The Secret of a Healthy Life: Free Medicine

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Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. So if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys, and then we bring on somebody with that why to see how their why has played out in their life. So today we're going to be talking.

About the why of better way.

And so if your why is to find a better way, then you are the ultimate innovator. You are constantly seeking better ways to do everything from the most mundane task of brushing your teeth to to improving the rocket fuel that powers the space shuttle. You can't stop yourself. You take virtually anything and want to improve it, make it better, and share your improvement with the world. You invent things and take what has already been invented and improve that, too. You constantly ask yourself the question, what if we tried this differently? What if we did this another way? You contribute to the world with better processes, better systems, and operate under the motto often pleased, never satisfied. You are excellent at associating and taking from one industry or discipline and applying it to another, always with the aim of improving something. You generally operate with a high level of energy because after all, that too is a better way. And so this podcast is going to be a little bit different than the usual podcast because I am going to have a co host and so I am going to have my partner, Jerry Lujan on with me here. Now, you have all met Jerry because we did a podcast interview with him a few months back. So if you haven't heard, Jerry had a very successful business that he sold his interest in about 10 years ago, and he has been coaching high performers for the last 10 years, whether that's in business or whether that's in sports. So, Jerry, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Gary. Great to be here.

So our guest today is somebody that you know really well. Let me read his bio so that everybody knows who we're talking about. His name is Ara Supaya and he is an ER and sports medicine physician. He's currently working on the front line with COVID At the present, he has taken seven players to number one in the world. Multiple majors, multiple Ryder Cups, FIFA, Women's World cup, with Team usa. He's on NBC Sports and Golf Digest analyst. He's a wannabe tennis pro who studies ancient tribal practices of health as well as medical technology and wearables. And, Jerry, you two are good friends. Tell us a little bit about him before we bring him on.

Yeah, he's like a brother to me from a completely different past. But, you know, I met him in 2016 at a workshop that I was putting on with a guy named Scott Mann and Bo Eason. It was called RA Leadership Unplugged. And it was for people that believe that we have to lead ourselves because no one else is coming. And he was a guest of my friend Bo Eason's, and we connected because of how much golf Ara's in. You know, he was. I'd seen him before. He's the. He's the medical doctor on the Golf Channel. And so, you know, we'd seen him a lot at different areas, but I'd never met him. So Beau introduced me to him, and we started talking, and I had some health issues, actually, that I was a little concerned about. And so since he's, you know, you mentioned in the bio, but he works with. I mean, if someone wants to become number one in the world in either professional golf or tennis, they pretty much hire Ara. A year before last, he won. His guys won seven of the eight majors in golf and tennis. So that's just the level that he works at. So since I'm a better way guy, I said, he's probably got a better way as to how to help me. So we started going through some things of my health, and the next meeting we had, he says, hey, Jerry, I really like what you are doing, but I am not going to follow you. And I was like, dang, Ara, that is kind of harsh. Why not? I thought you liked where we were going. He goes, yeah, I do. But he paused and said, but you are not going to make it. I said, of course I am going to make it. I am real clear about where I am going. And he goes, yeah, but you are not going to have the health to sustain it over a long period of time. So we started talking a lot. When he said that, it pretty much rocked my world and thankfully, to Ara, changed my life because he helped me with some very simple things that I could do from an energy standpoint. And then we started talking, as you said, better way about how do we combine clarity plus energy, which he focuses on. Energy times commitment equals peak performance. And so we've been developing this whole system around that. And I just love him to death. He just has a way of breaking things down to a level that better than anyone else I've ever seen. And as a better way person, I trust him so much because he actually, he doesn't do anything. He doesn't advise somebody to do something until he's done it. And so he looks through a completely different lens about things. So we'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute. But love him to death. He's a, he's a great friend and you know, I'm saying a lot of prayers for him because he's been on the front lines of COVID now for over a month. And so he's been one of those guys that stepped into the breach and has been doing a lot to help a lot of people. So just love the guy.

Well, let's bring him on. Arav, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, thank you. I'm sitting here listening to all of this and go, wait a minute, is that me? That sounds like a cool dude.

Hope you can live up to it, huh?

Yeah, that's the hard part. We never go. We'll see where we go.

So you're right now working on the front line of this whole Covid thing going on. What's it like out there? Give us kind of an update.

You know, I'm here in Orlando, Florida. We were expecting a pretty bad surge. Well, we were expecting a surge end of May, end of April, beginning of May. But with all the social distancing, everything that was done by the state, we haven't seen anything. I mean, the volumes in the hospital are so low to a point where, you know, and this is something, you know, they are, you know, people don't realize this. The act, the hospitals, the volumes in the ER are so low that we are having to offload staff because we don't need them. And the hospitals are hurting to a point now because of lack of surgery, lack of ER visits. You know, it's a bit like a business, right? If there's no one coming in, there's no money coming in, there's no billing, that they are furloughing staff in the hospital, believe it or not, which in 25 years of being a doctor, I've never seen. So it's a different challenge. Thankfully, it's not one of COVID surge and capacities issues in the hospital, as well as death, that has been a minimal amount. But you know, the thing is, it's one of those things, it could spike tomorrow. You know, we are always behind it. So it could spike. And if you're not ready, you're seeing a spike that is going to peak in 10 days, 15 days from now. So despite everything, even though it's slower, we still are on constant alert. And that's the tough part.

So do you think it was that the COVID wasn't as bad as we thought, or do you think it was that we jumped in so early and got the social distancing that that made the difference, or do you have any idea on that?

