14: The Impact Small Changes Can Have in Breast Cancer with Nathan Crane

Hello and welcome to the Kenya breasts podcast with Dr. Jen. The show dedicated to empowering women through knowledge, tools and resources to take control of your breast health journey. I'm your host, Dr. Jen Simmons, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this insightful and inspiring journey. As a breast cancer surgeon turned functional medicine physician, I'm on a mission to empower women to live their breast I need best lives. This podcast dives deep into all topics related to breast health, including prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and holistic approaches to support overall well being. You know what I say? Breast health is health. So no matter who you are, a breast cancer survivor, newly diagnosed in treatment, living with metastatic disease, or you're simply seeking to improve your breast health, this podcast is for you. Join us on this transformative path towards better breast health and a thriving life. And now, let's get to today's episode. Welcome back to the Keeping Abreast podcast. I am Dr. Jen Simmons, your host and today I have Nathan Crane with us. I am so excited to talk to him. Nathan is a natural health researcher, a certified holistic health coach, an award winning best selling author, he is an award winning documentary filmmaker, he's on the board of the Beljansky foundation, committed to finding natural health cures, and he is the picture of health. But Nathan, you weren't always.

Thanks for that intro. Happy to be on your podcast. Thanks for helping me. And no, I definitely was not healthy. I was almost dead at 18, so I was the opposite of the picture of health. And yeah, thank God, now I'm healthy and more energetic and stronger and more fit and now than I've ever been in my entire life. And thankfully, you know, because my, I have a duty as a father to, you know, lead my children the best I can and as a husband to be there for my wife. So, you know, it's important I take care of my health. Not only has it become a passion and a lifestyle over the years, it's something I just love learning about and implementing in my own life and helping other people with, but it's, it's something I look forward to. You know, whereas at first some of these things we might talk about health changes, lifestyle changes, diet changes, kind of stuff that's necessary to prevent disease and increase longevity and lifespan and quality of life. Sometimes they might seem difficult or like a chore or whatever, but eventually they become things you look forward to. Right? So that's, that's where I'm at now and for sure happy to share that with others.

How do you Go from being almost dead at 18 to where you are today. Like, how does that happen?

It's a long journey. I mean, I don't think we have time in this podcast for the full story, but as a teenager, I was really sick. I was on the standard American diet. I was taking a lot of antibiotics. I eventually got addicted to drugs and alcohol, ended up homeless, living on the streets, friends houses, parked benches and backseat of my car, and literally was sick and weak and pale and frail, very skinny, very ghostly white, and headed for an early grave. I mean, I definitely was on track for cancer diagnosis or stroke or some. Something to happen, something bad, or end up in prison, which would have been probably worse.

Equally as bad.

Yeah. I had this big epiphany, a big awakening at 18 years old, and I decided to leave that life behind and basically start over. The biggest change for me was making a commitment. Making a commitment to my health. That was number one. It was like, look, I know what it's like to be unhealthy, to, to be sick, to have all these addictions, to be smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, to be drinking alcohol all the time, to be on all these medications and drugs and you name it, I know what that's like. And that life sucks. It really sucked. I didn't really know there was an alternative, to be honest, until I got sober and clean and started removing these things from my life and started getting serious about health. Started going to the gym. I have this memory that was so profound for me. I started going to the gym, right? And I go and I did this spin class, like the first time I did a spin class, and it kicked my ass, you know, I was like sweating. Anyone who's ever done a spin class, drenched. Drenched and breathing hard. It was just like I left feeling both, you know, defeated and amazing at the same time. But then I walked outside the parking lot and I lit up a cigarette and I'm like, what the hell are you doing? Like, are you serious? But I see so many people doing the same thing, or they go out and binge on alcohol or sugar or cookies or donuts or whatever. It's like we're going to the gym to get healthy and be fit, and then we're putting all these poisons and toxins into our body.

Well, there's a lot of self medicating going on, right? And I think I. I think that that's a large part of the problem. I mean, I don't think anyone gets addicted to drugs. Well, not everyone, but most people don't. Get addicted to drugs because they're seeking a high. They get addicted to drugs to numb the pain.

