Ancestral Health Guy on Strategies to Improve Mental Health

This episode is brought to you by Nourish Me Organics, your gut health superstore. Nourish Me Organics are the premier online store when it comes to gut health supplements and home fermentation kits. Today's conversation is going to center around gut and mental health. So do head to www.nourishmeorganics.com and check out the mental health category using code happygut for 10% off. Hey, guys. Criben Govender from the Gut Health Gurus podcast. I've got a background in food science, also with nutrition as well. And today we have a special guest. His name is Sunny Blonstein Dent, commonly known as the Ancestral Health guy on Instagram. And you know, I really resonated with, with what Sonny posted or posts on a regular basis on Instagram. And Instagram is a much younger audience. And I thought, well, it's interesting to explore anxiety and depression from a younger man's perspective because I think by now everybody knows my own personal struggle with anxiety and depression. But I think anxiety and depression is, and mental health in general is a huge issue across the world and particularly worrying for me personally, the younger generation. So I invited Sunny to come on and talk about his story, his struggle with anxiety. And firstly, Sunny, I just wanted to say thank you for coming onto the show.

Thanks so much for inviting me.

My absolute pleasure. And what I like to do at the start of my podcasts and audience, excuse me, I've got a little bit of a croaky throat at the moment and it's a bit irritating on my throat, but bear with me and we'll give you a good podcast. But Sunny, at the start of every podcast, I like to get it from the horse's mouth. Who is the ancestral Health Guy? Sunny Dent.

Yeah, so social health guy is just, just a normal guy from England. And I used to suffer from really bad anxiety and panic attacks, specifically panic attacks for a long time. And I wouldn't say depression, but so basically I had to kind of come up with, I had to try and help myself with my own hands because I tried going to doctors, I tried, you know, psychologists, I tried hypnotherapists, I tried everything and I ended up having to help myself. And so I tried diet. I started with diet and for me diet helped a lot. So basically I just wanted to help other people. And I found there was a massive link between the gut and, you know, these feel good hormones that are so important for making us happy, to keep us motivated. And there's such a massive link. So I wanted to help other people and share what I learned along the way. That's basically the main gist.

It's such a common problem across the planet at the moment. And, you know, if you could go back in a time machine and go to that moment where you first realized, firstly, you, you're a young man. How old are you?

Yeah, I'm 21.

Only 21. So you're young. So what was the moment when you had this inkling in your body that there was something going on in terms of this anxiety that you were feeling?

Well, now that I think about it, I think I've had anxiety for a long time in terms of just more elevated stress than normal people. But I would say when I really realized how bad my anxiety was was definitely in school, kind of high school, you know, before university in England, we call it. And basically I just. I couldn't go to class without getting sort of a panic attack every time, like a teacher would ask me a question, I'd have to, you know, go to the toilet or run downstairs or any sorts of stress would just trigger this kind of panic response. And even meeting some friends or something, I would get this panic response which didn't allow me to have fun or to do, to live a normal life.

Yeah. Suddenly that really resonates with me because I can think back my own journey. The point where I discovered potentially retrospectively thinking now, when my anxiety struggle started as well. And that was pretty much when I was about 15 years old and I'd gone on this international trip with my parents to India, actually just on holidays. And in India I picked up this Shigella dysentery bug. It's really easy to pick up Shigella. It's very, very common food poisoning type organism. And literally I lost like 10 kilos. I was already skinny anyway, so I lost a huge amount of weight. I was like a skeleton when I came. And then the doctors put me on this massive course of antibiotics and I went from being quite a bubbly, happy, go lucky, very popular kid in high school to being someone that was really dark and miserable and gloomy. And when I think back, it was almost like overnight massive nuclear bombing of the guts with antibiotics and then a total 180 flip in personality to someone that was like a different person. And it's such a common story. So for you personally, you felt as if there was like this anxiety. And when you were confronted in a social situation or in a pressure situation with a teacher, you felt yourself just almost like fight or flight. Right. Just Trying to. Just running away from whatever was triggering this response.

Yeah, exactly. It was basically a constant sort of state of, kind of. But there's also this feeling of trappedness. You're feeling like you're trapped from something. There's something you're constantly feeling like trapped. You feel a bit irritable in every situation. The next thing that happens, it's going to trigger something that's going to cause you to go crazy or something. That's what it feels like. Sure.

