How A 6'7" Tall-Ex-Wall-Street-Trading-Fraternity-Boy-Jock Fixed His Debilitating Back Pain And Naturally Healed His Body.

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Hey folks, it's Ben here with Jason Wachum. And you may have come across articles written by Jason before if you've looked for health information on the world wide web, because he is the curator and one of the founders of a website called mind bodygreen@mindbodygreen.com and they've got a real, real focus on really a lot of things naturally health related, but especially topics like wellness. And in Jason's case, one of the things we'll talk about today, yoga. Jason is himself. However, he comes from a background of pretty serious athletics. He played varsity basketball for four years. Now he lives in Brooklyn, New York and runs this company. But the guy is an athlete. He is a real wealth of knowledge when it comes to yoga and wellness and de stressing and natural healing your body. So we're really privileged to have him on the show with us. And he has kind of akind of a cool backstory too about why he ever opted for yoga in the first place. And he's gonna share that with us and a lot more. So, Jason, thanks for coming on the call, man.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Ben. It's an honor to be here.

So I gotta tell you, one of the, one of the places where I first came across your writing was an article called 5 Reasons why Dudes Should Practice Yoga. And I definitely want to talk about some of the stuff that you get into in that article. Even though, ladies, I'm sure you will get a lot out of this podcast as well. But you begin that whole thing, Jason, by talking about your back and your low back and some things that happen. So can you tell me a little bit about your story as an athlete and how you wound up where you were at with this debilitating back pain?

Sure. So I'm 6 foot 7. I played basketball in college at Columbia for four years. Essentially I'm 38 now. Essentially, I was an athlete all my life. Some days I still like to think I am. I lifted weights, I ran, I did the treadmill, I did, I did that for about 20 years. My idea of health was around being fit and what that looked like in the mirror. And when I played Basketball, it was about performance as well. Post basketball, it became about how do I look good, how do I maintain muscle mass, how do I not let my cardio just go to the crap, crapper. And, you know, I, after college, worked on Wall street as a trader, had a bunch of, unfortunately, Columbia, great school, I love it. But no scholarships for athletes. So I had a mountain of college debt that I had to pay off. And trading seemed like a great fit to help me pay that off, you know, so did that and then wanted to do other things after and got into startups and, you know, found myself traveling a lot in the latest. And the last company before my buddy Green that I was involved in, I was the CEO of an organic cookie company. Cookie is not so healthy, but the organic side really exposed me to the importance of ingredients and eating closer to nature and more plants. And, you know, up until this point, I was a guy who, my idea of health was a steak hold of potatoes and I'll have a martini instead of a beer. Ate so much steak at age 27, my face was engraved on the wall of the Palm Steakhouse. That's how much I went there. And so, you know, on the outside probably look good, but on the inside probably not so good.

Lots of steak and organic cookies, huh?

Yeah, way too much. Yeah. So, you know, I also did some insane flying around this time and started to. I always had, you know, when I played in college, you know, I had injuries like a lot of athletes, so, you know, dislocated shoulders. I had some hamstring problems, and one year they were particularly bad. And as you know, an athlete knows hamstring equals back. So many issues trace back to the back. So played through everything, had a decent career, and then after college was just happy I was in one piece. The hamstring and back issues started to come back pretty bad. And a lot of it was. So I flew about 150,000 miles domestic that year. So 6 foot 7 guy, coach seat, you know, not, not good on the back compress. You know, flying is a form of compression. And then, you know, it was a stressful time, stressful job. So all those factors, you know, it led to my back literally derailing. So I had two extruded discs pressing on my sciatic nerves.

Wow.

So whole right leg shooting pain all the way down to my toe. I couldn't walk. Awful.

I think, I think probably a lot of people struggle with issues like that, like with nerve pain in the legs, especially. People who sit a lot probably don't even realize that it's coming from the back. I mean, I know a lot of people think whatever it's issue with the knees or the hips or the muscles or lack of blood circulation, but in your case, you were actually diagnosed with some pretty significant disc issues, huh?

