregnant belly that dudes
Dr. Hyman (00:16:17):
Get? Yeah.
Mel Robbins (00:16:17):
Okay. So when I see a dude with a big solid basketball, I'm like, beer gut, but what do you see?
Dr. Hyman (00:16:23):
Well, it's beer because it's sugar, or it could be sugar or bread or pasta or potatoes or rice or anything that's star in sugary will cause that belly
Mel Robbins (00:16:31):
Fat. So is that kind of like, you know how when you put yeast in bread and it ferments and it starts to
Dr. Hyman (00:16:37):
Rice? No, it's actually fat.
Mel Robbins (00:16:39):
Oh, that's actually fat. It's
Dr. Hyman (00:16:40):
Not just gas. Okay.
(00:16:42):
And so this guy was telling me how he would have these horrible panic attacks. He feel like he was dying, his part was palpitating, he was sweating, he couldn't breathe. He felt anxious, and the world was going. I said, wow, what happens after that? He said, well, I drink a can of Coke and it goes away. I'm like, oh, you have hypoglycemia, right? Your blood sugar was crashing. And when that does, so you get into a life-threatening emergency, your body doesn't know that you can go to the grocery store and get something. You think you got to go get food immediately. So it's really anxiety and panic attacks can be caused by many things, but one of them is huge fluctuations in blood sugar, and we see this all the time.
Mel Robbins (00:17:19):
Wow. Okay. Let's back up a few steps. So I've got some I want to talk about where do we start? Okay, because you just threw a whole lot at us, and I want to make sure that everybody listening leaves with a better understanding of how their body is designed to heal itself and specific changes that we can make in order to activate that power inside of us. And so I want to talk a little bit about, you write so much about food, and we've already started talking about it. And in particular, I'm a huge fan of your book, the Blood Sugar Solution, which is where I think you're one of the first people to start talking about the vagus nerve and the power of the vagus nerve, which we talk about on this show constantly. And the UltraMind solution is a book,
Dr. Hyman (00:18:13):
All these book goodies.
Mel Robbins (00:18:14):
Oh yeah. All these book goodies. But listen, everybody, and I'm going to have you explain it. You probably, you may have heard that your gut is called the second brain, but what you may not know is that during the formation of you as a human being, the same embryonic clump that forms the brain, also forms the gut, and they separate, but they stay connected
Dr. Hyman (00:18:42):
Via
Mel Robbins (00:18:42):
Neurotransmitters. So I think about it almost like goop. You break goop in half and it's got these stringy sections and part of it becomes your brain, and the second part becomes the gut. Well,
Dr. Hyman (00:18:53):
They call it your gut brain or your second brain,
Mel Robbins (00:18:56):
And that they talk to each other all the time
Dr. Hyman (00:18:57):
Completely.
Mel Robbins (00:18:58):
And so where I want to start with this is
Mel Robbins (00:19:01):
Can you explain the connection between your gut and your gut health and your overall health, and then we're going to get into specific mental health issues that people struggle with and the gut.
Dr. Hyman (00:19:15):
Absolutely. What was really amazing to me, Mel, is I began to practice functional medicine. I began to treat people's guts. I would help their immune system get better. I'd get 'em on anti-inflammatory diet. And as a side effect, they would report to me that my a DD is better. My depression's gone, my panic attacks are gone. My mood is better, sleeping better, all these things. I'm like, really? What's going here? And I began to really inquire about this process of how everything below the neck is influencing everything above the neck.
Mel Robbins (00:19:50):
Yes.
Dr. Hyman (00:19:50):
So the subtitle of the UltraMind solution is How to fix your Broken Brain by Fixing Your Body First.
(00:19:56):
And what's really amazing is the microbiome is this new frontier in addition to the understanding of the gut brain and the gut nervous system and the brain nervous system and how they're connected. And that's a real thing. There's constant communication. There's more neurotransmitter in your gut than your brain. But what's now happening is the understanding of this sea of bacteria in there that are all speaking to you every minute. And I just had talked to a scientist who was researching a particular microbe in the gut, and it's a big word. It's called akkermansia. Don't worry about it. It's just one of the bacteria that lives in
Mel Robbins (00:20:31):
There. I already forgot it.
Dr. Hyman (00:20:32):
Okay. And what's amazing, as they were fermenting this, growing this bacteria to put in a probiotic, which is very powerful for many things, for regulating metabolism and mood and blood sugar and everything, they discovered that this VA of the byproducts of this bacteria was something called gaba. Now, GABA is a calming neurotransmitter. When people take Valium, that's what it's doing. It's activating the GABA receptors in the brain to calm you down and relax you. So when you think if you have the right bacteria in your gut, you're producing compounds and neurotransmitters that are going to your brain and making you either relax and calm or depressed. There's a woman at Harvard du who's studying very actively the microbiome and depression as a way to treat mental illness, fix the gut.
Mel Robbins (00:20:59):
Wow. Okay. I want to have you define a few things for us. So...
Mel Robbins (00:21:23):
You've used the word inflammation a lot. What the hell does that mean?
Dr. Hyman (00:21:33):
Well, everybody knows you.
Mel Robbins (00:21:34):
No, everybody does not know
Dr. Hyman (00:21:35):
You got a sore throat. That's inflammation. You cut your finger, it gets red and pussy. That's inflammation.
Mel Robbins (00:21:40):
Oh, now I've never thought about it that
Dr. Hyman (00:21:42):
Way. You sprain your knee, it swells up. That's
Mel Robbins (00:21:45):
Inflammation. Well,
Dr. Hyman (00:21:45):
That I know that's inflammation.
Mel Robbins (00:21:47):
But when you functional medicine doctors around the world, word inflammation. Inflammation here, I don't even know what you're
Dr. Hyman (00:21:54):
Talking about. So we know that inflammation on the outside, what it looks like.
Mel Robbins (00:21:58):
Yes.
Dr. Hyman (00:21:59):
Right? That's what I was just referring to.
Mel Robbins (00:22:00):
Yes.
Dr. Hyman (00:22:01):
But there's inflammation on the inside, and it's silent inflammation. If your brain's inflamed, it doesn't get red and swollen, but you get depressed and you have a DD, and you have personality issues and you can't sleep and you're anxious. Right?
Dr. Hyman (00:22:15):
So
Dr. Hyman (00:22:16):
We're now understanding that the inflammation, this hidden inflammation is occurring inside of us, and it's leading to all the diseases of Western civilization, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia. The aging process itself is called inflammaging, which is one of the hallmarks of aging I talk about in young forever in my book. And the beautiful thing is that we now know what is driving the inflammation on the inside.
Mel Robbins (00:22:39):
What's causing us to have inflammation on the
Dr. Hyman (00:22:42):
Inside? Well, our gut is a big player,
(00:22:44):
70% of our immune systems in our gut. And if we don't eat the right food, if our microbiome is in the right bugs in there, they're nasty bugs. And we get leaky gut. And that means the body can't filter out the food and proteins from food and the bacteria in there, and you leak them across the intestinal lining. And guess what? Your immune system's right there. And it goes, holy shit, what is all this? And starts creating inflammation. So you get asthma or you get arthritis, or you get depression, or you get diabetes, or you get dementia because the gut bacteria and the whole system in there is broken down the other.
Mel Robbins (00:23:19):
Can I ask one more question?
Dr. Hyman (00:23:19):
Yeah.
Mel Robbins (00:23:20):
I think this is really important for everybody to understand.
Mel Robbins (00:23:25):
Let's back up a minute and talk about how your gut is supposed to function, so when it's functioning in the correct way. I only learned about leaky gut because we had a daughter that struggled with disordered eating, and she was constantly talking about how she felt fat. And I thought, oh my God, we have not only this issue with restriction and her not eating, but we now have body dysmorphia. And we went to see a nutritionist that was a functional, holistic nutritionist, and she came back and said, through the disordered eating, your daughter has destroyed
Dr. Hyman (00:24:03):
Her gut,
Mel Robbins (00:24:04):
Her gut. There are no positive bacteria strains. So the food hits her gut and without positive bacteria strains, the food doesn't break down. And so she does feel
Dr. Hyman (00:24:18):
Bloated, bloated and
Mel Robbins (00:24:19):
Descended. And then all of this acidic crap because the food is not digesting properly. There's no positive bacteria. All this acidic crap leaks through the wall of the gut and then goes through the nervous system and the anxiety spikes. And so this was brand new to me. So can you just explain to everybody when your gut is in balance, how is it functioning properly? I think that'll give everybody the ability to then understand the impact of it not functioning
Dr. Hyman (00:24:51):
Properly. Well, I mean, you pretty much shouldn't know it's there. It should do its job, right? You shouldn't be bloated, distended, you shouldn't have heartburn, you shouldn't have gas. You should feel fine. Really,
Mel Robbins (00:25:00):
Really, people go through life without all that.