Was it. Was it something that happened like pretty instantaneously? Was. Was it like a shift in personality or was there something that kind of built up?

It was definitely more stress because the workload got higher. Just. Just more stress in my life. Just like issues of friends. And there was definitely like a. Like a pile of things that went on top of each other. But for sure that I think the diet, because at the time I was just takeaway, takeaway, Takeaway food, ordering takeaway food because, you know, it's what students normally do. You don't have time. And it was just the unhealthy food was just piling up and just kind of really, you know, I was just kind of binge eating as well. Because when you, when you're stressed, you want to binge eat and then you get into this problem, this cycle of you're kind of injuring your gut, you're hurting your gut for every meal and you're. Yeah. And then that probably caused some gut problems and that probably made everything a lot worse. Right. It's like kind of holistic where it's kind of all these problems kind of affect. Affect the anxiety. But it's like, which, which problem. Cause which problem was the last, you know, which problem is the actual problem that caused to me that worse? We don't know. But definitely the gut health was one of the most important factors for me.

And was there other associated symptoms that you were feeling? Was there any IBD or was there weight gain or anything else in terms of gut discomfort, bloating?

Yeah, I definitely had like digestive stress. There wasn't as bad as like IBD or ibs, but it was definitely. Once I went, I tried to heal my gut, I noticed that I could handle foods a lot better. So I was definitely dealing with some sort of digestive problems, but it wasn't at the level of like an IBS or IBD kind of like, you know, diagnosis for sure.

And, and then you, you went on this journey, I guess, to, to heal your gut. And I just want to say, isn't it amazing the age that we live in the world with technology. Like, you're all the way from the uk, I'm here in Australia.

Yeah.

You're a young man. You discovered you had this, some sort of issue going on in the gut that was causing you anxiety and depression. And then you put on your thinking cap, you went onto the Internet and started to do research. So how did that eventuate and what did you stumble on in terms of your journey? So you discovered there was an issue, so you went onto the Internet. What was this pivotal moment or piece of research or something that you saw that led you on this journey? Was there anything particular?

Yeah, there was, but. So at the start I was always searching for how to heal anxiety. I would see a video on Himalayan pink salt in water. Just drink the whole bottle and I'll try everything, no matter what it sounded like. But there was one day and I came across the keto diet. I saw that diet and I saw a video made like saying like, it can help with, you know, panic attacks and anxiety. So I tried a keto diet and it didn't really help me that much. Some reason I tried it for a while, it just didn't, didn't really do the job. And then one day I remember stumbling across a video where it was just, you know, Jordan Peterson.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it was, it was Jordan Peterson and he was talking about how the carnival diet helped him a lot. So it's basically an all meat diet. He said, he said he was suffering from anxiety, full of panic attacks and depression for a very long time. And because I already watched his video, Jordan Peterson's videos, I had sort of a respect for him already. So I thought I kind of trust him on his ideas. So I basically tried a carnivore diet. That's what I did. It's when I started to. That's the first diet I tried. It was basically an all meat diet. And at first I felt really sick. It was, I didn't really like, it felt really off, but I just kept going with it for a while and, and it definitely, it wasn't like the tastiest of diets. I wanted it like, I wanted to eat lots of other foods with it, but I'd get some going. I tried it for about, I'd say like three months. But after about two weeks I did notice that like my anxiety symptoms were just, they're just getting a lot, they were getting a lot less, a lot decrease, decrease a lot of.

So.

And it could have been, it could have been the Meat. It could have been just the fact that I was removing all the, you know, bad things from my diet like the fast food. But I was going on, I was eating like a lot healthier before then. So it wasn't just the idea that it was like I was already trying to eat healthy.

That's really, I've seen the carnival diet gaining popularity, you know, with every dietary regime. I mean it's so personalized and one thing that works for one person might not necessarily work for another. Whether it's veganism or the carnivore diet or any other dietary regime, I think it's up to the individual to find something that works for them. Because each microbiome, each set of genetic information, lifestyle factors, they're all different. But I'm really, I've got a burning question for you. So what, what does a carnivore diet, I've never personally tried it before, but what does that actually look like? What do people, what's it, what? For instance, just give us an indication of your breakfast, your lunch and your dinner. Just out of interest.