Yeah. And it became very apparent. Like, everything. So many problems around that area. It's all the back. I remember when it first started, I had like little inklings of it back when I played. And then a couple years after, like my hamstring would be. You feel it in the leg. So I vaguely remember, you know, trying to stretch it out a little more. Like I'd take one of a roller and I'd roll, you know, roll, use that and try to work it out. But in reality, it was all stemming from the back, not the source of the pain. So, yeah, did the, you know, got X rayed and, you know, had two extruded discs. Went to two different specialists. First specialist said, you need back surgery. And I wasn't too thrilled about that. Not a big fan of surgery and so sought a second opinion. And that guy said the same thing, but as an afterthought, he said, you know, you may be able to do some therapy or some yoga and that might help, but you probably still need some surgery.

Right.

So I began practicing. You know, that's where. That's where yoga came in. I started practicing and started to feel better within a matter of weeks.

What did you do? Did you just jump into a yoga class? Have you done that before?

No, I dabbled with yoga previously and I really liked it. I started to do some research online and talked to a physical therapist and met a couple yoga teachers. And essentially the short of it was I came up with a routine like four to five poses that were specifically geared around lower back pain and sciatica, and worked on that for 15 to 20 minutes in the morning and 15, 20 minutes at night every day.

And that was it. You were just by yourself? You weren't actually in a class per se?

No, I wasn't even going. I was sort of afraid to go.

Well, yeah, you're 6 foot 7. You kind of stick out like a sore thumb in a yoga class.

Exactly too. And, you know, I had a delicate situation with my back, so just started doing that at home. And then over the course of a couple weeks, you know, I started to notice improvement. The pain started to. An interesting fact for people with back pain is what I was told was the further south the pain goes, the worse. And when the pain starts to move back up north, you're getting better. Really? So like. Yeah. So do you know why that is or. I have no idea. But it somehow made sense to me because that's what I was experiencing. Like when the pain started, it was like around my butt and then it just went further and further south and then it got to the toes and then it was just. It was. Got awful. And then as the process started to heal, the pain started to come back up.

Probably like a nerve regeneration that starts lower down and gradually works its way up.

Yeah. Like I remember going in the doctor's office and he took the, you know, when they, they bang your knee with the, like there was no.

The reflex test.

Yeah, he could take in a rock and my, my leg was not moving.

Wow.

So at any rate, that's, that's how I discovered yoga and, you know, made a going. I was going through a lot at the time, like started to revisit spirituality and started to change my diet and came to this realization like, wow, like, this is health. I had wrong and discover that yoga was this powerful tool and it changed my life and caused me to get involved with Mind bodygreen. So it was pretty amazing.

So as a 6 foot 7 guy, in terms of actual yoga moves, if we wanted to give some of the people listening in who maybe don't do yoga, I personally go out on my back porch for about 15 to 20 minutes every morning and just go through some basic hip openers and stuff like that. But maybe we've got people who are listening in who have had back pain themselves and want to just kind of see what it feels like. What kind of stuff were you doing?

There was basically a couple poses I can walk you through, you know, kind of the routine. It was reclining ankle to knee, which was like. That was my go to pose, essentially reclining half ankle for me, where you're essentially lying down on the floor and it's on mindbody Green. Actually, if you want to go to the site and check it out, if you want.

The entire routine's over there.

Yeah, essentially I worked with a teacher, Michael Taylor, who I met throughout this process. And we actually have a post on the site called Yoga poses for back Pain. And essentially this is what I did every day. It was four to five poses. Reclining ankle to knee was one that was most powerful to me. And I would literally do. You know, I was still traveling, so I would literally be in airports, like lying on the ground doing reclining ankle to knee. But it was, it was those four to five poses that I swore, I swore by and you know, really helped me heal.

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. I'll put a link to this article in the show. Notes. These are all really. You pretty much just are lying on. On the back or on your back on the ground for most of them, kind of twisting their head.

Standing forward then is another one that's one where you're standing up straight and you kind of bend over. I do that still when I'm waiting for the subway in New York. Sometimes I'll just bend over and start even though my back's totally fine. You know, I'll do standing forward and I'll do that on airplanes a lot too. That's a great one.

You're one of those guys too, huh? Yeah, I do. Are you familiar at all or have you heard of the foundation exercises? It's a book by Eric Goodman and Peter Park I think is the other guy. And they were actually on the podcast a couple of years ago. And kind of similar to yoga, they do exercises for back pain and focus a little bit on opening up the hips and doing a lot of posterior chain work, like strengthening the glutes. But some of these moves I'm looking at that you were doing kind of similar to some of the stuff in that book. It's really interesting though, how you didn't even need to have surgery, so you pretty much completely bypassed the whole need to get stuff fixed surgically, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely an eye opening experience for me that I draw upon a lot. Very powerful.

