Feminine Energy, Purpose & Cognition - Finding Greater Purpose in Health and Wellness Routines

Welcome to another episode of the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast. I'm your host, Claudia von Boeselager, here to uncover the groundbreaking strategies, tools, and practices from the world's pioneering experts to help you live at your best and reach your highest potential. In today's episode, I was invited on the Vitally You podcast with Dana Frost, where I share more about my journey, how I found greater purpose in health and wellness routines, strategies to help prevent and manage neurodegenerative disease, how you can tune into the intuitive nature of feminine energy, my tips on how you can prioritize self-care, and much more. And don't forget to help spread the word by sharing the show with friends, colleagues, family. The more people we can help with this message, the better place the world will be. So thank you so much, and please enjoy.

Claudia, welcome to the Vitaliy You Podcast. I'm really excited to have you as a guest today.

And I'm so excited to be on. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Well, Claudia, I would love for you to share how you arrived to where you are today, the founder and CEO of Longevity and Lifestyle, the host of a podcast, a coach. We would love to know how it is that you came to this place.

Sure. So I guess it's been a bit of a colorful journey for me, but I guess that's what makes life interesting. And I started off my career as an investment banker, so as a female in a very high-stress, high-male-dominated environment, and went on from there to work in, in startups and, and the tech space, again, very male-dominated environments. And I've been to meetings, but even conferences where I was like one of women, right? So that's been my bread and butter and used to it. And your body kind of adapts, or so I thought. And I spent a lot of my teens and twenties with super high energy, getting by on a few hours of sleep and this way of modus operandi that burning the candles on both ends, but I was fine and I'll always be fine. And I'll be the 90-year-old out dancing at night. No problem. And then mid-thirties hit and two children and I started noticing health issues. And I'm probably like the worst patient because I have my body's like telling me something. I'm like, oh, I'll be fine. And things started to creep up as well. And I had a doctor who was like saying, there's a few things you should be paying attention to. I did, of course, notice the brain fog. My friends were like, oh, it's baby brain and this will go away. And I was like, okay, I'll just ignore that part. And then this chronic fatigue, which was very new to me. And I was like, I wonder what's going on. Okay. I'm not going to really pay attention to it as well. And then I have this chronic sinusitis and I was like, what is going on? And then there was some digestive issues as well. And these were all like new to me, but again, I'm such a a bad patient, that I was ignoring them. And I remember it was one beautiful spring day, blue skies, sunshine, and the type of day you'd have a spring in your step. And I was climbing a staircase. And I remember it was, I felt like I was climbing what I could imagine was climbing what it would be like to climb Mount Everest. And it was like one slow step in front of another. And I remember looking down at my watch and realizing it wasn't even lunchtime.. And I was so exhausted. And I was— how was I going to get through the day? I had 2 small children. I had businesses to run. I'm like, what is the next 20, 30, 40 years going to be like? And I was— this is not my vision of being a 90-year-old with high energy and doing really fun things. And it was in that moment that it finally clicked for me. And I realized if I just continue with this ignoring and pretending everything's going to be fine, it's going to be a pretty miserable 20, 30, 40 years ahead of me.. And this is not the life I'm willing to accept. And traditional medicine and the recommendations from the doctors weren't really resonating with me. So I said, okay, this is a project I need to take really seriously and into my own hands as well, because it's only going to get worse from here. And that led me onto this incredible journey of researching into everything from biohacking to doing different testing, to speaking to pioneering doctors and scientists, to doing different trainings and performance coaching, you name it, a spectrum of different meditation techniques and breathwork. And it's been such an exciting journey and it's allowed me to live in this peak state, but also have a biological age now 14 years younger than I am. So I'm officially 26 and I'm trying to get down to 20 years old and keep it there as well. But what's the purpose behind it as well? So it's not just about living well or living well longer, but my big vision or mission where I'm helping clients to reach as well is that if we can live in a peak state with high energy and thriving and on purpose, what a beautiful place the world would be instead of worrying about diseases and medical bills, especially in the US, how insanely crazy the health system is. And if you can live in such a vital and beautiful state, living out your true purpose then and making an impact on the world, like what a beautiful place the world would be. So That's where my mission came from, what I'm doing now with Longevity and Lifestyle Step by Step.

