The Ultimate Eastern Medicine Approach To Lyme, Epstein-Barr, Parasites, Viruses, Gut Issues & More With Dr. Chris Motley

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast, people come in and say, hey, I had strep when I was a kid 5 times a year. And they said, well, I took an antibiotic and it went away sometimes. I was like, I hate to say this, but from the evidence I get, let's go get another test. And I'll get deeper tests like from MicrogenDX, and they'll still have like 6 or 7 strands of strep still.

Wow.

And when they have it, their tonsils stay infected in their area behind their nose. I spend, I think, majority of half my patients clearing out old strep.

Fitness, nutrition, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this.

I just got done with a long walk outside with a real cool guy, Dr. Chris Motley. Chris is well-versed in Eastern medicine.

He specializes in things like acupuncture, kinesiology, allergy and sensitivity therapy, Lyme, Epstein-Barr, parasites, H.

pylori, Salmonella, Streptococcus. This dude is a wizard. He flew out to my house. We hung out for a couple of days. He's the real deal. He practices what he preaches, incredibly knowledgeable, and you're just going to love today's show. The shownotes are going to be rich and juicy. Check them all out at BenGreenfieldLife.com/Motley. And, get ready for me and Chris going for a long walk. You're going to love this one. Well, we've had a pretty good morning so far. Chris, you sore at all from the workout? You feeling okay?

Feeling pretty good. I can definitely feel that it's taking its effect though, brother.

Yeah. We did the usual morning at the Greenfield house. We did a little morning stretch and then some Bible reading and prayer. Then, we moved into some breathwork in the sauna using the Othership app, about 20 minutes of Wim Hof-style breathwork, cold plunge, and some kettlebells and a little MetCon workout in the gym with, of course, the icing on the cake being the smoothie, little raw liver, vanilla whey protein, some coconut water, cow nibs, goodies on top of that. So, all charged up here for a little walking podcast.

Ready to go.

Ready to go to Spokane. Yeah. So, for those of you listening in, I'm going to put all the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/Motley, Chris's last name, M-O-T-L-E-Y. Looks like we got somebody carving up sticks with the chainsaw, so you guys get to hear some of the action in the background.

Yeah.

But, we'll be past that pretty soon. So, Chris, I'm just curious, you and I have connected a few times. We had dinner in Nashville. I think I remember you were taking my pulse at dinner to analyze my constitution or something like that. Maybe we'll get into that later on. But, if I were sitting next to you on an airplane and didn't know that much about you, how would you describe what you do and what kind of doctor you actually are?

Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me, brother. Really appreciate being here and having the opportunity. And, um, yes, uh, when people come in, I always tell them I am a chiropractic doctor, but, uh, specialized— also got my doctorate specializing in clinical kinesiology, which is basically trying just to use the muscle function of the body to assess what's going on internally. So I got my diplomate in acupuncture, certified in acupuncture, Chinese medicine, So, I—

What's a diplomate?

Diplomate means you get as about as much hours in practice as somebody who would get a doctorate in acupuncture itself. Okay. So, you do quite a bit of extra hours in training outside of your actual chiropractic kinesiology training. So, I went down the route of Chinese medicine and Eastern medicine. And, what do I normally do with patients that come in? How do I assess? Well, I would describe it as more based in frequency medicine or frequency therapy.

Okay.

So, that's how I describe what I would do.

Frequency medicine. Hmm.

Interesting. Usually, like, I know we've talked about it before, but I'd assess what acupuncture meridians are not flowing properly if they're blocked. And, that's what most acupuncturists do, but I use biofeedback devices in the office to try my best to assess which frequency output may be coming from the blocked meridian. And, there are ways to identify the frequency ranges of that blockage which may give me a reference to what is blocking it.

Okay, man. Okay, a lot there. So, I actually want to return to that, but before we do, how did you actually get into this in the first place? Were you raised in a house that was into like alternative medicine or Chinese traditional medicine or something like that?

Uh, two things.

I won't make it too long, but I will say that, um, it's okay, we got time. Look at this long empty road ahead of us, brother.

Well, um, my dad was really good friends with a chiropractor in his town, and he was a drill sergeant. And my dad has bone-on-bone in the back, so he's gonna have back surgery.

Okay.

And so he got— he was prevented of having surgery like going to his friend. And I thought it was always unusual because he would always tell me his back was hurting. And one day he's like, no, I don't have to have back surgery. Found out it was a chiropractor. Thought it was so interesting. And then my brother had bad allergies. He didn't have to get allergy shots anymore because he got his upper neck fixed by the same doctor. So I was introduced to it, and that always made me intrigued. Another thing that came into my mind was when I was younger I thought I knew I wanted the route to help people and care for people. Don't know why, but I remember my mom, she's Korean. I'm half Korean with Chinese background in her bloodline. And when I got into this type of work, she told me that my great-uncles, some of my great-uncles and distant uncles lived in the hills of Korea and they did herbs and Chinese medicine.

Oh, wow.

And so I asked her, right? Because when I was in my blood, I was like, I didn't know why I could make my hands heat up when I was a kid. I can make them get hot when I wanted to. Oh, wow. And, I always thought it was unusual. And, she told me that they never really go see them up in the mountains because all the rest of the family thought they were kind of odd and unusual. So, I never got to meet them. And, that's how I got into it. It's like my blood and I think it was just a big interest. But, I've had personal experiences with frequency medicine that made me a believer too. Like what? Before I went to school, into actual chiropractic school, I got rear-ended. And to the point where you go to school, they gave you a clinician to keep working on you, and I'd get worked on, but my neck would always keep going out. And so I went to a friend of mine who did the type of work that I employ now, and he said, it's not really your neck, you really have a— you really have a sludgy gallbladder, your gallbladder's sick. And I was like, I didn't know what he meant by that.

It's kind of a weird—

it is, it is. It's like the gallbladder meridian in medicine, in Chinese medicine, runs down the side of the neck, around your ear and down the side of the neck. So he said it's not stable because the muscles don't get enough electrical flow because the gallbladder is stagnant. So he worked on all the acupuncture meridian points, and I felt like after 2 days, brother, I went to rigor mortis. Like, my neck and my whole body felt kind of stiff but sore. But after that point, I didn't have to have my neck adjusted again. It stayed in place.

And why does it get stiff and sore?

Because all the electrical patterns in the body— there's a couple things that electricity does. It helps your arteries flow. So electricity is actually helping your arteries pump, and it also helps the lymph move. So if you don't have enough electrical flow, they work hand in hand— lymph, blood, and electrical flow. And if they're stagnant in certain areas— now that's another point of discussion— it will make the area stiff. The muscles won't contract properly.

Okay, interesting. But, but then when you get it adjusted there's a period of stiffness afterwards, is that like the body getting used to the new electrical flow or something like that?

Yes, because after a while, it's like waking up an area that's been dead for a while. And so, whenever you start to put more electrical flow, the fascia usually has to unwind a bit. And, if you got lymph that's blocked, you're going to put a lot of electricity into that lymph, it'll take it a few days just to get that thing pumping and pulling more of the toxins out of the area.

Okay, interesting. Alright. So, Back to this initial analysis, let's say I were to walk into your office and you're going to start to investigate me as a new patient, Ferro, what's going on? You mentioned frequency testing. I think you mentioned biofeedback and you mentioned kinesiology or muscle testing. Walk me through what a typical scenario would look like.

