Dr Ron Ehrlich on Holistic Stress Management

This episode is brought to you by Nourish Me Organics, your Gut health superstore. One of the hottest sellers on the Nourish Me Organics website is collagen. And it comes in two different forms. It comes in beef collagen or marine collagen. And collagen is so versatile, it simply dissolves into water. You can use it in smoothies, in soups. Whether it's hot or cold, it doesn't really matter. And collagen is absolutely, absolutely amazing when it comes to gut health. So use the code happy gut for 10% off on the Nourish Me Organic store. Www.nourishmeorganics.com. Hey, guys. Cribbin governor from the Gut Health Gurus podcast. I've got a background in food science and also as a registered nutritionist. And today I've got a fascinating guy. His team reached out to us a couple of months ago and told us about Ron's work and his book. And Ron is a holistic dentist. He's an amazing author, podcaster. And this is the bit that caught my attention. The title of his book, A Life Less Stressed. The Five Pillars of Health and Wellness. And stress is a huge deal for me because stress is one of the reasons why my life eight years ago collapsed and I found myself in an apartment on the verge of suicide. And it was stress which was the driving factor that led to my own mental health struggles. And so when people talk about stress and stress in a way that, that we can actually address it because a level of stress is good, but when stress becomes overwhelming, then that leads to a whole myriad of health issues. So I wanted to get Ron into the podcast to talk about this brilliant work, because dealing with stress in this modern environment where we are more stressed than ever before, we need guys like Ron to help us. So, Ron, firstly, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Krim. Thanks for having me. That's quite an intro. I'm really looking forward to meeting this guy. That's quite a story you told. Not an unusual one, actually, but thank you for having me.

My absolute pleasure. And, Ron, what I like to do at the start of every show is to get it straight from the horse's mouth. Who is Ron Ehrlich?

Wow. Well, I mean, I have been in practice. I'm a holistic dentist, and I've been in practice for almost 40 years now. It's rather humbling to say that. And in that time, I would have been interested in this more holistic view of healthcare for the last 38 or so of Those years I got into, the most common question is, what's a holistic dentist? And essentially, I think it's a dentist. We do the same as other dentists, but we're a dentist with attitude. And the attitude is that we recognize that the mouth is connected. The mouth, we work on the mouth we spend almost all of our professional time focusing on, like other dentists is connected to a person. And that person has a digestive system, has a respiratory system, an immune system, and a lot of what we. A musculoskeletal system and your nervous system. You know, all of that we impact on in our work. And, you know, in my stress model, which I'm sure we'll talk about, I go into what dental stress is and why I do. So, you know, that kind of. I got into this really through the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain. Headaches, neck aches, jaw aches. It used to be in the early 80s referred to as temporomandibular joint dysfunction. Temporomandibular is your jaw, joints. And in about 1983, I was attending many courses over the last 40 years. But in 1983, I attended one in America particularly, which struck a note with me, and it talked about stress, and it provided me with a model of stress that I have followed since that time. I believe it's a model that asks all the right questions, and it's been part of my professional and personal journey since that time. Now, you know, I've written a book called A Life Less Stressed. I have to always qualify that as saying the book is not autobiographical. It's aspirational for me now more than ever. Although, in a sense, it is autobiographical because it kind of traces all the things that I've been pursuing in that time. So that's a bit of background about me. I mean, obviously very focused on family and my own health, and I've had my own health challenges along the way, but that's basically a bit of background of where I've come from.

Wonderful. What a wonderful introduction and explanation of your journey. And I'm sure it's just the start of your journey and what you're trying to achieve. And in terms of this model, you got me really intrigued. Now, what is this model that you're talking about with regard to stress?

Yeah, well, look, I think most people, you've already articulated that, but most people would agree that stress is impacting on our health and in our mind world more than ever before. And I guess a lot of people recognize that it has the potential to affect their physical, mental and emotional well being. So you mentioned not all stress is bad and we can talk about that. But the stress, if stress is a problem, if you're going to solve a problem, it always helps to know what that problem is. And so the model that I have worked on, as I say professionally and personally for over 35 years is that I've used stress as a function of five stressors. And those five stressors are emotional, which most people acknowledge is stress. But there's more to stress than that. It's a combination of five things. Emotional, environmental, postural, nutritional, and dental stress. And the one that I often raise as an eyebrow is that last one, dental stress. And I then qualify that by saying there is a reason why I include dental stress. And Here are the two main reasons why. I'm a holistic dentist with almost 40 years of clinical experience. So I feel like I'm reasonably well qualified to talk about it, number one. But I also included for anybody with a mouth who is interested in their health and has never fully connected the two. There are many connections. And I've used this analogy before, and I think it's a good one. And that is the oral cavity is really the black hole of healthcare. And the reason it is is because, well, two parts to it or three actually. One is the dentists are so focused on the minutiae of what we do. You know, accuracy is measured in microns dentistry. So it's minute. We work in a very narrow space while people are awake. It's very intense, it's very, it's a challenging profession. So we have enough to do just by focusing here. And it's easy to forget there is a person attached to it. Health practitioners and medical practitioners know almost nothing about what is going on in the oral cavity. And both patients and health practitioners often equate oral health with the absence of pain. I'm not in pain. I'm fine. I must be fine. That's not a problem. And nothing could be further from the truth. So, you know, they are the five stress models. They each impact on each other. And if you think about our lives as a balancing act, on the one hand, there are those things which have the potential to break us down or compromise our health. And I would put on that on that balance, the five stressors. Well, the other side of it is to build resilience into your life to deal with those stressors. So one part is to identify and minimize the stressors. And that's why that 5 stressor model gives you a structure to do that. But on the other side of the balance is to build resilience. And you do that by focusing on five pillars of health. Isn't it nice that I've got five stressors? Five, you know, something about five that is natural for us. But anyway, there it is, five pillars. And the five pillars that I believe we should be focusing on are sleep, breathe, nourish, move and think, and in between that. So if you imagine that balancing that seesaw, stress and pillars of health, the fulcrum is really about our genetics and our epigenetics because there are a lot of common denominators running through a lot of chronic diseases, A lot of these diseases that we see, like heart disease, cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes. A lot of them have a lot in common. But the reason they manifest themselves in one person and not another is the genetics and the epigenetics, because it's not just about the genes, but it's about how they express themselves. So that's kind of the model that I work with, and I've discussed it quite length in my book and I believe it's a nice model to work with.