Yeah. And a lot of times that pain is invisible. You're not even aware, at least for me at a young age, I wasn't even aware of the depression and the anger and the rage and the anxiety and the self loathing and all these emotions that were bottled up inside. Seeking love and not loving myself and all these things that let the trauma and all these things that led to the addictions. You know, the addictions are. We're trying to get out of that pain, trying to get out of that suffering. And then you experience something that gives you that sense of a high. And if you, you really like it and it makes you feel better than the way you're feeling it, it becomes addictive. So then it's like something, you know. And that's true for anybody with, with sugar addictions, with drama addictions. People become addicted to dramas that, you know, cortisol release and adrenaline dump and the drama. So people look for fights, verbal fights, for me, physical fights, you know, when I was younger.

And so anything that's even, that's a dopamine hit too.

It's a major dopamine hit. I mean adrenaline is a precursor to dopamine and dopamine comes after adrenaline. So it's like you feel good even though, you know, that's a survival mechanism. Right. Sympathetic, of course, you know that, we know that, but I didn't know that. And most people don't realize that when they're going, when they're going through it.

Well, I mean that takes a lot of insight. Most, most people, when they get, when they're getting into it. Right. Like it happened for you as a child. It's very rare that a child is able to have that kind of perspective and say like, oh, I'm self medicating. Right, Right. Yeah.

And if you have, you know, if you have good people around you, they can help you as well. But you know, I was, I was a lost case, you know, 15, kicked out of the house, living on the streets. It was like I was trying to figure out life on my own. And you know, and I don't, I mean it's not my parents fault at all. I mean I was, you know, that's a whole other story for a different time. And I have a great relationship with both of my parents now and I love them both very deeply. But it just, I needed to go through what I needed to go through and to get to the other Side, it was about making that commitment to my health. I went back, so back to the story, started working out. And enough times, I think I did it. Maybe. I don't know if it was the first time or it was shortly after that, but I went on this run. So I left the gym, had that epiphany of how stupid I am. I'm smoking after I'm working out. And then I decided just to run and I ran and I went into this kind of meditative trance. It was a crazy experience. I don't think I've ever shared this with anybody. Actually, I forgot all about it.

I'm so honored.

And during this run, and I don't know how far I ran or how long, I have no idea, I just ran. I was seriously in this deep meditative trance, and I was going through just deep thinking, deep personal reflection. And at the end of the run, I just had such an aha for my life and for myself and what I needed to do at that time. And one of those things was quit smoking. Quit smoking cold turkey. And it was done. And yeah, I had the withdrawals and I was an asshole for a few days. And it was tough and I sweat and I felt like crap. It was one of the best decisions I ever made, but it was going deep inside myself. And that's what I've learned over the years since then and have had practices where I do deep reflection and daily meditation, journaling, having time for processing the thoughts and the conflicts that are going on in our life because it's so often that we're so inundated with so much crap and so much information, so much drama and so much news and fake news and media drama and all this stuff that people don't have time or take the time anymore to sit and reflect for 15 or 20 minutes in a calm, meditative state and help think through some of the challenges in their life or decisions that they need to make. I'll give you another example. I had this great habit for a long time, for years and years. It's a little personal, but going to the bathroom in the mornings and at night, where I would read and read or just think deep thinking and get into a good book. And even when I come out of the bathroom, continue reading, because I'm really into it. And I had that for years and years. And then all of a sudden I get an Instagram account. And I only got an Instagram account a few years ago. I didn't get one real early on, and that I got sucked into that Scrolling and dopamine hit and all that stuff. And then before you know it, I'm in the sauna, I've got the phone either watching something or whatever. I'm in the bathroom, I've got the phone. A lot of people can relate to this. They take the phone with them everywhere. Now sitting outside, you know, I go sit in the sun for 15 minutes to get that vitamin D and get that good energy from the sun and I'll have my phone next to me. You know, I may not be on social media, but I'm listening to something or a podcast or whatever. Oftentimes good things, educational things, but never having, or I would say not never because I still have time, but reducing the amount of time in my day to day drastically of where I have this specific time for deep reflection, for inner thinking and inner processing. And so my phone a couple weeks ago completely died. It just wouldn't turn on nothing. It was such a blessing. And the best blessing was the insurance company messed up three times getting the phone to me. So what would have turned out to be two or three days without a phone turned into 10 days without my phone. And I loved every second of it. I restarted my habit. I don't even touch the phone in the mornings at all. I'm reading in the mornings. I do all my morning stuff. I normally do meditation, ice bath and all this stuff. Plus reading, having more time for deep thinking and self reflection, reading again at night in the sauna. The time you would think for people going through a challenge like 170 degree sauna, 170 fahrenheit degree sauna like I do can be challenging. But actually the time goes by faster now that I'm in there doing deep thinking than when I had my phone turned on. So I've got all these new habits, you know, reintegrated into my life that like kind of just slowly got edged out by this, you know, phone addiction. And so one of the best things you can do, like you know, talking about detox for example, is do a digital detox, at least a phone detox for a few days and see what new habits you can create in your life. It's, it's so for me, I'm so blessed I didn't have the, my phone these past 10 days. It's, it's been amazing.