Dr. Hyman (00:25:01):
I mean, you can have a little gas, but it's not like that's kind of a normal thing. But I think if people are really noticing their gut function, something's wrong, and then you just look on the toilet, you should have a perfectly formed log. It just floats a little bit.
(00:25:16):
And that's it. And you should feel the urge to go and you should go, and it should take a couple of minutes. And that's it. And that is not the case for most people in the Western civilization. There was a guy named Dennis Burket who studied people in Africa, and he was looking at the hunter gatherers who'd moved to the cities and the differences in the health outcomes and these two different populations between the hunter gatherers and the city dwellers who were the same genetically. And he found that the city dwellers had lots of heart disease and autoimmune disease and diabetes and all these western diseases, whereas the hunter gatherers had none. And what he noticed was that the hunter gatherer stool weight, their size of their poop was two pounds a day. The city dwellers was four ounces.
Dr. Hyman (00:25:54):
What?
Dr. Hyman (00:25:55):
Yeah, because of all the fiber and all the plant foods they were eating that fed the good bugs in their gut,
Mel Robbins (00:26:01):
Meaning the people that were hunter gatherers had a better
Dr. Hyman (00:26:05):
Diet.
Mel Robbins (00:26:06):
And I would also imagine we're going to get into this, that the stressors of living in the city and the stressors of that kind of life also impacted the body functioning.
Dr. Hyman (00:26:17):
Totally. I mean, totally. And there's many pathways through which this works, but the gut of the microbiome is a huge factor. So we know now how to identify imbalances in there. We know how to test for it. We know how to treat it. Not most traditional doctors, but most functional medicine doctors. This is the focus of a lot of the way we help people is by optimizing their gut function. So that's a big cause of inflammation. The other big cause, and this is also was mediated through the gut, which is our diet, because when we eat, we're not just feeding us. We're feeding the thousand critters that live down there. There's probably 10 trillion cells in there that we're feeding in your gut. In your gut. And many cells as your own body, there's probably a hundred times as much DNA as your own body. And probably half the metabolites in your blood come from the bacteria, not from you. And they affect everything that's going on. If they're the bad guys, you're going to feel bad. And if they're the good guys, you're going to feel good. And so when you eat sugar and starch and processed food and artificial sweeteners and thickeners and gums and additives, they just destroy the microbiome,
(00:27:19):
Plus pesticides and glyphosate and all this stuff just kills it. And so we really have a gut crisis in this country, but we also have the food crisis. And the food crisis is really what's driving it. And I think if people understand how powerful food is, they don't really have to listen to me. I mean, you can listen to this podcast. You can list a million other podcasts just for 10 days. Change your diet and see what happens. Not for a year or 10 years, but 10 days. Anybody can do anything for 10 days. And when you do that, you literally take away all the potential inflammatory foods, all the foods that are causing you to have issues, which is typically gluten, dairy, sugar processing.
Dr. Hyman (00:27:41):
Change your diet and see what happens. Not for a year or 10 years, but 10 days. Anybody can do anything for 10 days. And when you do that, you literally take away all the potential inflammatory foods, all the foods that are causing you to have issues, which is typically gluten, dairy, sugar processing.
Mel Robbins (00:27:58):
So what is the 10 day? Just give us simple rules that you want everybody listening to try. This is a dare.
Dr. Hyman (00:28:06):
Let's go through a sample menu for a day. But it's basically protein and vegetables, nuts and seeds and berries. And so you,
Mel Robbins (00:28:11):
Okay, hold on. You said that very fast. Protein,
Dr. Hyman (00:28:14):
Vegetables.
Mel Robbins (00:28:15):
Vegetables,
Dr. Hyman (00:28:15):
Nuts and seeds and
Mel Robbins (00:28:16):
Berries, nuts and seeds and berries
Dr. Hyman (00:28:17):
And lots of good fats. Olive oil, avocados. So it's basically, breakfast could be, for example, a couple of eggs with sliced tomatoes and avocado with olive oil on top. Lunch could be a big salad with lots of different veggies and tomatoes. I could throw a can of wild salmon on there, put in some pumpkin seeds. Just lots of good plant. Very
Mel Robbins (00:28:37):
Colorful.
Dr. Hyman (00:28:38):
Very colorful. And dinner might be a big piece of fish, chicken or nice small piece of meat with three quarters of your plate should be vegetables.
Mel Robbins (00:28:47):
Three quarters of your plate.
Dr. Hyman (00:28:48):
Yeah, I'll have the internet. I had a purple sweet potato. I had some roasted mushrooms. I had, I can tell. Have a roasted eggplant. Whatever you get excited about broccolini. I make cruciferous vegetables every day. These are the broccoli.
Mel Robbins (00:29:02):
What did you say?
Dr. Hyman (00:29:03):
Cruciferous
Mel Robbins (00:29:04):
Vegetables. What the hell were cruciferous?
Dr. Hyman (00:29:06):
Broccoli. Broccoli. Basically
Mel Robbins (00:29:07):
The broccoli family. What does cruciferous mean?
Dr. Hyman (00:29:08):
It means broccoli, basic broccoli, collard collards, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, all those.
Mel Robbins (00:29:14):
The fiber fiber prep your grandmother served, is that what
Dr. Hyman (00:29:16):
You're saying? It's this family of vegetables. It's a super family. Got it. Because it actually detoxes your cells. It helps prevent cancer.
Mel Robbins (00:29:25):
Wow.
Dr. Hyman (00:29:25):
It boosts all the detox hormones in your, I mean molecules in your body.
Mel Robbins (00:29:28):
So I want to stop you real quick because you posted something two days ago.
Dr. Hyman (00:29:31):
I did what
Mel Robbins (00:29:34):
That was, I'd never really thought about it this way, and you'll probably say it better me, but it was a very simple post that was like your cells, your brain cells, all of this stuff, your skin, that all is continuing to grow. It doesn't just grow out of thin air. It actually is impacted and grows from the raw materials that you
Dr. Hyman (00:29:59):
Get it.
Mel Robbins (00:29:59):
And so would you rather have cells that are made from a bag of Doritos?
Dr. Hyman (00:30:03):
Exactly.
Mel Robbins (00:30:04):
Or cells made from a salad or a piece of fish. And when you boil it down that way, like holy cow, what I put in my mouth is what I become.
Dr. Hyman (00:30:14):
Yeah, absolutely. You literally become what you eat. I mean, I just had someone on my podcast at doctor's pharmacy talking about the difference between, for example, pasture raised bison and bison. They were fed corn and feedlot bison, which are still better
Mel Robbins (00:30:32):
Than cow. And what lab? Bison
Dr. Hyman (00:30:33):
Feed feedlot bison meaning grown on a factory farm.
Mel Robbins (00:30:36):
Okay, got it.
Dr. Hyman (00:30:38):
And they measured 15 different a hundred metabolites. And what they found was so different among the same genetically identical bison. One had all these incredible molecules that come from plants. It was eating all these grasses. It had different fatty acid, it had different vitamins in it and different minerals in it. And it was just so profound. So you are what you eat, but you also are whichever you're eating, right? And the whole thing goes up the chain. And we really have to get how powerful food is and do an experiment. Don't listen to me, don't listen to Mel. Listen to your own body. Your body's the smartest doctor in the room. It'll tell you what works and what doesn't. And when you stop this or that, you go, God, wait a minute. My joy don't hurt. Or wait a minute, I'm not having terrible reflux or heartburn anymore. Or I don't have migraines. What happened? Or My mood is better. What's going on? It's what you're eating.
Mel Robbins (00:31:28):
Wow. What are the top things that people should in this kind of 10 day window stop eating?
Dr. Hyman (00:31:38):
I mean, anything that comes in a package basically. I mean, if it's canned sardines or salmon, that's fine. But basically anything comes in a package can or a box get rid of it if it's sugar, no. If sugar sweetened beverages, no alcohol, no. And it's not like I'm a food Nazi, but what I'm saying is get rid of grains and beans for a short time because a lot of people have inflammation from that. If they have a gut issue, grains and beans are healthy and they're good for you. But for some people they can be a problem, right? It's just like peanuts are good for people. But if some people,
Mel Robbins (00:32:05):
Well, what's the universal one? It's no gluten.
Dr. Hyman (00:32:07):
No gluten, no sugar, no dairy, no alcohol, no processed food.
Mel Robbins (00:32:12):
Do you have any fun?
Dr. Hyman (00:32:13):
Absolutely. I have so much fun. I have so much fun every day. I'm just kidding. My whole life is fun and I don't feel restricted. I don't starve myself. And the thing is, these foods are addictive, Mel. So people think I got to have sugar. Well, can I have artificial? I know what people are listening thinking about. They're thinking, oh, Dr. Hyman, can I have artificial sweeteners or can I have Stevia? Can I have, yes.