So you used yoga. And I'm going to link for everybody listening in. I'm going to link to this article in the show notes the yoga poses for back pain, which is probably going to be way easier than Jason walking us through trying to describe every single exercise he was doing. It's a really helpful article over at mindbodygreen. But Jason, it seems like you kind of branched out. I mean, you started this. Did you actually start this Mind bodygreen website after that, after you discovered yoga?

It was around the time I started to make a lot of these changes in my life before and everything. And had that the idea was planted and I came across my two incredible co founders and you know, we kind of shared this vision for the site but didn't quite execute it on it yet. So everything started. The wheels were in motion before, but the whole process with yoga kind of, you know, elevated it to a whole new level.

Now you've got tons of articles at Mind bodygreen and I'm sure that you've come across stuff that goes way above and beyond yoga. Like for people listening in, who may be interested in other. I mean, to be honest, like, we've talked about stuff on this show before, like electro stem and cold laser and, you know, basically biohacks. But when it comes to maybe using more natural, I guess what you might call, you know, gentle or natural healing techniques, what kind of stuff have you discovered that you think kind of falls into the same boat as yoga that people can just kind of, kind of do right away if they've got chronic debilitating pain or back pain or kind of want to get rid of some of these nagging joint issues?

You know, I think it's everything yoga is just to me, it's one powerful technique and it's what I prefer for as far as it's become my new form of exercise. I don't really go to the gym anymore. Yoga is what I do. But there's so much you can do.

You don't lift weights at all or anything like that?

No, not anymore.

Do you find that you're able to kind of maintain strength when you're doing yoga?

Yeah, I really do. I really do.

But you must go, you must do something above and beyond. Just like basic flow then I would imagine.

Not really. You know, I just, I basically do a flow and I probably do it three times a week if I'm lucky. Now I'll practice at home or I'll go to a studio, but that's kind of all I do, to be honest with you. Really? Wow. Yeah.

Is your approach, like when you're going through like a yoga flow series of poses, is your approach to really focus on doing things like dialing in that down dog pose to strengthen your shoulders or to really get deep into a squat pose and things of that nature? Or I mean, like, are you breathing hard as you're doing this stuff?

No, not really. You know, one of the reasons why I love yoga so much is it's the only form of. If you're, if we're going to call it like a form of exercise, I don't know if it's. That's appropriate, but it's one of the only things that you can do where you practice ease and you practice slow. And I think that in our culture especially, you know, I live here in New York and, you know, we're all type A's here and we're all so good at doing things fast. And, you know, I'm running to the subway and I'm doing this and I'M getting so much in a day. And, you know, we're excellent at doing fast what we're not good at doing. We're not good at being slow and connected and easy. And I think when you practice yoga, you're practicing slowly, you're practicing. You're practicing mindfully, and you're practicing easy and without getting too deep. Deep. I think it's sort of a metaphor for life. Like, do you want to practice ease? Do you? Or do you want to practice pushing? You know, my. My former basketball coach, I played for a great coach at Columbia, Armand Hill, who later on, he's went on to be an assistant coach with the Celtics, and now he's at the Clippers with Doc Rivers. And he used to always say to us, and, you know, when we were. We were kind of dogging it in practice, he would say, like, what do you guys. You can't just turn it on and off. Like, you can't not practice hard and expect to play hard in a game. Like, there's no separation. And he would always say, it carries over to life. Like, you know, you got to give it your all all the time. You can't just turn it on and off. And he was completely right. And I think that's with regards to athletics. But, you know, I think moving back to yoga, you know, I think yoga is about practicing ease and slowing down your mind and alleviating stress. And I think that transcends it, crosses over to life. And I think if you practice the right way, it's very powerful because you can maintain your strength without killing yourself and maintain your sanity. And it's just this ultimate, it's just great tool that gets you more in touch with your mind and your body. And that's pretty powerful stuff.

Yeah, it's interesting. We did a podcast episode with a guy named John Duard, who's kind of an ex Ironman triathlete down in Boulder, Colorado. And he talks a lot about breathing. And what you're saying kind of reminds me of some of the things that he talks about in that you'd be surprised at how much fitness you can gain by simply engaging in deep nasal breathing throughout the day and avoiding shallow chest breathing. Like that one simple technique can actually make you a better athlete. Whereas we think that we actually do have to go out and feel the burn in the muscles or feel the extreme soreness the next day. It's something as simple as breathing that can. That can strengthen you without it actually feeling like it's tearing you down.