Sure, it's great. I'm also fascinated by faimes. I think there's something about fives. It's almost like odd numbers, like, I don't know. For some reason, the way my brain works is it's either three or five, like three pieces on a plate, or if I have to count how many things I'm going to add to something, I'm a bit OCD in some aspects.

You should have been a dentist.

But I always put either three or five things on a plate or when I'm doing something like that. It's very Japanese, actually.

Okay. Well, I always felt five was a natural because, you know, we've been counting on our hands since we could. So five seems to. Five seems to work well. But look, they are. That is the model that I work with.

I think it'd be great if we can delve into some of those aspects. So firstly, let's break down the five stressors. Let's go through individually and flesh it out a little bit. Let's get some more layers, deeper layers into each aspect, and then we'll touch on the five pillars and then we'll deconstruct that for the audience listening as well.

Great, great. Well, emotional. Emotional. Like, we are bombarded constantly. I think we live in an attention economy. We are constantly bombarded by news, information, people, devices, social media, whatever, and we may feel very fatalistic about that. You know, it's easy to become very disillusioned. And I think to a large extent there's a certain manipulation that goes on that makes that a useful tool to make you go out and do things you perhaps shouldn't. So while we may not have control over events in the world, and we can talk about that anyway, but events or even people that surround us or politics or whatever, we can certainly change our attitude to it. So one of the most powerful things we have is our ability to change how we perceive events, the world and people around us. And that's quite an empowering thing to have on your side. So emotional stress, you know, is something we all feel, we all feel we've all bought into it in our modern world as well. And it raises the issue about our values, what is important in life. And it's interesting to consider that Harvard University have done the longest study, 75 years on what are the best predictors of health, wellness and longevity. And they looked at all the different variables and the one they came up with most is relationships. So relationships. Now if you're fortunate enough to have a significant other to share your life with, that's one thing, but it doesn't have to be that. It can be family, it can be friends, it can be community, whatever, but real relationships. And I think one of the challenges we face in our modern world is the impact of technology on our emotional well being and the disc and the disconnect which that has brought. We're connected, ironically to the world. We could have literally thousands of friends, whatever that means, or likes, whatever that means. But we're not connecting to the person next to us. And that is a really important part of it. So, you know, that's part of, I mean, emotional strength is a huge issue, but that's kind of one thing. Environmental.

I'll side note there, just before we move on to the next section, because I think this needs to be said. The development of social media over the last few years has put us in a situation that we've never actually been before as a species. These technologies, if you look back at how these things were developed, they were actually like whether It's Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, whatever it is, these systems were developed to capture attention. And there was a lot of science and psychology that started off as a good intention. I mean, it's just people working out how can we develop a technology based social structure that can connect the world together. But unfortunately, these systems now have evolved into something that's a marketing machine. So there is financial incentives behind these systems. But the question is, what toll is it taking on our emotional well being? And you will see things like Instagram changing their systems to, to stop showing how many likes you're getting on your posts because they realize it's not great for business. Because if people are consistently comparing themselves to their friend and their friend is getting 1000 likes and then you're getting 10 likes, they're less likely to actually engage in the platform. So they're wising up that. It's perhaps not a great business model to actually get people to compare each other. But then what does it do for self esteem and the way people interact? Like, I walk down the street these days, like, and you've got people walking down the street with prams and they've got a mobile phone in their face while they're walking down the street with a pram and a baby in it. So something has shifted in our social structure, like massively. It's huge. Like, we wouldn't have seen this in the past. I mean, you're right. It's an absolute attention economy.

Well, there was a study done recently which said how many people could you rely on? Could you genuinely call out and rely on if you were in trouble? And 20 or so years ago, people's average was about two and a half. I don't know how you call out half a person, but anyway, two and a half was the average. And now the average is 0.7 or 0.9. Again, I don't know what a 0.7 of a person looks like, but that is indicative. And I think that is definitely. I mean, I have some grandchildren and they are one and three. And I can see the impact that, just how pervasive this technology is. And I mean, it has a neurological neurotransmitter, dopamine addictive quality to it, which is, I believe, one of our biggest challenges. Hugely.

And you know, in this podcast, we jumped down all sorts of rabbit holes. Did not expect to jump down this one. But I think it's, it's definitely a factor. 100% factor. That's. I mean, if you look at the statistics now, the biggest killer of kids or teenagers or young adults is suicide. Now why is that? Why is that? What's happening to our kids? What's happening to our young adults? This is a factor. What I hope, and I invite people is to look at potentially putting the phones down and connecting with human beings, looking at people hugging, eye contact, connection, because that's fundamental for being human. And what brings joy and you mentioned that, Ron. It's like what makes us happy and what gives us a feeling of well being. It's human connection and connecting with friends and family and loved ones. So sorry that I jumped on my high horse, but it's something that's very topical on my mind at the moment.