Definitely. The first thing I would do is I would do what we call a pulse point like we did before when I saw you. And, I take small devices. One that I usually simply use is called a a pulse point finder, but there are many devices I use to check certain points on the body that gives me an idea of what the main organs are doing. So, I use biofeedback devices that basically are point— put on the point, gives me an indication of how much electricity is flowing through the meridian, which tells me how big the— Okay.

This biofeedback device, this is literally picking up an electrical signal.

It is. Okay. And, the thing about the extra steps I take My mentor, Dr. Dowdy, he made a small device and it's basically called a resonator. It's nothing very special about the resonator, but it's made out of a material that's very static sensitive. So when I assess you, I use the small pointer. It's an electrical device, but then I use my own skin to touch each point. And at times, if the voltage or the static in your skin is blocked from a problem in that meridian point, it'll pass it to me. And so, my skin texture changes in response to you. And on the small device, you can rub this device and that little piece of basically material will pick up on the static change and it'll cause my hand to stick on the material. So, I become the grounding rod.

Yeah. I'm familiar with this. I've experienced this twice. I have a device back in the gym back home called the Nübi by Nufit and it allows you to electrically map muscles that have poor electrical function or that are turned off, so to speak. And, you can actually apply a glove to your hand with one electrode and the other electrode is placed in an area of muscle tissue and you actually feel through your hand when you get to sections that are putting off a different level of electricity. And then, I also went down to the Bioenergetic Institute in Kentucky and another guy named Dr. Jeremy Stitch, Ben Greenfield. I don't know if you've heard of him.

I've heard of him, yes.

He did a very similar electrical mapping on me, but he was using PEMF frequencies to actually treat the areas with PEMF through his hand because he was grounded as he worked on me. So, it sounds to me like you're doing something kind of similar, but you're identifying almost traditional acupuncture points or what do you call meridians?

Meridians, yes.

That are blocked and you can actually feel that through your hand?

You can feel it through the hand and the device, and no matter what really material that you're placing your hand on to use as a grounding rod. Like, that piece of material will tell me that if I hit— they call it a drag coefficient on the skin— if I hit that point, it'll actually cause my texture of skin to change.

Wow.

And when I find it, the next point would be, what does that tell me about the person? It could just say that the point's blocked, right?

Right.

But what does it say? Okay, well, it would tell me that the organ's blocked. That in itself, though, brother, tells me that I know what symptomatology that person has just by which organ is imbalanced from that point. The next step would be with the technique is to use what we call hand moting. And some people think it looks unusual, unorthodox, but the concept is that our bones are piezoelectric crystals. So our bones are basically conductors of frequency. Like when we do a yoga pose, why do we do it in a certain position? It's because we attract a certain frequency from the environment to help with nourishing the kidneys or nourishing the heart. Okay, you can put your hands in certain configurations and that hand mode, antenna mode, will attract frequencies that may exist in that person to attach to the hand mode. So it actually uses your hand as an antenna, and when it amplifies the signal into my hand, my skin texture changes in response to you, and I can actually find out why that little point is basically blocked. So I find the point, I can scan for— hopefully we find frequencies of yeast, mold, bacteria, viruses. And so it doesn't tell me—

this is through your hands, not using like a device?

Through my hands, yes. And so there's certain frequency ranges that my mentor started to calculate to find out, okay, well, yeast exists from 400, um, nanometers to like 425.

Okay.

And so we can't say it is, you know, gospel truth that this is what's happening, but at least it gives me an idea. And then I send off for further testing if that's what they need, like yeast testing or mold testing or parasite testing.

Why would you use your hands instead of using a more precise tool like a biofeedback device?

That is the question. That is a great question, brother. In fact, that's what my mentor has been working on because when you talked about your friend grounding himself, the problem us practitioners is that I would rather seen in the future to have the device that's more precise in frequency ranges because there's only so much a practitioner like myself could scan. Because I can only scan a certain amount of frequencies to what I've experienced, right? And so if you have a machine—

because you felt certain conditions but you haven't felt them all.

Exactly. If there's 1,000 frequencies that deal with yeast and I only have encountered 20 of them, I can only scan for 20 of them. Yeah. And so that's the— they say the problem. And when I don't ground out, like on a grounding pad, I become the grounding. It stays in my system. And so that's another issue when you've done it.

What do you mean it stays in your system? Like you get the same condition?

You can. You can actually resonate. The reason that you'd feel—

for instance, you get the same condition or you get the effects, the same effects.

That's right, the effects or the symptomatology.

Like somebody's not gonna pass a parasite on to you, but you'd feel some of the same energetic frequencies in your body.

Exactly. If you had— if they had cysts of like Giardia lamblia, and for heaven's sake, if you had one in your body that was dormant and you started to resonate with that frequency, it'll send a little wake-up call in your body and it'll start waking up other parasites. So Like sometimes I've had patients come in and they'll have a chronic cough, and this would happen to me our first year, and I would be going home and driving and all of a sudden I start coughing and I'd be like, man, why am I coughing like this?

Weird.

And I kept having those things, and it was based upon when I was scanning something, I would really scan for like, oh, here's a parasite in the gut. Next 2 days I start feeling it. And so I think my body toughened up over the years, and when I started really doing detox cleansing, I really help protect my body. But it is one of the questions. I agree with you. I think having those machines is the way of the future to be more precise, to find the exact location, and to kill off the frequencies over the infections and the microbes by using the device.

How far out are we from those devices being available, like commercially available or available to physicians like you?

I think if all goes to plan, I, I think there's already many that I've seen that are overseas in Europe. I just got One of my patients went to Poland and she has a device that does the exact same things and they put probes like you've seen before, but they literally can take the frequency of that infection and invert it, make it the out-of-phase wave and will send it back into the patient. So, they've already gotten the devices to kill them off.

Oh, so they'll detect the frequency then send the frequency back.

They'll do that. And, there's another device that I can't really talk too much about now, but my mentor is going to be involved with it. But, there are devices like you had with your glove, right? That picks up on the drag coefficient. Yeah, of, of the skin. Like, you're feeling the pain, nociceptors, through the glove. Well, there's devices now that they'll be able to go over the skin, pick up on the drag coefficient, or guys, if you guys listening, like the stickiness of the skin because of the texture change, because the electrical patterns, and it will pick up and make an algorithm to tell you what's going on and be able to send frequencies back in to clean up the infection.

Oh my gosh. This is super interesting. So, the analysis using these electrical frequencies, is that the only thing that you do or are you looking at other things? Are there other elements of your intake when you get a new patient or somebody's got a health issue?

Yes. When I look at the frequencies, you can't just stop there. So, if you came in and I was picking up on different patterns of organs, that to me tells the story of the psychological arena of the patient, which makes me aware of how they'll cleanse the infection. So if you came in and you had kidney points that were blocked, and let's say the kidney points were resonating with— creations of resonance with like parasites or yeast or mold, okay, we go and clean them out. But if I also found that the heart meridian was not working at 100%, it's the two combined. In Chinese medicine, the kidneys feed the heart.. And so I can't go ahead and just say, oh, I'm going to kill off the, the yeast and mold and parasites in your kidney. I had to find out why your heart's fatigued as well, because if you do it out of order, if you don't do something in the proper order, they'll have high amounts of Herx reactions. So I have to make a basically a connection of the interweb of all the organs and determine from your symptomatology. Like you come and say, Chris, I am urinating all the time, I have dark circles around my eyes, and you give me all the signs which refer to the kidney, I normally say let's start with the kidney. But I have to make that determination. So there's a lot of things, especially organ imbalance, signs and symptoms from the organ imbalance, and find out which one's priority.