So there's like the conventional carnivore diet which is basically kind of like steaks, steaks and eggs. Well, mainly, mainly like ribeye steaks is what I would have. And like, I would literally, I would, you know, a lot of people, when they do the carnival diet or keto diet, they do intermittent fasting as well. So they do like, they would skip breakfast normally and have like a big lunch and a big dinner or something. Or some people who want to lose weight would just, just have one, one meal a day. But, but, yeah, so but there's another carnival diet called the nose to tail carnival diet which basically means you're just adding in organ meats. You know, you're eating the whole animal basically that's, you know, the organ meats are the most nutrient dense part of the animals actually. That's where the animals store most the nutrients because it's most important functions of the body and the organs. So yeah, so there's like two types of carnivore diet, but for me I use the carnivore diet as a, as a sort of stepping stone because I've generally found that people with gut issues especially do really well on like a carnivore diet with, with like healthy, you know, grass fed animals. And then once, once they kind of have done that diet for a while and then you add, add in foods. It's kind of like an elimination diet in a way where you can like, you can use it to find out your food sensitivities because it's really unlikely that someone's allergic to beef. Like, there's just, just no one's allergic to beef for some reason. So it's a really good place to start. And then you can add stuff back in and test. Maybe you have a pathogen problem, like, why can't you tolerate the. This food? And maybe it's Candida. And then maybe, you know, maybe you need more time to rest. Are you allowing your body to heal? Are you sleeping enough? So it's kind of like I use the Carnival diet as the first sort of recovery. It's sort of like a place to put your gut on a, on a, on a cast and just chill for a bit.

Absolutely. And this is the information that you post on Instagram. And what I really love, in essence of what you do is you take. It's almost like the mouth of babes. So you're a young guy, very creative, you take quite complex scientific information and you simplify it in these nice little infographics that make it easy for people to understand. So huge. Kudos, Sunny. It's a great thing that you're doing. Now let's explore a little bit about some of the factors that you're talking about now. Why, why, why? What are the factors from a scientific perspective? Firstly, let me just Clarify. So you're 21. What are you currently studying?

Yeah, so I'm just taking a gap here right now for school, basically. I had. Really, because of the anxiety and stuff, I didn't go straight to university. I decided to take like a gap year. So, yeah, I'm still kind of doing that gap year kind of thing. I'm trying to make. I'm trying to make my Instagram kind of a job in a way. And yeah, I'm trying to make it a job. Yeah, it's a slow journey and because I'm passionate, I'm passionate about it, so. Sure.

And so when you do go to uni, do you have an idea of what you want to study?

Yeah, it's actually probably to do if it's more of the design, the creative side of the, of my Instagram, which is more like kind of media marketing, maybe, something like that.

Right. Okay.

Other than something. It wouldn't be. It wouldn't be nutritional or anything like that, but I would. Maybe now I would consider doing it for sure. But before, when I, like when I was in, when I was getting my qualifications for university, it was, it was never. It was nothing to do with science or Nutrition or, you know, biology.

Yeah, I said whatever. Whatever field you decide to go in, I'm sure you're going to do really well. So let's explore why the carnivore diet might have provided some benefits. I'm a scientist, so I'm not suggesting that this is going to work for everyone, but let's explore from a scientific perspective why this particular diet works for you. So number one, so you mentioned the organ meats, the, the nutritional benefits. So I highly encourage people look at root cause protocol. So I'm not sure when Molly Robins episode, who's the guy that developed this root cause protocol Is going to drop. But essentially what Morley is saying is that basically we're all, we've got too much iron in our bodies. And so iron is causing a lot of issues. There's impacts on the gut microbiome, there's impacts on mitochondrial function. And essentially what Molly is saying is things like liver are very high in copper. And what copper does, it has the ability to almost inactivate iron, sort of remove it from the body. So that's one reason why doing a carnivore diet might be beneficial. The second reason why the second reason might be it's low in deuterium. So I'm not sure what your kind of feel on deuterium is.

Yeah, I understand the deuterium thing and how it works with the environment kind of thing.