Absolutely. Well, it should be topical on everybody's, really. So another, if we want to move on and it actually segues quite nicely into it, and that is environmental stress. Now, you know, when I first explored this in 1983, Believe me, the environment wasn't a major issue at that point, but it obviously has become a major one. And we are literally exposed to tens of thousands of chemicals on a daily basis. And we make this assumption that if it's on the shelf, if it's for sale, that it has been approved, it's been tested, everything should be fine. Well, actually, the reality, and this is a story that is very easy to miss, but once you hear it, it's very difficult to ignore. I would estimate this, not I. The science tells us that less than 10% of those chemicals, I mean a small fraction in fact, of those chemicals have been tested to any degree. And when they have been tested, they've been tested one chemical at a time over a limited period of time, maybe six weeks, eight weeks, maybe two or three months, and usually tested on a university student or a young adult who has volunteered for the test. Well, of course, that's not the way chemicals are delivered to us. They are delivered to us in combinations. And if you gave one chemical, let's say, a toxic value of one, and you gave another chemical a toxic value of one, when you add one and one together, it's not a linear relationship. It doesn't mean one and one equals two. One and one might equal 10. When you combine chemicals, they multiply in their toxicity and their effect. And we're not exposed to them for only six or eight or 10 weeks. We're exposed to them across our whole life in combinations of various ages and various health, health statuses. So the environmental effect of chemicals is huge. And no one needs to look any further than its impact on agriculture. We've taken a very adversarial approach. Now, this is about gut microbiome. And we can talk about soil, we can talk about gut microbiome, we can talk about oral microbiome, we can talk about soil microbiome. And there are important connections between each of those. But the thing they have in common is we have taken as a species a very adversarial approach. To the microbes. We think being antimicrobial, being clean has been our goal. We need pesticides, we need herbicides, we need fungicides, we need antibiotics, we need to keep everything 99.9% microbial free. I mean, 1. So the impact of chemicals on our environment has been huge. The degradation of our soil that we grow our nutrient dense foods in, or we hope they're nutrient dense, is huge. And we talked about technology, and there's another side to technology about, apart from its mental or social and emotional impact. It's the EMF impact, the impact of radiation. And if you think, you know, Einstein said every atom in the universe is both matter and energy. And that means every atom in our bodies, we work on micro currents. Every cell works on microcurrents, every muscle, every nerve works on microcurrents. Our brain works on micro currents. So to assume that this electromagnetic current bath that we have now surrounded ourselves in is not having an impact on our health is naive at the very least and negligent at the very worst. And actually, the World health organization in 2011 classified electromagnetic radiation as a Class 2B carcinogen. That means it has. It's possibly a carcinogen. And Class 2A is a probable carcinogen, and the Class 1 is a carcinogen. So in 2011, you know, Wi fi radiation was. Was classified as a carcinogen. So, you know, we have chemicals, we have oil, soil degradation, we have air pollution, we have water pollution, we have plastics throughout the ocean, we have endocrine disruptors, we have, you know, this is a story that is, as I said, very easy to miss, but once you hear it, very difficult to ignore. And again, one could throw your hands up and go, oh, my God, what more can I do? This is hopeless. And the point of my book and the point of my podcast and the point of almost everything I do is to empower people to go, no, don't say that. You know, you have control. And if you make informed decisions, the good news is that you can reduce your exposure to chemicals and radiation to some degree. But both by 80 or 90%, you can have a huge impact on.

I'm going to side note a little bit there on the emf, because this is a very important point that most people miss. So EMFs 100% agree, whether it's your WI FI radiation, whether it's your Bluetooths, it's almost like if you're sitting in an office and you got the Bluetooth on, these frequencies are the same as a microwave oven. So it's like sitting in a low dose microwave oven. 24, seven. Like, how many people actually think about turning their WI FI off at night? Probably not many. The extent that my family have actually gone to is we've gotten rid of WI fi altogether. Everything is hardwired in my environment. And with WI FI radiation, it's very, very important for children because their nerves are not fully myelinated yet. So they are the segments of our population that are the most affected by WI FI radiation and EMF frequencies. So that is such a great point for people to note.

Well, again, you mentioned this in the emotional stress. I mean, this is a story about kids in particular, because kids, whether you have them or not, they are important because they are the canaries in the coal mine. Yes, by that I mean people, I said that the other day and somebody said, well, what do you mean by what does canary in a coal mine do? Well, they used to put a canary down in the bird cage in the coal mine to check the air in that coal mine. And if the canary died, people wouldn't go down into the mine. So that's the metaphor, just to explain it.

I love that.

Maybe, anyway, canary in the coal mine. I said it as though, oh, everybody knows what a canary in a coal mine is. Okay, there it is. That's the explanation. But kids are the canary canaries in the coal mine. They are more vulnerable and you know, when they hold a mobile phone up to their head, because their heads are smaller, their bones are not as dense. The penetration of WI FI radiation studies have been done on this, I've got it in my book, the studies have been done penetrate far deeper. So, you know, yes, that is a problem.

You know, it's a problem with kids. I think the other canary in the coal mine, a couple of things that come to mind on a macro level, it's the gut, because the gut cells turn around like four days or something like that, you've got essentially a new lining. The other canary is the mitochondria. Because mitochondria, the science is suggesting that they're endosymbiotic, ancient archaic archaea, which is an old, old form of microbe. So all these environmental toxicity, the most micro thing we can go into quantum. But aside from going into the quantum mechanics of it, I think mitochondria are the ones that are actually probably the most susceptible to all these toxicities. Whether it's EMFs, whether it's antibiotics, whether it's pesticides, chemicals, endocrine disruptors, a lot of it's going to lead to mitochondrial damage, which is a big deal when you consider that energy produces.

Exactly, exactly. No, no, I mean that's a whole other story. Mitochondrial function and. Yeah, that is a big one. And that's an interesting. We could go down another rabbit hole here about synergy versus the survival of the fittest. This is a whole story about. I never thought of evolution as a. As a political or economic construct, but it turns out that it is because survival of the fittest is a great metaphor for the way our economy and our political system is. It kind of almost justifies it, doesn't it? The successful company will survive, you know, I earn more than you do, aren't I great, etc. Etc. But actually, evolution is about synergy. Evolution is about synergy. In fact, a cell is about synergy. For a cell to work well, all the components in that cell need to work well. And when two cells came together to form a multi celled organism, that was synergy. Working together is a much more profound statement of evolution than survival of the fittest. And it's philosophically a very different way of looking at the world.

Yes, I love that. I love that concept from thinking, well, that capitalistic ideology versus something that's a lot more collaborative and isn't interesting that it's manifest at the very smallest units of life, which is so fascinating.

And I think we have an important. Well, I think that's an important lesson for us to learn as a society. You know, synergy enabling nature rather than trying to dominate nature is a pretty.

Good way to go, I reckon. I think you're onto something there.

Thanks.

Yeah, so that's.