Mel Robbins (00:32:34):
Is Stevia
Dr. Hyman (00:32:35):
Okay? Everybody's going through their head. And if you are having this inner dialogue, right, I guarantee you have biological addiction to sugar because you're trying to find a way out. I'm going to stop smoking, but I'm going to vape or I'm going to chew nigger red gum. Well, that's not getting rid of your addiction. And I think it's not your fault. And this is probably one of the biggest problems I have with the narrative in America, that we are blaming the person who's overweight for their problem. It's your fault that you're eating too much and not exercising enough. The solution to weight loss, it's all about calories and calories out. It's all about moderation. And if you can't do it, there's something wrong with you that's just a big fat lie.
(00:33:13):
And that keeps people feeling ashamed about themselves. It keeps them from being empowered to know what to do. It keeps the food industry free of responsibility, and it's one of the most unfortunate narratives that we have. And then we get this whole body positive movement. And I think it's important for people to feel good about themselves, but the whole idea of healthy to any weight, there are some for sure that are healthy when they're a bigger size, but the truth is, when you look at the biology of it, only 6.8% of Americans are metabolically healthy. Meaning that means do they have normal blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure, they're not overweight and they don't have heart disease. That's 6.8% of us. That means 93% of us are somewhere in the spectrum from normal to pre-diabetes
Mel Robbins (00:33:54):
To diabetes. And what you're here to say is it's not your fault because the way that food is manufactured, it is addictive and It is screwing up your body chemistry, and it is causing a whole litany of things that you aren't even thinking that my diet and the way that food is getting metabolized is causing this inflammation that makes my brain not work. That impacts focus and energy and mood and sleep and all of these things, and all of your work points to the fact that one of the places that all of us can start is by just doing an experiment for 10 days where you stop the dairy, stop the gluten, stop the sugar, and you eat a colorful meal of whole foods and vegetables. Three quarters of the plate is vegetables and have a protein. There is your homework for 10 days and report back everybody. Because you've seen over and over and over again in that small of a window, people have remarkable results.
Dr. Hyman (00:34:53):
Yeah, I mean, that's the key because if people go, this is a long slog and it'll take me years, you're not going to want to do it. But if you, for a short time reset, it's like when your computer's just going and some program's hung up and that crazy rainbow ball, which I want to kill is spinning around. You just restart your computer and then all of a sudden it works. So this is the restart and has enormous benefits because for the first time people understand what they're doing impacts how they feel.
Mel Robbins (00:35:24):
Yeah. I almost feel like this is like an oil change.
Dr. Hyman (00:35:27):
We
Mel Robbins (00:35:27):
Got to get that nasty ass oil out there and lug, get your gut working. Right.
Mel Robbins (00:35:32):
Can we talk about the impact of the gut with anxiety and what's your recommendation if somebody struggles with anxiety, what do they need to do to heal their gut and how will that impact anxiety?
Dr. Hyman (00:35:43):
Well, anxiety can be caused from many things, right? From life stresses, from trauma, from environmental toxins, from your microbiome, from eating too much sugar. I mean, there's a whole list. So functional medicines about getting to the root cause and anxiety is a symptom. It's like saying you have a headache, right? Well, did someone hit you in the head with a hammer? Do you have a migraine? Are you eating gluten? Did you not sleep enough? Did you have a hangover? Do you have a brain tumor? You have an aneurysm. Why do you have a headache? Anxiety is just like saying, I have a headache or depression. It's like saying, I have a headache.
(00:36:15):
It doesn't mean anything other than what your symptoms are. The question is what's the cause? And that is what functional medicine is so good about. And so the gut plays a big role, but I really just start with the simple lifestyle practices. Do a 10 day reset, do some simple movement, take a walk, do some simple mindful ous practices. Do your take five or hit what high five? I do take five, which is five breaths, five times a day. It's simple. Before you eat every time, before you go to bed, take five breaths in, slowly in and out for five seconds.
Mel Robbins (00:36:46):
How the hell does that help?
Dr. Hyman (00:36:47):
It resets your nervous system because every time you breathe, you move your diaphragm and your diaphragm is this place where the vagus nerve goes through the vagus nerve is your relaxation nerve. So how do you turn on the automatic parts of your nervous system that you don't usually think about? I'm going to make my he beat at 62 beats a minute, or I'm going to make sure I have 14 breaths a minute. Or your body just knows what to do. That's your nervous system.
Mel Robbins (00:37:11):
You just need to find the switch and
Dr. Hyman (00:37:15):
You can actually use your breath to reset your nervous system and to calm everything down and lower adrenaline or cortisol, lower all the stress hormones and reset your system, but it doesn't take a lot.
Mel Robbins (00:37:25):
I want to just come back to something you said in the very beginning, over and over and over again. You're proving simple ways that your body is designed to heal itself. So five breaths, deep breaths. Walk us through how you do the five
Dr. Hyman (00:37:38):
Breaths. Just go take a deep breath in to five through your nose and five out. Do that five times. It's not that hard.
Mel Robbins (00:37:52):
Yeah, but nobody
Dr. Hyman (00:37:53):
Does it. I just said it once and I feel hard.
Mel Robbins (00:37:54):
I feel better too. And again, it's proof that if you do the right input your body response.
Dr. Hyman (00:38:04):
Yeah. We're looking out there for a solution, and I think it's like Dorothy and a Ruby Red slippers. She was running around Oz trying to find a way to get back to Kansas. And the truth is, she had a ruby red slippers the whole time, and all she had to do was click her heels three times and get home. I think we all are like, Dorothy, we have ruby red slippers. We just don't know we have them and we don't know how to click 'em. And this is really what my work is about. It's what my book, young Forever is focused on. How do we activate our healing systems, whether you're 25 or 75, you can activate these systems and feel better now and put yourself on the track for a longer, healthier life.
Mel Robbins (00:38:37):
Wow. Let's talk about A DHD and
Dr. Hyman (00:38:41):
What'd you say?
Mel Robbins (00:38:42):
A DH. D. What? Okay. I even fell for that. That was good. Let's talk about A DHD. Were we talking about Yeah, exactly. Let's talk about A DHD and the gut. How is healing your gut? Oh,
Dr. Hyman (00:38:57):
God.
Mel Robbins (00:38:57):
Helping with a DH,
Dr. Hyman (00:38:58):
Adhd. I got to tell you a story.
Mel Robbins (00:38:59):
Tell me a story.
Dr. Hyman (00:39:01):
It was one of the books that I wrote, the UltraMind solution that had this kid's story, and it was what really got me on this track of thinking about writing this book. It was a 12-year-old kid who had severe A DHD when he was younger. It was a kindergarten on Adderall and kicked out of kindergarten. I mean, who gets kicked out of kindergarten
(00:39:19):
And just struggling. At 12 years old. His mother was at her wit's end and come behavior problems and just struggling. And the mother brought him in and I did a full evaluation. I don't just say, tell me about your A DHD. I said, tell me about your bowel movements. Tell me about what's happening with this and that. And the other thing turned out he had asthma. He had irritable bowel syndrome. He had headaches at night. He had muscle cramps. He had anal itching, which is a clue about something. Oh, okay. It's often a sign of yeast issues or,
Mel Robbins (00:39:50):
Oh,
Dr. Hyman (00:39:50):
Yeah. So he had all these problems and he was on seven different medications from multiple different doctors on asthma medications. He got medications on a DD medications on mood medic. I mean, it was a mess. And his mother brought his handwriting to show me before, and we can post this on your show notes, before I started treating him. And then two months later after, and all we did was clean up his diet. This kid was living on junk food, never ate a vegetable's life massively nutrition deficient. He was deficient magnesium, which caused muscle cramps. He was deficient in zinc because he didn't have any pumpkin seeds or vegetables, and his immune system was dysregulated. He had also B vitamin deficiencies. He was having gut issues with bad bacteria. He had gluten sensitivity, he had yeast overgrowth, he had a little bit of lead, his system and all this stuff that was really easy to treat.
(00:40:43):
All I did was basically take out the bad food, put in a whole foods diet, a little bit of elimination that we talked about. I gave him basic multivitamin, some fish oil, magnesium, and vitamin D. And probiotics kind of reset his gut. And the mother brings him back two months later and she says, not only is his a DD gone, but all of his other symptoms are gone. His migraines, his irritable bowel, his asthma, his skin issues, his anal itching, it's all gone. Congestion, sinus issues, all gone. And his handwriting went from totally illegible, only these kids with really bad penmanship to perfectly legible, perfect penmanship. And I didn't send him to a handwriting school. All I did was fix his brain by fixing his body, by fixing his gut.