So very simply, animal foods are lower in deuterium. So deuterium is just basically a, an isotope of hydrogen that's twice as heavy. Again, I'm not going to go into the detailed science guys. Could always go back and listen to our podcast episodes with Dr. Laszlo Boros or Dr. Jack Cruz or Dr. Gabor Shomli on the deuterium story. But just know this, that meat and fat is naturally low in deuterium and carbohydrates, especially the C3. So the length of the carbohydrate chain, so C3 and higher is more likely to have high levels of deuterium. So that's one factor. That's another factor why a carnivore diet might be beneficial. Then you mentioned also perhaps, and I think I've heard you talk about this and post about it, the lectin story. So lectins, anti nutrient compounds naturally found in vegetables and things like that. When you have meat, there's no lectins. So these anti nutrient compounds that can cause inflammation in the gut are not there. So that's another reason, especially if you're eating grass fed Meat, no glyphosate, no pesticides. That's another reason why a carnivore diet might be, might have benefited you in your example. So anything else you can think about?

Yeah, so I'd say also people don't, I mean people don't realize this but like meat's actually not hard to digest in terms of just digestibility. Like I'm not talking about how fast it comes out of you, I'm talking about how well it's absorbed and what a lot of people have got issues need is to have some food that's easily absorbed. It doesn't come straight through them, it doesn't, doesn't irritate the gut. And meat is like, I mean you can, even bone broth would be even more soothing, something like that with the collagen and it literally soothes the gut. It's like putting a cream on a wound. But yeah, that's another thing. It's just people don't understand that if you've tried a carnival diet, you'll know that you'll feel, I mean obviously it does depend on the person. Not everyone's the same. It depends on your ancestry and other things. But you'll know that your gut will feel really light. It feels like you never feel bloated if you've had like just a steak by itself. But if you have like a steak and potatoes, you'll feel a bit more, it feels a bit more heavy. So that's another thing. And then the second thing I would add to that is just the fact that animal foods are in general more nutrient dense for humans in general. That's not, not every nutrient. Like obviously some nutrients like vitamin C is better on plants, better, easier skin plants. But when people are suffering from gut issues especially they want or any health issues, you want nutrients in the most bioavailable form. Right? You want, you want, you don't want your body to be converting vitamin A from, you know, beta keratin to retinol, which is like the plant form. You don't your body to be converting all the vitamins. You don't want your body to be doing less work. I mean more work. You want your body to be less work to make it more efficient. Animal foods provide nutrients in the most bioavailable forms. So that's another aspect that could help for sure. People with gut issues or people that just, just need to heal in general.

Yeah, absolutely. And audience, don't get me wrong, there is a place for plant based eating as well. So if people make choices Based on religious reasons or sustainability or animal cruelty, There are options to heal the gut without having to go down a carnivore diet. So there's certainly no one size fits all. Everybody's on a journey, and everybody makes their own informed decisions based on the latest science. And that's what we do on this podcast. So, sunny, so you touched on something, I think, that was very important. Fasting. So what's your fasting practice look like?

I don't like fast as much as I used to now because my gut's a lot healthier and. Well, now I do fast a bit during kind of winter. But what I generally recommend people to do is just to start with intermittent fasting. But like, like anything, I don't. I don't think you need to fast, be healthy or anything. But we're dealing, you know, we're dealing with lots of people. Like, people have got issues. They're people who need a rest and they need to give a gut. They got a break. And, you know, you can't stop eating. So how do we get our gut a break? You know, when. When we hurt our arm, you know, we can just put our arm in a cast if we break our arm. But how can you put your, you know, how can you rest your gut? You can't stop eating. But, you know, fasting is a way to rest the gut. So, you know, lots of religious in, you know, in religious, you know, books did have good fast. Wouldn't you as well? And, you know, there's probably lots of reasons for that, but also, you know, it's a chance to rest your gut as well from, you know, all because we come especially in the. In the modern world. We're constantly, you know, injuring our guts. We're constantly giving our body more, like, more than they can handle. But overeating, the food is almost so abundant that we're not giving it a break. You know, some people, I think there was some crazy statistic that people on average eat about like 10, 20 times a day, like the average person in America or something. And it's like we're not giving our guts a break. We're just constantly just ramming our guts with foods and not easy to digest foods. So, like, fasting is just a way to hit the brakes, like, have a reset bus and let your body, like, you know, have a chance to recover and just. Yeah, that's what I like to do.