Environmental stress is obviously a huge one. But the important one there is that you do have control. You do have control. So just with emotional stress, you have control over your attitude to things. And that's easier said than done. I know that. But that's why building resilience is so important. We'll get onto that. How do you change your attitude? Well, you've got to build resilience. You've got to eliminate the other stressors and build resilience. Emotional, environmental. Okay, postural. Well, postural, here we are cribbing, sitting, talking to each other. And let's face it, a lot of us sit a lot and too much. And usually at my desk, this is a standing desk and I usually do stand and that makes a big difference. But movement is important. So the way we move is important. And in fact, sitting is referred to now as the new smoking. It's a problem. Postural stress and postural stress. And the liberating thing here is that you don't really have to do too much to make a difference. But postural stress I include in that not just our sitting, not just the way we sit, but also how we carry our head on our shoulders. I mean, that was quite a big deal some millions of years ago when our ancestors got up on two legs. But it created this challenge for us to balance this 4 or 5 kilo, 10 pound bowling ball on a spine. And if we have good alignment, that's quite a, that's, that's a good thing. But if we don't, if we have a head forward posture when we walk or we tilt or one way or another, that can have implications. And chronic musculoskeletal problems are a major problem. The way we sleep. People don't give a lot of thought to posture when they sleep, but sleeping posture is critically important. Stomach sleeping is the sleeping on your stomach is the worst thing. A lot of people have chronic musculoskeletal back problems, headaches. They often don't think about their foot structure, their gait of their feet or their leg length difference as being a significant factor. But it is. People don't think about the role of the jaw in head posture. But the spine, all of the segments in the spine have three facets which are tripod of stability, except for one, and that's the first cervical vertebrae. The first cervical vertebrae only has two facets and the third facet is the jaw. So that will get back into dental stress. So postural stress is a factor of sitting too much, the position in which you sleep, the way you might walk, the way you carry your head on your spine. So postural stress is also an important thing and it's impacted on by a whole range of different things. I mean, carrying the phone, you know, under your, you know, with your phone, with your lap, your head down. As soon as you keep your head down, by the way, you change this 4, 4 to 5 kilo head, depending on the angle at which you move it could, it could turn that 4 kilo head into a 27 kilo head. Now try holding a bowling ball above your head. Challenging enough as it is, let's say that bowling ball was four kilos and I held it up above my head. Not too bad. Now let me put that bowling ball out at that angle like that and see how hard it is to hold it. And this is the story about keeping your head up, looking down, down, down, down, down. And how many people walk around with their head down. So postural stress is an issue that people should give thought to. So that's postural stress, nutritional stress. Oh, my God, Griben, where did we start on this one? You know, interestingly, when we look at nutritional stress and whenever anyone talks about nutritional stress, you will often see hamburgers, chips, you know, junk food as the problem. I would argue that the nutritional stress started with of food pyramid. That was, that was promoted in public health. And still to some degrees today, the food pyramid put grains somewhere between 6 and 11 serves of grains a day and carbohydrates at the base of every good sound diet to moderate fats. And fats were demonized and protein was okay and blah. And you know, I would argue the food pyramid that placed carbohydrates and grains in particular at the foundation of our diet and the demonizing of fats, particularly traditional fats that we have evolved with over millions of years, demonizing that in favor of industrialized produced fats has been a significant part of nutritional stress. And I would also argue that the advice, the public health advice that, that we need three meals a day and two snacks every in between. And this was touted by the dietitians associations in Australia, in America, all over the world. I would argue that the food pyramid and that kind of public advice has set us up for failure. And so, you know, nutritional stress and people often again would go, it's so confusing. Should I be eating dairy? Should I not? Should I be eating grain? Should I not? Should I be eating fat? Should I not, you know, crippen. When I go to buy a car, I'm not confused. You know, even though Toyota tell me theirs is the best and Ford tell me theirs is the best. And I could go, my God, I'm trying to buy a car here. I just don't know what to do. It's so confusing. I'm not confused because I know I'm being marketed to all the time and the same for other commodities that we might buy. We are aware that we are being marketed to. One of the biggest challenges for us in our modern world is that we are not aware that almost all of the health advice that is given to us is nothing more than a marketing exercise. And it is marketed at a particularly sophisticated level. It's marketed through science, it's marketed through sponsorship of research. It's marketed through people, experts who are seconded to deliver a message and they don't even realise themselves that they are part of this marketing exercise. They in all good faith convey a public health Message which if they took an opportunity to step back and look objectively at history, at logic, at common sense, they would know that while the world we live in is becoming very complicated, the solutions are actually remarkably simple. So nutritional stress is confusing because it's a reflection of a very sophisticated marketing exercise that's gone on in the chemical, food and pharmaceutical industry. And our health in our modern world speaks for itself. So that's nutritional stress in a nutshell. But we could talk at length about any one of those things.

I'll side note there a little bit because this is a very important. Because you're absolutely right. I mean, I don't blame the people. It's the system. It's the way the system is. When you see these health experts on tv, just bear in mind that these people are getting paid a lot of money to actually talk about these messages. Whether it's xyz, expert, dietitian, in whatever field they're at, they're actually advertising in. Just bear in mind there is a strategic imperative from the company that's actually sponsoring that message. So I think that's why the other thing that's really prevalent in our modern society is we've gone from having very scarce snippets of information, reading a book or talking to a friend and he tells you, I'm on this diet and this is working for me. Da, da, da. Now, we've gone to a point in our evolution as a species where there is just overloads of information and the little nuggets of truth are then hidden in this plethora of opinions and blogospheres and scientific studies. And then there's truth, and then there's this stuff that may be not so true. Ron, how do we cut through this? How does the layperson navigate information in this age?

Well, you know, I mean, I think again, knowledge is power, and that is true. But we are, you are right, we are bombarded by information and we are living in an attention economy. And the climate change is a really good example of this. You see, you have 3,000 qualified, highly qualified scientists, environmental scientists that spend literally thousands, if not millions of hours researching, collating, coming up with a consensus position, and it's presented. And you have industry which hires an expert who has no expertise in environment, but can deliver a very compelling message that makes a very good headline that is very clickable. Clickable is what it's all about. And they get equal. They get equal time in our media, in our attention. And that seems very unfair. Now, how would you approach that? Well, the Way I approached it is to say, I trust that climate science, but let's use logic and common sense as well. If the climate deniers are wrong, then we are really fucked in the future. Yeah, and that's, that's the best case scenario is our environment will continue to deteriorate in the way it's going, which no one argues with, and we could be really fucked. Right. That's the best case scenario, is it'll just continue to deteriorate and then we're really. And the worst case is we're really fucked. Now, if you go to the climate change people, what's the worst case scenario if they're wrong? The worst case scenario is we improve our environment because we focus on, on renewables. It costs us less for energy. This is the worst case scenario, mind you, that's it. The worst case scenario of following climate change advice is that we have a cleaner environment that costs us less money. And the best case scenario is we save our planet.