Thank you for sharing that. I remember when I was on your podcast, you said we had similarities in the stories. And when you were talking about taking that walk on that day and feeling like you were climbing Mount Everest, I can remember a distinct point in my own life when I felt I'm so tired, I can barely take two steps forward. And I think that's something that a lot of women can relate to Claudia. And also when you say, I was a bad patient. I think that it's really the female archetype that tends to, in service to her job, in service to her family, we tend to ignore the communication from our body, from our physiology. And as you said, we just think, I'll be fine. I'll be fine. I'll be fine. And Claudia, I'm sure it wasn't, I'm sure you didn't go from that day when it felt like you were climbing Mount Everest to feeling like a 26-year-old. And so could you share with us what were a few of the things that you did that really made an impact? I know in my own journey of healing from adrenal fatigue, I had to nap every day for over a year, and I did acupuncture once a week unless I was traveling for over a year. So what were some of the things that you did that you felt really made an impact on your energy?

Great question, Dana, as well. And obviously it's personalized, everyone's going to be a little bit different as well. And I think that, and exactly as you said, women tend to be like, as long as everyone else is fine around me, I'll be fine. But it's relearning, and for me this was the case, to actually check in and be like, how am I? And not just from an emotional point of view, but like, how is my body? Am I exhausted? What do I need? And being better at self-care and self-love, which was something that I definitely wasn't good at, and I've learned the importance of it. And if I'm not in a good place, how am I supposed to be in service to others? So it's paying attention to that as well. So some of the strategies that have really helped me is starting off with a morning priming session. I get up a little bit before the kids do as well, just because as soon as they're up, it's a whole nother level of intensity. And just to have that time to myself. And I start off with having daylight exposure. I live part of the year in London, sometimes in Florida where there's more sunshine, but try to get that daylight exposure. And I do a little sort of gratitude practice. And as I'm sure you've shared with your listeners as well, there's so many studies that show the power of gratitude and just getting into that positive vibration. And it's literally 2 minutes with the sun on my face. I did it this morning as well. It was beautiful. The sun's out again and just focusing on things. And it's not just saying I'm grateful for this, I'm grateful for that, but it's actually feeling gratitude. So I really implore people to understand the difference of, oh, I'm grateful for my life. I'm grateful for my bed. I'm so grateful that my heart is beating every day. I don't even think about it. Like I have a nice bed to sleep in. I have I have two children who are healthy and happy. Whatever it is, I'm happy for a new pen that I got, whatever it is that it can be. It doesn't need to be something super profound, but to really feel that gratitude practice. So that already sets you up in a great way. For me, I have low blood pressure and I found also for cognition and different benefits around that, BDNF, what I like to do is I have a Peloton at home, which I got during COVID when gyms were closed and things like that as well. I'll just do, even if it's a short 15-minute session with music that I like, you can program your thing. And I do some weights and movement as well. And then I do a morning priming session, which is a mixture of Qigong. So really getting into the body, some breathwork, some meditation, and visualization as well. And obviously there's tons of studies that show the power of this, of really visualizing your day, seeing things as done, like you've actually accomplished it because you're rewiring your brain to, oh, I don't know if I can achieve this too. It's actually been done. You can even write it down, which is really powerful. And again, circling back to gratitude and things that you're looking forward to, then it's into the shower. And depending on how brave I am, at the beginning, it was literally putting the shower cold at the very end and sort of one hand and the other, but having some sort of cold shower, if it's even 4 minutes or longer as well, it's good for your hair. It's good for your skin. But if you're in your head with stress, cold water will definitely get you into your body and like focusing on the present moment like nothing else. So That's really powerful as well. And so that's just a little morning practice that I have. And typically I'll get that sort of 90 to 98% of my days, but I really notice the difference if I don't have that. So that's just a little kind of sneak peek into that, that part of my morning routine. But I think other big game changers is really taking sleep seriously and not just seriously, but getting that quality sleep and really tweaking things, making sure it's a dark room. I have light sensitivity, the blackout curtains, that the temperature is also okay. I'm a cozy person. And I can have warm temperatures. I know now the importance of a colder room and that sort of sleep hygiene around that. And, and obviously it starts with the, the evening routine as well, so the lack of blue lights. And there's so many things you can do. There's the Flux, F.L.U.X., free software you can download on your laptop to just change it to a warm light versus the blue lights. Avoiding screens, avoiding news, television, things like this as well around bedtime. A long answer to a short question, but those are some of the things that really helped me set up the day to, to to win. Obviously nutrition, exercise I had been doing, but I made some alterations as well. And maybe just one point on exercise. So my sort of A-type personality was very much— I had to do an hour of spinning and then I did an hour of some sort of weight training, 2 hours, like overkilling myself, cortisol, adrenals maxed out, etc. And realizing that's not just the way you need to do things. Like you can do it in a softer way and your body will thank you as well. So that was also a revelation that it wasn't just about push, push, but actually like to be a bit more calm and centered. I had a daily meditation practice this before, but it just took it to another level and having that as a routine as well.