How do you know which order to go in?

That is a— that's the clinician's expertise. But the system I use does what we call a priority system. So the technique allows me to use the hand moaning, the antenna hand moaning, to find out which problem is priority. So I can lock them in like on a computer screen, and I could say, okay, like there's 3 things here, 3 acupuncture points. We call it pause locking it into the system. And when you do that, you can use a hand mode to find out which one's priority. Over the years, you can tell— this is how you can tell— I can feel which point is the most blocked just from my hand. I can feel it. I know that's the priority. You don't necessarily need a hand mode as much anymore, but I've been able to, you know, over experience, you can just feel it.

When we were having dinner, you were just— you just had your hand on my pulse, like on my wrist, and I was kind of talking with people, not paying much attention. Then, you know, I think you leaned back and said something like I was good to go or something like that. But were you actually using that technique, or was that something different, like a pulse check?

Yes, it's like you, um, it's a pulse check, but you intertwine. And after a while, like, I can feel with— and many of the practitioners out there can do this, so I'm not saying it's anything special, but they can already feel the amount of voltage that's built up in those points but also using the hand modes to discern what was causing that organ to basically be imbalanced. But you use so much good detox, you're a pretty clean guy, honestly. Yeah.

You were jumping up and down on the trampoline with me this morning. I do the trampoline. I do a lot of lymph tapping kind of like Peri-Nickels Big 6. Oh, yeah. Lymph tapping. Even once a week, I'll do a coffee enema and a deep sauna sweat, even the breathwork, you get some amount of detoxification through breath, through sweat, through stool. So, yeah, I try to stay somewhat clean, especially with all my travel and everything. Now, didn't you yourself have a condition? I think it was Lyme?

I had Lyme disease, yes. And I had that—

I'm just very curious about your approach to something like that. What'd you do?

Lyme disease, I got it when I was 13 or 14. And I didn't know it. Um, I, at 31 years of age, um, this is when I was a few years in practice, I almost passed out on a patient. And through investigation, finally found out I had Lyme disease. Everybody's telling me I just had adrenal stress, you may have thyroid issues. Found all the infections.

My approach was, how'd you find them?

We did— I did blood work with a lot of the blood work, did not find it, right? As much as I wish it had. It told me I had some infections. Went the standard route of the normal Lyme testing, nothing there. And then I went to a friend of mine who runs a big Lyme infection place in Wisconsin, and he did frequency testing. He goes, well, you don't have— you have adrenal stress, he says, but they won't find on blood work, he says, but you've got heavy amounts of Lyme. Wow. So we did— you can do extra testing now through like iGenics, Vibrant Wellness. There's ones that are more specific, and you find the small microbes, because there's like, you know, over 100 different types of Babesia, probably more than that now, and they only test for like 10 different strands or species. So found that, and I was, I was about to quit practice. I couldn't hardly stand up, my legs were so weak. Basically, I started to use the herbals that I got from my friend Dr. Alan Lindsley, who you should meet. He's a really great guy. He created his own tinctures Did those for almost a year and a half, cleaned everything out, and then I really shored it up with methylation supplementation, which is liver methylation strategies off my genetics. So I use my genetics to find out why I could not absorb and assimilate vitamin B. Like, you've talked about it. Yeah, got those in accordance with my herbs, and I started to heal up.

And so it's kind of like an herbal antimicrobial type protocol combined with methylation support.

Yes, yes. And the, um, the process when we were going through it is I, in my own practice, I had to use like frequency medicine to find out the priority ways to like approach how to get rid of my own Lyme because everybody's so specific and so different. So I can't personally like use a lot of vitamin B at the very beginning, and then after about 3 months of doing methylation, my body picked up and started absorbing more. So yes, that's exactly how I did it.

Interested. Did you work in much natural methylated vitamins from organ meat extracts or anything like that?

Yes. Yeah. I really got it more into organ extract meats because exactly like I was trying to figure out how a person could get it naturally because you know as well as I do each supplement line is so different. Not everybody's going to be able to assimilate one company to the other.

Yeah. Interesting. So, is that the approach that you would currently use if someone came into your office and you found Lyme? Be similar to that?

Yes, I think as I gotten older in it, I, I really am more prone— if with the techniques I use is to find out the organ imbalances and the emotions that the person has and how they will actually get rid of the infection, because psychological and emotional aspects determines how they will probably process it. When I do find it through frequency medicine, I do like to start treating it, but I would send them off to get a couple labs, different labs first, to see which species I'm dealing with.

Okay, so you can actually identify the Lyme species. You said you use like Vibrant Wellness or—

Vibrant Wellness Labs, Hygenics, DNA Connections with an X.

Okay, DNA Connections is to see their methylation status.

Yes, and but they also have a really good tick-borne.

So they do.

And there's another, my friend Dr. Jay Dunn, she has one called My Happy Genes. It's, it's a really neat name, but it has— she tests for over 500 different genes to tell you about how to detox properly.

Oh, wow. Okay. I'll hunt down links to these for you guys listening in. I'll put a link to some of these panels in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/Motley. Now, Lyme is one chronic health condition. There are others that I know people wind up a lot of times turning to alternative practitioners like yourself for. Epstein-Barr, how similar is that to Lyme?

Epstein-Barr now has been associated with Lyme disease. But it's one of the infections now that we almost classify that if you have Lyme disease, you're going to find Epstein-Barr. Almost about 85 to 90% of the time I find somebody with Lyme, I'll find that they'll even have heavier sources of Epstein-Barr in their body.

So what's the difference between Lyme and Epstein-Barr?

Epstein-Barr is a class, class 4 herpes virus, I believe, and it basically will incorporate into your cells, into your DNA, and like one of your cells can make a million of theirs. So they replicate to the point, and when they're in danger, they'll pop open the cell.

Be careful who you kiss.

I'm telling you, with— if you find people with cold sores or cankers, I'm not trying to sound negative, but you have to be careful. Yeah, if you think a person has cold sores all the time, they can do that. And in fact, that's what they get, the chronic fatigue syndrome. So some people get Epstein-Barr when they're young and get chronically fatigued, maybe not through a tick bite, but then they may have a small Borrelia bacteria a Babesia parasite from a tick bite, and they'll grow because all their cells have been infected. If you think about it, somebody's been infected with Epstein-Barr for 10 years.

Yeah.

And one cell creates a million.

Yeah, they're overrun.

It's overrun.

I didn't realize that, that it kind of exponentially, uh, almost like multiplies. Multiplies. Interesting. So when you see that, what, what's your strategy for something like Epstein-Barr?

Usually with Epstein-Barr virus, I start with heavy herbals that are specifically for Epstein-Barr. There's two that come into mind. I really like Chinese isatis, or called woad, and I like Japanese knotweed. The reason being is because when it's so ingrained and so deep, it'll hide. And so in Chinese medicine, we use those two on a nice steady dose to start to accentuate, to pull the Epstein-Barr virus out. Then whenever I start to see that the numbers come up— because I've worked on people with Epstein-Barr for a year or two years, they'll still have IgG markers because it's so deep in their cells, meaning their immune system is still reacting to the EBV completely. And even if they're present, active forms don't seem like they're up, I still have to work on those hidden ones. So with Epstein-Barr, it's getting them on a few herbs and use frequency medicine to find out which ones are specific for them. But then I have to go into the heavy hitters. I usually find enzymes that are taking off the, the virus's coating, and you have to do that in steady dosage and pulse them.