Exactly.

So is that, you know, like, if it was put to people like that, who would you believe?

That's it.

Who would you believe? I mean, I was out on the climate march on Friday last week and there were some great brochures, but there is no Planet B. That was a good one. You know, corporate greed versus public health. Yeah, that's another good one. You know, best case scenario, worst case scenario. Think about it logically. It's not confusing, it's just if you allow it to bombard, you take a step back, think clearly.

I agree with you.

That's how I would navigate it.

I absolutely agree with you. A lot of it is logic, thinking about it logically. And I think the scientific method has worked incredibly well. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but when these scientists form consensuses, I think that's the best we have in that given moment in time. And the scientific method will challenge those hypotheses and eventually things might change, it might move and evolve. But that's science. Initially we thought the earth was flat, and then we figured it out, it's round. That's a similar metaphor. We don't know everything. As a scientist, when you look through these studies and you, you think, man, we know nothing. Our level of understanding is so infinitesimal that it's totally egotistical to think that we know anything. We really know nothing. So at this given point in time, all we can do is really trust in our scientists out there as a consensus, because there'll be good ones, there'll be bad Ones, there's a peer review process and bad signs eventually will come to light. So I agree with you 100%, Ron. That's all we have. Unless you can suggest anything.

No, no, no, no, no. That's a look. And hey, look, anybody who knows anything will agree that the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's what makes life interesting, I think.

And I love Feynman's quote, that if you can't make something, you don't understand it.

Yeah.

And we can't quite. Life.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that is, I mean, another. Another big one. So that was postural stress and of course, the last of the stresses. And listen, although, and I list this in the book, linearly, they are not linear. You know, environment affects emotion, emotion affects posture, dental stress affects. So they're interconnected. So dental stress. Why do I include dental stress? Well, I said I include it for anybody with a mouth who's interested in their health, but has never fully connected the two. And there are many connections. And here they are, some in a nutshell. Firstly, it's the gateway to the digestive tract. So this is step one of breaking your food down. And you're meant to chew your food in order to make it more available for absorption in the rest of your gut. So a well functioning masticatory system which includes teeth. That's why we have teeth to chew up food. And a jaw joint that allows us to do that is important. So first step, digestion. And so having teeth is important. The second thing is that it is the site of the two most common infections known to man, woman and child, tooth decay and gum disease. And because of tooth decay, dentists have to restore teeth. So we have to put foreign material into people's bodies. You know, I think dentists may well implant more materials into people's bodies than all other health professionals put together. So you would hope that those filling materials are biocompatible, not toxic. And that is a challenge. The other thing is that, as you would know, Cribbon, that the common denominator in all chronic diseases is chronic inflammation.

Absolutely.

Chronic inflammation is the common denominator in all disease. And because the body is connected, if you have chronic inflammation somewhere in the body, it will affect other parts of the body. And hey, guess what? The most common place for chronic inflammation is your gums. The last time, if you ever, if any of your listeners have ever flossed their teeth, they've had a little bit of bleeding and they thought, oh, I better just avoid that. Because my gums bleed wrong. That is actually an indication that you have some inflammation. And if it's there for a long time, more than three months, then it's chronic inflammation. And that's why gum disease has been linked to heart disease, cancer, autoimmune, diabetes, low birth weight in children. You name it, it's connected. So we have those two infections and the biocompatibility issue of materials. It's also the gateway to the respiratory tract. The shape and size of your mouth literally determines the shape and size of your upper airway. So if you have narrow jaws or crowded teeth, then you will have a narrower upper airway than you had actually evolved to have. Now, here's a question for your listeners. We have, over millions of years, evolved to have 32 teeth. That's 16 on the lower jaw, 16 on the upper jaw. And the question is, how many people listening to this have all 32 of their teeth through and in perfect alignment? So if you've had your wisdom teeth out, if your wisdom teeth haven't come through, they're impacted. If you've got some crowded lower teeth, so you know your teeth are a little jumbled up, that means you don't have all 32 of your teeth through. And the question is why? And the answer to that question is that the shape and size of your mouth is determined by the nutrient dense diet of your parents. From before the time of conception, at the time of conception, during your mother's pregnancy, with you in the womb, through your infancy, through your childhood, through your adolescence, a nutrient dense diet will develop broad, flat arches in the mouth. Lots of room for your teeth, lots of room for your tongue. And so this, if you think sleeping well and breathing well are important, and we can talk about what that means, but if you think sleeping well and breathing well are important, then the shape and size of your mouth and upper airway play a significant part in that. And the question, are you a mouth breather or a nasal breather? Has all sorts of impact on your body chemistry and your posture. So the respiratory system is a part of that dental stress. And a final part very quickly is there is so much neurology in this area that if it is out of balance and you happen to clench or grind your teeth, not only do these muscles tighten, but so do the muscles around the head, neck and shoulders tighten. And so the link between imbalance in the jaw, chronic clenching and grinding, and chronic problems like tension headaches, neck aches and jaw problems are significant. So we have a role to play there in chronic Musculoskeletal pain. So there is more going on in your mouth than just, I'm not in pain, I must be fine.

No, I have a question there. So is it better to breathe through a nose or a mouth?