I love what you call daily priming. So I have morning, I call it morning quiet time, but I really love that you're priming yourself for the day and that the visualization part is so very powerful. Claudia, I resonate highly with that. I call it pre-membering where you go through and you pre-member how things are going to unfold and it's really just So amazing to hear stories from clients when they have a difficult family— maybe it's a family encounter, a family gathering, and there's tension in the family, and they— or they have a difficult conversation with a boss or a coworker, and they take themselves through the process of, let me allow this event to play out in my mind in a way that is for the best, for the good of all people involved, in a way where love, the vibration of love is what comes forward. And it really is just amazing, the stories that come back. Even before every podcast, I have the pre-membering of the podcast. I think that's such a great pearl for our listeners to realize the power of slowing everything down. As you were talking, I was thinking it's the masculine archetype and the masculine energy that we need. It's a beautiful energy. But it's that heavy, heavy on the go. If we think about just physical strength of carrying a big load and taking something forward with all of the strength we can muster, there's a lot of constriction in that process. The feminine way is— and this isn't to say women aren't strong, women are incredibly strong— to be soft, to carry something With a soft energy, it actually requires, I believe, a lot more intention.

I really liked that as well. And this is actually a subject matter that I'm really looking and studying more about as well, because I've come from these very highly analytical, very cerebral, very male-dominated environments to actually learning about reconnecting in the wisdom of the body, like getting out of the mind and dropping into the heart, dropping into the gut, like whatever it is for people, how they communicate. Communicate that, listening to that wisdom. One of my favorite sort of analogies of this is from Dr. Mark Atkinson, who says being in the prefrontal cortex is like being in a cave. You are restricted in your thinking. But if you drop into the body through breathing, connecting with the heart, it's like being in the ocean. There's this like infinite wisdom and knowledge in there. And the more that you're able to connect with it, and the more you're able to listen and learn from it and hear it, the wisdom is endless as well. And, and especially women have the advantage of being intuitive. And knowing that women have so many superpowers that they can tap into accordingly as well. And we're not taught that, we're not trained that women are expected to be a certain way. And this is if you want to work, you need to compete and do it this way. But actually there are other ways that women can deal with things as well. So I really like that with the female energy and feminine energy, which men also have. So it's different from being male or female. And it's also like being open to receiving and not having to know everything. And one of my mentors that I speak with as well, as she says, it's like stepping into a circle of not knowing and not needing to know. And what I love is the expression of let the universe surprise you. You don't have to always plan everything and know everything and see these synchronicities that appear from it as well. So it's really beautiful.

I love that. Can you give us an example in your own life of when you felt that synchronistic awareness or when something just really dropped in and you were like, Wow, I did not have to work so hard for this because the model has been, you've got to really, you got to work really hard. You actually even have to study really hard and you'll never know enough instead of sitting back, relaxing and allowing things to come towards you. Do you have an example in your life from that?