Is this like, uh, like the same type of proteolytic enzymes you might use to break down biofilm for parasites?

It's almost similar, yeah, like monolauric acid, and you can use those type same, same types of enzymes, yes. And once you get them broken, broken open, then it's really a matter of mouse and cat and mouse, because once you get a majority of Epstein-Barr, because most people say you can't get rid of it, the hardest part is because if tissue's infected and it's been stagnant in one area You're constantly having to open up those areas. So I use the enzymes, I use herbs, but I'm with this. I always use methylation processes. Like, I will use their DNA test, their genetic testing, and what I'm trying to do is get their vitamin D receptors to turn on their vitamin B processing liver. Because if I get their mitochondria to absorb that vitamin D, they'll fight the virus itself. And I've seen great results doing that.

And the enzymes, by the way, those are— are those breaking down biofilm or doing something else when it comes to EBV?

Usually, they'll break down the biofilms that hold a lot of the bacteria and parasites that hold the EBV because that's the problem we have.

Okay. So, you're breaking down the biofilm, then using herbals like knotweed or woad, and then you're using methylation support along with DNA testing. Yes. Interesting. How about the herbs? How do you know whether or not the herbs are good? What's a quality source?

I like myself, I like Supreme Nutrition products. And, there's many good ones out there. So, people listening, I like a lot of them. But Supreme Nutrition products is— I know the, um, the owners, Dr. Liebowitz, Michael, and Noah, and they really look for good sources, make sure there's no radiation or toxins or metals in them. And so when I go to the source, I've looked all over, and when I found their products, that was the products I stuck with. So how do I know which ones are the best? I do use frequency medicine, some muscle testing, But also in acupuncture, you can measure the voltage off somebody's skin when it's very blocked. Like if somebody came in with Epstein-Barr and their heart was really blocked, their kidneys really blocked, you can literally put— maybe you'll not agree with this, like who do standard muscle testing or electrical skin activity monitoring, but you can take the product and put it in the person's mouth and that skin will just be smooth as silk. It'll be—

it'll be interesting.

Wow.

Is there a reason that that would happen? Just the taste of it or having it in the mouth?

They say that gustatory like smell and even like when you go into the nerves around the facial nerve and the hypoglossal nerves around the mouth, they say that it's just the interaction of the frequency of the actual herb even if it's still in the capsule that changes the response in the nervous system. So, it really is a matter of how is their nervous system responding to the frequency that they just put in their mouth. Because Chinese medicine doctors will tell you this, it is the herb, but it's the energy of the herb. Yeah, usually like whenever we go to a restaurant, I know you do the same, brother. Like you go into an area or go and you look at a menu, you'll go, I can eat that, I can't eat that. But I would literally can get to a food and I can smell it and I'll go, I can't eat that. And I was reading a report about, they say gustatory, like olfactory senses, like, and gustatory response. That your brain and your body already automatically knows which enzymes have to be produced by ingesting the food you, you just smelled. And so that's why you have that autonomic response to the actual food, and you go, oh, that's going to make me feel sick. Well, that's what happens to the skin. The skin will tense up, and they call it a galvanic skin response. And so the skin will actually pucker when you look at a food or taste it, and your skin— your nervous system says, don't do that. Because it's like a lie detector test. The galvanic scan, they'll tell you something and your skin just responds. So, your skin is responding to the taste. So, the gut instinct, do not ever ignore that.

Ben: Wow. Chalk one up for mindful eating and taking some out of the fridge or ordering at a restaurant doing maybe some smelling and some praying and some feeling before you dive in. Probably chalk one down for fast food, huh? You just don't know.

We got this thing at our office and it's got a meal, a McDonald's meal from 2016 and it hasn't broken down yet.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't know exactly how that works, but I've heard that before. I haven't tried that experiment myself. Yeah. So, how about another kind of stealth coinfection you see a lot? I mentioned earlier parasites. What do you do about parasites?

What's your approach to that? I say parasites are some of the toughest. People will take a lot of parasites. You know, supplements. Number one thing I do that you just talked about is I assess for biofilms. I asked the patient if they had mucus in their bowel movements, if they've had foam, if they have random stabbing cramps. Yes, you clean up the parasites with wormwood, black walnut, badanga, artemisia. You can use combinations, but you have to get the biofilms cleaned up and you have to break them open so you can actually find if there's hidden parasites. So, I use those herbs I just mentioned, but I'll use different types of enzymes like nattokinase. I'll use lumbrokinase. I'll use different types of enzymes that will actually break it open to actually come out so I can kill them off even more.

Yeah. What do you think about that silkworm enzyme, the serrapeptase? The reason I ask is I have a company Kion, we have one called Flex that's for muscle soreness to break down fibrinogen and things like that. But, it's got a lot of these, you know, serrapeptase, serrapeptidase, a lot of those type of enzymes in it.

It's perfect because serrapeptase, one of the things like when you say like whenever you have plasmin or any type of plasminogen, you have those coagulation, anticoagulation factors. Another thing is with the— it's perfect because we know that those blood fragments, if those blood parasites like Babesia or malaria break open those red blood cells, they'll actually hold the parasites in those blood fragments. So using those things actually cleans up the arteries, but the blood cells that are deteriorated can actually act like a biofilm. So using like serrapeptase, therapeptase, different types of enzymes are, are pretty much the biggest thing I do for parasites— breaking up old coagulated blood and breaking up biofilms, then using anti-parasitic herbs, and then doing methylation with DNA testing.

Yeah, you know, when I got back from India a couple of months ago, I was doing 6 of the Kion Flex morning, 6 evening, and then oil of oregano 3 times a day just because it's pretty tough to come back from a country like that and not have some kind of critter in your gut. And, my gut was acting kind of funny. And so, that's what I did. I felt fine after that. It wasn't as advanced as some of the herbals that you use, but oregano is pretty decent for parasites, isn't it?

It is. I love oregano. It's probably one of the strongest. I always tell people, "Be careful on oregano." It's so strong.

My mom burnt her mouth. She actually grabbed the 100% that was in the pantry and obviously, I use an 8:1 dilution and man, yeah, she had a burn for weeks.

8:1?

Yeah, yeah. Even 8:1 is pretty strong. Oh, yeah. I put a whole dropper full in a glass of water. I don't put it straight into my mouth. Oh, man. But, what are some other conditions that you tend to regularly see or treat these days?

Well, I would say those are some of the top. I'll see Lyme parasites and Epstein-Barr virus. Another one that I'll say that's a hidden epidemic to me is I see tons of hidden strep, especially kids. Oh yes, strep, when they have the evidence and the spread of PANDAS or PANS, where they have like the toxicities and neurotoxicities from hidden strep and staph.

And what's PANDAS?

PANDAS is where the toxicity from strep has gotten into the brain and caused severe inflammation in the brain.

So it's like streptococcus in your neural tissue.

Exactly. So if you got strep pyogenes, mutans, You know, if you had Midas or even Agalactiae, like if you have those strep strands in your body, most time we think they're gone because people come in and say, hey, I had strep when I was a kid 5 times a year. And they said, well, I took an antibiotic and it went away sometimes. I was like, I hate to say this, but from the evidence I get, let's go get another test. And I'll get deeper tests like from MicrogenDX, and they'll still have like 6 or 7 strands of strep still. Wow. And, and when they have it, their tonsils stay infected in their— in the area behind their nose, their, um, adenoids. And so that's one of the biggest things I have to fix, especially kids with eczema or the bumps around their ears, or they have the swollen lymph nodes in their armpits. And adults too. I spend, I think, majority of half my patients clearing out old strep.