Well, so it's so interesting that you say that because people I think don't realize because it's invisible how toxic the electromagnetic field is. And it's not until you get away from it that you realize, like, your head must feel so much better, you must have so much more clarity, right? Like it makes a huge difference. And our phones, our devices, all those closed devices and blue light and the over consumption of the electromagnetic field and the over consumption of the blue light has such negative detrimental effects to our health. And you talked about your detoxification. Like we need so much detox from blue light and we're not getting it.

Yeah, we're not getting it. It's so true. You know, every time we've moved into a new house over the years, one of the first things I do is go through the bedrooms and as many rooms as possible and replace all the light bulbs with blue light blocking bulbs. Because it will help you in your evenings get into a parasympathetic state, will help your melatonin release earlier and more naturally along with the sun cycle, and it will help you sleep deeper and heal better. The challenge is, let's say you wear blue light blocking lenses. Because we know people who don't know. There are a lot of studies and more coming out and a lot of evidence and a lot of case studies that as you just kind of went over really quickly. All this light that's coming in from our computers, our phones, our lights in our house, all of that is disrupting our melatonin cortisol production regulation and it is disrupting our sleep and it's causing us to have less REM sleep and less deep sleep. And I see you put your blue light blocking glasses on right now and it's causing, when the sun goes down, melatonin starts getting released. But if you have all these lights on in your house and all around you, your brain still thinks the sun's up and so it has a hard time releasing that melatonin at its natural cycle. And so if you can turn off all the lights or replace them with blue light blocking bulbs like I have, that helps significantly. But you know, then you're, let's say you're on your computer or you're on your phone at night, like you're still getting all that blue light. Now there are apps and things that I've installed that also block the blue light from the phones with computers. But I stopped like after 4 or 5 o' clock at night. Like I'm not on my computer anymore. I rarely watch tv. I did have the habit of my phone, but now in the evenings after I work out, it's like I'm not even looking at my phone most of the time. And now I read and then Go to bed. So it's like I'm sleeping better.

It makes a huge difference. And even so much as not putting overhead light on, but using lamp light and like eye level light and lower after the sun goes down, because our brains are really smart and it knows the difference between light that's up here and light that's down here 100%.

And melatonin. People think melatonin is just a hormone for sleep. What's one of the most powerful antioxidants and anti cancer molecules that our body produces? So if you're down regulating your melatonin on a daily basis, you're not getting enough of it in the quantities and at the time that your body needs it, you are limiting your body's ability to fight off diseases like cancer and to fight off all kinds of other infections and things that the antioxidants, you know, the antioxidant power of melatonin has in the body. So we need that regular cycle in place. And then the other, the other part of it is, you know, how you, how you end your day. For sleep, improving sleep is just as important as how you start your day. So I go outside and I watch the sunrise or the sun. If I'm up later than the sun has risen and spend 15 minutes outside reading, getting that light. That sunlight has been shown in the early part of the day. That's when you want cortisol to be released. That starts to wake you up. It starts to bring your adenosine down. And what you're going to find is you're going to, if you don't block that adenosine with caffeine like I was doing. So I stopped doing caffeine for the first few hours of the morning. And you watch the sun rise, or at least look at the sun 10 or 15 minutes in the morning, then you pour your melts on, goes down, cortisol goes up. Natural light exposure to natural light, it will regulate your cycle in the most natural and beneficial way. So you can then go to sleep at an earlier time, feeling better, get deeper sleep and get all the benefits of this natural circadian rhythm that our hormone production is in alignment with the circadian rhythm of the planet and the moon and the sun and all this. And it's, it's incredible. You're going to reduce inflammation, you're going to increase energy, you're going to feel better, you're going to fight disease easier. I mean, and it's free. Like, this is free stuff you can do every day. It's easy and Right. Good doing it. Yeah.