Frankly, I don't think we have any idea about this virus from the beginning. Think about it. This virus is what, six months old right now? Okay? People spend, you know, 30 years studying HIV 1 virus, right? It's six months old. When I first started this, you know, in, back in March when they were talking about ventilators, put everybody on ventilators, blah, blah, blah, that's this. The body's immune response is becoming so strong, it's called a cytokine storm. Okay? Basically meaning your immune system is so strong to this virus, it's hurting your own self. Okay. It's a bit like instead of using a key to open the front door, you're throwing a hand grenade and you're blasting everything just to get through the front door. Right? And that was the initial thought. And they said, put everybody on a ventilator, give everybody a ton of fluids, let the body subside and let the storm calm down. Now they're saying, wait, wait, wait, do not put people on ventilators, like hold off until the very end. If you cannot, then put them on a ventilator. Because it's not so much the cytokine storm. What we're seeing is the virus is causing blood clots in the lung and what looked like pneumonia is now, unfortunately, postmortem studies and medical examiners assessment of people who passed shows that the virus is causing a lot more clots. And that's why even the younger people. There have been cases of strokes in younger people with COVID Okay? That's where we are right now. I mean, who knows what it's going to be nine months from now? We have no idea. We don't even know if you have these antibodies, whether or not that confers immunity, if so, for how long, if so, for which strain, you know, if the virus metamorphosize, you know, transforms, would you be immune to other things? No idea. Absolutely no idea. So because of that, you have to be extremely open minded. And no matter what you read, you got to take it with a pinch of Salt. Knowing that that is only true in this very moment. For now. Tomorrow, it could change every time they say, you know, hey, you know, a Z pack and hydroxychloroquine looks promising. Where's all that now? Right now we're talking about the new antiviral plus demevit. Now, is that going to be around a month from now? I don't know. We don't know. So that's the hard part with this whole thing.

Well, we'll just have to wait and see. And so people will be listening to this podcast in the future. So we will have figured out by then, hopefully, what. What actually did work.

Correct.

So let's change subjects a little bit. Let's. Let's talk about now. How did you get from an ER doctor to working with the world's top athletes? How the heck does that happen?

It happens because I'm 5 foot 9 and I wanted to be a professional tennis player, and so I couldn't make it. So I became a doctor. But I vicariously always want. Well, vicariously lived through my athletes, but I always wanted to be a tennis player. And so I was working in the ER in London. This was, you know, I went to medical school, I graduated, I trained as a surgeon. I didn't like it, so then I swapped to er, which was always, like, very natural to me, you know. And then I was working in an ER one day, and there was this kid came in and he sprained his ankle, you know, and it was a, you know, it was busy. So, you know, I saw the X rays. There was nothing broken. I saw the report like, you know, he had sprained his ankle. So I go in and talk to him after having seen all that, and I examined him, and he had a pretty straightforward ankle sprain. So I gave him the usual advice, you know, elevated eyes, anti inflammatories, compression, you know, and take it from there. And as I was leaving, he goes to me, hey, Doc. And this is in England. And he goes, when can I play tennis again? And so I looked at him and I was like, you know, he's a young guy. And I was like, are you any good? And he goes, yeah, I'm the number two junior in the country.

I was like, oh, my God. So I was like, well, I said, are you like, you know, it was winter months, right, in England. And so I was like, you know, I said. He said, I've got a tournament coming up in the new year. You know, I just want to know when I can start running and training again. You know, so I said, well, dude, don't you have any physios or, you know, anyone like that in university that can help you? And he's like, no, university is shut. Like it's Christmas break and when we open our go to play.

And I had no idea how to help this guy. I've taken bullets out of people. I've dealt with heart attacks, strokes, put shoulders back in, taken things out of people's bodies that should have never been there. And I couldn't answer this simple question, when can I run again? Right? So it kind of bothered me because partly, like, you know, I was thinking, you know, that's. To him, that's pretty important. You know, it's like having a heart attack for a tennis player. So the next day I go to work and I go find my boss and I said, hey. I said, look, I'm trained in surgery. I'm board certified in surgery, I'm training critical care. I'm a pretty senior trainee in ER medicine. How come I can't answer this question? And he goes, you know, it doesn't matter. Things like that don't matter because, you know, he's not going to die. If it's six weeks or six months, he'll at some point start running again. It will resolve itself, you know. But I was like, no, because it matters to him, to a tennis player who's serious about tennis, to have an ankle not being able to run, it's like having a heart attack, you know. So I said like, no, that's, that's not right. You know, you should be able to help that guy just as much as anybody else who's having a heart attack because it's important to him. And he was like, well, you know, if you want to do that, go study sports medicine. And I had never heard of sports medicine. So I went and looked into it and I could do. I could train in sports medicine. While still training er. It just meant, like, not having a life for like two years, which was fine because I didn't have a life anyway. And so I did that. And during that time, I had contracted a very serious, deadly illness called golf. I started playing golf and it was.

So what I did was I started doing sports medicine, started studying that, and then started looking at back pain in golfers. And then I wrote to the European Tour, you know, tried to work with them, and eventually got in there after many rejections, and then started working with the athletes. And then, you know, initially I got there to interview them, but eventually when they started seeing me More and more, they kind of said, you know, it's actually one very high profile athlete, actually, who said to me one day, he goes, hey, are you. Are you like a real doctor? And I was like, what do you mean? And he goes, no, are you like one of those real doctors or are you like a doctor from, like some like, scientist doctor? So I was like, no, no, I'm a real doctor. I've got a stethoscope and I go to the hospital.

So then he asked me about an injury and I helped him out. And then that kind of caught on and people started talking to me. And then it became very interesting. The number one complaint among professional golfers was something that I hadn't been trained in. Despite all my training, right here I am training emergency medicine, surgery, sports medicine. And they would say to me, doc, I'm tired all the time. Doc, my allergies are bad.