Mel Robbins (00:41:28):
I'm processing this.
Dr. Hyman (00:41:29):
Yeah, it's a lot.
Mel Robbins (00:41:31):
No, no, no, no. I'm processing because I have a visual to share with you listening to us. And then I want to tell a quick story because I'm starting to feel like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. With our own son. So the visual I want to give everybody because it just hit me, is when somebody has an allergic reaction, like they get stung by a bee or they eat something that they're allergic to and their face turns bright red or something swells on their body, that inflammation that you're seeing on the outside, is the body reacting to something that it can't process
Dr. Hyman (00:42:13):
Correct. Or that it doesn't like?
Mel Robbins (00:42:15):
Can you describe what an allergic reaction means medically? Because I then want to tie it to something that I'm now thinking about when it comes to the gut. So what does it mean when you have an allergic reaction? You have allergies?
Dr. Hyman (00:42:29):
Yeah. I mean there's really two main kind of allergies. One is a true allergy. So if you eat peanuts, your tongue swells up, your lungs shut down, you can't breathe and you can die. Correct. You get anaphylaxis. That's a life-threatening emergency of bee sting allergy. That's a certain type. We call it type one allergy, which is super fast, super quick, and you can die from it.
Mel Robbins (00:42:52):
EpiPen people?
Dr. Hyman (00:42:52):
Yes, EpiPen. EpiPen people. Right. Then there's the delayed sensitivity. It's not a true allergy, but it can create sort of low grade long-term symptoms.
Dr. Hyman (00:43:01):
So if you eat bread, you might have brain fog. Is that a true allergy? No. But is it sensitivity? Yes. And I think people don't have, I mean, I know for example, if I eat dairy that's from a regular feedlot cow, I'll get congestion and snotty immediately and I'll probably get pimples the next day. But if I have, for example, sheep or goat products that are from regenerative sheep that have a two casein, which is not inflammatory, then I don't. Right? So it's really not so much about the type one we're so much worried about. It's all these other types of food reactions that are slow and delayed and create this low grade inflammation that creates all these symptoms for people.
Mel Robbins (00:43:43):
Yes. So I wanted to bring that visual in for everybody because I think it's really helpful. For me personally, I don't know if it's a dyslexia, I just dunno if it's because I'm a visual learner. I love to have something I can think about visually to help me process large amounts of information. And so when I think about my husband, for example, who's allergic to bees, he has an empty pen. I wish he would carry it around a little bit more, but when he gets stung with a bee, it's not life-threatening, but it's scary. And it occurred to me a couple years ago, I wonder if these sensitivities and these allergies that people have to food that may not cause swelling or redness in your face or breakouts or that you can't see. I wonder if all of this is screwing up the way that our body is able to function.
Dr. Hyman (00:44:39):
Absolutely.
Mel Robbins (00:44:39):
And it interferes with your body's way to function. And so when you think about it, like those kind of type one ones, and you just explain it. If you have a sensitivity to wheat or your body just can't handle the big company manufactured foods because of the chemicals and the dyes and the crap that are in it, it is causing your whole body to have almost like this reaction,
Dr. Hyman (00:45:04):
Low grade smoldering inflammation.
Mel Robbins (00:45:06):
The smoldering in inflammation, just like a beasting causes Chris's face to blow up. And so when you think about it that way, it makes so much sense to go, holy cow, if you just simply were to switch your diet from all this processed crap, grab and go, and you were to put on your plate a little bit of protein and three quarters vegetables, it would probably calm your body down and your thoughts down. And here's what I'm going, holy f
Mel Robbins (00:45:32):
Fuck, this is crazy because our son, exactly what you're talking about, Oakley in fourth grade was diagnosed with severe dyslexia. The kid could not read. He was so like blah, blah, blah, that he literally snowed everybody for about a year. And then they got to the point where you can't just raise your hand first and make something up, and that makes people think that you read it and the math problems are getting harder. So you, so the gig was up, cannot read it, looked honest to God like he was writing with his feet. His dysgraphia was so bad he could not sit still. So we pull him out of public school. We put him in the Carroll School outside of Boston, fortunate enough to get him in there only about language-based learning, and they immediately medicate him for a DHD. He hated the meds.
(00:46:19):
But it was the only way he could sit still in class. Fast forward to about eighth grade, he starts advocating for himself, I'm not eating meds. I'm not taking these meds. I'm not taking these meds. I'm not taking these meds. We're like, fine. But if we get a report from school that you are bouncing around the classroom and you can't sit still, we're going to have to find a different solution. This school happened to have a cafeteria where all the kids ate and it had a whole food, healthy options, healthy options. There were no unhealthy options. There was the salad bar, there was the homemade soup, there was a protein. He gets into ninth grade. When I tell you this kid is a totally different
Dr. Hyman (00:47:07):
Person,
Mel Robbins (00:47:09):
His handwriting is different. That's what made me think
Dr. Hyman (00:47:11):
This is
Mel Robbins (00:47:11):
His ability to focus is different. He has not been on meds now for three years. You would not know that this kid had severe dyslexia. He is just, I don't even know who he is. He's destroying it in school. He is present and he eats vegetables. He has a totally different diet. I am sitting here going, holy shit. The kid used to eat mac and cheese.
Dr. Hyman (00:47:34):
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Mel Robbins (00:47:35):
Chicken nuggets.
Dr. Hyman (00:47:36):
That'll do it.
Mel Robbins (00:47:36):
That'll do it. Don't put a vegetable on my plate.
Dr. Hyman (00:47:38):
That'll do it. Yeah, it's really true. And it's like,
Mel Robbins (00:47:41):
And I'm just processing this. I think this is a major part of why he is transformed.
Dr. Hyman (00:47:51):
And Mel, it's not just a DD. Everything that goes on in our brain above our neck is governed in the same way. We may not have such severe symptoms. We may not have asthma. We may not have severe a DD, but we may have fatigue or brain fog or just depression or anxiety.
Mel Robbins (00:48:05):
Well, let's talk about depression, because anxiety is not a disease. A DHD is not a disease.
Dr. Hyman (00:48:10):
No.
Mel Robbins (00:48:10):
Let's talk about depression though, because that is technically like a disease, right?
Dr. Hyman (00:48:15):
Well, anxiety is a disease and a DD is considered a disease. I mean, they're in the disease classification manual. I don't agree. I think, lemme just back up a little bit. 155,000 diseases in our manual of doctor manual that we can pick from when we want to diagnose somebody. And most of them are just descriptions of the symptoms that people have, but tell you nothing about the cause.
Mel Robbins (00:48:39):
So is the root cause inflammation?
Dr. Hyman (00:48:41):
The
Mel Robbins (00:48:41):
Root is that the root cause of
Dr. Hyman (00:48:42):
All of this root many things is inflammation.
Mel Robbins (00:48:45):
What are the options when it comes to root cause for you as a functional medical doctor? Yeah,
Dr. Hyman (00:48:50):
So basically at the beginning we talked about taking out the bad stuff, putting in the good stuff, and the body's not that complicated. I mean, it's complex, it's very dynamic, but basically it needs certain things to thrive and certain things make it not thrive. So what are the things that we need to think about getting rid of that the body don't like bad food, and we sort of define that it's processed food, sugar. Most of the stuff that people are eating, 60% of our diet is ultra processed food, which is deadly. It's stress. And it can be physical or psychological stress. And stress is really defined as the perception of a real or imagined threat to your body or your ego. So it could be a tiger chasing you, or you could think your spouse is cheating on you, but it's not true.
Mel Robbins (00:49:35):
Or you could think that your boss is mad at you.
Dr. Hyman (00:49:36):
Yeah, like Woody Allen with a gun to his head has one reaction. James Bond has another action, right?
Mel Robbins (00:49:41):
That's an interesting
Dr. Hyman (00:49:41):
Example. Same gun, same gun, different response. So the perception is our mindset, our beliefs, our attitudes. A lot of things you talk about Mel, are really what drives our stress
Mel Robbins (00:49:52):
Response. How does a negative thought cause a physiological problem in your body? A stress response.
Dr. Hyman (00:49:58):
I'm going to answer that. Can I finish the
Mel Robbins (00:49:59):
No, you can't
Dr. Hyman (00:50:00):
Because you have a DD because I'm just going to continue with the thing that I wanted to say.
Mel Robbins (00:50:04):
Now I'll come.
Dr. Hyman (00:50:05):
I clearly need to eat more vegetables. God damnit.
Dr. Hyman (00:50:07):
I'll come back to that. The other few things that are the things that cause our body to be out of balance besides bad food and stress are toxins. So we are living in a sea of environmental toxins from heavy metals to pesticides. Our gut and microbiome is a huge factor. So an unhealthy gut, bad bugs, and it can be infections or can mostly come from the gut, unless is things that irritate our immune system like allergens or sensitivities, those five things.