People so often talk about that health is expensive and being healthy is expensive, and they completely discount the things that are entirely free that make a huge difference, because we all are tied to that circadian rhythm, that rhythm of the sun. And so when we don't get exposure to the sun, our processes don't work the way that they do. And so I tell people like, yes, get. Get sunlight first thing in the morning, like within five minutes of waking, and then again midday and then watch the sunset. These are all signals to your body of what to do. Our bodies know what to do, but we've. We've interfered. We've interfered with our body's ability to do what it's supposed to do. Yeah. So when you're giving it these blue light signals again and again and again and over consuming, your body's confused. It thinks that you have a desert to cross or, you know, an ocean to cross. It's confused. We are nomadic people, and so it's just taking the signals that you're giving it from the environment. So if you want your body to function the way it's supposed to function, you have to live within the laws of nature. And we live in a very unnatural environment now.

It's hard. It's hard because you want to live in this modern, technocratic, comfortable society.

Oh, I love that word, technocratic. I never heard it before.

Well, that's. I mean, the technocrats are taking over the world. They want to rule us by technology is basically technocratic. Literally. You know, I went to Whole Foods the other day, and they're like, oh, yeah, you can pay with your fingerprint now. And I'm like, nope, I will never give you my fingerprints in my handprint to pay with anything.

Ever.

Implant me with a chip, it will never make me part. I have no interest in the transhumanist movement. I appreciate the technologies we have that make our lives comfortable and allow us to do this work and serve and help people around the world. When you start going into transhumanism movement and turning people into half robots and chips in them and all this kind of stuff, I'm like, we've gone way too far. We have crossed the edge into a place where I have no desire to be involved in that at all. And if that means going and living out in the mountains in a cave like a monk, you know, I'd be more interested than what this. Than what people are wanting in this technocratic society. So it's like, there are good benefits to it, and I acknowledge that. And appreciate it. But how do we live in this modern society and still try to be in harmony with nature the best we can? Have you seen the new documentary series on Netflix, Live to a Hundred with Dan?

No, no, but it's on my list.

So it's, it's Dan Buettner, you know, wrote the Blue Zones book. Yeah, of course they did a documentary series. They actually went out and then visited these blue zones and documented it, and they did a really good job of it. But one of the. What, you know, so people haven't seen. I highly recommend it. One of the sad parts of it is like in Okinawa, for example, which has, you know, one of the. Has had one of the highest concentrations of centenarians and the oldest, healthiest people on the plan planet for potentially centuries.

Yeah.

Now, because of the modern civilization moving in, the fast food restaurants and the processed foods and all that kind of stuff, the number of centenarians has decreased significantly just in the last 20 years. And they're almost not a blue zone anymore.

And that's, I mean, America's contribution to the world.

Well, it's. It's America's contributions. And it's, it is, you know, even beyond that, I think it is the people who could care less about your health and my health who are ruling the world, who want us to, you know, basically give them all of our money so they can control our lives and keep us sick and unhealthy and people. Oh, it sounds like conspiracy. It's like, well, no, it's not. Look at who gets all the money and what they do with it. They're not investing in nutritional programs, teaching kids how to eat healthy and trying to keep you healthy. All the money that a lot of these technocratic, very powerful people, what they put it in, they put into GMOs. They put it into fake meats that are filled with processed garbage and tell you, oh, go vegan. You're going to be healthy. Eat our fake meat so you can pay us billions of dollars. I'm like, why would you eat fake meat? Just eat some beans and rice and vegetables and you got all the protein health you need. You don't need that garbage over there. But that's. They want, they want you eating their garbage, giving them all your money, and what do they do with it? They invest in drugs, in pharmaceuticals, in jabs to help us stay healthy.

It's a complete system. Right. I mean, the food industry is the way it is because it feeds right into the pharmaceutical industry, which then in turn, you know, feeds into the medical system. Yeah. They're in partnership with one another. And it's a business that works great for business.

Right.

It's just terrible for people.

Right. Great for money. Terrible for people.

Yeah, yeah. But you have to think about, like, what's their goal? Their goal is not health. Their goal is business. It's earning money. And they're doing a really good job at that. Yeah. Right. And if fruits and vegetables were subsidized like everything else that subsidize wheat, corn, soy, meat, dairy, and we would be talking about a totally different thing, but that doesn't make them any money. Like, how do you feed people broccoli and then get them to buy pharmaceuticals? You don't. Right. And so let's keep them off of broccoli. Right. And incentivize them to eat the junk.