I'm trying to think of like one of the best ones. So this is my thing as well. I think I've had different situations where I've been like, had the idea like, oh, it'd be really helpful to have someone join the team or work get together with someone who has this. And lo and behold, like, I'm put in touch with this person, or somebody reaches out to me, and I have to smile because now I'm much more in tune with things like this as well. Before, I would have been like, oh, this is a great coincidence. And now I'm just like, of course this is happening. But for me, and I'm trying to— my kids are 6 and 8 years old, so they're still quite young, and I'm always coming with different ideas, but I'm trying to help them also to tap into their intuition because I do believe that children are innately intuitive, but they unlearn it during— through the educational system. So I challenged my 6-year-old who was hiding things in a hide-and-seek game, and she couldn't find one of the things, and I listen to your intuition, like tap into that. And she found it again. But for me, it was really funny. So my, my Oura ring, as, as loved as it is, but it gives me all my data and things like that as well. And we were visiting friends in Abu Dhabi, and I went swimming in the ocean with the girls, and there was waves, and I'm holding on to them, and my ring was gone. And I was like, silly me, going into the ocean, of course, with the waves, and the water is beautiful, crystal clear, but it was gone. And that evening, I was obviously a bit disappointed, but that evening the girls had fallen asleep and I was going to bed, and I just had this flash of intuition, but it was like the one of the most clearest in my life, and I knew exactly where the ring was. And so I woke up the next morning and I said, okay girls, we have to go back to where we were. So we went from our friend's place and we've been for the day at this hotel, and I had totally forgotten because we'd probably been at the hotel for the day, and we had been at the same place for 7 hours and 45 minutes, and I'd forgotten that there was just a few minutes when we had arrived that we were somewhere and I'd taken off the ring to put the sun cream on. And lo and behold, that flash of intuition was so precise. I went back there and there was the ring. Whatever you want to call it, I don't know, but it was unbelievable. And I was so thankful that what I had assumed was lost in the ocean was actually still sitting there.

So yeah, I love that story. I have goosebumps all over. And isn't it so true, we can— we all have so many examples of losing something and feeling the constriction and the anxiety about it, and then searching voraciously to find it and not finding it. And then when we relax and we let go, then suddenly we, we find it, or somebody else finds it. And I had— this is just a really silly situation, but I had a situation with my dishwasher on Sunday. It wouldn't close. It was in this weird situation and I did go look at troubleshooting. I go look at YouTube videos because I can't fix it on my own and I work on it for a while and then I'm just like, I just need to relax. Like I have no control over this. I didn't want in my mind, and I'm sure everyone can relate, oh, this is one more thing for me to do this week. I need to call a service person and it's one more thing to do. So I got really worked up about it. And then I was like, I really have no control over this. And I just, let it go. I walked over, it was literally within seconds, I walked over the dishwasher and I just gently closed it again.

Closed.

Amazing.

Yeah, it's that allowing for something to happen like that, being receptive and not the doing but the receiving as well. So that's a good example. Yeah, and probably before you were maybe forcing it versus like the gentle touch maybe.

I think Claudia, one of the things I want to make sure we talk about is, and you mentioned mindset, but I know I've never talked about Alzheimer's or cognition, memory loss on the podcast before. And in my prior life out of college, I was a social worker and I worked in the area of dementia and I worked with the Alzheimer's Association. I'd led support groups. So I would, I would love if you pearls. I think this is something that you have really looked into, and I'd love for you to share some of your pearls of knowledge in this arena. Sure.