Great question, Very important question. And it begs the question. We can get onto one of the pillars, which is breathe. And that means here's the secret cribbon to keep living a long life, keep breathing for as long as you can. Okay. It's not a big breakthrough, I know. But to live a healthy life, breathing well for as long as you can will make a difference. And there is a difference between breathing and breathing well. And breathing well means you breathe through your nose. Noses are for breathing. Noses warm, humidify and filter the air before you take it into your lungs. So there are five levels of filtration when you breathe through your nose, and they are really important in cleaning the air before you take it into your lungs. If you are a mouth breather, you bypass the first four and you rely on your tonsils. And so it makes you much more prone to allergies, asthma and upper respiratory infections if you are a mouth breather. So also, the other thing about breathing through your nose is it helps regulate the carbon dioxide level in your lungs, which is an important regulator of acid alkali balance, which a lot of people focus on in their nutrition. I want an alkaline diet. Well, one of the best things to balance out acid alkali balance is to breathe well. Another really important thing about breathing through your nose is that 60% or a significant amount of the nitric oxide that the body produces is produced in the nasal passages only when you breathe through your nose. And nitric oxide has antimicrobial properties. It has a whole range of body. It's a very important body regulator. Nitric oxide, not nitrous oxide, which is laughing gas, happy gas. No. Well, it's easy to confuse the two. Nitric oxide, very important. So nasal breathing is really an important thing?

Absolutely.

It's a really important part of being healthy. There is a difference.

Just a side note, just a funny thing that popped in my mind. Isn't that how Viagra works, by keeping nitric acid?

Yes. Good on you. Yeah, it is, actually. And I actually sometimes mention that as well. Thanks for reminding me. Yes, nitric oxide is one of the reasons why that's what Viagra does. It improves the circulation through the body. And Viagra well. Hey, what about breathing through your nose? Wouldn't that be interesting? A study done on erectile dysfunction function and nasal Breathing. But that could be a very interesting topic to explore. But, yes, nitric oxide. That's not. That is nitric oxide, better known as via. You know, people might know it via the Viagra story.

That's it.

So, yeah, nasal breathing is important. So that's what's going on in the dental stress area. And as I said to you, I think I said to you the beginning that if you look at dental problems, as in tooth decay, gum disease and oral cancer, oral cancer is the 10th most common cancer in Australia. So that's another thing that we look out for. If you look at those three problems as being pretty major oral health problems in the vast majority, my guess, off the top of my head, would be at least 90% of the time, no pain associated with it at all. No pain associated. So the absence of pain is not a measure of health.

I'll just side note a little bit there before we move away from dental health. And most people don't think about this. The mouth is the start of the gut. So we spoke about this a little bit offline before we jumped into the podcast. But there is billions and billions of bacteria in the mouth. So the state of your oral health or your mouth microbiome is then going to facilitate these organisms moving lower into the small intestine and then potentially, if they can survive the process, into the lower part of the intestines. I think it's absolutely fundamental and it's a great place to start by just having good oral hygiene, just to make sure that this microbiome is optimized, because a lot of people want to look at probiotics and adding all these beneficial bacteria or fermented foods or all these other things. But think about this. You're swallowing billions of bacteria. So how about you get the type of bacteria right in the mouth? And so if you're having gum disease, if you're having inflammation, if you've got bad breath, these are all potential warning bells that the mouth microbiome is not. Right. So what's your thoughts on that?

Well, I think you raised a couple of really important points here, and that is about listening to your body. The body does send us messages each and every day. And bad breath, bleeding gums, tooth decay. I mean, you think about it. If the hardest part of your body, tooth enamel, you know, when they dig up skeletons that are millions of years old, what survives a tooth, and they somehow manage to reconstruct a whole person or, you know, species around the tooth. So if the hardest part of your body, a tooth, decays because of what you've eaten. Just imagine what's going on in the rest of the body. So the body and messages are really important and getting it right is important. The other thing you mentioned about the microbiome, and we talked about this before we started recording, I was reviewing a talk that I'd given in the early in the mid-90s, and I had a slide which said the oral microbiome consists of between 200 and 400 different species of microbes. And then I fast forwarded 20 years to one that I'd given about a year or two ago and said 700 species of microbiome. And then I read another study which listed 1400. You know, so the key, the key, and this is what I think is the similarity between gut or microbiome and soil microbiome. The key is the more diverse the microbiome is, the more resilient and healthier you will be, be it in the gut, being in the mouth, be it in the soil. And soil microbiome are really important to deliver nutrient dense foods. We can grow food with superphosphate. It can look terrific, but it's not nutrient dense. Okay, so diversity means resilience and resilience means health. And if you're looking for another metaphor, you know, we talked about the cell and the synergy of the cell as being a metaphor. I think that's pretty good metaphor for our society as well. Diversity, resilience, healthy society, healthy microbiome. So, yeah, there's a couple of things there that I totally agree with.

Absolutely. I mean, to your point, Ron, and we spoke about this offline as well. The microbiome research is in its infancy. Metagenomic shotgun sequencing now is the go to technology. And these guys that are doing the research in that field are discovering new bacteria, fungi, yeasts, viruses, parasites, all the time. It's like the equivalent of stepping into a rainforest and you're just at the start and then you got to work your way through that rainforest. So that's where we're at in terms of the science. So these, these organisms are being reclassified, renamed, they're finding new ones. It's an extremely exciting field and I'm really interested to see where it's going.

Well, it's an interesting thing you mentioned there about rainforest, because putting aside what's going on in Brazil and in South America at the moment, typically, if you had to think about it, what would be a more resilient square mile or kilometer of land, a rainforest or a wheat field? A wheat field is mono crop relying on fertilizers and pesticides and. But if it doesn't rain, drought comes very quickly and it is destroyed, soil is eroded. But with the diversity in a rainforest, it's more resilient and it's much healthier for not just its own environment, but the whole environment and for us as individuals. So this is a great metaphor, the rainforest metaphor for diversity and resilience is a good one.

And talk about common sense.

Common sense. It's not complicated. It's not complicated.

Exactly. What's the next one?