Doc, why does it take me like a week to get over jet lag? You know, all that training, all, you know, I would do blood work and blah, blah, blah, and nothing would show up. And I really didn't know how to help them, you know, and that's when I looked down another path and, you know, I discovered I'd done some work with Team gb, the cycling team that, you know, won all the Olympic medals in London way back before. Then. There was a guy there, and one day I saw him and I said, hey, why would I actually be tired, you know, and all the blood work are normal? And he said, you know, you should look at the adrenals. They could have adrenal fatigue. And I had never heard of adrenal fatigue at this point. I was like, huh. So, you know, and so I went off and I called up one of my buddies who I went to medical school with. He was training me an endocrinologist. And I said, hey, what do you know about adrenal fatigue? And he was like, what? Adrenal what? How can adrenal. Like that's like saying you have heart fatigue or kidney fatigue or liver fatigue. Like, that doesn't happen. You'll die if it happens. So I was like, huh? Okay. Now, having born in Malaysia, I was very familiar with, like, Chinese medicine and all this kind of stuff, you know. So one day I was walking back in London and I would walk past this Chinese medical medicine store for months, and I'm never going. But that day I just walked in and I said, hey, do you guys have anything for like, the adrenals? You know? And the guy, like, spoke to his other guy in Chinese. And the guy said, yeah, we have a tonic for. For low adrenal qi.

Like, what is qi? And it's like energy. Like, if the adrenal no good, you drink the tonic. So that's when it dawned upon me. I was like, wait, Chinese medicine is 5,000 years old and it's still being practiced now. So they have something for something with adrenal. That thing is real. So I started looking down that way. Then I discovered this is way back before functional medicine became functional medicine. I went to my librarian. I had to fill up a form. She sent it off to the national library. Because I found one paper in the 70s that had this thing on Internet. There was no Google at that point to get a search and download a PDF. There was no such thing. So we sent it off. Two weeks later, I get the article back. I was in all the articles, looking at references. It was crazy.

And that's how it started. So I started using those kind of things to address the problems that the athletes needed. You know, as a trainee, as a physician, you think you know what someone needs. You know, you think, oh, it's going to be tendonitis, or it's going to be sprains and ankles, blah, blah, blah. But a lot of them say, I'm not sleeping as well, or I'm tired, I'm fatigued, my allergies are bad. And conventional medicine, you know, prepared me to some extent down the pharmaceutical line. But as to why they developed all these problems in the first place was not part of my training, you know. And so I learned a lot, you know, through my athletes. I say this all the time, like in defense to physicians. Physicians are great at studying disease and prescribing medications for that disease, right? So if you take a car that, like, you know, there's smoke coming out the engine or the red light comes on, you take it to a mechanic, they know how to fix that problem. That mechanic may not know how to make the car go faster, which is what these athletes need. So being a physician, understanding that didn't automatically. Even though the public's Persona is that we should be the bastions of health, we didn't study health. We studied disease. So I went complete360 and went back to study health. That's where I studied ancient practices. I studied tribal medicine. I studied everything I could, really. And I traveled a lot. And I would always pick the people. The people I met, I would see, like, you know, hey, you know, how come they're drinking this much wine and they're completely fine. Why is a hundred year old, you know, Italian looking like this and a 70 year old, you know, Malaysian looks like this? Like, it would always bug me, you know. Then I guess Jerry pointed this out to me later. I was like, I would look at it, go through all the information and go, you know what? Of all the things out there, like, if you did these three things, you will get 90% of the results. And that just became my style of work, I guess.

So you were in search of a better way for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

And nothing was going to stop you.

Not really. Like I was. I mean, no. I don't know why. Something would anyway, to be honest.

You know, to that point, Gary, what I didn't say in the intro is Ara was a medical doctor in two countries already. He wanted to come to the United States to start practicing with these athletes and things. Over seven years, he applied to residency school in the United States 352 times.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, before he, before he got in. So, you know, I'm finding that better way people are kind of grinders also, right. They just, they're gonna, they're gonna go through the paces and not really get care whether they got beat up a little bit or bloody nose. So they just got, if they, if they get something on their mind, they're gonna go figure out a way.

Yeah, it's actually very true. You know, it took me seven years and you know, each time I would apply to like 50 places. So that's how I ended up this huge, huge number. You had to wait for a year before you could apply again. And each time I would find a better way to make my application better. You know, it was so crazy. Just, just, I guess. Yeah. It's funny when you told me that I was a better way guy and you explained to me, I was like, yeah, yeah, I can't help it. Like, I. It's not something I think about or I don't think and go, this is what I need to do. Like, it's a natural process. Yeah. Like if this didn't work, then there's got to be another way that works. Mm, let me go find out. And if that didn't work, there's gotta be another way. And if you keep going down that rabbit hole, eventually you'll find a way that works. And then I look back and I advise other people, I go, dude, don't waste your time doing all the other stuff. Just do this.

Yeah. Can you find a better way? You actually share it.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's so weird.

So for the listeners, we've got three better way people on this call. Jerry's Better way, I'm Better Way, and ours Better way.

So you're not going to get anything done.

We got ideas all over the place, but nothing's going to happen here. So you've got to be, what, about 110 now?

How old are you? Yeah, I'm going on 124. Yeah, but Botox is pretty good, so. Yeah.

With all you've done and redone. And redone.

Yeah.

I don't know. I'm not gonna ask you how old you are, but I'm thinking at least 110.

I turned 50 in November this year.

How much?

50. 5. 0. 50.

Okay, good. So you. Did you just kind of find the right group of players? So you first went to golf and then to tennis or both to tennis and then golf?