I'm very happy to. And it's a topic really close to my heart because my mother is sadly well progressed on the path of dementia. And in the past, I just thought this is a disease that you get from unhealthy eating or whatever it may be as well. And through a sequence of different events, I had the honor and pleasure of meeting Dr. Dale Bredesen of the Buck Institute and Apollo Health, who actually has a protocol for A, identifying, right? So there are 38 different drivers that will lead to dementia, Alzheimer's, and different neurodegenerative diseases as well. So basically one is to get to the root cause of it, and then different protocols on what you can do to either prevent it if you're not on that path yet, or to actually reverse it if caught on time. And at the time though, sadly, my mother was at a stage that she was so advanced that we were able to improve things for a certain period of time, but it wasn't there that we could get her back to 100%. And by 100%, just in case people are interested, there's a MoCA score, M-O-C-A. It's the Montreal Cognitive Assessment score. And so a perfect cognition is 30. I think you can even do them for free online. They're not very challenging. It obviously depends on your cognition. But through the protocol and Dr. Del Bredesen's work and clinical research that they've done is that as over time and as disease progresses, you will decrease in your score. If you have a MoCA score of 18, which is seen as mild to medium level of cognitive decline, they were able to reverse people who even had a score of 18 back up to 30, which is just incredible. And trust me, we've been to a lot of different neuroscientists and neurologists. This is so foreign to them. They can't believe it. And there are FDA drugs that unfortunately will at least pause, but if not even pause, some of them actually expedite the decline as well. So there is no cure. However, the cure is actually the protocol. But because there's no— there'll never be one pill that will cure all, because as I said before, there are 38 different drivers, which can be anything from if you have mercury fillings, like mercury is poisonous in the body. This will affect your cognition. So I implore anyone who has mercury fillings to please take them out. And you can do a mercury detox and you can get other fillings put in that are less toxic as well. To low vitamin D levels. And we forget the importance of basic things like vitamin D and testing. And just to make a little side note, those normal ranges on your blood test, you think they're normal for you? No, they're based on a white man in the '60s in the United States. Now, I don't know how many of us are exactly like this white man from the '60s, but I definitely am not. And also, I don't want to live in a normal range of this guy that I don't even know. I want to live in an optimal state as well. Which is another reason why I implore people to really speak with a functional medicine trained practitioner that looks for optimal ranges for you as well. So what came through chance as well of discovering the book, the, it's called The End of Alzheimer's Program: How to Reverse Cognitive Decline and Alzheimer's at Any Age, is really understanding what is going on and without getting too much into the science as well. But number one is really the testing to see where your levels are and to see, are they really in optimal levels? Is your magnesium levels too low? Do you have toxins in your body? I mean, Some people live in houses where there was a leak, and the leak, you don't even always see the black mold, which are then toxins that enter your body. They could be behind the walls. And these are all things that you can actually test, which is really great. And I guess another caveat to say is that Alzheimer's and dementia and most neurodegenerative diseases are a 20-year-in-the-making disease. You can catch them on time and you can reverse them, which is so empowering. So don't just write yourself off or say, oh, my mother had it, my grandmother had it, I'm going to have it. There's nothing I can do. Let me just go on as is. You can change this. You can change this cycle and you just need to get on top of it. As I mentioned from Dale's book, there's amazing resources as well. And so one is to get to the testing. And now for my mother, which was really interesting, is that her dementia was caused from head trauma. So she had 3 bad head trauma incidents. One was at a gym and she used to go to the gym at 8 AM every morning, come what may.. And so she, like, the exercise and physical activity was always there. But one day she was walking across treadmills to get onto the treadmill where she was looking to get, and someone had left it on, and she was speaking with somebody, fell, had a bad head injury. She tripped over another step, had another head trauma, and then through some thrombosis, she ended up having a third very bad head trauma that caused a severe concussion. So her head trauma or her dementia came from head trauma and lack of HRT. Hormone replacement therapy after hysterectomy in the 1990s. And those are the two main drivers through all the testing that we did that have caused her dementia, which is just so sad and so heartbreaking because had we known what to do back then, this could totally have been resolved for her. So again, I really implore people to look at that and to check out the book as well.

Can I say one— I just want to interject something, Claudia, because you're bringing up just, this is such a clarifying moment in terms of, you mentioned see a functional practitioner because what a functional practitioner will do, they'll go back and they'll do a timeline that is pre-birth to date. And they're actually going to catch those falls. They're going to catch every little thing that's happened in your life. So you can begin to create a framework for your health because everything that's ever happened leading up to where you are today contributes to what you're experiencing today. And you're right, if you catch it early enough, there are strategies that you can turn these things around and you can— we really need to be thinking, this is where I am today. How do I want to feel in 10 years and 20 years and 30 years? And what, from a functional lens, we look at antecedents, we look at triggers, and we look at mediators. And you really need that framework when you're thinking about how do I want to feel in 10, 20 years? Okay, continue. This is very interesting.

Thank you so much. No, my, my pleasure as well. And I think it's, some people are like, these tests are expensive and I won't do that as well. But honestly, do the cost analysis and think about what it's going to cost you down the line if you continue with these chronic illnesses and diseases. And not just that, but also for family members, specifically now with dementia and Alzheimer's, but I think any disease, type 2 diabetes is now reversible. There's so many things that you can do. Yes, it takes effort. Yes, it takes time to think about, okay, I need to change my diet and exercise and lifestyle interventions that need to be done. But you spend a bit of time doing that and then it becomes routine and habit. So just, it's maybe a few months of time and effort that go in and okay, yes, there is initial outlaying cost, but it's saving you so much in the long term. And think of the upside, the vitality, the excitement, the health, the benefits, the enjoyment of life instead of going to doctor visit after doctor's visit and no one really knowing exactly what the problem is, et cetera. So I really implore people to have that mindset shift to do that and have your why as well. So you have your purpose for why you want to do that.