Totally, totally agree. We eat far too much in the Western. In the Western paradigm, I'm down to two meals a day now. I have breakfast in the morning, morning and literally my dinner at 3:00. And that's it. Every day for me is pretty much, unless it's social commitments, but most days look like a solid 16 hour fast. Once your body's hormonal systems adjust, especially when you're getting blue light, getting some sunlight in the morning and setting this cascade of hormonal production in the body and getting adequate levels of melatonin, you find that you don't feel hungry. Like the body adjusts. And I think this is akin to probably how we used to eat in prehistoric times because food is so abundant now. But back in those prehistoric times food would have been extremely difficult to acquire and the body in winter or you know, in periods where food was scarce, the body survived for millions of years because it adapted to being able to fast and go through periods of essentially starvation. It's inbuilt into the cells. And I think there's also these systems where. Systems like autophagy, where the body needs time to clear out all the old cells, whether it's autophagy or mitophagy, whether the mitochondria as well are also clearing out all the junk as well, all the dead mitochondria. So the body needs time to do these things. And eating is actually a stressful process in itself.

Very true.

The release of cortisol. So imagine so we're eating, but the eating process itself is creating more stress. So it's this vicious cycle where people might develop habits to deal with stress by eating, but then the stress is then being exacerbated by the eating in itself.

So very true.

It's a really vicious cycle. So Sunny, tell me about, you know, for the younger people, what's your observations in terms of whether it's anxiety, whether it's gut issues, what are you noticing in your age bracket? Anything stand out?

The biggest things would be probably gut issues like sensitivities, celiac disease, gluten intolerant tolerances, ibs. Sure. Gut issues and anxiety. Definitely some of the biggest ones. Depression? Yeah, mostly. Mostly gut issues and mental health issues. Trying to think of any more that's kind of common at the moment. I think it's mainly those. Yeah, you see those gut issues and the mental health issues and it's not really surprising as well because just the food is just becoming so. The quality of food is just getting so much worse and so much more mass produced on a large scale, especially in. I'm in London here. So like it's just, you know, there's food, you know, delivery constantly available for everyone and they cut. They don't really need to spend the time to look for good quality food and bring it home and cook it themselves. You know what I mean?

You get. You've got Uber Eats on assuming.

Yeah, we've got Uber Eats.

How about what's your thoughts on. On phone usage and also technology? WI Fi, Bluetooth, definitely.

It's massive. Like, I don't know the. I haven't done enough research on EMFs to understand how that affects our guts, you know what I mean? But I do know it's, it's just, it's in terms of. For our sleep, it's just like a killer EMF radiation. And especially, you know, in London, everyone's living in such a. You know, there's so many people in a small, in the, in a massive populate. There's so many people in a small area. So it's just, it's just mass. It's just mass amount of EMFs affecting you constantly. And, and you know, sleep is the time when, when our bodies can actually rest and heal. So when our sleep's worse because of what EMFs and just getting more blue light in general at night, then we're probably going to have gut issues. Because try sleeping one night. Try having four hours of sleep just one night, just try it the next day. Your whole digestion will just feel slow. You might have some diarrhea or constipation issues. It's so important for our gut just to be sleeping well as well. So it's all holistic. The EMFs affect our sleep, the sleep gets worse, which then affects our gut. And then when we have a massive meal during the day, we're going to have more injury and that's going to hurt our guts, which might lead to all these problems that we see. Like ibs.