No, no. First I started working because I was working on the European Tour. I got to know a lot of my. The players there. And then when I moved to America, a lot of those players were also moving here, and they needed a doctor, and so I started becoming their doctor. And then I started working in the American Tour, and then American players found out what I did. You know, word, amount gets around. You know, it just. You're doing something that's different and helping them in a very different way. When. And people are used to a traditional doctor and they're like, wait a minute, how come this guy's here? You know, so I like. I don't have an office. You know, I work entirely with my players. I mean, I have an office, but you can't come and see me. I go to my players, I meet them at tournaments, I go to their houses. I do a lot of the work remotely. And then, you know, I keep all my notes and everything here. And, you know, I'm with University of Central Florida, so I use the library there to do a lot of my research. Then just, you know, when I got into Golf Channel, just being in that position, more stuff comes your way when someone wants to introduce something they think you're the person to go to. So invariably, whether you like it or not, being in that position lends itself to other people introducing themselves or their concepts or their new innovations to you. So the position lends itself to being ahead of the game, you know, and then. And then I started, you know, I worked with, you know, just like, you know, talk about a divine moment, right? The USDA moved the entire.

Facility to Lake Nona, which is like a mile from my house. And I was like, okay, that's a sign. I gotta start working in tennis. So then, you know, I went there, and then you meet one tennis player and then they get same thing, you know, like, someone finds out what you do and how you can help, and then it goes on and on from there. And also through my. I'm a medical director for a company called Orico, and they. They were the ones who helped with the U.S. soccer team to win the World Cup. So I was affiliated with them. And so through day, they work with NBA, they work with NFL, they work with a lot of Olympic athletes. So through all of this, you know, I have my finger in lots of different pies and lots of different pulses.

So is it good enough to be just different, or do you have to be better?

Being different is the entryway. Whether, you know, you get invited to the party, right? Whether you stay in the party or you get invited to the next one. Being different is not enough. You got to be able to offer something, you know, otherwise you're just, you know, just different. Yeah.

Yeah, because you said that earlier. You said what I would, and that struck me as, you know, what you were offering was different. What you were offering was different.

And I.

In my own mind, I went to the point, well, well, I don't think different is going to be good enough because I don't want to just be different. I got to be. I'm trying to be number one in the world. I don't want different.

I want better. Correct? Yeah. And I'll give you an example. Right. Right now, Right. I see more and more consumer labs coming up, meaning if you pay the fee, you can go online and buy a blood test, go to a lab, get your bloods drawn, and they'll give you the result. You don't need a doctor to do this. Okay, that's great. But would you know how to interpret the blood result?

You won't.

What if I taught you? What if I say, out of the 27 things on this blood test, the way to interpret this, you need to look at six things, and there are only seven things that come out of the six things. And I can teach you that. Would you be interested? Of course you would. Right. So that's different, but it's also useful to you.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

Yeah. So Gary, when we went through Ara's why. How what? The why being better way, the how he does that by thinking differently, thinking outside the box, challenging the status quo. That's where he that's how he attacks the process. And at the end of the day, what he just said, what he is, what. What he delivers the results is he simplifies things in a manner that people can use it and implement it. And that's what was so attractive about him. You know, it's not like in medicine that there's a lack of information. There's too damn much of it that no one can figure out. And what you're so good at is being able to break that down.

Do.

It, try it, challenge it, and then say, okay, here's what you need.

Yeah. You know, I find that, like, just life in general, right. If you look at, I mean, my microwave out there, that I think that there's like 20 buttons on the microwave. I only ever use three for 99.9. I wouldn't say more like, for nearly 100% of my life, I only use three buttons. Like, I didn't even know you could pop popcorn in that thing. I've never used all the other stuff. Every now and again, I'd be like, oh, I want to defrost this. You know, I'll try to figure it out. And I've never used it. Guess the weight and blah, blah, blah. But that happens maybe twice a year. Okay. Same thing with your car. The number of gadgets in your car. Right now, an average car, you don't use half of them. Your computer, I guarantee you you're using less than 5% of the computer's capacity for the average person. Yet. Yet we are on a zoom call. Thousands of people are going to hear us and see us, and it serves its purpose. Did you need to know all the other stuff? Medicine is the same way when you get a blood test. Now, if you are a consultant hematologist working on the rarest of the rarest things, you need to know all those things. But for 99.99% of doctors out there, doctors out there, they only look at five or six things. Now, if they look at five or six things, I can teach you those five or six things. Why can't I do that?

Right?

Yes. I love that.

That's my point. So that's just how like. Like, that's where the industry is going. So coming back to it, if you're just different, I don't think it's enough. I think you need to be different and have use. If you're different and useful to somebody, then you are a real asset to people.

How do you define health?

I define health as vitality, meaning you have energy to Think clearly. You have energy to move with purpose. You have energy to recover and you have resilience that when you take a beating, you know, you will, you'll rebound from it very quickly. Okay? And I specifically, the absence of disease does not equal health. Because I know a lot of Olympians with diabetes, with asthma, who are incredible athlete, and I know people who have no medical problems, not taking a medication at all, who can't walk a mile. So to me, that's health. Like when I look at a child, a healthy child, their eyes are lit up, their brain is growing, they're constantly evaluating situations, grasping. They're growing and they're moving, you know, and when they get a cut, the cut heals in two days. That is health.

Is health achievable for somebody in their Jerry's age?

Like, you're putting that, Dude, I'm good, but I'm not God.

Okay, so somebody over, let's just say 50.

No, ask Jerry. So Jerry came to me, for instance, right? Here's an example. Jerry, I'm going to share the story, alright? Even if you give me, don't give me permission, I'm going to share it anyway, okay? He had gone to see someone who told him that, hey, your blood work came back. You're pre diabetic, okay? To me, pre diabetes means.