Okay. So let's go back to your mom because I am so curious to know. I interrupted you, but tell me how that progressed for your mom. So we know where she was.

I'm sure you did some of the protocols. Yeah, exactly. So we had her on the routine. So one of the benefits is going on the ketogenic diet because I'm not sure how familiar your listeners will be into the difference between the ketogenic diet versus the standard diet, let's say, or a healthy diet. Diet. But when your body is in ketosis, you produce ketones, which is an energy source. Your brain loves ketones. And one of the triggers of dementia and neurodegenerative diseases is that the brain is pretty much starving. It has insulin resistance and it cannot basically get— be fed and have BDNF from the typical diet. And, and if you think back to the caveman times, like when there was no food around, the humans would have all died off if we were not able to produce energy without food. So it's a natural state for the body to be in, and the best is when you actually shift between being able, like, feasting and fasting. So one is to be on the ketogenic diet. So we got her on that and to make sure that she was having at least a 12 to 14 hour window overnight, typically of fasting, but you're asleep anyway and you're doing things like that as well. We looked at, like, sleep apnea. We looked at her oxygen levels. Now, my mother has extreme low blood pressure, and so her oxygen levels were sometimes dropping quite low. So that was also something we had to address and look at. Another one was also doing sort of mental stimulation, and there are, like, BrainHQ or some online tests. It's tricky. I even tried it myself and you really have to, A, know technology, which my mother is not a strong point, but to be able to click the right game aspects on the screen at the same time. But even just playing a puzzle, playing Uno, playing different games, having that interaction is really important. And then exercise, right? So it depends again on your baseline where she is now. And because of her fall and her lack of stability and having to recuperate from that, Even just having 30 minutes of consecutive walking, fast walking, even with Nordic sticks or whatever it is that you might need, or depending on where you are, maybe for you it's a run, whatever, but you want to have that, um, 30 minutes of exercise is just really fundamentally important. So you have the diet, the exercise component, and then supplements. And depending if you need to do a detox, like if your mercury or toxin levels are really high, you look at that as well. What's also really interesting, there are studies done out of the Amen Clinics they did a lot of clinical trials on NFL players. So the American football players who obviously have extreme amount of head trauma and of course extreme amounts of dementia, ALS, Parkinson's. That's really sad. However, they've developed protocols on how to reverse brain damage. And Dr. Kristen Willomeyer, who I've had on my podcast as well and has become a dear friend, was head of director of brain imaging at the time, developed a protocol that she was working with these NFL players on reversing. And one of, one of the components included doing hyperbaric oxygen therapy. It's so powerful. And because she was doing the brain scans before and after that, she actually had one NFL player, former NFL player, I should say, who refused to change his diet, refused to change his exercise. The only thing he would commit to was the hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And that alone was showing regrowth in parts of the brain. So again, this is very advanced. There is not that much research out there, but what is there is so powerful. That if any of your listeners or any family members are suffering, this is definitely something to look into and even just to try and even do the scans before and after as well. So just backtracking to my mother as well, I think COVID was very unfortunate because her really bad fall that she had where she had a complete concussion and was hospitalized for 8 weeks was just before COVID hit. And my mother's a very social creature. She loves her friends, loves activities, loves planning things. So during that recovery time is when COVID was really at its worst. People were not interacting, weren't socializing. And I think when you get to a certain age in life, it's so important to maintain those relationships and interactions for anyone. The Harvard study on longevity, one of the keys is community and feeling connected. And so if that falls away, especially if that's such an important part for you already, that will affect your cognition and memory loss. So yeah, so with my mother, because her score was 11, not 18 when we came across Dr. Bredesen's protocol. It's just more trying to maintain that as well. She also has other issues with the low blood pressure, which then makes her feel dizzy sometimes, et cetera, as well. Unfortunately, it's not a perfect success case, which I would love. And yeah, it's heartbreaking because this is someone who used to be a real shining star and center of attention, but in terms of always like there to help the world and help people. And I wish we had caught it earlier. Take my pain and suffering with this for her to implore people to really see what you can do proactively and before it gets too far along.

Yeah, I think that really is the message, Claudia, because I can see that her story is part of your motivation. And I know for myself, the story of my father and my— his mother, my grandmother, it's part of my motivation. And so these are the things that today, because of everything that we know, what we have access to, we really are able to change our own health trajectory, even if you know, it couldn't have been done for previous generations, it really can be done. We do have the knowledge today. Thank you so much for sharing that. It's really interesting. I was exposed to Dr. Bredesen's work in my nutrition school, and I've never taken a deep dive into it. And I think it's just really important information, vitally important information for us to have as we think through How do we want to grow older?