Absolutely. Melatonin is the master antioxidant. It's almost your healing hormone that helps the body, especially with the gut lining. Not many people realize the gut turns over really fast. The cells in the gut turnover within a couple of days. So every couple of days you essentially have a new gut lining. So imagine if the body doesn't have the time it needs to actually replace this lining optimally. And then that continuously happens day after day after day, year after year. So a lot of people that are suffering from digestive issues, it's not like it's just appeared overnight. It's a culmination of lifestyle factors and choices and lots of other things, even environmental factors like Bluetooth Maybe it's alcohol abuse or whatever it is. Even these days, with food additives, with glyphosate, with pesticides, food preservatives, emulsifiers, all these things damage the gut. So by the time you actually feel like you've got IBS or you've got this discomfort, it's probably years and years in the making. As you mentioned earlier, Sonny, when you heal and seal the gut, the variety of foods you can eat are a lot more open. You might have to go through some form of restrictive diet for a period of time. But then once the healing happens. You mentioned it earlier, Sonny, that then you can find yourself including foods that prior were causing discomfort. Things like bread, that's a common one. People suffer for years and years and then they can't have any bread. Then they heal their guts and then all of a sudden they can have bread and dairy and all these things. No issues. Right?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. The funny. It's true. Bread is actually really interesting one because it's been very high. It's been modified to actually contain a larger like gluten molecule. So then, so the bread that, you know, our ancestors were eating, or even people 100 years ago probably wouldn't have had a. Would have a much smaller gluten molecule. So it'd be a lot easier. You know, the gluten is quite hard to digest in the bread and, and people also sourdoughing their bread. Whereas nowadays. So I always recommend people that want to add in bread or rice. Again, I always say, you know, start. Start with, you know, think about the quality and which bread you're buying. So maybe like start with maybe instead of brown rice, because brown rice is just super high and it's hard to digest. You've got to cook that for so long. Maybe start with white rice and just because it's easier to digest, it may be refined, but it's easier on the gut in terms of digestion. And then with bread, don't go to whole grain bread straight away. You don't want to eat whole grain bread because it has the bran, which is really hard to digest. So maybe you could try sprouted sourdough whole grain bread. And it's completely different scenario. So these details, the devil's really in the details when it comes to gut foods. And I mean foods that a food that's hard to digest can simply. And a food that like is easy to digest can simply be like, are you mashing your potatoes or are you baking your potatoes? You know, the mash. Maybe mashing is More broken down so it'll be easier to digest. So, yeah, the devil really is in the details of the guts of gut foods and what hurts the gut.

Absolutely. That's really insightful, Sonny. And when I see clients, it's a common story that it's about making foods if you're suffering with discomfort or gut injury, as you mentioned, Sunny, to make it as easy to digest as possible, to take the work away from the digestive system to allow it to heal. As you mentioned, this is exactly the same things I do with clients. Whether it's reducing the amount of lectins or reducing gluten, or making the food more digestible by fermenting it, or even mincing meat, putting it through some sort of mechanical process, or making brain blocks or soups, all these things are making it easier to digest. Even like white rice, it's really easy to digest as well. So it's just giving the gut a chance to heal. So that's absolutely spot on.

Yeah.

So where else should we go? Which other rabbit hole do you want to jump down? So.

I think we could talk maybe a bit about the. How, like, maybe. I don't know, because I thought because you know a lot about the kind of the light and, you know, EMF radiations and how sunlight affects the gut, maybe we could talk a little bit about. But I'm not an expert in this area, but I was just very interested and how, you know, how is the different, like, seasons affect, like our gut health or maybe different foods that we need?

Yeah, absolutely. And I noticed you're also wearing the blocking glasses as well.

Yeah, just the computer.

You've got the computer. It's nighttime now, so I've got my.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Glasses. So it's blocking all the blue 100%. These are the Mitre HQ ones. I love these glasses. Yeah. Jason Borden Smith. Guys, if you want to go back and listen to Jason Borden Smith talk about a lot of the things, EMF especially, he's a big mito health mitochondria guy. So amazing detail in the EMF deuterium, that kind of space, anything to do with mitochondrial health. But that's an interesting rabbit hole to jump down because a study just came out because it's really interesting. Sunny. I had Dr. Jack Cruz on the podcast a few months ago, and he pretty much made some big calls. Jack, he's a genius, and he made some big calls based on some work that came out of. What was his name? There's a scientist, Jeff Leach's group, and he's talking about the Hasda tribes and how environment is a big factor in terms of shaping the gut microbiome. It turns out a study just came out very recently to confirm the conversation I had with Jack Cruz about the impact of uv. I think it's UVB light. So really kind of midday sun light on actually modulating or impacting the microbiome composition. So Jack was absolutely spot on that light. It's so important if you have gut issues to actually go out and make. Skin cancer is a huge problem here in Australia. So I'm not suggesting people go and fry themselves in the sun because it is a huge issue that we have here with melanomas and skin cancers. But even for a short period of time, especially in the morning, morning getting morning light in the eyes but then also getting some light on the gut even if it's for a couple of minutes during that kind of UVB part of the day, maybe around just before midday when it's not too crazy hot, get some light on the gut and one of my diet.

The sunlight on the gut can help kill Candida as well. Sunlight directly on the gut, it can directly kind of kill the Candida or maybe help at least.