Exactly. So that's where. I mean, that's where it comes up to each one of us to make these decisions for our health. Hey, we want to live in this model society. We don't have to give in to what they're trying to make us do and eat. We don't have to follow their path. We can live in this modern society and create our own path. Choose the foods that are going to nourish us, choose the lifestyle habits that are going to nourish us. Choose the relationships that are going to nourish us. And people, the power that we have to vote with our dollar is so powerful, whatever you go out and buy tells them to make more of it.

Yep.

It's that simple.

Right.

So if you go to the produce section and you spend 80% of your budget on your grocery budget in the organic produce section, 20% on the other goods that you might need, you are telling the industry, here's what I want. I want more organic produce.

Yeah.

Guess what that means.

You're telling them what's important.

Supply and demand. Right. It's supply and demand. The more you demand, the more they have to supply. Well, if you go into the package section and start buying these fake processed meats, you turn it over, it's got all kinds of preservatives and crap in it that doesn't have anything that sounds like a real natural plant. And that's where you're putting your money. Well, guess what? That is what they're going to produce more of. And those are the things that are going to keep us sick. So we have to vote with our dollar in the things that we want to see more. We can't. So many people out there are complaining they're not giving us healthy food. They're giving us poison. They're giving us garbage. They're giving us. Yeah, but we have the choice to. Or not. Exactly. I understand organic food can and often is more expensive, but when you compare organic produce to conventional produce, the amount of difference in the financial value between the two is actually pretty insignificant.

Yeah, it's negligible.

The biggest difference is if you're buying the organic packaged stuff, that's where the prices are skyrocket two, three times more. And often it's the potato chips and the granola bars and the cookies and that kind of stuff. You're like, oh, it's organic.

I mean, listen, there's organic gummy bears. Like, I remember one of the scrub nurses when I was a surgeon used to say, like, I don't understand. My kids have all these medical problems, but we eat all organic. And she takes these packages out of her bag and it's like, organic, organic gummy bears. And I was like, you know, organic junk is still junk.

Exactly, exactly.

You're not helping anyone. Right.

Stop the junk. Stop the processed foods. Stop the processed sugary foods. And then let's choose more fruits. I would rather people just choose any conventional fruits and vegetables and eat more of those in replace of certain packaged foods than buying organic packaged foods. And I'm a huge proponent for organic because we get the chemicals and pesticides, herbicides, fungicides out of the food and out of your body. But there have been studies that show that people who just add, you know, a few servings of fruits and vegetables a day to their diet in replace of some junk food, even as conventional fruits and vegetables see significant health improvements.

Yeah.

So that alone is something people can do, and we need to take action to do it. And that's, you know, that's what I coach people and guide people to do. It's like, look, start small. Where are you at right now? Are you eating five or six or seven servings of vegetables every day or eating five to seven servings of fruit every day? Most people are going to say no. Okay, well, you're not going to jump up to five or seven overnight. So let's pick three vegetables that you like, you can eat on a regular basis. Something green, something orange or red, something colorful. And let's start adding those in at least three a day. Four if you're already eating one or two. And then fruits. Same thing is pick different varieties of fruits. I don't want you eating four apples a day.

Right.

Let's pick an Apple.

Definitely not four bananas.

Definitely not four bananas. Four different fruits, four different servings of vegetables. And let's add that into your diet. And let's start small, but build a foundation and see how much you feel better, because you get that fiber and those nutrients in your body. Your body is going, oh, I don't really want those potato chips. Oh, I'm not really hungry for that ice cream. Oh. And then you start replacing these bad habits like I did, you know, ice cream binging. Because my body really wanted healthy sugars. It really wanted nutrients. And so I go eat the ice cream, thinking that was serving me. But then when I started replacing that with a banana and some yogurt, you know, some coconut yogurt and a banana, maybe a little honey and some almonds in there and make that as a snack. The more I did that or had a mango or had blueberries or something else, I no longer look to that ice cream anymore. It's like, I can't tell you. Last time I had ice cream, I used to eat tubs of ice cream. I cannot tell you the last time. It's been months and months. I have no desire for ice cream anymore.

Yeah. And the reason that you're eating tubs of it is because your body is searching for nourishment.

Starving.