Wow. What's the test you said you do for that?

Microgen DX with a G. Microgen DX. DX. And what they do, it's in Texas, and they don't just test for like 5 different strep, they test for like 50,000 different microbe strains. Wow. And so I had a patient, guys, in Las Vegas, and she was telling me all this stuff on a virtual call, and I said, you've got a kidney infection. She goes, no, no, the doctor said I didn't have it. I said, I'm telling you, everything you're telling me, you have it. She sent it to MicrogenDX. She had 7 different strains. She had 5 different strep and 2 different types of E. coli.

Geez. How do you clean something like that up?

Strep? Strep is really like, if you use different— I like, I mean, there's 3 herbs I say, if you guys are listening, 3 herbs. Moringa, which is noni.

Okay.

Millea, which is neem.

Oh, noni. I got a bunch of noni honey from Kauai Pharmacy in the pantry.

It's so good.

Neem. Yep.

Or Coptis, Chinese Coptis.

Noni, neem, that's N-E-E-M, right? Yep. Or Coptis.

It's Chinese golden thread, and those will kill off strep. But for a little kid though, if you're— if they're pretty sensitive, go with Chinese skullcap. Skullcap will clean that off.

Okay, got it. What about besides strep? What else do you see?

Um, the next biggest one would be the hidden infections of the stomach, which is H. pylori and salmonella. And as common as people may think that sounds, people have hidden H. pylori and salmonella and sometimes E. coli to the point where they create biofilms. They create a ton of biofilms. And most people that have indigestion, GERD, heartburn, that will stick around and cause hiatal hernia diaphragm issues. So people start having heart issues because the infections make its way into the heart and into the lung tissue. That's— those are— that's the next biggest one. And I will say, I'll throw this one in there too, but one of the biggest is not just classifying one, but herpes viruses. Herpes simplex, Human herpes virus 1 and 2.

And that's different than the Epstein-Barr?

Epstein-Barr is a form of herpes virus, but these other viruses like cytomegalovirus or roseolovirus— you ever seen kids with the red cheeks, you know, slap cheek? You ask those patients if even when they're a kid they had that, it's like, yeah. And those infections get within the gums, they get in the teeth, they get in the roots along with the infections. But I spent a lot of time as well cleaning just herpes viruses out.

Interesting. Back to the gut stuff, you said H. pylori. What was the other one? Streptococcus, uh, salmonella, salmonella, and some E. coli. Yeah. What do you do about those type of issues in the gut?

Usually, I use mastic gum.

Oh, yeah.

Aloe vera.

Yeah. I've got some mastic gum I chew sometimes.

Oh, yeah.

I learned about it from Dean Karnazes, the ultra runner, used it to keep his mouth salivated and his appetite satiated during long runs. I didn't find out later the effects that it has on H. pylori.

Oh, it'll help clean up and you got to break up the film with the mastic gum.

Not really the gum, more like the capsules or supplement, but yeah.

Oh, yeah. I mean, With those, I always say like B vitamin absorption is going to be at an all-time low. So some people will say like take B1 and certain types of B vitamins to help get the acids higher so it kills off. But if they say now that those infections get into the lining and reduce your HCl pumps, they kill them off. So you like say mastic gum, aloe vera, some forms of licorice, you know, DGL. But again, noni. Noni to me will help clean a lot of that up.

Wow. And, is Noni, is that like a— how would you consume? Is it like a supplement or an herb or like a tea?

Yeah. I would do supplement. Its official name is Moringa, Moringa Supreme by Supreme Nutrition. But, what they do is they take the fruit and it's bitter and they shave the outer shell. Yeah. And, that bitterness—

It smells like a dirty sock.

Oh, it is. It's horrible smelling, but it'll kill parasites too. Yeah.

Wow, interesting. Now, would you use the same approach for the salmonella or is that different?

No, I use the same because You'll usually find that these microbes like I just mentioned, neem, noni, and the cactus, they're antimicrobial. They'll kill yeast, mold, viruses, parasites, Lyme. They'll kill a lot of things.

Wow, interesting. And, by the way, for those of you listening in, don't worry. My show notes producer is going to have a lot of work on their hands because we're naming a lot of stuff.

Don't worry. I'll send everything to you.

Don't worry. I'll put it all on there and Crystal helps. We'll make this a really, really great show notes for if you're digging through some of these issues. Now, that one thing that you were mentioning that spread to the brain, I don't remember if you said what you do about that if someone has like pandas in relation to— I think you said it was Streptococcus.

With that, you have to be very gentle because when you clean it out too fast, the release of the encapsulated— like, the body will store those infections, extra infections and toxins, and they can get worse when you release them. So, This is a case where you have to use herbs that kill off strep, and you have to make sure that they have their minerals assessed by like a good test and get their minerals on level.

But you mean like a hair tissue mineral?

Yes, you'd have to do that. And they really have to have a good practitioner, a good functional medicine doctor who does know— I mean, methylation processes— to do it gently for even young ones, because you have to get their liver turned back on and to get the colon The biggest thing I see with PANS/PANDAS and the parents who have to work with this, they know is that the kids are usually functionally constipated. They'll go a little bit, but if you can get a kid to do an enema, coffee enemas, doing some ionic foot baths.

What kid doesn't love a good coffee enema?

I literally had a patient, a mom send me a picture of what her son passed and we were working on parasites. It looked like a tree root coming out.

Geez. And, that's not mucosal threads, it's actual parasites?

Actual parasites. You could see the worms in it. Oh, gosh.

Yeah, and it was— sometimes it's just like threads.

Yeah, because they'll use— and I forgot, it's Makuna. Yeah, like they'll use Makuna, um, I'm sorry, not Makuna, Mimosa, Mimosa pudica.

Yeah, Mimosa pudica.

It will clean up, then it just makes sludge, and so they'll have mucus plugs.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's the problem is a lot of people will take an anti-parasite that's only got Mimosa pudica in it, and they're like, I got parasites. I'm like, no, you just lost a bunch of mucus. Yeah, it happened. Yep. Yeah. Wow, that's a crazy issue. I wasn't even aware of that. Now You mentioned the, the surge in herpes that you've seen. Are you using the same approach as you use for Epstein-Barr for that, or is it something different?

It's usually a little different. I will say that herpes viruses, when I use, let's say, Chinese medicine and frequency medicine procedures, they are very different. I can't just say, like, I love the woad, right? It's antiviral, and I like skullcap because it has a lot of antiviral capabilities, but But really it has to be where a patient comes in, I just have to assess. I would have to give them different herbs in different ratios.

Yeah, yeah.

It's very tough. I had a guy that just, um, I just worked on. He's in Dubai and they have the Ayurvedic medicine practitioners are amazing over there. Like he had one that uses oil concoction. He had it all in his stomach. He had HSV-2 and he says he was literally simplex virus too. And he said, I was literally pulling small clots, little blood out of my skin. My skin, it pulled it to the surface. Oh my gosh.

And he was using these Indian Ayurvedic herbs.

And I didn't know the combination. I said, whatever that doc's doing, keep doing it.

Yeah.