You are diabetic, you just haven't been diagnosed yet, right? So the whole concept of pre diabetes is weird to me, but it just means like, you're going to get diabetes, right? So he said, well, what should I do? And she said, or he said, eat less carbs and move more. Which is completely accurate. Okay? So I said to him, okay, so what did you do? And he goes, well, I cut out and I said, jerry, do you know what it means? What does it mean? Eat less carbs. What does it mean? Move more. What does that mean to you? No idea. Had absolutely no idea. So we said, okay, here's what eat less carbs means. These are carbs. I just want you to eat these three things and I want you to avoid these other things for three months, no matter what. I just need you. And I told him, like, you cannot touch alcohol. I want you to stop drinking for three months. I didn't even know this. It was his birthday. He didn't have a drink. And wasn't it something with Jared?

Yeah, it was Jared's 21st birthday. The next day, yeah, the next day.

His son was turning 21. And because he had given me his word, he didn't drink, you know, but it Was very clear. I said, do these three things, avoid all of this stuff. And then for movement, I said, you need to do these things. These two things. You do this Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you do this Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and you do it for this long and you do it this many times. And it was very clear and.

One of my proudest achievements, like everything I've done. Like this guy, three months later, I ran his labs. He was a different person. He was a different person. He had a ton of energy, he was speaking faster, he was just, he looked phenomenal. And he could travel. He could travel, jump on a plane, go do back to back events, give talks, run workshops, come back.

Not beaten up. So yes, health is always achievable. Health is your greatest asset. It is also your greatest responsibility.

If you don't have health unless you are genetically, you know, selected to not have health, Majority of the majority of us, we are choosing not to have health.

What do you see as the key if there is such a thing? Is there like five things that you have seen over time or three things that to achieving health or to taking care of your health? What have you seen?

I have a thing called free medicine. And there are five things that compose a free medicine. Okay, before you go see your doctor, before you start on medication, before you do all of this, okay? Sunlight is free medicine. Getting exposed to sunlight, even on a cloudy day, if you just go out and get exposed to the sun for 20 minutes, when people say, oh, you know, what about sunburn? And 20 minutes beyond 20 minutes, if you're fair skin, light hair, blue eyes, you're gonna burn, right? And I don't want that to happen. But for 15, 20 minutes a day, there is no reason why you can't get sunlight. And sunlight is an essential nutrient. It's not just about vitamin D. There's so much that happens with sunlight. We don't even know about half of those things. But humans were meant to be exposed to sunlight. Okay, so sunlight is free medicine, right? Nutrition and hydration is free medicine. Nutrition, I reduce it down to some very simple things. Keep your blood sugar under control. Meaning don't eat things that spike your blood sugar. Okay? And we can go to, there's a whole conversation about this, but you could look, Harvard does a list called the glycemic index. So you want things that are low on the glycemic index, meaning it's not going to spike your blood sugar. Things that are high in glycemic index will spike your blood sugar, right? So go find a list and say, you know what? I'm going to eat out of the bottom 30 things, I'm going to eat these things. Okay? And the second thing is you want to avoid processed foods which are rich in omega 6. Omega 6 causes a lot of inflammation. Omega 3, which is fish oil.

Balances it out. I wouldn't say it's anti inflammatory, it just doesn't cause inflammation, right? So processed foods are very rich in Omega 6. So if you put that combination together, low glycemic and unprocessed foods, that's a diet that's going to sustain you, okay? And then hydration. An athlete, even athlete, is 1% dehydrated, okay? Which you won't even know their athletic performance, whether it's physical, mental or psychological, decreases by 10%.

Okay? An average golf tournament is 1.

Unless Tiger is like dominant back in the day. Most, most golf tournaments are won within five shots.

Which is less than 10%.

Usain Bol wins 100 meter margins less than 10%. You cannot give up 10%. So being dehydrated is not an option, right? So hydration requires, as a simple rule, they say, you know, like, it's another thing, like people say, drink eight cups of water. Like, so if you're £100, you should drink eight cups of water. If you're £300, you should drink eight. It makes no sense, this kind of stuff, you know. So I looked into it and it's half your body weight. Whatever you weigh in pounds, drink half of that in ounces of water. So if you are 200 pounds, drink hundred ounces of water a day, your immune system needs it, your eyes need it, your liver needs it, your brain needs it, your muscles need it.

Okay?

Right? So that's free medicine number two. Free medicine number three is movement.

Okay? If you look at a child.

If you look at animals, they don't exercise, do they?

They move.

You never hear a lion going, I need to do legs today.

I hope not, right? Like it just doesn't happen.

Right? And so when it comes to movement.

There are five things that you need to encompass in your movement, right? I spent a week with the Hadza tribe in Tanzania in February, okay? These guys are the true last few hunter gatherers on the planet. Unbelievable. Athletes. Never been to a gym, never lifted a weight. They move the way the body was made to move, which requires five things. Speed.

Okay? So that's why I don't believe in this. You know, if you never exercise, get up and go walk for 30 minutes. No, walk for 30 minutes. But every lamp post, between lamppost or between plants. Walk a little bit faster, then slow down. Walk a little bit faster, then slow down. Because speed is essential, right? Then you have endurance.

Then you have strength. Strength is.

What is the weight I can lift. So if I can deadlift 180 pounds, that's my strength, okay? Strength alone is not enough. You need power.

Meaning, can I chuck a weight? Can I take £180 and throw it? How far can I throw it? That's power.

And then you need to be agile. Agile is not flexibility.

Animals, children are agile. Ballerinas are flexible.