Searching, starving. And that's why so many people who are so overweight, they may be overweight, but they are so undernourished. Yeah. Because what they're not getting the nourishment from their food. And it's amazing how quickly that can turn around when you start to give your body what it needs.

It's so quick. It is so quick, and it's amazing. I mean, it can take weeks or months, but you start making these small adjustments. Some of the things I've changed over the years is having a glass of green juice first thing in the morning. Green vegetable juice. And how much. My daughter. How much she didn't look forward to it for a couple of months, and then all of a sudden, she's like, oh, this actually tastes good. You know, she's going on 13 now, and it's like she. She's like, I look forward to the green juice in the morning. We didn't add anything sweet to it. It's just, you know, raw, bitter vegetables, celery, cucumber, kale, things like that. Nothing like super sweet. You can start with adding an apple or an orange.

Yeah. You can add green apple to that. And then as time goes by, your taste will change. Our taste buds do Change. And they change in accordance of what we're feeding our microbiome. Exactly. So the healthier and more diverse your microbiome becomes, it wants to be nourished. So it's not going to want that thing that doesn't nourish it.

See, I remember the same thing happened to me. It's like I started eating more vegetables and I was like, yeah, these don't taste that good. But over time, it's like, oh, I actually look forward to eating the broccoli. I look forward to eating the kale. I look forward to adding these things. So, juice in the morning, a big smoothie. I will make my smoothie sweet, but I'll make a big smoothie. I'll put handful of spinach, I'll put carrots, I'll put cucumber, I'll put celery kale in there. I'll put fruit, I'll put blueberries, put some organic protein powder in there, flaxseeds, chia seeds. I load it up, I make a thousand calorie smoothie. But I'm burning 5,000 calories a day.

So I also see what you do on Instagram. You need that smoothie.

I need it, I need it. But that's another way you can get multiple servings of fruits and veggies in your. Just starting the day in a smoothie and make it taste good. I'll put some orange juice, I'll do water, put some organic orange juice in there, and then berries and maybe an apple or a pear or something like that. And it tastes amazing. And it's just full of nutrients, antioxidants. So it's just picking, deciding where people are at and going, hey, if I'm not as healthy as I would like to be, or I'm dealing with a chronic disease, maybe it's cancer, maybe it's autoimmune disease, maybe it's chronic pain, it's joint pain, whatever it might be digestive issues. And I want to be healthier. Well, it's not about changing 100 things overnight. It's starting to pick. And look at, you know, where am I weakest? Is it my diet? My diet really, really bad. Okay, let's start there. Let's start simple. You know, let's start a smoothie in the morning or green juice in the morning. Let's just stick to that for a while and see how that goes. You know, maybe you're already somewhat advanced and so you start looking at other options. It's like, well, what could I add? Maybe I've been doing three or four servings a day. So let's bump that up. Let's add two more servings a day of vegetables or two more servings a day of fruit. You know, maybe you haven't done sauna before, so maybe start looking into adding sauna in a few days a week, you know, or upping your exercise routine or adding in an emotional, mental, emotional, spiritual practice, meditation, deep reflection, you know, qigong, tai chi, energy medicine, yoga, any of these practices that help. You know, I think, I think health is 80% mental, emotional, spiritual, 20% physical. And I used to think it was the opposite. I used to think it was all physical and 20, you know, 80% physical, 20%, the other stuff. But over the years, as I've met more and more and more people who healed all kinds of chronic diseases with the power of their mind and emotions and spiritual practice. And as I've looked more into German new medicine and people reversing irreversible cancers by changing nothing except healing mental, emotional challenges, I've met many people, started meditating and started healing their chronic health issues. And I myself, doing deep reflection and meditation and spiritual practices, have seen incredible enhancements in my life and in my health. I really believe that the diet and the nutrition, the herbs and supplements and the physical stuff in the sun and exercise is really important. But I honestly think it's 20%, maybe 30%. And I think mentally emotional, spiritual is 70 or 80% of health. And you can see that in some people, even in some other countries and people around the world, you're like, yeah, well, they drank and smoked and ate fried food their whole life. They lived to 90 with no issues. And like those situations, they are rare. But if you oftentimes, if you dig deeper, what I have found and what I've heard, in many of those situations, that person had a great relationship with a loved one. They were part of a local community of people that they had good relationships with. They didn't have much stress in their life at all. They slept well, you know, they had self confidence, they felt like they had a purpose in their life. All these things, you know, and all these things. That's why I like Live to 100, the documentary series, because he goes all these blue zones and touches on the diet, but more importantly goes into all these other aspects as well. Yeah, a lot of people don't realize, you know, community and friendships and nurturing and emotional health. And that's what I, you know, this is years ago, I finally realized one.