Absolutely. Breathing is powerful. Breathing, meditation, just diet. There are so many things that you can do that are going to make you a better athlete, a better person, less stressed. Yoga is just kind of one tool in the toolkit, so to speak. There's lots you could do.

When I interrupted you as you were talking about how you do yoga and you don't go to the gym, you were, I think, going to talk about a few other things that you've discovered that you either work in your routine or that you've come across, you know, as being the curator for Mind bodygreen, that other people are doing, like natural ways to heal the body or help to stop pain. So what other things would you recommend?

You know, I'm also a huge fan of meditation and breathing. I think it's very powerful and there's tons of science and interesting studies that are coming out about how meditation can. I've seen stuff as unbelievable saying that meditation can be as powerful as morphine in some respects. I think food is incredibly important.

Can I ask you about meditation real quick?

Sure.

Do you personally meditate?

I do.

What do you do? Just out of curiosity. I think a lot of people hear meditation and I guess it's so easy to just kind of like throw the word out there, you know, And I've certainly done that before. But I'm curious to hear what your practice is.

Sure. So there's. There's definitely. There's various forms of meditation. There's everything from, you know, Vedic meditation, which we actually have a course that touches on techniques based on that and other techniques like mindfulness and, you know, vipassana, which essentially silent meditation and just breathing. And, you know, there are so many different forms. It's kind of incredible. And it's not a religion. And you don't have to have a special place in your apartment or house to do it. You can do it on your subway, you can on your subway ride. You can even do it while driving. For me personally, I will sometimes spend anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes just kind of sitting and breathing. And that's my practice and trying to clear my head. And there's specific techniques. We actually have a great video course on our site with an incredible meditation teacher. A lot of those techniques he taught me and I use. And the great thing about meditation, it's kind of like no matter what the. What length or what you choose to practice, like, it's gonna be great. So if you got a minute a day or you got an hour a day, you know, you're gonna. You're gonna feel Better and there's no one size fits all. It's like you get exposed to all the different techniques and try it out and get breathing and see how you feel and I guarantee it's gonna help you.

Is there a special name for the kind of meditation that you do?

You know, it's sort of, I guess you could call it more mindfulness. You know, as simple as like, you know, a great way to kind of tune in is just kind of like sitting, being more taking longer, deep breaths. You know, I always start usually with like inhaling for two for a count of two, exhaling for a count of four. And that's actually a very powerful technique if you're like ever super stressed. Like even if you're in the grocery line at like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's and you're like, Jesus Christ, you know, can we, can this line move here? And you just had a long day and you're stressed, you know, just inhaling for a count of two and exhale for four is just like an incredible powerful technique. You do it for 30 seconds, you'll be like, oh, wow, I'm relaxed.

So a lot of times I've heard like you inhale four and exhale four. Why would you inhale two and exhale four? What's, what's going on there?

You know, there's a great. I'll reference another great article on Mind bodygreen. That's fine actually, from an expert on this. It's with the vagus nerve. I want to say. I don't want to speak out of line, but it's more powerful to hold the exhale longer.

Interesting.

It has to do with the vagus nerve and how that. There's a great article by a doctor named Robin Freelander on our site.

Check that out.

Yeah. About how that works. But it's pretty. I literally taught my, taught my like 65 year old uncle how to do it and he does it.

That's really cool. Are you familiar with heart rate variability testing at all? Like the use of like the heart maths, EM wave 2 or like the Inner Balance or the Sweet Beat app or any of these heart rate variability apps?

I'm a little bit familiar with it.

I personally, for about five minutes every morning do. I guess it's a kind of meditation called coherence where you think about things that you're grateful for or things that you find and hold dear or that you love and you imagine those things being placed into your heart. It's kind of like a heart brain connection kind of Meditation. And I typically, when I'm doing that, am breathing in for an equal amount of time as I'm breathing out. But I'm going to have to try this technique of breathing. Basically, you're breathing in for about half as much time as you're breathing out, huh?