Right? So you being able to touch your toes.

May make you flexible, but can you touch your toes when you're lifting something or running up? Like, you know what I mean? Putting flexibility in its purpose is agility. So if you have these five things and you work on these five things. So for instance, I play tennis. I play tennis almost every day because it automatically gives me all five things. I have to be agile. I need to be able to run for 90 minutes. I need to run fast, sometimes slow, sometimes, right? I need to be able to hit it as hard as I want, and sometimes I have to hit it with a lot of power. So finding things like, that's why dancing, for instance, for elderly people, it's an amazing, amazing, amazing thing. Martial arts, amazing thing. Because those things, it's not exercise, it's movement. And it automatically encompasses all five things in movement.

So we got sunlight, nutrition, hydration, movement, sleep.

Sleep, okay. What's that? Yeah.

Sleep should be number one. Actually, that should be the number one. But sleep is the ultimate edge you can give yourself, give to anybody, right? Sleep. When your body recovers sleep is when you make all the necessary adjustments. Repair, rejuvenation occurs when you sleep, when you're in deep sleep. Okay, if you look at a child, why is it a child can have a scratch and five days later you can't even see it? They repair so fast, right? Why is incidence of cancer go up as you get older? Well, as you get older, generally we don't sleep as much. Biologically, we were not meant to live forever. So one of the ways the biology shuts itself down and removes us off the planet is by reducing the quality of sleep. I'll give you an example. One of the things that happens when you're in deep sleep between the hours of 2 and 4 is that your immune cells goes around looking for viruses, but also looking for abnormal cells. You, me, Jerry, all of us. Right now, we are making abnormal cells which, if you don't pick them up and destroy them, they can potentially become cancerous cells. Which is why if you don't believe me, 2011 or 2012, the World Health Organization classified sleep deprivation and shift to work as a carcinogen, meaning cancer causing, in the same category as cigarette smoking.

Okay? Because the body just won't work. The body will not work.

So sleep is absolutely essential. So if I, if you say to me, pick one. I actually, somebody asked me this the other day and they said, if there's one thing, what would it be? And I said, sleep. Because if you sleep, you will have more energy to move, you'll make better food choices. Because sleep deprivation actually messes up with chemistry in the brain. And what happens is you end up in this weird combination where you're constantly craving and you're never full, so you end up eating a ton and you put on a ton of weight, okay? So like, think about all those things. Sleep will give you all of it. So sleep is a non negotiable. For me, even now, you know, my sleep has not been. The quality of sleep hasn't been great because I think I'm still, you know, Covid mind, but I still get eight hours sleep a day. Wow. No non negotiable. I just. Because if I don't do that, I'm gonna break and I'm gonna get Covid. Like I, you know, I gotta do all the things in my control not to get that.

Right. And then the last one is.

You have to have a bigger purpose and you have to be part of a tribe.

We as humans were never meant designed to be in isolation.

Right? You can be isolated, but you don't have to feel alone. That's two different things.

We are isolated. But you know, I speak to my mom so often. She's not alone. I speak to her all the time, right? So when I spend the time in Tanzania with the tribe, I realize the meaning of the phrase that it takes a village to bring up a child, because I saw that firsthand. Parents produce the child, but the villagers introduce the child to different facets of life because we don't have everything. Like, I am so useless at so many things that I wish there was a tribe like my mom. When I have kids, I want them to be around my mom because my mom is amazing at so many things and she's so useless at other stuff, right? And we all like that. But eventually the child gets exposed to everything and then the child gets to pick and choose who they want to grow up to be. We are meant to be part of a tribe. So if you are alone and you don't have a purpose and being in a tribe gives you a purpose, you may be the medicine person, you may be the chef. You may be the person that educates. You may be, you know, the person that goes out and scouts out the land. You may be the person that finds a different way to hunt, right? You may be the person making the arrows. You know, the chief of the tribe, I asked him one day, I said.

What? Like.

What is the purpose the chief?

And he didn't even hesitate, and he just said, to find the next chief.

You tell me one leader that you know of who thinks like that right now.

Because we get to that point, we don't want to let it go. And he got to that point, and he immediately knew my job is to find the next chief, because otherwise the tribe will die.

So the chief of the tribe is the best hunter.

So when they go hunting and he finds a kid who has potential, he takes him under his wing and trains him. If he finds someone who's not good, he tries to train them, or he'll say, you know what? Go make a bow. Go make arrows. Go find this. He trains them all so that the tribe survives. And as a tribe, they survive. If they were alone in the forest, in the bushes of Tanzania, they will die. And I think that is something that is lost this day and age, and I'm fearful of that. You know, all this technology is beautiful. Listen, I use technology as much as the next person. Even though I don't know how to use half of my computer, use a lot of it, I'm always open to, like, looking at ways to analyze data faster. I'm always looking at, you know, hey, look, we use AI we can get all this data and summarize it to this and predict this. Like, I believe in personalized medicine, but it cannot come at an expense of us being alone. It only makes sense, like, for me to think, okay, you know what I can teach you how to do? Look at your own blood test, and you can go on, get your own blood test. That is me helping my tribe. That fills me up.

Right? And that gives me a greater purpose. And so that's why I think that's. That's a very important part of free medicine. So if you encompass all of this, I'm telling you, anxiety, depression, chronic disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, all those lifestyle diseases.

Should come down significantly.

You know, you added that one.

Ara, which one?

To the free medicine, at least from the dialogue We've had as the bigger purpose, be part of a tribe, which I completely agree. I think that's actually, now that you say that, why we connected so much on this formula we've been talking about as clarity plus energy times commitment equals peak performance.

And there is when you can find your purpose and live into it, be purposeful.