Of the main things about the blue zones is that they live very highly connected lives. And the older they get, the wiser they're considered and the more they're honored. So they're not throwing their elderly away. Their elderly are revered. And when you're revered, when your life has tremendous purpose, you want to live it, Right? And the number one predictor of how long you live is how long you think you're going to live and how long you want to live, how happy you are.

Right, Right. Have you seen the, and you've probably seen it at some point. This came out years ago. But the Harvard study, that they followed people from of all different backgrounds and ethnicities from the 1920s all the way up until maybe, I think the study finished 10, 15 years ago, they may still be continuing the study. There's a TED talk about it. And the number one predictor in all these people they followed was their level of happiness. And what contributed to that level of happiness is everything you're talking about right now, relationships and community and connectedness and purpose in life. And it's a fantastic study. There's a great TED talk on it for anyone who wants to go watch it.

And you know, we, we've seen this time and time again. I mean, the body is definitely keeping score without question. And we know that trauma, especially early childhood events, have very adverse effects on health. And we know from people like Joe Dispenza, when you watch these people who go to a week long conference with him and they go, and they're not walking and they walk out or they have cancer and they have a scan that shows that their disease is gone or that their tumor markers are not measurable anymore. I mean, we know how powerful the mind is and yet so many people don't tap into that.

That's why it takes, you know, that's why I've been focused on building a new community online. It's called Healing Life. People can learn more about it healinglife.net where we focus on the mental, emotional, spiritual aspect of health and wellbeing. And yes, we discuss nutrition and diet and all these other things as well. But what people are missing when they know this information? When you tell them, I tell them, it's like, yeah, this sounds good, that makes sense. But how do I do it? Where do I start? And so that's what I created at Healing Life was a place where people can actually go in community, on live classes throughout the week, anywhere in the world, on zoom classes, and actually practice these different mind body practices with different master teachers from different traditions. Meditation teachers, Reiki energy, healing teachers, master qigong teachers, energy medicine, yoga teachers. And you actually can be in a community of people you connect with, ask questions to, and actually get to do these practices. Because the number one predictor of health is are you actually practicing what you're preaching or what you're hearing?

Right.

Like, we could have all these studies on the number one predictor of longevity is happiness or is this or that. It's like. Well, I think the number one predictor is, are you actually doing it, those people, or doing the things? If you don't do anything or change anything, are you walking your talk, are you practicing? And that's. So these are daily practices. People can get in, they can do the live ones or attend the replays after, but it allows you an opportunity to actually go somewhere and start implementing the things that we're talking about and feel. Feel the change in your own body, feel the change in your own mind and emotions. Feel yourself be uplifted and have more energy and feel better. And just one of the number one things we hear from people is just how much more at peace they feel, how much more peace they feel in their lives and their mind, and less noise and clutter and worry and fear and just how much more peaceful. And we know how important that feeling of peace is in our lives, because upregulates, the parasympathetic nervous system, turns on the immune system, releases dopamine, helps enhance our immunity. These things that are essential for health.

Yeah. This is something that I focus on in the very beginning of my book, because the whole approach to cancer in this country, everyone talks about a fight, right? Fight against cancer and get ready to fight and win the war and win the battle. And the truth is that all of those words that verbiage, it connotates a certain environment. Right. It connotates, like, fear and violence and all of the things that you don't want to dominate your psyche. Right, Right. And so I tell people, like, instead of getting ready for war, I want you to get ready for peace.

Yeah.

I want you to find that peace inside of you, that joy, and shift your chemistry from the chemistry of stress to the chemistry of joy, because that's what fosters health.

It's so true. And it's. You know, and it's. It's one of those things that I've played, you know, I've had to juggle for years and years, because, you know, when it comes to reaching people and connecting with people, they resonate with those terms, you know, fight cancer, winning the war on cancer, let's beat cancer and all that. So we use those terms all the time, outward, expressing, to connect with people. And then when they come into the community, they read our books, they take our courses, programs, etc, everything that they're taught is exactly what you just said. It's not about fighting it. It's about loving and nurturing and accepting. But it's kind of that thing where it's like, outward expression of, you know, let's say marketing or whatever, trying to reach and help people. Like, people just turn that off. Like, yeah, whatever, that hippie dippy stuff, you know, but it's like, yeah, you.