Yeah, I'm going to have to. And that's just what's unique. There's so many. What's great about meditation is there's no one size fits all. There's various techniques that you can draw from and find what works for you. Yeah, same, you know, similar to yoga, very similar to nutrition and food and. And all these treatments. And I think that's the one message. You know, we definitely have a mission at Mind bodygreen, and we definitely have a philosophy. And I think a lot of it can fall under, you know, connecting to your. To your mind and body and really figuring out what works for you. You know, listen to your body.

So we've talked. We've kind of talked a little bit about yoga, a little bit about meditation, a little bit about this breathing technique. What else do you have? Anything else that you think would be kind of cool for people to learn more about or try and work into their daily routine?

Sure, I think diet's important, but I'm not going to tell anyone how to eat. I think you got to. I definitely think, you know, Michael Pollan had it, kind of nailed it with, you know, eating mostly plants. I think that's the way to go. But I think it's important to figure out what works for you with regards to other healing techniques. You know, I've done everything. I've tried every. You know, I think a lot depends on what you're going through. But I've done everything from shiatsu to acupuncture to colon hydrotherapy to, you know, you name it. I think that it depends on what you're going through. And my view on a lot of these treatments, they're kind of incredible and they're kind of telling. And, you know, I think the future of health is kind of this blend of Eastern and Western. And Western is incredible. Western saves lives. And Western is this incredible diagnostic tool. And what Eastern has to offer is a perspective, sometimes a spiritual perspective.

If you break your arm, you kind of want Western, but if you're dealing with chronic low back pain, Eastern comes in handy.

Yeah, they both do. It's essentially my back healing. Western diagnosed it. Western said, okay, you've got these two discs. This is what's going on. Here's the X ray and then, and then I took notice of that and an Eastern helped me go about it.

I gotta ask you, you dropped a word back there that I just can't let go. Unmentioned colon hydrotherapy.

Yeah.

Is that something that you actually did?

I do, I do it regularly.

Really?

Yeah. So it's something I. About a year ago I found out I had an intestinal parasite. It was something I got probably through traveling at some point.

You know, I've been there.

It's. You ever had a parasite?

Oh, yeah, yeah, several times. Well, I travel around the world doing triathlons and swimming in nasty stagnant water. So. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it's. So I had this, you know, when I first got it, all of a sudden, like I had no energy. I felt like crap. Like my stuff, it was awful and I didn't know what was wrong and I, So I'm like, okay, you know, I'm a lot going on at work, maybe I'm stressed. Need to practice more yoga, some more meditation, you know, eat a little cleaner. Even though I eat pretty clean, this will go away. And it wasn't getting any better. And you know, finally got diagnosed and you know, Western doesn't have. They're tricky. And I could talk about, I've learned way too much about this. Parasites are very tricky. There's a lot of their false negatives, difficult to get rid of. I've been to like numerous doctors, I've been to numerous healers. It's just, it's unbelievable how much of a lack of information is about these. And it's almost a year later, I'm like, I feel like I'm finally kicking it. And colon hydrotherapy is one of the things that I turn to that has really helped.

And so do you actually go, I assume you go to a clinic or is this like a self administered kind of thing?

Oh, no, no, I don't self administer.

Just curious.

No, there's, there's a, there's a great center I go to here in New York. Very, you know, nice, upscale. It's called, you know, Green Star Wellness. And I go to her and she's great and she's been doing this for 25 years and it's totally safe and clean and it's great. And it's what I, for me specifically, what was great about this is a lot of the stuff you're doing to get rid of a parasite, whether you're taking herbs or supplements or you're doing, you don't necessarily feel or see the results. It's this Whole process. What's nice with colon hydrotherapy is like, I get. It's like sort of like instant feedback, like, how am I doing? Like, how is my stomach? You know, how do I feel? She's seeing stuff come out, obviously. And, you know, there are things that are going on that are unhealthy in your stomach when this thing's happening. And, you know, she can kind of track progress, which I like as an athlete. And, you know, I like progress. I like being able to. To track something.

Yeah.

So it's. It was something I got exposed to through this parasite, and it's pretty amazing. So. And I know it's. I'd recommend it if that. If you have a stomach issue or something like that.

I think so many people have kind of like parasite or unwelcome visitors in their digestive tract and don't realize it. I know for me, it was like every two weeks I would wake up and I'd have insomnia. And apparently that's when they were. They were hatching, which I never like to think about, but that's Right. You know, and I don't. Have you ever heard of the book called the. The Epidemic of Absence?