I think that's why Gary and I are so connected on this, is that we feel we have a better way to help people help understand themselves so they can go out and get in the right seat or in the right position as part of the tribe to have an impact.

Yeah. It's for greater good, right? It's for greater good. Look, if I. If I. If I teach people I do that, I make a bunch of money and buy a bunch of stocks and buy stuff that I never need. So what? It makes me happy. For a little while, I drove a Porsche. It made me happy for six months, and then I was like, oh, my God, I gotta take this car for service, and I gotta take it this place and that place, and I remember selling it, and I was just as happy as the day I sold it, the day I bought it, because I was like, I'm not burdened with it anymore. But every day I go to the hospital and I see someone. And as I got older.

I realized we are all connected. We are all connected by whether you want to call it God or higher power or energy, we're all connected. So when someone comes to see me, the. Or the person that I see now, I just see them as another brother or another sister, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And you're connected and you don't know what impact you're going to have on them. All you know is you should have an impact on them. Yeah. Completely agree.

So much of what you talk about here is what you said was energy. It all focuses on energy.

Yeah.

And one of the things that we talk about is that when you. When what you do with your time and life is in line with why.

You do what you do, you will.

Have passion for what you do. Passion is the fuel that gives you the energy to pursue your dreams. Without passion, you don't have anything 100%.

And I say this, I know it's a cliche, but, like, I haven't worked a day in my life going to the ER and seeing 40, 50 patients. Even the midst of a pandemic, like, it's not work. I'm like. Like it's. It's just so much fun for me. Working with my athletes is so Much fun for me doing this. Like, honestly, a lot of times I just go, when students ask me or stuff like that, I just say to them, like, I never invented any of this. It just all happened. But I did things that sounded right for me. And even if it meant I didn't make as much money, but I felt happier I did it, you know, and when you do those things and when Jerry pointed it out, like when Jerry met me and he did that, why and how. Why what? And how, it kind of deflated me because I'm like, ah, it all makes sense now. The mystique has gone. You know, it's all gone. So, like, naturally, from a very young age, I would look at things and I would like, be in school and I'll be frustrated because I'd be like, why are they teaching me this? Well, why do I need to know this? I'm never gonna know this. You know, like, nothing. They didn't teach me mortgages, they didn't teach me stuff around would be like medical school. I had a phenomenal medical school, but 90% of what I do right now.

I had to go look back at what I learned in medical school and go, now that makes sense. Now it makes sense to me because I'm in a different position, Right. What I studied there didn't make any sense to me. But I guess it's a process we've got to go through. But like you said, when you know, you know, if you look at something and you go, dude, there's got to be a better way. Like, what I'm going to say right now, this very second is going to be highly controversial. Okay? But to me, the solution to Covid is not necessarily, and I emphasize not necessarily a vaccine.

What if we got healthy as a whole globe?

The virus.

Requires us to be its host.

The virus requires us as hosts to feed it sugar. Right. What if we don't host it? What if we don't give it sugar? Would it be as effective as vaccines?

Cheaper and better? And by the way, side effect of that is less diabetes, longer life, less arthritis.

But it's not convenient. It's harder. So the pharmaceuticals meet that requirement for people and produce a vaccine. I'm not saying it's not a good idea. I think that if you're older and you're at high risk, yes, you should get the vaccine. When the vaccine is proven to be safe and effective, yeah, go get it. But for majority of us, is that the answer? Yeah. Right. So I'm always questioning stuff like that.

Yeah. Because you Always find it a better way. That's why I knew when this virus hit, Covid hit, you're the first person I called and said, okay, man, I know you're thinking about what we need to do. And I figured it was going to be in alignment with free medicine because that's think about things. And you said, make sure you get some sun. Keep your immune, immune system boosted. Don't, don't get to where you've worn it down.

Yeah.

So much. And you're going to be fine. If you need to drink a little something to boost, get some zinc and elderberry or something. Just keep the inflammation down and the immune system up and you should be fine.

Yeah. And again like that comes down because I look at something and I go, there's got to be a better way. There's got to be a better way. Like we, it's embarrassing that a virus can shut us down as a race.

As a human race. One virus can shut us down. We're talking about sending things to Mars and printing food and driving cars without people in it and one virus.

Can shut us all down. Come on.

We have to be better than that. Yeah. It just behooves me to think like we are that pathetic. We can be better.

Yep, no doubt.

Right? We can be better.

We can, can be better.

So like, so immediately I think, okay, there's got to be a better way. Right? Then I go, well, of all the things out there, what do we do? So like the stuff that I told you, honestly, those five things I do every single day, every single day I do that, I get sunlight. 20 minutes. If I don't get sunlight, like when I work 6:00am shifts, you, you know, I have a red light unit that I will turn it on and I'll go stand there and because it's an essential nutrient, it's not just fun, doesn't just boost your mood. It's an essential nutrient. I move every single day. Yesterday when we were working indoors, every hour, me and like the nurses that I work with, we all did five push ups on every hour and we did a 22 minute wall sit every hour. That didn't kill us, but it was hard, you know. And then, and it became a tribe. Like the whole tribe did it. We had one nurse who did it for 30 seconds the first time and I looked at her and I said, I'm going to stand next to you and you're going to get to a minute. And she got to a minute the third time I said, you're going to get to a minute and a half. She goes, no way. And I said, I'm not going to let you get off. And then we got to a minute and she was shaking and I said, no, no, come on, you got this. Let's just calm down. Let's get to 15. Let's get to 15 minutes. Just get to 15. We got to 15. I go, you got 15 seconds more. And we got to a minute and a half. You know, that's being part of a tribe. Like they do the same for me. Yeah, they do exactly the same for me. So then I connect with people, I talk to my friends. You know, again, being part of the tribe, sometimes you have to love certain people from a distance because they're toxic. So that's very important. Toxicity will destroy the tribe. So you got to pick your tribe carefully and then, you know, you move, you make sure you eat right, you know, and if you do that, majority of the time, I think we'll be fine. We'll be better than being this. It really is shocking to me that as a race that has done so much for so long, for so many, we are this fragile that one virus.