Geez. There's Ayurvedic herbs out there that do it. I mean, I use my combinations and they work really well. I believe they do because we get a lot of people cleaned up.

Yeah.

But I'm not going to be that person that says I know all the herbs.

Yeah. How does that work when you go to Dubai? People just like— fly you over to treat them after they find out about you?

Yeah, I work with a lot of patients that are already virtual clients, and, uh, they were like, hey, can you, can you come please help us out in person? So I'll go over there.

So you do, like, if somebody's listening, you do like telemedicine consults?

I do, yeah.

But you can't actually touch them and do electrical frequency testing or anything like that? They have to come to your office?

They usually have to come to the office, usually with a good— with my, uh, symptomatology assessment, I have them send a picture of their tongue, their hands, and even sometimes their eyes. And usually, brother, I can get a really good idea of which organs are—

Oh, wow.

Not even working well.

Well, now you mentioned briefly ionic foot baths. Some people raise an eyebrow at those and say that it's just an electrical reaction in the water that causes that black or brown or green sludge to form. Is there actually anything to an ionic foot bath?

I will say this from my testing. For the people listening, I have seen really big changes in people who have just done one. Before they, you know, they were toxic, and they come in and all their electric and all their acupuncture points were smooth. And I've had patients literally that have had like— they'll have— this person only has orange using the same machine. This person only has black, which a lot of like huge toxic to the colon. Some people have orange from their arthritis. They give you these color patterns, we know that. But one of the craziest stories, brother, I had a patient who had heavy parasites all in her lower legs from my indications. She did once. They didn't get that strongyloid threadworms. We're getting your legs and they'll put larvae in there.

Oh my gosh.

And so they were doing, uh, she did the foot bath. She took a picture and there are these small worms, tons of them in her water. So when they say like in ionic discharge, we know it's like if that's the highest, your toxins will go down towards that little diode in the water and it will actually liquefy and go through your pores and then it resolidifies when it hits the air. So, you'll have different toxins. Now, I'm just saying from my experience, I've seen it work.

This is interesting. For anyone who wants a done-for-you complete biohacked home, I am selling my entire tricked-out house located on 8.5 acres of forested land in Spokane, Washington. It includes a guest house, pool house, barn, whole setup for garden, goats, chickens, herbs, fire pit, along with a ton of biohacking goodies. The air, the light, the water, the electricity is all completely tricked out for optimized human biology. The highest quality air filtration systems, natural lighting friendly to circadian rhythms, low EMF, dirty electricity filters, EMF-blocking equipment throughout, built to be off-grid when necessary with buried propane and solar grid, toxin-free and low VOC construction materials, the most advanced water filtration systems one can find, a massive vegetable garden, greenhouse, herb garden, outdoor fire pit, goat and chicken grazing pasture and barn, all in a beautiful forest that's about 25 minutes from the airport and 20 minutes from downtown. This can all be yours if you're looking for a place to get away in a safe natural area and you're looking for the best of the best biohacks done for you. Here's where you can go to check it out and to fill out a form with your interest, biohackedspokanehome.com. That's biohacked Spokane home. Ben-greenfield.com.

Check it out. So, do you have any other kind of technologies in your office that you use like frequency generators? We were jumping up and down the trampoline in front of the BioCharger earlier, by the way, which we were running the Rife frequencies this morning. Do you use any tools like that?

Yes. I mean, I use— to me, thing I love to use is I say infrared pattern light instruments, which means yes, it's infrared far and near, which are calculated to do different strobe patterns. And I also use laser, cold laser therapy, with tons of specific frequency, just like your frequency generators. And I use them in concentrated batches because the instruments are smaller. Now the cool thing is they're high-powered. What I did find out was that when I held a light source at a specific length from the body in an angle, that's when their nervous system and their acupuncture system would respond. Because they use biofeedback and their pulse points to find out the length from the body. Because you could hold a light really close, and sometimes the body's just like, nah, I don't care. Yeah. But you put it at a certain length, like maybe a foot from the body, at a certain angle, like 45 degrees. What I didn't know why, but they would detox so bad from their infections. What I found out was this: when an infection is really deep in your brain or your spinal cord, it creates a frequency bond, a standing wave with the tissue. They use— they say anything that comes into that wave pattern and cuts it will disassociate the infection from the tissue. And they said infrared light therapy can do that. And I was like, that's why if you hold it at a different angle and length, it will, it'll disconnect the bond between the infection and the tissue.

So it's— is it more about the proximity or the angle?

I think it's both, but they say that angles— like, you ever seen those acupuncturists that put a needle that are in an angle? They say upstream or downstream. It has everything to do with it because on my little monitors, like, I use those devices, I use some pretty strong lasers at the office, but they will not make their change on the body unless it's at a specific angle, in my opinion.

Huh, wow. Yeah, I've got one little LED laser device called the Kineon. It's probably a lot lower power than what you have, but I like to use it as spot treatments for joints or around the neck for the vagus nerve or for blood irradiation after something like methylene blue. But yeah, speaking of methylene blue, as far as supplements go, do you yourself have certain supplements that are non-negotiables for you that you take on a regular basis?

Yeah. I would say that I do like methylene blue. I think you did visit with Dr. Laurence.

Yeah.

So, I take some of Dr. Laurence's methylene blue.

God bless him. He even injected into my prostate. He did methylene blue IV. He hangs an IV bag next to it. These red light panels and does a methylene blue IV. He does methylene blue injections like prolotherapy with methylene blue. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

My non-negotiables can be like, I say everybody's bio-individual. I go and get— I have my genetics reading and genetic report and I get an update on my methylation supplementation by one of my friends, Dr. Nancy Miller down in Texas. So, I'm saying I get my daily dose of my B vitamins and minerals, getting all those coordinated with my methylation. I do that every 3 months. Methylene blue, I do certain peptides according to what I'm— my body's needs at that time.

Okay.

And then—

And how do you know which peptides your body needs?

I usually had Dr. Miller test me out for that one. Okay. And then, I also try to figure out when you say my non-negotiables, I think to me is fatty acids. I know that many people say you take EFA, but there are certain essential fatty acids with different components like 3, 6, 9 combos that I have to use for me. And I think, but I use a lot of light therapy on myself as well.

Okay. What's Dr. Miller testing to know what kind of peptides and supplements or vitamin B complex?

She uses frequency medicine as well, but to me, she's a biochemistry wizard. So, she knows when she reads a genetic report, she can see 5, 6 steps ahead. Wow.

What's the name of her practice?

Just Dr. Nancy Miller. Dr. Nancy Miller, huh? She's really shy.

Yeah.

So, she'll be like, she goes, "Don't tell more people about me." I'm like, "I have to." But, I mean—

You just did, unfortunately.

She's the person that does so much for me.

Now, how about your movement or your exercise habits? I mean, obviously, I talk to a lot of people who practice Chinese traditional medicine, for example, or into tai chi or qigong. You mentioned yoga, but what does your movement practice look like?

Most of my practices are based in qigong movement practices. And, when we did the breathwork, Chinese, uh, qigong. And, um, mindful, I say prayers and meditation in the morning, 5 to 10 minutes of breathing with redirection of qi, like I can, like moving up certain areas in the body in the morning. And then 5 minutes of usually standing practice, grounding in the same way every single day. Um, and I say like movement, we did exercise today, but some of mine are usually like more core and sort of plyometric. Because I try to personally like focus like on my plasticity of my collagen, like getting my connective tissue, because in Chinese medicine, I was like electrical flow through the connective tissue. So daily it's stretching the fascia. That's okay.