No, but it sounds intriguing. I'm writing it down.

It's really interesting because it talks about how some parasites are actually good. Like, some parasites are. Are friendly to your digestive tract, and they actually are. Are crucial for your ancestral microbiome. Like, there are actual parasites that play friendly with your digestive tract, and then there are some that, usually based on symptoms like you just described, are probably not all that hot to be having around. But I was recently at the Ancestral Health symposium, and I heard a guy named Chris Kresser give a really interesting talk called the Hidden Costs of Modern Hygiene. And he went into this a little bit, and it's really interesting, the whole parasite issue.

It totally is. And you kind of nailed it with the microbiome. A doctor who's kind of been helping me through this is a guy named Dr. Frank Lippman, who's a great friend and incredible doctor. He's one of these functional medicine doctors where he's the blend of Eastern and Western. He'll tell you, okay, you need to chill out, you need to take these herbs or meditate. But he'll also say, okay, this is serious. You need surgery or you need. You need a drug or what have you. He's a great doctor. I think that's the future of medicine. But at any rate, he. You know, I just saw him the other week and he was talking about the microbiome. And, you know, for me, specifically in my case was saying how, you know, I think your stomach got really out of whack. And it's the process of healing and finding that balance. And it goes back to the microbiome of, you know, it swung one way, now it's swinging back the other way. How do we get it back to the balance? And it's just so interesting, and I think there's so much we don't know about the gut and how it's connected to everything in our body. Back pain, I absolutely believe that. And I think that's like. There's a huge disconnect in Western medicine. People tend to think of, you know, okay, here are your lungs, here are your heart, here's your gut, here's your mind. You know, all different specialties. None of this is connected. And I just do not think that is true. I think it is all connected. And I think the gut is in many ways the gateway to health.

Yeah, I've. I've even had athletes who have coached who have done things like eliminated dairy. Like, athletes who obviously, for genetic reasons or enzymatic reasons or whatever, like, they just can't do dairy. And, you know, they've. They've gotten rid of leg cramps on the bike. You know, two things that you wouldn't think would even be related at all. And simply eliminating lactose and dairy has fixed that. I mean, it's really nuts once you get in and start to look at the body as a holistic unit. How many of these kind of you and I as athletes, I don't know about you, but in the past, I've always been tempted to just have this real musculoskeletal approach to things. It's like, lift more weight over your head, and it fixes most of your problems. And it's so not the case stuff.

You know, with this whole stomach thing that I've gone through, through and I'm coming out of, like, I've definitely had weird things happen in my body where, you know, if I tell a Western doctor, they look at me like I'm nuts, and I'm not nuts.

Yeah.

Like, what do you mean you're feeling that in your toes? I'm like, I'm telling you, you know, this is what's going on. And then, you know, I do a little more research and talk to some Eastern people, and it totally makes sense. So it's been interesting. I've learned through. I continue to learn through experience in some Respects.

Jason, if we could throw one more gem towards our listeners, whether it be something you've gleaned from an article you've recently curated over at mindbody Green or something you've learned along your own pathway to health that you think might fly under the radar or might be something new that someone could try who's trying to, you know, maybe get rid of pain or just enhance their life. What's. What's another thing you think might kind of be enchanting here?

You know, I'll stay on Eastern and I'll say shiatsu and acupuncture are incredibly powerful. You know, one acupuncture is, it's a needle, it doesn't hurt, but if you don't like needles, it may not work for you. And shiatsu, essentially, it's hitting. You know, with Chinese medicine, they believe that there are meridians that run through your body, and essentially the needles hit the meridians and you could be hitting an area in your pinky toe which is really trying to help your liver. And it's, it's pretty amazing. I remember years ago when I first went for my shoulders because my shoulders are kind of destroyed from basketball, though. They're, they're sort of fine now. I remember my acupuncture is hitting a point and like, one of my toes and my shoulder started to twitch and I was like, holy cow. Like, I'm sold. Yeah. And shiatsu is sort of the same practice, but it's not with needles. It's. It's massage, but you're, you know, there's no oils, there's no grease, you keep your clothes on. You know, it's someone using their hands and pressure to hit those same points. And it's just incredible. Yeah, I personally, it's like, I totally hear you.