Mel Robbins (00:50:36):
So say them again. Bad foods,
Dr. Hyman (00:50:37):
Bad food, stress, toxins, bad bugs and
Mel Robbins (00:50:42):
Sensitivity allergens. Okay, got
Dr. Hyman (00:50:44):
It. And those interact with our biology with seven basic systems that we have that keep us healthy. And if we have those things, they create imbalance. So we have to get rid of those things, take out the bad stuff. So what are the good stuff? What are the ingredients for health? How does our bodies thrive? We know how to take care of our car. We change the oil, we fill up the air, our tires, we get the tuneup, we change the bark plugs, whatever. Most of us have a clue in our bodies. We have no clue. So what are the things our bodies need? We need the right nutrients and nutrition. And it's a little bit personalized, but I've written a lot about how to find a way of eating that's good for you and that you like. It's culturally relevant, it's affordable. Second is nutrients. We are often deficient in many nutrients, particularly omega threes, vitamin D, B, vitamins, iron, zinc. These are magnesium, common nutritional deficiencies that have broad impacts across the body, including our mood. Then we need the right balance of hormones. We need the right amount of light at the right time. So if you're having blue light at night, you're not going to sleep. If you don't have blue light in the morning, your brain can't reset for the day.
Mel Robbins (00:51:52):
When you say blue light in the morning, are you talking about bright
Dr. Hyman (00:51:54):
Light outside? Sunlight. Sunlight. Go outside.
Mel Robbins (00:51:55):
I didn't really didn't realize that sunlight was blue light.
Dr. Hyman (00:51:58):
Yeah, well, it's got blue light spectrum. Oh,
Mel Robbins (00:52:00):
Okay.
Dr. Hyman (00:52:00):
Yeah. So at night we just are overstimulated with our computers and our screens and the screws up. So we need the right kind of light. We need the right type of clean air. We need clean water. We need movement like exercise. We need resetting, restoration, relaxation, resetting the vagus nerve. Sympathetic nervous system needs to be calmed down. That's not a passive activity. So you have to actively relax, whether it's breathing or yoga or meditation or whatever, prayer, journaling, a million ways to do it. Then we need also sleep. And most of us are not getting enough sleep or good quality sleep. So seven, eight hours minimum for most people. Essential. And there's a lot of talk. We can talk about sleep, and then we need connection, community, love, meaning, and purpose. These are all ingredients for health. In my book, I talk about how, for example, if we cured heart disease and cancer from the face of the planet, we'd extend our life by five to seven years.
Mel Robbins (00:52:56):
If we cured loneliness,
Dr. Hyman (00:52:58):
If we cured loneliness and developed connection and meaning and purpose, we extend our life by seven years or more. So wait a minute, basically having meaning and purpose and connection in your life is more powerful than curing cancer and heart disease. In terms of longevity, we, and I know from my travel to blue zones, that was a big part of the medicine they had was community is medicine, connection is medicine.
Mel Robbins (00:53:18):
And I'm sure you're seeing it as a epidemic of loneliness, especially coming out of the pandemic.
Dr. Hyman (00:53:24):
Totally. Totally. So those are the ingredients for health that we need to provide. And everybody needs different ones. For example, some people might need more vitamin D, some people might need more sleep, some people need different kind of exercise. So it's really personalized. But those are the basic ingredients. So
Mel Robbins (00:53:38):
That's sort of personalized, right? Because just talking to the broad audiences, listening, you've mentioned a number of supplements and it's the same ones over and over. So for anybody listening that's like, okay, I got it. I have to do something. We've already talked about diet and changing your diet, and even just noticing that if you were to remove the things we've talked about and add in this very simple, clean, healthy, vegetable forward and clean protein diet, in six to 10 days you're going to feel like a different person. Just try it
Dr. Hyman (00:54:11):
And then you can decide what you want to do after that. Right. I want to keep eating my donuts. Okay, fine. Then you're going to feel like crap. And if you want to feel like crap, it's your prerogative.
Mel Robbins (00:54:18):
Well, I'll tell you something, I am now on. It's like, I dunno, day 30 something of not drinking.
Dr. Hyman (00:54:25):
Yeah, totally.
Mel Robbins (00:54:26):
It's totally life-changing and I cannot believe how much clearer I am. I cannot believe how much more present I am. I cannot believe that. I don't really miss it. And I had committed to doing this for almost three months. I don't know how I'll incorporate it back, if ever, maybe here and there, but it just was such a profound difference for me that I'm kind of dumbfounded. I didn't do this earlier. I think you can tell almost immediately, but will you explain to everybody...
Mel Robbins (00:54:49):
if you're not currently taking a high quality multivitamin or other supplements, what are the non-negotiables where everybody should start
Dr. Hyman (00:55:08):
For probably less than a dollar a day. You can get what you need, which is a multivitamin. And I would say a good one. It's cleanly produced. It doesn't have fillers, additives,
Mel Robbins (00:55:18):
Device. How do you tell if it's a good one?
Dr. Hyman (00:55:19):
I have curated ones that are high grade. In other words, the ones that are manufactured in good manufacturing practices that don't have fillers, chemicals and additives that are bioavailable forms of nutrients. And so if you stick with certain brands, you can kind of guarantee you're going to get that. Then I think a vitamin D for almost everybody. Even in the summer, people are like, I'm taking vitamin D in the summer, I don't need it. You do. Most people, unless they're out there running around half naked between 10 and two every day, all year long, you're going to be vitamin D.
Mel Robbins (00:55:51):
That's only you. I've seen you in your before and after photos that we're going to link. The dude is tan with the six pack, you're running around getting the vine. He's embarrassed and laughing. We know it's true. Now, is there different forms of D, vitamin
Dr. Hyman (00:56:06):
D three
Mel Robbins (00:56:06):
Vitamin, vitamin D three, and do you have to take it with something else to be absorbed? I
Dr. Hyman (00:56:08):
With fat, you eat with fat, so with food basically. So maybe between a thousand to 5,000, the government guidelines say up to 4,000 is safe. So there's no downside to that. And then fish oil for most people, because 90 plus percent of us are deficient in omega fats because we don't eat wild food that much anymore.
Mel Robbins (00:56:29):
What does the fat do?
Dr. Hyman (00:56:31):
These omega fats are fats that we need in small amounts that are what our brains are made up of. They regulate inflammation. They are what our cell membranes are made of. They are basically the most critical fats that we consume and most of us don't have enough of them and they can treat depression and many mental issues. Even a DD has been found to be helpful, postpartum depression. So a lot of things that we just think, oh, what do we do with these things? But there are great studies that show that these can be effective. So I think that's a kind of basic non-negotiable.
Mel Robbins (00:57:02):
Got it. So multivitamin, everybody, the D three
Dr. Hyman (00:57:05):
And fish oil.
Mel Robbins (00:57:05):
And fish oil. What about magnesium? Because you've mentioned it a
Dr. Hyman (00:57:07):
Couple of times. Well sure that's my fourth one, but depending on your symptoms. And how do you know you need magnesium?
Mel Robbins (00:57:13):
Well, I dunno.
Dr. Hyman (00:57:14):
How do I know? Listen up everybody. It's pretty simple. If you have anything that's irritable or twitchy or spasmy, it's likely you're magnesium efficient. So if you're anxious, your emotions are twitchy. If you have palpitations, it's twitchy. If your colon's not working and it's in spasm, constipation, if you have muscle cramps, you have eye twitching. Any of those things are signs of low magnesium.
Mel Robbins (00:57:37):
I'm just twitching as you describe those symptoms because I'm like, check, check. I'm going to use, I promised everybody a appointment, zero cost with one of the world's most respected medical experts and leaders leading voices in the functional medicine space. My toes cramp all the time.
Dr. Hyman (00:57:58):
Yeah,
Mel Robbins (00:57:58):
Why
Dr. Hyman (00:57:59):
Everybody's favorite radio station. You know what that is?
Mel Robbins (00:58:02):
No.
Dr. Hyman (00:58:02):
WIFM.
Mel Robbins (00:58:04):
What does that mean?
Dr. Hyman (00:58:04):
What's in it for me?
Mel Robbins (00:58:05):
What's in it for me? Yes, exactly.
Dr. Hyman (00:58:07):
So your toes. Yes,
Mel Robbins (00:58:09):
My toes
Dr. Hyman (00:58:10):
Probably cramp because you have either electrolyte imbalances or magnesium. And so people often don't have enough electrolytes in their diet, particularly potassium. So you can get that from eating lots of vegetables from vegetable broths or take electrolyte solutions. But taking magnesium is a huge cure for muscle cramps and it's particularly foot cramps.