Now the qigong, what's that actually look like?

Qigong is more like a, like a dance per se. You know the difference between tai chi and qigong? If you look at the way that qigong movements are, they're very flowing. And if you look at Tai Chi—

Is that kind of sort of like what you're doing next to the trampoline this morning? Yes.

Okay. And you see like Tai Chi is more of like a movement like with martial arts. Yeah. So, to me, they say it's the movement in a certain pattern that will allow certain meridians for certain organs to flow the best. So, certain movements in Qi Gong are for the kidney. Certain ones are for the bladder.

Yeah. Have you heard of the 5 Tibetan longevity exercises before? Yes. I do those 5 every morning when I travel. At home, I've got so many other little toys and foam rollers and stuff, I mix it up. And, I think those are specifically designed kind of like you described to target most of the different energy flows through the body.

Yes, yes.

Because you feel fantastic after you do them. I'll sometimes lead group. I'm actually headed down to LA next week to lead a couple of YPO groups and some morning workouts and I'll be taking them through those 5 Tibetan rites as part of the workout because everybody does it and I'll use that as a warm-up. And then, start to take them through the calisthenics and push-ups and squats after that. But, everybody just feels like they're turned on after these Tibetan rites.

Oh, I remember one of my good friends, Pat. She ran the acupuncture school I would learn from and she would make us do these tapping patterns and these exercises every morning. She goes, "You want something better than 2 cups of coffee?" And, we would do these tapping patterns, these movements. And, I'm telling you, I'd be like, "I don't know why I don't do this every day." Yeah, it's easier than jumping into a cold plunge.

I'll put a video, by the way, in the shownotes of me walking through the 5 Tibetans and how I do them. I'll put them in the shownotes. Now, the grounding you described, how'd you describe it? Like moving breath through your body in a certain way?

Yes. Some people may think it sounds unorthodox or weird, but when we say grounding, they always tell us that in these points on the bottom of the feet, they're called the kidney 1. The kidneys act like your battery. So, if the kidneys are weak, if you ever had stage any type of stage of kidney disease or infections, bladder or UTIs, bladder stones, kidney stones. Those are the conditions that could block your kidneys in the grounding. So they say putting your feet into the earth, but we talk about breathing. I always say you're really literally visualizing that movement of electricity up through those points, getting to your kidneys and bladder and breaking it open. So that's why, because you are creating that mindfulness program to say We're going to break up all those infections, all those biofilms, to allow your kidneys to work.

What's that visualization process actually look like inside your head?

Usually whenever I'm laying down or even sitting there or even outside is, well, it's when I say relax the shoulder, they say relax the jaw, but it is like surrender. You tell like surrender to allow your tissues to open. So one of the biggest things we have is that our connective tissue is so blocked. So when in my head I am just thinking and creating a program where my tissues are opened at the very bottom of my feet and that my tissues are receptive up in my kidneys. And, you'll feel the electricity run right through them.

Wow. Do you ever use nail beds or proprioceptive socks or anything like that to kind of turn on the nerve endings in the feet a little better?

Yeah, I use mats. I use mats with the needle mats and such.

Yeah.

Yeah, those acupressure mats. I'll have to show you. They have these Gravity Mind nail beds back at home actually down that Zen Den we were stretching out in. You stand on those things for for a while and you step off of them and you feel like you're feeling the ground in an entirely new way. Oh, yeah, yeah. And, how about the breath? Is the breath timed in conjunction that visualization or something different?

Yes. Depending on which organ that you're trying to get the electricity and the chi to move to, usually whenever I am, say I'm focusing on the heart, I'll use different diaphragm movements or diaphragm like how much I push the diaphragm out in the stomach. To pull the diaphragm down to get more electricity into my heart. Okay. And so, you do have to use different— and that does come from me working with practitioners and learning certain things, but there is a pattern of breathwork. When we did the breathwork, those are beautiful. They have them on an app now.

Yeah, yeah, that other ship app, there's another good one called the Breath Source. It's fantastic. We might do another one tomorrow morning. Now, besides the gustatorial oral or the olfactory and visual sensing of food prior to when you eat it. Do you follow a specific diet yourself or dietary principles?

Yes. I had a stomach surgery about in 2017 where I had a ruptured ulcer. So, I wasn't eating bad. I usually follow more of paleo. I can't do a lot of greens. I don't produce a lot of cellulose, so I had to take— but I take my enzyme.

Too bad we're having kale smoothies.

No, no. I can do it now since I've healed up my gut. I can do my enzyme. I'll take care of it. My body does do better on a vegetarian almost type diet with, they say, fishes and vegetables. But, I do more nice steamed vegetables and fishes and I do— I'm getting more, not say carnivore, but I do more red meat because when I had Lyme, alpha-gal, and I had yeast, I couldn't break down beef.

Yeah, I've heard that if you have Lyme or certain tick-borne illnesses, you develop an intolerance to meat like a meat allergy.

Oh, totally. And, people, they get sick. I had a guy came in today, his whole bottom lip swelled, I mean huge, from just eating beef. But I do beef, uh, you do beef now? Now you're healed from Lyme and now I can do like more greens with enzyme and I do more fruit. I don't eat a lot of fruit because they say sugars, but my diabetic doctor told me, says no, you need more fruit. And I know what, I feel a lot better on it. I don't eat a lot of it. Yeah, but yeah, I have a pretty good— yeah, around— yeah, I don't, I don't hardly need— I don't need a lot of starches. I like them, I'm not saying they're bad, I just don't eat a ton.

Yeah.

Is that a similar dietary approach that you use with your, with your patients, or does it vary from patient Everybody's different because I'll do a gene test on most patients and usually from their genetics depending on what their gene patterns are, I'll tell them if they're good for intermittent fasting, if they're good for the keto, or if they're good for—

Oh, there's genes that can tell you your response to fasting?

Oh, yeah. Really? Totally. Because if I couldn't break down my fatty acids into my Krebs cycle, if they call them— There's different genes like ACE genes and all these genes that say all these fatty acids will not even break down. I'll be like, "You're not going to do a keto diet at all." Interesting.

Yeah, I wondered that about that recent intermittent fasting study that linked intermittent fasting to heart disease. It was a weak study in general just because the folks who were fasting and had heart disease were smoking, they had high BMIs, they had poor access to good food based on income. But, I also wondered if it's possible also that because of that, they actually had some metabolic deficits that resulted in the fatty acids that were present from intermittent fasting really not passing through the mitochondria in a proper way to create ATP.

That is exactly right. If you look on their gene report, I guarantee 100% of them will not have— they call the NDUFS and MUT genes that allow sugars and starches to get actually get in their mitochondria. They will have defects. And so, what happens, those sugars will turn into extra cholesterol and triglycerides to get in their heart.

So, they can be thin people. Yeah, that pathway makes sense. Interesting. Yeah. So, yeah, those genes, if you remember what they are, I'll put them in the shownotes because a lot of people who listen, who have had or are going to get a genetic report and want to see what their response to intermittent fasting would be, they'd probably want to check those genes out.

Oh, yeah. I'll keep getting out. What I can do is I go back and I'll write these things down and that's—

Yeah.

—for the show notes. Yeah.

Yeah. Super interesting. Now, how about the spiritual component? How much do you work that in or do you have your own spiritual practice?