Can destroy us. Come on. Something's not right.

Jerry, is there anything we haven't asked our. That we. That you wanted to have to ask?

You know, no, it just goes in alignment with everything that he's. That he's taught me personally that he live. He lives that way and I wanted him on because.

You see that he's finding better ways. He challenges things and then he breaks it down to something pretty simple. And in today's world, I thought the timing was pretty essential of how he thinks about things because we're all in the middle of it. You know, when this comes out, people will be listening to this for a long time. So not just through the COVID time period, but on a go forward basis. And he was right when he told me, you're not going to make it. He gave me some simple things to do it. And it's interesting when I look at it now, learning my why to understand my purpose. I have so much more energy then I have energy also from the other side because I am getting sleep, I am drinking water, doing some of the simple things that he said. And when you put those two together, the clarity plus the. Plus the energy, the movement part, it is an unfair advantage. And I think it's the only way for people to be able to perform at the levels that we want to over an extended period of time. And the athletes and everybody that he Works with is proof in the pudding that it works.

So I have a question then before we go. What's the difference between the number one player in the world and the number five player in the world, any sport?

You know.

There is a self belief that the number ones have that is just different.

You know, every athlete, every single one of them from Ali to Jordan to Tiger to Federer to Nadal, have an ounce of doubt.

Okay? They all do. That's called being human, okay? But they are able to get through that doubt and get to the other side. The number one, number five player in the world has that little doubt. And then when few things happen, the doubt gets bigger, you know, and that's what I see, like when I see, you know.

They accept physically that the other player is better. Like, you know, everyone in golf will tell you Tiger at his best is unbeatable. If you went up to Tiger, you have to be on your A plus game. And if he's on B minus, you might have. You might beat him that day, right? But if he's on A plus and you are on A plus, he's going to beat you, right? And so the skill set, generally, they are just that much better. But the little bit of mindset, like if you look at Tiger coming back now, he is not the same Tiger he was before, right? But he still won the Masters. You know why? The moment he could smell it.

That doubt didn't interfere with him. He just knew. He's like, these guys are quaking, like these guys are quivering right now, and I'm gonna take advantage of it. And he just went for it, right? The other guys who are world number one, Brooks was world number one at that point. He was one shot behind. But he saw Tiger coming and that little doubt that he had started coming up. And when Tiger closed the gap, it got bigger. And then he put a shot in the water because the wind change. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh. And then it takes over. So I think the greats, like the truly greats, not the world, not necessarily the world number one. I think you can get to world number one. Many players get to world number one. No, not many players get to world number one. Staying world number one is different.

Yeah, Staying world number one is a totally different game because that requires like a self of, you know. And oftentimes when you don't know them and you see them outside, they're not nice people, you know, and when you get to know them, they're actually really nice people, you know, I've had the privilege of meeting so many of them. And they are the nicest people, but they are very internal. And what drives them sometimes comes an expense of cutting everything else off, you know, and those things, those things make the world number ones who stay number one. That. That's the difference.

That's awesome. Well, Ara, thank you so much for spending an hour with us. Totally enjoyed this. Three Better Way people bantering.

Yeah, likewise. Likewise. See, and I told you after one hour, we got nothing done.

We didn't solve anything.

Huh? We didn't solve anything. Covid is still there.

It's still there. But I got five things I gotta.

Go do now, man.

You gave me something else for my to do list.

Good, I'm glad. Thank you so much for having me, man.

How do you, you know, if people want to see what you're doing and things like that are, what's the best way to do that?

I don't know why someone would want to see what I'm doing, but if they wanted to, you know, I post on Instagram. I'm not like a big social media guy, but when I have something to say, then I'll say it there. So I often post tips.

On Instagram or, you know, like, I did something recently. I had a chance of speaking to Lou Holtz, you know, and he shared something that was so priceless to me. He says whenever his team was like, right now we are like, there's a lot of uncertainty, right? Are we going to get a vaccine? Are we going to have a drug? Are we going to open? Is it going to come back? Is it going to come back worse in winter? Like, there's all this stuff. And he narrows it down.

He must be a better way guy, because he said it comes down to win W I n you know, what it stands for, what's important now.

If you do what's important now, you will win.

So, like, I shared that with my Instagram. You know, my Instagram is for those people who want to know. It's Dr. Ara on call. It's also on my website. I'm gonna be sending out some stuff on my website, so people come in there and they can get some free stuff from there. Like, I did a whole private webinar for my athletes, everything from supplements to, you know, how to exercise and all that kind of stuff, which I think is very pertinent to a lot of people. So that'll be available on my website. But yeah, most of the time, Instagram is when I post stuff. Okay, and your website is what.

Www.Rroncall.Com okay.

Okay.

Everything I own is Dr. Ara on call. Okay, perfect. And it's doctor, doctor, doctor no.araoncall.com. okay, perfect.

Well, I gotta go home and go to sleep now after that.

Yeah. See? Glad I put you to sleep. Not.

But you put me to sleep. It's my ultimate edge. And I gotta go get another hour of sleep. I only had, like, seven last night, so I'm off an hour.

Yeah. No, I'm serious. Like, you'll add years to your life.

I love that.

This was so helpful. Just those. Those five things were worth it. So thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for having me, guys.

You have a great day.