Mel Robbins (00:58:31):
So what surprising things cause your magnesium to go down,
Dr. Hyman (00:58:36):
We should have a lot of magnesium in all foods, nuts and seeds and a lot of plant foods. But we do so much to make our bodies dump magnesium in our urine. We drink too much soda. We have too much caffeine, too much alcohol and too much stress, all of which cause us to lose magnesium in our urine.
Mel Robbins (00:58:55):
How does it make you lose magnesium if you drink a soda?
Dr. Hyman (00:58:58):
Well, it's got something called phosphoric acid in it, which is in the dark colored colas, and that causes you to leach magnesium out and Wow. Yeah.
Mel Robbins (00:59:08):
And what about seltzer versus water
Dr. Hyman (00:59:11):
Like bubbly?
Mel Robbins (00:59:13):
I'm really curious about whether or not drinking seltzer, it's
Dr. Hyman (00:59:16):
Okay to drink bubbly water. I think you should mix it up, but if you only drink bubbly water, it's probably not totally great for you. But if you have water and sparkling water, if you like that, I love sparkling water, so not an
Mel Robbins (00:59:25):
Issue. Okay. All right. Well, thank you Doctor. Can we talk about hormone imbalance?
Dr. Hyman (00:59:29):
Yes, we can.
Mel Robbins (00:59:31):
How do you know if your hormones are out of whack and what role do hormones play in your gut? And I would love to selfishly focus on women if that's possible.
Dr. Hyman (00:59:45):
So listen, you said that you had a chance to go down to the Ultra Wellness Center and see our docs and not everybody can come see us.
Mel Robbins (00:59:55):
Yes.
Dr. Hyman (00:59:55):
So this is why I write book after book after book to be how to make manuals to help you identify where your problems are and what to do about 'em. And in the young forever, I have a whole series of quizzes that aren't fancy tests. They're literally just questions you answer and you get a score and you go, oh wow, my hormones are out of whack, or my detox system is not good, or I'm way inflamed, or I have magnesium deficiency. Like those questions I just rolled off about what your symptoms would be. So it's pretty easy to identify what's going on. Now, women in particular have way more complex hormonal history than men. Men go through andropause and they kind of lower their testosterones age. That sounds weird.
Mel Robbins (01:00:36):
Andropause.
Dr. Hyman (01:00:37):
Yeah, it's male menopause basically.
Mel Robbins (01:00:39):
And what happens when dudes go through male menopause,
Dr. Hyman (01:00:43):
They get low libido, sex drive, trouble having erections, lose a muscle mass, get a little more soft and round. Basically that's what happens.
Mel Robbins (01:00:52):
And at grumpy
Dr. Hyman (01:00:54):
And grumpy
Mel Robbins (01:00:55):
Because of those things.
Dr. Hyman (01:00:55):
Low motivation, a little depressed. But with women, they go through puberty and then they have their teenage cycles and they have their twenties cycles and their thirties cycles and their forties cycles, and then fifties. So it changes every decade. Women are having changing hormones, and everything happens from PMS to irregular cycles, to heavy bleeding, to
Mel Robbins (01:01:16):
PCOS,
Dr. Hyman (01:01:17):
To PCOS, to pre perimenopause, to menopause. There's no one prescription for all of it. But essentially what we do know is that just like everything else, we talked about the things that cause imbalance in our body that we listed off the food, stress, toxins, et cetera, and the ingredients for health are also influencing our hormones.
Mel Robbins (01:01:39):
And what role do hormones play? So if we had to just even get more
Dr. Hyman (01:01:43):
Basic, what are hormones?
Mel Robbins (01:01:45):
Yeah, no, I am serious. I think we throw around these terms, but I personally am like, well, actually, what role does the hormone play?
Dr. Hyman (01:01:54):
Hormones are like the communication command and control centers in your body.
Mel Robbins (01:01:58):
I thought the neurotransmitters were,
Dr. Hyman (01:02:01):
They are regulatory pathways that affect your brain a lot, and they do work in other areas of your body, but in your brain, you have something that's like a command center. It's called the hypothalamus, and this is radio traffic control on an
Mel Robbins (01:02:16):
Airport. And for those of you who are not watching this on YouTube, I want you to know that Dr. Hyman is pointing right between eye the eyebrows. And I think the reason why we all get that scrunchie wrinkle right there is because that is the command center.
Dr. Hyman (01:02:29):
It's a little bit inside. I can't quite touch it inside my head, but
Mel Robbins (01:02:32):
Okay, what's it called again?
Dr. Hyman (01:02:33):
The hypothalamus.
Mel Robbins (01:02:35):
Hypothalamus.
Dr. Hyman (01:02:36):
And that's controlling our sex hormones like estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and so on. It's controlling our stress hormones like cortisol, it's controlling. Our hormones have to do with growth hormone. So there's thyroid hormones. All these hormones are controlled by this command and control center. And so what happens, particularly with women is that they not only have trouble with their sex hormones because of all the stresses and toxins and everything in our life, but they also, thyroid problems are really big and often underdiagnosed. And then you get insulin, which is becoming out of balance as you get older.
Mel Robbins (01:03:13):
It's insulin a hormone.
Dr. Hyman (01:03:14):
Insulin is a kind of a signaling hormone peptide made by your pancreas, and that regulates blood sugar and insulin, I mean blood sugar and your body. But it also, when it's out of balance and you eat too much sugar in starch, you get this increasing belly fat and weight gain, and that's caused by insulin. And then there's this stress hormones, cortisol. So women are subjected, particularly as they get into their thirties and forties to this sort of imbalances in sex hormones, thyroid hormones, stress hormones and blood sugar control, hormones, insulin, and those are the four horsemen of the apocalypse when they got out of mouth. Mouth,
Mel Robbins (01:03:48):
Yes.
Dr. Hyman (01:03:48):
And so functional medicine, you don't have to treat each one separately. If you do the basic shouldn't things, you get your lifestyle sorted out, you eat right, you exercise, you learn stress reduction techniques, you get enough sleep, you take your basic supplements, you get rid of all the crap in your life as best you can. Your hormones will reset you. You don't actually have to treat them directly. Now, sometimes you do if women have menopausal stuff, like terrible hot flashes or vaginal dryness or whatever. But if you're drinking,
Mel Robbins (01:04:16):
Check, check. What about the thickening in the middle? That's the one that's bothering me. Now, I'm not down with that.
Dr. Hyman (01:04:22):
No, that's not good.
Mel Robbins (01:04:23):
He just looked down to see the thickening in the middle. I saw
Dr. Hyman (01:04:26):
That. But that's the insulin part. That's the blood sugar control.
Mel Robbins (01:04:30):
So what do I do? Because getting so many people writing about this too, because I've been talking about it. I'm like, this is not fair. I have stopped drinking. I have the healthiest lifestyle I've ever had. I exercise every day. I eat the three quarters of the vegetables, clean protein I get outside in the morning. I am doing it all. Check, check, check, check, check. What the fuck is going on?
Dr. Hyman (01:04:51):
I mean, definitely hormones change. So sometimes there's things to tweak. Sometimes there's ways you can modify your diet a little bit or exercise a little differently to sort of regulate this, but it's sort of checking what's going on. Maybe your thyroid's a little off, or maybe your insulin's a little higher than you think and you have more insulin resistance. Or maybe you need to sort of increase testosterone because that gets lower too. And that increases muscle mass and body of fat loss. It's like a symphony that you have to be a conductor and make sure it's all playing into,
Mel Robbins (01:05:23):
Well, the visual I got was whack-a-mole the second I hit the insulin correctly, the other thing shoots up.
Dr. Hyman (01:05:30):
No, it's not like that. It's not like that. It actually all works the other way. It's actually when you treat the root causes, then everything gets better.
Mel Robbins (01:05:37):
So one question for you. If you can't afford to go to somebody in functional medicine to get this all tested, how do you figure out what's going on? You have in your new book, young Forever, you have all of these self assessments that you can do, but do you have to have testing at some point or is there a way for you to
Dr. Hyman (01:06:01):
Get testing,
Mel Robbins (01:06:01):
Have an accessible way? Because one of the things,
Mel Robbins (01:06:05):
I agree with you, I agree with you that our medical approach and the medical system is about treating illness versus keeping you healthy and whole. I agree that we treat symptoms, but we have a hard time getting to the root cause.
Dr. Hyman (01:06:23):
I agree. I agree.