My own spiritual practice, yes, is like we do in prayer. And, I'm Christian by faith and it's prayer. And, I say meditation breathwork is because allowing, like, trying to get my tissues to relax and get more energy into the tissue. But I don't take that— I'm not trying to separate that from my, my beliefs either, but spiritual practice, I have to use that, and I— for prayers, for keeping my body protected, you know, energetically as well. I don't try to incorporate, tell a patient their spiritual work or what they should do, but I like to look in Chinese medicine about how each organ function is directly related to how a person will think. And people think, really? I'm like, yes. For instance, if, um, they always say the lung is grief, but the reason the lungs get tired is because the emotional trauma or belief pattern that they may have seen a parent die, they could have lost a job, that's a death to them. The lungs will feel the effect, and that person inherently will want to take in more air because something died. Wow. So their lungs will grow thicker to help them get more air. And those people always come with emphysema, asthma, bronchitis, allergies. And so they'll get more infections.

It's almost like lung hypertrophy as a response to traumatic incidents.

Yes. And it does have to do with, like you say, spiritual practice and beliefs, because if the person spiritually and their belief patterns doesn't allow them to help with that release of that grief, they'll hold on to it in their lung program, right?

If they don't have some practice of meditation or prayer or journaling or even a community or something like that. Yes. Yeah, interesting. So, do you ever, as a Christian practitioner, what would be largely Eastern medicine, in your circle that you run in, do you ever run into people kind of giving you a hard time for that?

When I first moved back to Nashville, my father who's a strict— he was a drill sergeant, good Christian guy, but he would be like, "Son, do you think people are going to take this frequency medicine stuff pretty well?" And I was like, "Well—" At first, people really came in and they asked if I believed in God and when I did these different practices. And to me, I just said, "Well, yes, I believe in God, but I'm just using your body as a circuit board and I believe that there's patterns." Whether you believe in God or not, there's patterns of electricity running through your body. And over the years, I think people saw how I approached it and now, I don't. But when I first started out, people did ask me that a lot.

Yeah, interesting. So, for you personally, do you have a morning spiritual practice that you do in conjunction with the Qigong and everything else, or is it all just kind of woven into that? It's—

I say it's not woven. I really do have my practice of definitely reading scriptures and with prayers, like specific prayers. And it's not, um, it's like praying for your patients, right? And praying for myself to interact in a way that would benefit both of us. And really praying for like healing for my, my patients.

Yeah, yeah. Wow, even if they don't know you're praying for them.

You know, if they didn't want me to pray for them, I understand. And I, you know, I don't want anything to disrupt anybody. But yeah, that's my morning, my morning time. And I usually spend most of my early times right as I get to the office too, is like asking God for help during that day.

Yeah, yeah. Wow. And, and as for you, as far as like your sleep patterns go, do you pay pretty close attention to those, or do you have sleep issues at all?

Oh, I Definitely. I had to pay attention to mine because my family line's got a pretty bad gallbladder stuff. So gallbladder, the gallbladder is supposed to recharge at night. So, my sleep is pretty good. It's been, but the last 6 months, I've been doing more gallbladder detox from parasites. So, my sleep patterns do well, but at times in the like 12:00 or 1:00, I'll get a little wake up sometimes. But, it's gotten better since I've been doing a lot more parasites.

Is that based on that Chinese circadian clock that certain organs that have dysfunctions are going to cause waking?

Oh, yes. Yes. That's what I always— I pay attention to patterns like you say. If a person's actually— if they're using an Oura Ring, if they're actually getting into a certain amount of sleep, my— what I— the way I could help, I try to tell the patient is, if you're not getting down deep sleep, I know which organ is getting— is the most toxic that's trying to clean out at that time. Clean it up and you'll see your sleep patterns change.

What's like around like 3 AM or so? The lungs. I'm mostly asking because the past 2 nights I woke up at like 3 AM.

Yeah, usually like when we said you went to India and you said the lungs were trying to clean out. Yeah, there could be stuff like that.

My father just passed too. Yeah, you know, you talked about that grief, the grief. Yeah, interesting. Wow. What are some other common waking times?

Uh, the most common I'll say is like, um, around 12, 12 AM, 1 AM. And that's gallbladder? That's going to be gallbladder, and you're going to get right to the liver. So usually that person, if they get up, gallbladder— people always say it's resentment, and it's true. And liver's anger. But usually there's two other things they have to remember: overwhelmed with too many responsibilities. And also too, if you feel like in life— it doesn't have to do with food— if you have starvation of something, like I'm starving for love, I'm starving for affection, I'm starving for attention, I'm gonna guarantee you're gonna wake up in the middle of night, 3 o'clock longs. And then sometimes I have people that tell me 5:00 a.m., they wake up. And some people get up that time, but—

I was going to say 5:00 a.m., that means morning time.

It is. Usually, if they say, "Oh, I like to sleep till 7:00," which, okay, usually constipation. They're functionally constipated, large intestine issues.

Okay, interesting. Wow. So, what I'm going to do is obviously it sounds like you're going to be able to send some stuff over, Chris, that we'll put in the shownotes. And then, I'm just going to amass a bunch of information. So, if you're listening and you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/Motley, I'll link to Chris's clinic. We'll make some lists of some of these herbal remedies and sources and tests that he likes and try and make this a real helpful show notes for you. And Chris, anything else you're looking forward to the rest of the day here in Washington?

Man, I'm just glad. I'm just glad to get to hang out with Ben. Salmon and asparagus. Oh, yeah. I'm just super glad. I'm going to go back and hit the rest of that smoothie. I'm starting to feel warm hungry now.

Smoothies tend to stick to your ribs.

Oh, man, it's going to be great. And then, yeah, just looking forward to hanging with you and I really appreciate the opportunity, brother.

Thank you so much for having me here. Sweet. Alright, folks. Well, I'm Ben Greenfield along with the great Dr. Chris Motley. Again, the shownotes are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com/Motley. If you have questions, comments, feedback, et cetera, you can leave it over there. And thanks so much for listening in. Have a fantastic week.

Do you want free access to comprehensive shownotes, my weekly roundup newsletter, cutting-edge research information, articles, top recommendations from me for everything that you need to hack your life and a whole lot more, check out BenGreenfieldLife.com. It's all there, BenGreenfieldLife.com. See you over there. Most of you who listen don't subscribe, like, or rate this show. If you're one of those people who do, then huge thank you. But here's why it's important to subscribe, like, and/or rate this show. If you do that, that means we get more eyeballs, we get higher rankings, and the bigger the Ben Greenfield Life show gets, the bigger and better the guests get, and the better the content I'm able to deliver to you. So, hit subscribe, leave a ranking, leave a review if you got a little extra time. It means way more than you might think. Thank you so much. In compliance with the FTC guidelines, please assume the following about links and posts on this site. Most of the links going to products are often affiliate links, of which I receive a small commission from sales of certain items, but the price is the same for you, and sometimes I even get to share a unique and somewhat significant discount with you. In some cases, I might also be an investor in a company I mention. I'm the founder, for example, of Kion LLC, the makers of Kion-branded supplements and products, which I talk about quite a bit. Regardless of the relationship, if I post or talk about an affiliate link to a product, it is indeed something I personally use, support, and with full authenticity and transparency recommend in good conscience. I personally vet each and every product that I talk about. My first priority is providing valuable information and resources to you that help you positively optimize your mind, body, and spirit. And I'll only ever link to products or resources, affiliate or otherwise, that fit within this purpose. So, there's your fancy legal disclaimer.