Well then the other side of the balance is the five pillars and the five pillars. So again, going back, identifying environmental stressors, identifying postural stressors, identifying nutritional stressors, finding dental stressors, emotional stressors and minimizing what you have, control over what you can, that's a good thing. But the other side of it is to focus. Okay, then what do you do? Once you've minimized, there's more to do and that is to build resilience. Because I think if you've got one goal in life, I think it's to fulfill your purpose, potential as a human being. And if you're going to whatever that means, family, partner, business, community, whatever. So in order to fulfill your potential, being healthy is a pretty good goal to set yourself. And I think if you're going to approach that, focusing on five things is useful. Sleep, we've touched on breathing. And breathing well is about nasal breathing. It's about breathing slowly at around 8 to 12 breaths per minute. It's about breathing from the diaphragm because if you've got a set of lungs, you may as well use it all. And breathing from the diaphragm means you are using it all. And when you breathe through your diaphragm, that thin sheet of muscle that sits under the lungs, every time you breathe 8 to 12 times per minute, you're also massaging your internal organs with that muscle. And it also has really profound impact, impact on pelvic floor, which for women after childbirth is important and for men as we get older is also important. So there's so many good reasons for breathing well. So that's that sleep. To me, sleep is your built in, non negotiable life support system. I mean if you're not taking sleep seriously, you're not taking your health seriously and you are missing out on the cheapest, the cheapest form of making a difference to your life mentally, physically and emotionally that there is. There are so many reasons for sleeping, for taking sleep seriously. But what does sleeping well, mean a consistently good night's sleep is a function of quantity and quality. Quantity for over 90% of the population means seven to nine hours a night, say, average eight. Now, people that sleep three to four hours a night know they are not getting enough sleep. And they measure really badly on every health score you can imagine. It's the group that sleep six hours that are the most interesting because they're the ones that think they're getting enough sleep, but they measure up just as badly as the three to four hour group. So, you know, and I used to be one of those people. I mean, I've focused on. This is a health journey for me. I mean, we're all on this journey in life. And I only really came to appreciate sleep probably 15 or 20 years ago. And so that has become an important part of my life and an important part of my practice and my philosophy. So consistently, good night's sleep is a function of quantity. But putting your head on the pillow is not enough. You actually have to breathe well while you're asleep. And we've talked about what breathing well means. So I had a patient in not long ago who had chronic fatigue for 25 years. And one of the common questions we ask, is it easy for you to fall asleep? Do you wake up through the night? And most importantly, do you wake up feeling refreshed? Oh, she said, is it easy for me to fall asleep? Ron, sleep's not a problem. I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime. I sleep 10 to 12 hours a day. No, sleep's not a problem. Rob, hang on. You're sleeping 10 to 12 hours a day and you are suffering from chronic fatigue for 25 years. Have you had a sleep study done? No. She'd been to everywhere and everything has been on medication, supplements, diets, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. You name it. You need to look at the quality of sleep because putting your head on the pillow is not enough. Are you breathing well while you're asleep? And this leads us to a discussion about sleep disordered breathing, of which snoring is the most obvious and the most common. But there are over 80 sleep disordered breathing conditions, and snoring is one and probably obstructive sleep apnea is another that is actually life threatening. So this business of taking your sleep seriously is important. And so a consistently good night's sleep impacts on your hormone balance. It impacts on your insulin level. It impacts on your leptin, which metabolizes fat. It causes ghrelin, a hormone which makes you hungry to go up. It Causes leptin, which also makes you hungry. When it goes down, that causes, it helps metabolize fat, leptin. So that goes down, you become more obese. Insulin resistance increases growth hormone. You go to sleep to rebuild and reboot. Your growth hormone goes down if you don't sleep well. That part of our DNA that impacts on our immune system gets down, regulated, so your immune system is compromised. That part of our DNA that promotes chronic inflammation, the common denominator in all disease, that gets upregulated, so you become more chronically inflamed. Testosterone levels go down, so your libido, your fertility, even testicular size is reduced. Don't even ask me how they measured that one in the studies, but the studies are there. Poor sleep leads to smaller testicles that might get some men's attention. You know, part of our immune, our emotion system, that part of our brain called the amygdala, which is all about emotions, starts to go crazy. So when you are tired, that's why you become emotionally more fraught, because your amygdala becomes more active. That part of our system which is involved in memory, the hippocampus, short term memory, that goes down. So your ability to remember things short term is affected. Your ability of your brain to filter out waste is down, regulated, making you more susceptible to dementia. I could go on, but I think I've made the point. Sleep's pretty important. Sleep's pretty important, fundamentally. So then the pillars sleep and breathe, very important. Then we go on to move. Well, the liberating thing about move, of course, is that more is less. You don't have to get into the gym and do an hour's worth of aerobics every day. If you do 10 minutes of intermittent, high intensity, intermittent exercises, that will keep your metabolism up for 24 to 48 hours. If you go for a 10 kilometer run, that will keep your metabolism up for six to eight hours. So hey, more is less. Walking a great exercise you can do for the rest of your life. You know, moving around, standing at your desk is a good thing to do as well. So movement is important and then we get on to nourish. Well, you know, it's not complicated. Eat real food. Eat real food. If it's in a packet, it's probably not good for you. But eat real fresh food, preferably organic, preferably from regenerative agriculture sources which provide us with nutrient dense food. Meat has been demonized. I believe that factory farmed meat is an animal rights and environmental rights and a human rights issue. I do not eat factory farmed meat. I eat grass fed and finished open range free range animals which have been humanely reared and honourably dealt with in their lives. And I eat it in modern. I think we eat too much meat. We should eat better quality of that. I have healthy natural fats like coconut oil, like olive oil, velade from healthy animals, dairy from healthy animals. I have no problem with that. And I drink water. Water is still the best drink, but I filter it and I filter it through a reverse osmosis filter because there's an awful lot of crap in our water. And I then take a few grains of Himalayan rock salt and I put it in that filtered water and I have my own homemade mineral water. I do not demonize salt. Salt's an important part of our lives. But not table salt, which is just two chemicals. It is Himalayan rock salt or Celtic sea salt. I have a little bit of an issue with what goes on in the ocean and I'm not a big seafood eater. I really try and steer away from that. I do love oysters and I occasionally have them and I occasionally do have seafood. You know, I joked with my daughters and I thought, you know, I love fish and chips. I got to admit, I love fish and chips occasionally. Somehow I think the beer batter neutralizes all of the toxicity and plastics in seafood. And my patient looked at me and go, really? And I go, no, no, that's not true. It makes me feel better. It makes me feel better. But I very. But I very rarely eat seafood, very rarely. And I don't include it in a healthy diet for two reasons. One, sustainability. We have raped and pillaged the oceans to the point that we've reduced fish stocks by 90%. And even if we do have fish out on the open, the toxicity, the plastics, the heavy metals in the oceans are affecting. You know, I used to be focused on heavy metals, mercury being in the biggest seafood. And I used to say sardines were a really good source of seafood because they're lower on the food chain. Anchovies, sardines, that kind of smaller fish. But even the smaller fish have got plastic. So seafood is a problem. So nutrients, nutrient, and the other thing that has been a real revelation for me and we touched on it initially and that is that this advice of three meals a day and two snacks. I mean, in human history, when did we ever eat three meals a day and two snacks? In fact, if we got one meal a day, we did well. And we may have gone times without any eating anything. And so this idea of Time restricted eating and intermittent fasting, I mean, does it get any cheaper than that? I mean, what does intermittent fasting and time restricted eating cost you?