Mel Robbins (01:06:25):
I just, I know that what's going to happen with this conversation, Dr. Hyman, is that we are going to activate anyone listening to absolutely take the next 10 days of your life and see what happens when you reset your diet and you remove a few things. Absolutely. Add in those simple supplements that cost you less than a dollar a day, and you are worth that and investment in yourself and see what happens. Absolutely. Take the steps to lower your stress and tap into your body's ability to reset. Even just the five deep breaths a day that activate and tone the vagus nerve. But if somebody's going, I want to learn more, what is the next right step?
Dr. Hyman (01:07:11):
That's a great question. And one of the challenges I've always had with medicine is it's kind of a secret guild and doctors hold the reins. They can order the tests or they can't. They'll give you the results or they won't. They'll help you interpret them or they won't. And so you're at the sort of women mercy of whoever you're seeing, and most doctors do a good job and want to help people, but it kind of kept in the guilt. So in the book Young Forever, I do have really extensive questionnaires that allow you to figure out almost 80% of what's going on. And then depending on what you find in those, you can kind of follow up with different kinds of testing. But because of this problem exactly that you're talking about, I decided to co-found a company with a good friend called Function Health, which allows you, without a doctor's order to go to any Quest lab in the country, and there's thousands of 'em, get a blood draw of over a hundred biomarkers that normally cost $15,000 for 500 bucks. And it comes with a whole interpretive map and framework and dashboard that's filtered through the lens of functional medicine that I wrote that allows people to not have to go see the doctor and still do 80% of, or
Mel Robbins (01:08:18):
Why the hell did I go to your clinic then? If I could have just done this. Dr. Hyman bearing the lead. No, I'm just kidding. I am just kidding everybody. I do want to say something that I was able to go to the medical center right here in this tiny town of Manchester, Vermont and have blood drawn for those
Dr. Hyman (01:08:38):
Tests, right? Totally.
Mel Robbins (01:08:39):
And so you don't have to go to your primary care. You don't have to go. All of the MinuteClinics that are popping up are places where you can go if you're going to do those things to order the blood draws.
Dr. Hyman (01:08:49):
Well, the thing is, you have to usually get a doctor's order. So the beautiful thing about function health, this company that we created was that you don't need a doctor's order. So you can go to the website, sign up, and they'll network with over 50 different states and doctors and every one, I love this. Or you can just go and get kind the
Mel Robbins (01:09:06):
Testing done,
Dr. Hyman (01:09:07):
Get the testing done, get your results, and track it over time. And you can see your hormones, your thyroid, your insulin, your age-related markers, your brain chemistry so much about what's going on with
Mel Robbins (01:09:18):
Your brain. What's so cool about this, if you can afford to do it, and we'll put the link in the show notes, is it's like getting an x-ray of your insides.
Dr. Hyman (01:09:27):
And
Mel Robbins (01:09:28):
You've already, you've proven to us that you heal from the inside out.
Dr. Hyman (01:09:31):
Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely true. And I'm so excited about this approach because it'll empowers people to be the CEO of their own health. And the reality is that even if you go to the doctor with all these complaints, they're going to be able to manage your symptoms. I don't want to manage people's symptoms. I want people to get better. I want people to reverse these problems and not need a doctor. And the truth is, most of the things that work are not things you're going to get at a doctor's office, which is drugs and surgery. So sometimes you need them, and I use them. That's not a bad thing. But most of the problems we have don't respond very well to that. And all these things that we talked about, whether it's depression, I mean, antidepressants just suck. They don't work that well. They have all these side effects and anxiety. Medications are highly addictive. I mean, they just cover over the symptoms. What if you could actually figure out why you're having the problem and fix it?
Mel Robbins (01:10:18):
Well, I think you told us why. It's inflammation. It's a gut that's out of whack. It is the stressors in your life. It is the toxins in your environment and not understanding that your body has this elegant design that is super intelligent and responsive and can heal itself if you are conscious and intentional about the right input.
Dr. Hyman (01:10:44):
And that's exciting. That's happening now in science, is we're actually getting there like the old paradigms dying and the longevity space I've been working in, and when I wrote about it young forever, where these scientists are now talking about what's underlying all these diseases, these 155,000 diseases, that's not what we need to be thinking about. It's these 10 underlying problems that tend to go wrong as we get older that can explain all disease. And if we treat those, we may not be able to just extend our life by five years by getting rid of cancer or heart disease. But by 30 or 40 years, that means living to be 120 and being in good shape. I don't want to be 120 in a nursing home in a wheelchair. I'm able to ride my bike, go for a horseback ride, make love. That's what I want to do when I'm a hundred or 120.
Mel Robbins (01:11:26):
Wow. I am glad that you said that because oftentimes I hear the word longevity, and I had that reaction like, well, I don't want to be rotting away in a nursing home at exactly hundred 25. That sounds terrible.
Dr. Hyman (01:11:38):
It's terrible because most of what we see, Mel in the world is abnormal aging, and we think that's normal. Oh, it's normal to become frail and decrepit and not be able to do what you want and loose function. And the truth is that most of us are health span doesn't equal our lifespan the last 20 years of our life.
Mel Robbins (01:11:52):
What's the difference between health span and lifespan? Well,
Dr. Hyman (01:11:54):
Health span is how many years. You're healthy, you can do what you want, and lifespan is how many years you're alive. So if you're fine until you're 60, then you get dementia in your nursing home for 20 years, not good. So that's what you want to do is make your health span equal, your lifespan. So on my last day, I want to go for a hike with my beloved. I want to come home, make a delicious dinner. I want to have a bottle of wine, probably a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. And
Mel Robbins (01:12:18):
Wait a minute, that wasn't on the diet.
Dr. Hyman (01:12:20):
Who cares? I'm 120. And then I make love and I close my eyes and drift off and maybe take a jump in the pond.
Mel Robbins (01:12:30):
That sounds incredible. My mother-in-law is 85 years old. She jumps out of airplanes. She walks five miles a day.
Dr. Hyman (01:12:36):
There you go.
Mel Robbins (01:12:37):
She's having the time of her life. When Chris and I went alcohol free for a bit, she's like, I'm not doing that. I have my one glass of red wine a day. That's what I need. She plays cards. She prioritize friends.
Dr. Hyman (01:12:48):
Yeah, exactly.
Mel Robbins (01:12:48):
She is the definition of vitality at that age. And she's like the energizer bunny. I can't imagine her running out of steam. And that's what I think you're talking about when it comes to vitality.
Mel Robbins (01:13:01):
One thing we did not touch on that I know we're going to get a lot of questions on is probiotics. So you talked about microbiomes being these little bugs in your gut that help your body break apart. What I hope is going to be the fuel that your body needs, not the chemicals that the big food companies have sold to you in the grocery store. So how do you reset the gut in terms of what probiotic or is there a strain you should take? Or is yogurt enough tell us what to do?
Dr. Hyman (01:13:35):
Well, the truth is, Mel, that most of what determines the health and quality of your microbiome is what you're eating.
(01:13:43):
So you need to feed your gut, right? You need to tender your inner garden, and that's not that hard to do. What is it like? It likes lots of fruits and vegetables. It likes lots of fiber. It likes probiotic foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, miso and things like that. It likes prebiotic foods, which are like the fertilizer that feed the good bucks. Things like asparagus, artichoke, plantain, the list goes on. So we do that a lot through our diet and to not eat gut busting foods, things like tons of sugar, processed food, food additives, emulsifiers, chemicals, all those things damage your microbiome. And then drugs, we're on a lot of drugs, antibiotics, acid blockers and hormones, and all these things can really screw up our gut microbiome like drugs, like Advil and the anti-inflammatory drugs. So we have to be really smart about taking out the things that bust our gut and putting the things that heal our gut. And that's really well outlined in my book, young Forever. But the probiotic can be a useful tool, but it's not in replacement of the diet.
Mel Robbins (01:14:51):
So you're basically saying if you eat sugary cereal for breakfast, you're, and then you have chicken nuggets and pizza for lunch, and then you have takeout, whatever, fried whatever pop in one probiotic is not going to help.
Dr. Hyman (01:15:05):
Yeah, no, and the other thing that's really amazing is that we've learned that they like polyphenols, which are,
Mel Robbins (01:15:10):
What is that?
Dr. Hyman (01:15:11):
I know, right? Big word. There's like a million molecules in colorful fruits and vegetables that are the medicine in food. And these medicines work in many ways in our body, and particularly on a lot of the longevity switches. But it turns out that these microbes in your gut like to eat them,
Mel Robbins (01:15:30):
Right?
Dr. Hyman (01:15:30):
And so remember that weird name, Akkermansia that I was mentioning?
Mel Robbins (01:15:33):
I forgot it, but now I do.