Wow. I haven't seen any research but I wouldn't be surprised because light, especially that UV spectrum and certainly red light can actually go down quite deep. So it can get right into the gut and actually modulate the, the type of organisms in the gut. So that's really fascinating that you brought that up because it's a, it's a really easy hack. I do that. What I do is I just kind of meditate. I take my shirt off at and you've got to really build up a solar callus. So if you're light skinned and you haven't spent a lot of time in the sun, I wouldn't be just be jumping into the sunlight.

Yeah. Slowly.

Got to slowly build up that solar callus and certainly get light early in the day just to prime the body for sunlight when it gets stronger in the middle of the day. And yeah so that what I do is I just go outside and I do my tm. So I do transcendental meditation. So I just do my meditation outside in my jocks. That's my backyard is pretty, pretty much, you know, it's private so I can pretty much take my clothes off and jump in the backyard. So I've got, I've got, I've got a garden in the back back. So I'll nibble on some herbs and Some lettuces or whatever is growing in my garden and I'll get in my jocks and just meditate for 20 minutes with sunlight on the gut.

Nice. It sounds great.

And the other benefit we're talking about anxiety and depression. Sunlight has the ability to produce beta endorphins when it shines on the body. So this is a huge moon mood boosting impact on the body. It's like the, the opposite side to that is sad, you know, in the middle of winter, maybe in parts of England where people feel gloomy when it's. Or depressed when there's no, not enough sunlight. So this is the opposite end of it.

Yeah. So interesting. And I was also learning a lot about, because you know, how eating, eating for your local environment because the light, you know, like in winter you wouldn't be able to eat maybe fruits and when in England, you know, wouldn't be able to eat those high carb foods. So maybe doing a more kind of ketogenic style approach in winter could, you know, also because for a mitochondrial point of view, you know, when you're in ketosis, you're using your mitochondria to burn energy like 100% of your mitochondria. So during those winter months, you know, as we said in nature, I mean, as we said in nature, you probably would be. It's a survival mumps winter, it's when the harvest stops. So we're probably burning our own fat off, right. To try and you know, maybe if we didn't have enough food, we'd be burning our own fat, we'd be burning ketones running off those mitochondria. Then as summer came in or as spring came in, maybe we start eating more carbs again. And then, you know, because carbs get burned outside of the mitochondria, which then give your mitochondria a break almost, which can be very beneficial like for like a limited amount of time. So it's really interesting for me learning, recently I've been learning a lot about, you know, seasonal eating as well and how like your light environment, your whole environment can affect what foods, how well you metabolize certain foods. Like eating honey in maybe in winter can maybe because, you know, the deuterium levels as well is really high in honey. For example, in winter it's really, you will metabolize those high deuterium foods a lot worse. But in summer with the UV light and eating carbs will be a lot more beneficial. So maybe those things like link together.

Yeah, absolutely right. Because you know, it's all globalism is a double edged sword really, because now you can access food from across the world any season. You know, it's all or imported. But seasonal eating is a really simple hack because you're eating foods that are almost programmed in your environment. So your body. So light is information. So when a light shines, and Dr. Jack Cruz is far more eloquent in explaining all of this, but when the light shines in a plant, there's a programming that's happening that light energy is stored in the plant. So what happens if you're eating something that's not in your local environment? It's very confusing to the body because there's a mismatch in the programming happening. So if you're eating asparagus from Peru and you're sitting in England, the body is confused. Whereas if that particular fruit or vegetable that you're eating is from your local farmer's market, from that local environment, everything is aligned and especially you're eating seasonally as well. So you're eating foods that are in season for that particular climatic zone that you're living in.

Yeah, that's a good point. And it's also interesting, the idea that, you know, how your circadian rhythms also affect how well you metabolize things like glucose. And you know, even when you sleep, you, you regenerate, you rest and regenerate your insulin levels, your pancreas helps, you know, regenerate the pancreas. So it's really interesting, this link between diabetes and blue light at night and how the mix between the blue light at night and the carbs together are like a cause for diabetes in times. But if you sort out your circadian rhythms, then you'll be able to handle the glucose a lot better and there'll be less sugar stuck in the blood, you'll be able to metabolize the glucose better. I found that was really interesting because I was always wondering how come, you know, if carbs were causing diabetes, like, like most people say they are, how come, you know, our great grandparents, they were eating lots of carbs, they were eating bread all the time, you know, how come they weren't getting diabetes? If you look at the Weston A. Price book, you know, all those cultures were eating, you know, grains were every meal almost, how come they weren't getting diabetes? So there's lots of things that are missing from the puzzle. You know, lots of the holistic approach that people are focusing on, just nutrition or just light or maybe, you know, we need to start combining them a bit to get the full Picture, you.