Got to get them in the door.

We got to reach people where they're at and take them to where they really want to go, which is, where do you really want to be? You want to. You want to be a shining example of health? You want to feel good? You want to be at peace in your life? You want to have more energy? So it's like, okay, here's how we can do that.

Yeah. Talk about what they want so you can give them what they need.

We all need that, right? Everything we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I told you how hard, you know, CrossFit's gonna be on your first session, how much it's gonna hurt. And you're gonna be. You know, your lungs are bleeding and you're coughing and sweating all over the place. Some people are a little crazy. Like me will be like, all right, let's do it. You know, I like the challenge. Most people would be like, that sounds terrible. I don't wanna.

Yeah, no, thank you.

Funny story. And I know we gotta wrap up. My brother, when he first told me about CrossFit, that's why I said. I was like, that sounds stupid. Why would I ever wanna do that? You know? And. And then time went by and. And I. He invited me to a class, like a bring a friend day. And I was like, I'll go experience it. What the heck? Maybe it'll make me a better runner. So I went to it and then went through that whole experience of, you know, the challenge and the sweating and the breathing hard and laying on the floor. And at the end of it, I was like, this was freaking amazing. You know, this was incredible. And I got hooked. I got totally addicted and hooked. But it's one of those things, you know, most people would hear that and go, I don't want anything to do with that.

And.

And for people who are dealing with a chronic health issue, I wouldn't tell you yeah, go jump into CrossFit classes right away. I mean, you need more nurture, you need more, you know, time. But, but don't shy away from a little challenge. Don't shy away from getting the heart rate up on a regular basis. Don't shy away from sauna or other things that are going to help actually enhance your cardiovascular system and your immune system. It's just you're dealing with chronic health issue. You've got to ease into those things. But we have people at our CrossFit gym in their 60s and 70s that are thriving, thriving, doing the same things that the 20 and 30 year olds are doing. And you would be, I mean, just so, so amazed. And it's keeping them young and healthy. But you know, they're not dealing with a chronic health condition doing that. They, some of them overcame those conditions through, you know, gently entering into things like CrossFit. And then now they can do the high intensity stuff and feel amazing about it. So anyway, went off on a little tangent there. Sorry about that.

But, well, but I think it speaks to our message, which we are putting out there all the time, which is that you have so much more power than you think. And to circle back to what we kind of started off with here is sometimes that really challenging thing is putting down your phone. Sometimes that really challenging thing is to sitting still and tapping into your inner voice and tapping into your courage. And so no matter what that challenge is, knowing that you're worth it and knowing that all of these things, when you, when you focus on yourself and your health, they pay you back in spades.

Yeah, 100%.

Nathan, where can people find you and where can people learn more about your community?

Yeah, thank you so much for that. Nathancrane.com is my website. You can go there, find my podcast, you can download my Amazon best selling book called Becoming Cancer Free. I just give it away for free at the website as well as a PDF. So that's just nathancrane.com if you want to experience some of these healing practices that I was talking about, you can go try that and experience that@healinglife.net that's wonderful.

And we'll make sure to put all of this in the show notes. Nathan, it was great to see you today. Thank you as always for doing what you do, sharing your wisdom. I know that cancer is a hard thing to talk about and it takes a lot of bravery to talk about it the way that you and I talk about it and empower people to heal themselves and let them know that there are re that the real cures are the things that they're doing outside of the doctor's office. Because health doesn't happen in a hospital or a chemotherapy suite or a radiation suite. Health happens at home with your habits.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well said. Yeah. Thanks, Dr. Jen. Always a pleasure to hang out with you, talk with you. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. Bye for now. Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Keeping a breast podcast with Dr. Jen. I hope you found the discussion informative and empowering. Remember, breast health is health, so by staying in informed and taking proactive steps, you have the power to optimize your well being. My team and I encourage you to apply the knowledge gained from today's episode to make positive changes in your life and share what you've learned with others. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review. Your feedback and support mean the world to us and help us to reach more people who can benefit from these conversations. Stay connected with me on social media where I share additional resources, advice, updates and announcements related to breast health. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Dr. Jensimmons and remember, my Jen has two N's, so until next time, remember to stay proactive, informed and confident in your breast health journey. The key to your health is you sa.