Dr. Hyman (01:15:35):
But the one that produces this natural Valium in your gut, that bugs really likes green tea. It likes pomegranate and it likes cranberry, and it likes all the molecules. So you have to feed them. And you have little critters in there. You got to take care of 'em. And so food is the biggest solution. And yes, probiotics can help and prebiotic supplements and fibers can help, but we really want to actually make sure we actually take care of it by eating what we need to be eating. And I had actually horrible colitis years ago from taking an antibiotic that screwed up my gut, and I cured it using a lot of these polyphenols and prebiotics. And as a result, I was mixing all this different stuff. I created a simple solution called gut food, which is a powder, like a multivitamin for the gut. And it's basically what I take every day to keep my gut healthy.
Mel Robbins (01:16:24):
Do you put it in a shake or
Dr. Hyman (01:16:25):
Do you stir it in glass? It's good. You can put it in a water and mix it up, or you can throw it in a NutriBullet, and it's really yummy.
Mel Robbins (01:16:32):
Wow. So you mentioned several times that you've written about what to eat. Can you tell everybody where to go to find all this? Because the show notes are going to be 10 pages long.
Dr. Hyman (01:16:40):
Where am I sending anyway? You find Dr. Hyman. All I do is talk about food as medicine, but I've written a number of books. One is called Food. What the heck Should I Eat Food? What the Heck Should I Cook? And a Pegan Diet, which is kind of a spoof on the extremes of paleo and vegan and what are the principles? And it's really an easy digestible, almost like a bathroom book where you have 20 or so principles that you can read one. And it's basically about the time would take, you go to the bathroom at a time and they tell you what should know about each category of food, what are the best vegetables? What are maybe ones you want to watch? What are the best forms of dairy? What are the best forms of meat? What are the best forms of nuts and seeds and what you should be doing to take care of your gut or balance your hormones? So it's all in there. And I think the Pega diet is kind of a fun, easy way to go.
Mel Robbins (01:17:25):
Well, and if you put it in your bathroom, you can actually mark your progress, because if you read it in the bathroom, you'll know within a couple of weeks of finishing the book
Dr. Hyman (01:17:34):
Whether
Mel Robbins (01:17:34):
Or not applying the stuff that you just learned had any material effect
Dr. Hyman (01:17:38):
Absolutely.
Mel Robbins (01:17:39):
On your digestion, which I would
Dr. Hyman (01:17:41):
Create a whole Instagram site about that.
Mel Robbins (01:17:42):
Yes, exactly. You're incredible.
Dr. Hyman (01:17:45):
Keep going,
Mel Robbins (01:17:46):
Dr. Hyman.
Dr. Hyman (01:17:46):
We could do another one and just do part two
Mel Robbins (01:17:52):
I got one more question. So if somebody is not getting good sleep, you mentioned seven to eight hours of sleep is what the average person needs, minimum. What are a couple simple changes that you would recommend that someone focus on immediately to start to improve their sleep habits?
Dr. Hyman (01:18:16):
Well, there's a number of simple things you can do to fix your sleep. One is regular sleep cycle. So wake and sleep at the same time every day.
Mel Robbins (01:18:23):
Okay, how does that help?
Dr. Hyman (01:18:25):
It puts you in a rhythm. So your body kind of knows, oh, it's time to eat. It's time to sleep. You're a biological organism whether you like it or not. And you have to regulate yourself based on circadian rhythms and the basic cycles of day and night and light and dark. The other thing is make sure you have 20 minutes if you can, of light in the morning.
Mel Robbins (01:18:45):
Why?
Dr. Hyman (01:18:46):
Because that resets your brain for the day and also resets your pineal gland and will help a melatonin production later in the day, which melatonin helps you sleep at night.
Mel Robbins (01:18:56):
And so the light you're talking about is get outside sunlight, even on a cloudy
Dr. Hyman (01:18:59):
Day, 20 minutes, 20 minutes. And these light boxes even, you can use that have full spectrum light. The second is at night, don't get blue light. So wear blue blocker glasses, get off your screens at least two or three hours before
Mel Robbins (01:19:15):
Bed. Does that include television or just phone? And
Dr. Hyman (01:19:18):
If you want to really do the blue blocker stuff, you could wear your blue blockers while you're watching television, and that's a sheep investment for a good benefit. And that will help your brain start to calm down.
Mel Robbins (01:19:27):
And how does blue light interfere with your brain's ability to shut down and get ready for bed? Well,
Dr. Hyman (01:19:33):
Listen, listen, Mel, we didn't have the light bulb till a hundred and something years ago. So our bodies are designed when the sun goes down to produce all these hormones and chemicals that help us get ready for sleep. But if you're basically in a North Korean prison camp with light shining at you all night long, you can't sleep. Your body's designed to say, oh, it's daytime, so it doesn't node to go to bed. Another thing you can do is take magnesium. Magnesium really helps with sleep for a lot of people at night. And then the other thing I love to do is a hot bath with Epsom salt and lavender. Why lavender and why Epsom salt? Epsom salt has magnesium, which gets absorbed in the body.
(01:20:13):
The hot water basically relaxes your muscle, your nervous system. So I can be super stressed. Maybe I get in a hot bath, they make as hot as I can, stand it, and then has other longevity benefits. And then I had lavender drops, which Johnson and Johnson knows work, and the study's been there because it lowers cortisol. They use it in the lavender baby bath to calm the babies down. So lavender drops, you can just put 'em in the bathtub with your Epsom salt and soak in there for 20 minutes, go to bed, and if your temperature starts to go down, you'll sleep. Also, keep your bed like for sleep and sex, and don't have a TV in there. Keep it cool, 68 degrees or lower, keep it dark.
(01:20:52):
Realluy Important earplugs and eye shades if you live in the city or something. But that all helps to reset your sleep system.
Mel Robbins (01:21:00):
Wow. And again, what I love the most is that you have said from the very beginning, your body is designed to work on a very simple rhythm to heal itself. And now the simple cost-free things that you can do in order to tap into this magnificent, intelligent body of yours.
Dr. Hyman (01:21:23):
It's a miracle, really.
Mel Robbins (01:21:24):
It really is. Well, Dr. Hyman in the house, thank you so much. You made a huge difference in my life, Donna's life. I know that this is going to make a huge difference in everybody's life who listens. Please follow Dr. Hyman. All the resources are in the show notes, and in case nobody else tells you today, I'm going to tell you that I love you.
Dr. Hyman (01:21:47):
Thank you.
Mel Robbins (01:21:49):
I'm not talking about you. Oh, you're not talking about me. I'll get, I'm just kidding. But I love you, Dr. Hyman, and I love you listening. I know Dr. Hyman loves you too. That's why I
Dr. Hyman (01:21:58):
See it's true. It's really true.
Mel Robbins (01:21:59):
Yes. And I believe in you and your ability to put this to use because it's going to help you create a better you, and that's going to lead to a better life. Alright? Go do it. I'll talk to you in a few days. Oh, one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, bye. God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.
Key takeaways
Your body is built to heal, but only if you stop dumping processed junk, chronic stress, and toxic thoughts into it every single day.
In just six days of clean eating, movement, and rest, your body can reduce disease symptoms by 70%. You are only days away from feeling dramatically better.
You’re not weak or lazy. Your food is engineered to be addictive, and that addiction is hijacking your mood, energy, and ability to think clearly.
Stop blaming yourself for feeling like crap—your symptoms are not random, they’re your body’s way of screaming for help from the inside out.
Five slow breaths, five times a day can reset your nervous system, lower stress hormones, and tap into your body’s natural healing intelligence.
Guests Appearing in this Episode
Dr. Mark Hyman, MD
Dr. Mark Hyman is a practicing family physician, bestselling author, and leader in functional medicine focused on optimizing health and reversing chronic disease.
-
Book: Young Forever
In Young Forever, Dr. Mark Hyman challenges us to reimagine our biology, health, and the process of aging. To uncover the secrets to longevity, he explores the biological hallmarks of aging, their causes, and their consequences—then shows us how to overcome them with simple dietary, lifestyle, and emerging longevity strategies.
Resources
-
- Why ADHD is not a brain disease (plus writing sample Dr. Hyman refers to.)
- Check out Dr. Hyman’s phenomenal core workout here.
- Click here for more information on Dr. Hyman's function health testing program.
- And here is the Tom Brady fitness routine Dr. Hyman is raving about.
- Nutrients Journal: Dietary fiber modulates gut microbiome.
- American Institute of Cancer Research: Cruciferous veggies reduce cancer risk.
- Newsweek: Americans are addicted to ultra-processed foods.
- National Public Radio: How the food industry helps engineer our cravings.
- Check out This Is Your Brain On Food, by Dr. Uma Naidoo.
- University of CA, Berkeley: How your social life might help you live longer.
- Nutrients Journal: High consumption of soda linked to fractures.
2 Million Readers.
1 Life-Changing Newsletter
Simple and Straight-to-the-Point...
Just Like Mel.