Know, that's why we have the ancestral health guy. Right. So to look at all these different factors, because as scientists, we can often get caught in our own little sections. You know, if you're a neuroscientist, you're kind of focusing on the brain. If you're a food scientist, you're focusing on food or environmental scientists. Maybe you're having a look at pollution or something like that. Or if you're building biologists, you're looking at EMFs. That's the beauty of the Internet. I mean, all the research is out there. It's guys like Dr. Jack Cruz, guys like yourself, a young guy with all the information at your fingertips. And it's there for everyone. Right at the end of the day, it's just putting all those little pieces together. Now there's podcast episodes. There's so much information where people can put all those little nuggets together and try things out. Perhaps try a fasting protocol or get yourself some blue light blocking glasses, or maybe get some sunlight in your eyes, on your gut. You might be surprised that the flow on health benefits. Another thing that I do a lot is cold thermogenesis. I'll jump in the ocean once a week. I'll have cold showers every day. That's also. All these things are great for mental health as well. Infrared sauna, red light therapy. There's so many things, there's so many modalities that people can try to deal with any health issue, whether it's the gut or even if it's anxiety and depression.

Yeah, very true.

Yeah. So I think that was. I think we're up to time now. So that went by really fast.

Really fast.

That went by really fast. We're almost up to an hour, but sunny. I want to just say huge gratitude for you waking up early in the morning for a young guy. Eight o' clock's pretty early for a young guy.

Young bloke today I watched the sunrise. So it was good that you got me off a bit earlier.

Awesome. You get the sun in your eyes and it's really good to see the young people out there. That's the essence of the Gut Health Gurus podcast as well. It's not just about getting all the professors and the academics and the scientists, but I also want real people with real stories. You're a young guy, you've been very vulnerable and open in sharing your own personal journey, which I'm hugely grateful for. And hopefully it'll inspire other young people out there who are also struggling and hopefully you can be an inspiration for them because they're probably not interested in an old bloke like me and what I have to say. So hopefully you can be a voice for the younger people. So I really appreciate you coming onto the podcast, Sonny, and thanks a lot.

Yeah, that's my goal. It's to just. Just to help people that. So they don't have to suffer the way I did from the. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.

My pleasure. And if there's. If people. Two more questions and we'll wrap. So if people. People are really interested in finding out more about you and what you do, how can they find you?

Yeah, so right now it's just my Instagram, which is Ancestral HealthGuy, but, you know, there's. There's a website, ancestralhealthguy.co.uk and then you can find that through Instagram as well.

Great.

You can even book a consultation with me if you want to speak about stuff about your anxiety.

Yeah, awesome, man. You're doing some amazing things. And one more question. If there was one thing you could do for your gut health or your emotional health, mental health call it would be, what would it be? Sunny.

I'd say need to take care of it, which means the word cure originates from the Latin word curare, which means to take care of. So in order to cure ourselves from disease or from mental or even physical illness, we need to take care of our bodies. We don't need to just do it one day or one month, do this diet, and then for the rest of our lives we go back to our normal diet. The word take care means you're constantly making choices to take care of your body, whether it's to eat easier to digest foods, whether it's to wake up for sunrise, whether it's to, you know, go to bed a bit earlier. It's all like having good health is all about taking care of your body and. And, you know, making it as easy as possible for your body to do its functions.

Awesome. Yeah, there's a lot of wisdom in that for sure. Sonny. Well, well, well ahead of your, I guess, your age, so that's extremely light. Well said, sir. Thank you so much for coming to the podcast.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Take care.

See you later.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Gut Health Gurus podcast with the amazing Sonny Blonstein Dent. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a kind review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. You can also find transcripts@www.podcast.nourishmeorganics.com and guys, I'm also on social media on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube guthealthgrews. So please drop me a message, come and follow me and follow my work there as well. I'm always posting a lot of of the latest science and so forth. This podcast is brought to you by Nourish Me Organics, the premier gut health store in Australia and now also with an office in Indonesia. So do check out Nourish me Organics at www.nourishmeorganics.com and use the code Happy Gut for 10% off until next time.