Yeah. And not to just accept like aging and like, I have to age and this is all part of it as well. But actually, if you feed the human body, like if you catch any diseases early, you can reverse it to feed the body. I find it still so shocking that nutrition is not taught in medical school. All the years of training as a doctor. And if you ask the majority of them, they've either had zero time training in nutrition or maybe 1 hour. So they don't have that knowledge unless they've gone about researching, researching it themselves. And as you will know, Dr. Mark Hyman is such a leader in this field as well of making it completely acceptable and a must that food is really the medicine we feed our body every day. So I think that's really the starting point for so many.

I did want to say that because the ketogenic diet, it is a therapeutic diet. It's a therapeutic protocol. And I know that it's super trendy right now., but it's actually not necessarily the therapeutic diet that everybody needs to have. So I wanted just to say that, to get that on the record. It is a therapeutic diet. It is incredibly effective for people who have brain disorders. It's effective for people who have type 1 diabetes, seizures. There are, but it's not something that all everyone should, should be jumping onto as it is.

Yeah. Thank you for pointing that out. It's really important as well. And I think what people also who try it as more like a fun diet think they don't realize that it is a very precise diet because if you take too much protein in it, you shift the balance, you kick yourself out of ketosis, and then you're just eating a lot of fat, which then can lead to things like gout, etc. So you need to— if you're going to do it, it's like a binary, all or nothing. You need to do it really clearly and perfectly. Basically, there has to be other factors in place that are tested in advance. It depends what your use is. If you actually get a very clean, healthy diet and your purpose is for weight loss, then just focus on having a beautiful, really healthy food diet and look at what you're eating of whole foods. You don't need to go as extreme as to go into a ketogenic diet.

Okay. Thank you for— I just wanted to clear that up. And we are nearing our end, Claudia. This has been such a great conversation. I have so many more things that I want to talk to you about. So maybe you need to come back as a guest again. I do. I have— there are a couple of questions I want to ask you. One, because you have a very full life with your work, so this your service to the world, and you are in the phase of life where you have these two very young children. Is there one tip you could give to any of the listeners who are in a similar situation as you? Like one juggling tip or one, I guess maybe you're rising before they were, before they wake up, which was my tip always as a mom, but any, anything else that comes to mind?

Yeah, that's a really great Good question. I think definitely if, if you're not aligned and in a good place, then your whole kingdom around you is not going to be as well. So I think it's that knowing what you need for you and allocating time for that and really scheduling that time as well. And I think one of my learnings about what not to do in the past was like work and then everything else had to squeeze in around that, and then there was no time left. And instead look at the sort of week plan and be like, okay, when is my self-care or like me-time slots, even if it's at 5 AM or 6 AM or whatever that needs to be. And then build in breaks during the day for the, I don't know, the let the universe surprise you. Maybe you need to have that siesta, that, that nap or that meditation time during the day to recharge your batteries. But whatever it is that you need to do to be at your best. So I think my tip is that, that planning, starting with the self-care time, and then going from there to allow you to be at your best. And then, just maybe one add-on to that as well. I'm reading Cal Newport's book on deep work. And it totally resonates with me because I think women are like, oh, we're multitaskers and we're great at doing this as well. But there's so many studies that show the importance of going deep on one topic in over an hour and a half to 3 hours at a time. That's where your creativity comes through, your real value comes through. So, even from a work context, to really build in those longer blocks of time to do something more productive than just trying to multitask 20, 30 things as well. So, a long answer to a short question, but—

I'm so glad that I asked you that question because those are wonderful little bits of wisdom there.

Okay, and then my final question: What does feeling younger while growing older mean to you? That's also a great question as well, and I think comes back to what I said at the beginning. It's about having that vitality, that love of life, that being excited excited and joy every day of your mission and what you're here to do and to help people and impact their lives. That's part of my mission. Everyone will have a bit of a different one. So I think that feeling younger gives me that energy and that vitality to, to live my purpose.

I love it. Thank you so much, Claudia. It has been a pleasure having you as a guest. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me on, Dana. This is such a pleasure as well.

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