Nothing.

It actually cost you nothing. You're saving money. And yet it may have the most profound effect on your insulin levels. The lower the insulin, the better, right across the board. Doesn't matter whether you're talking about diabetes, heart disease, cancer, autoimmune. The lower the insulin levels, the better. And there's this thing called autophagy, which is the body tidying up weak cells, dead cells. And when you are fasting, guess which cells get eaten up first, the weaker cells. That is part of our human experience. But to go from a low fat diet, here's a word of warning. I'm sure your listeners know this, but to go from a low fat diet to intermittent fasting is not the, the way to go. You will be very hungry. What you need to go transition is to, for a few weeks to go into a low carb diet, which means different things to different people. But to me, the average and sustainable level for low carb is around 70 grams of carbohydrates a day. That's very doable. I know there are a lot of people doing 20 and 50 grams and good luck to them. But some of the literature you read talks about, oh, low carb diet is no more effective than high carb diet. And they're talking about 200 grams of carbs a day. And that is not low carb diet. So you know, transition into intermittent time restricted eating and incorporate some fasting into your nourish. And that's a good thing. And then that leads us into the last pillar, which is think. And you know, when you've had a good night's sleep, when you're moving, when you're eating well, now that's a really good time to start having a little bit better control over what you think. And this goes back to the emotional stress thing because you've set resilience, you've put resilience into the system. But there's a wonderful model that I use in the think process and that is, and it's from the work of Martin Seligman, who is the pioneer of positive psychology in America. And he has what's called a perma model, P E, R, M A. And recently he's added another letter which I'll P stands for being positive because that makes a big difference. You know, if you have negative thoughts, that's chemicals which are being produced in your body which attach to your cell membranes. And cause your genes to express themselves in a positive or negative way. So being positive is important. Are you engaged in what you do or the relationships that you have? That's the E. Remember, PE Engagement is the E. R is relationships, and we talked about that at the beginning. Relationships, real relationships, are the key. M refers to meaning. Is there meaning in what you do in your life or is it just. Is your work a pointless exercise that you feel frustrated with or, you know, meaning is important in our work and in our personal life. The A stands for acknowledge or accomplishments. Are you being acknowledged? Are you accomplishing whatever it is that's important to you? And more recently, he's included H, which stands for health, because I think he's realized that without health, it's a bit hard to be P E, R, M A in how you assess how you think about things. So, you know, that's given you kind of an overview of the five stressors and the five pillars. And the first part of the book is really about why public health messages are so confusing and, and contradictory and the role of the food and pharmaceutical industry in all levels of healthcare. And the conclusion at the end of the first part is the best person to take control of my own health is me. And that's what I'm going to do. So that's kind of an overview of where I'm coming from.

Wonderful. And Ron, we're pretty much coming up to time and I want to be respectful of your other sort of features in your practice. So how about we start to wrap? Firstly, I highly encourage people grab a copy of the book because I think we just really scratched the surface and there'd be so much value in picking up a copy of A Life Less Stressed. So, Ron, as we start to wrap, how about we talk about your number one recommendation when it comes to improving one's gut health? Because of course, this is the Gut Health Gurus podcast with a focus on gut health. So what's your number one tip for people listening?

Look, I think the overriding tip is take control of your own health and listen to your body. Your body sends you messages each and every day. It often comes in the shape of a toilet bowl. And what you see in that toilet bowl is your body sending you a route report. And that report is important and you should react to it. So I think. And your skin is another report card because 80%, at least 80% of skin conditions are a reflection of poor digestion. So you know how you thinking, how you feeling, gut feeling. So I think listening to your body and taking control is a really important message. And that would be my main message. Message.

What a wonderful message. I love that listening to your body. The body has so much intelligence, probably much more so than our thinking mind. So it's really good advice to take heed of what the body's trying to tell you. And so people have listened to this podcast. They're fascinated about the things you're talking about, as I have been totally blown away. So thank you so much. And they want to reach out to you when work with you in your practice or connect with you on social media. How do people find you, Ron?

Well, they can go onto my website, which is drronirlich.com and that's Dr. R O N E H R L I C H.com and I do have, I'm actually on social media, although, you know, I do post on Instagram, just professionally. I don't bore people with my, you know, isn't this a wonderful day? Am I the best person in the world? You know, you know, but, but I'm on social media as well. And we have an app and I have my own app, I have my own webinar, my own podcast. So, you know, people can reach out to me in all sorts of different ways.

Wonderful. Ron, thank you so much for coming into the podcast. Really enjoyed the conversation. It was so wide ranging. We went down so many different rabbit holes. Huge gratitude. Thank you so much, Ron Erlich.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Gut Health Gurus podcast with Dr. Ron Ehrlich. We're all so stressed out in the world at the moment, so hopefully this podcast has given you some tips and tricks. Tricks on how to address some of These stresses that Dr. Ron Ehrlich spoke about. Guys, your support means the world to us. So please do share with your friends and family members and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. The show Notes are also available at www.podcast.nourish me Organics and you can find us on social media on YouTube. GutHealthGurus. Guys, until next time.