I always thought meridians were kind of airy fairy. Like, I actually got, I had Reiki done once and I didn't really feel anything from that form of therapy. And then actually it was about a year ago that I read this book, the Tapping Solution. Have you heard of that one or read that?

Jessica Ortner. Nick Ortner.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's not shiatsu in that someone else is like applying finger pressure, like kneading meridians with their hands. But you are, for listeners who are listening in, you basically have specific areas. It's mostly on your head and a little bit on your collarbone and underneath your arms. But you tap these spots, these traditional meridian points, while you, you say self affirmations. And I know it sounds really woo Woo. But it actually is pretty amazing stuff. I have done it before, specifically when I've woken up in the morning and felt like I haven't gotten a good night's rest. And that's one of the things that I freaking hate is when I wake up in the morning and I'm just like, oh, I gotta grind through this day. And I really do not feel well rested. And I go through each of these tapping points following the tapping protocol that's in that tapping solution book. And basically you say to yourself, even though I'm whatever, frustrated that I didn't get a good night's sleep last night, or I'm frustrated that I'm tired today or don't feel full of energy, I deeply and completely accept myself. And then you move on to the next spot. And again you say that affirmation over and over again. It's amazing. It actually works.

It is. It's all this stuff. It's one of these things where I probably would have totally dismissed it as well, but when you actually see it and feel it, it's kind of powerful. You know, the stuff works. And you know, if you're about performance and healing and it's worth a shot.

Yeah.

You know, I've done a lot of this lately and you know, shiatsu, you know, I just recently. So like in healing my stomach like all the time, I like, I know there's, there's one area in my foot when my, my shiatsu guy hits it. I know that's my, you know, now I know because I ask him every time, whenever I feel like, you know, something really powerful or I start to twitch, I ask him, you know, what's that associated with? And it's like on cue, every time he'd be like, Liverpool, like that's liver again, huh? And then like, I track progress and know that, you know, my liver is sort of healing because that's been affected by the stomach. But it is just, it's one of these things that, you know, we can't really explain it, but until. But if you can give it a try and, you know, see for yourself, see if you like it, see if it works, but it's, it's pretty powerful. And I think that, you know, we're in this interesting space where in time where Eastern and western are going to be meeting in the middle and combined they're pretty powerful.

Yeah. And I think you really hit the nail on the head. You have to try it for yourself. I mean, like, for me, you know, similar to the way it sounds like you may have been when you were a basketball player. Like, I played collegiate tennis. And, you know, if I. If I were sitting back in my collegiate tennis. Tennis days listening to you and I have this conversation that we're having right now, I would have laughed us both off the block you know, thinking, you know, whatever, dude. You know, tape your ankle and get back out there and hit some balls. Yeah. But, you know, you go out and you try some of this stuff, you know, you don't have to start with colonic hydrotherapy, but, you know, maybe, you know, just read this. I'll link to the article. They, you know, like the yoga poses for back pain. You know, if you've never done yoga before, go get the article, print it out or put it on your Kindle or whatever and sit there in your living room and try it. I mean, that's the key, is you just have to kind of jump into this stuff, and then it's kind of a. Kind of a fun little evolution from there. So.

I'll add one. You know, I'll add one quick point. Like, I think it's so important to find what works for you and what you like. So, like, if you hate needles, you're probably gonna hate acupuncture, you know, but maybe give it a whirl, but, you know, probably not gonna work. And there's so many different healing modalities and methods. You know, find the one. Like, my wife loves acupuncture. I'm not as big on it as her. I prefer shiatsu. You know, find what works for you, I think, and go with it. I think the same applies to, you know, fitness, food, everything, life. Find what works for you, find what you like and go with it. Listen to your body.

Yep. Yeah, you got to stay tuned. Well, cool, man. I could talk with you forever, but I know we're kind of pressed up against time for this interview. I would encourage everybody listening in to visit the show notes for this episode over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com and I'll put a link to some of the things that Jason and I talked about, some of those articles we mentioned, and then also check out the. The website mindbodygreen.com if this kind of stuff intrigues you or you want to learn more about the mind, body, connection and natural ways to heal pain or improve fitness. It's all really cool stuff and well written articles, so I'd recommend that you go check that out as well. So, Jason, thank you so much for coming on the call today.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. An honor and privilege to be here. And, you know, I'll add that, you know, to kind of sum up my philosophy. It's all about listening to your body. And I definitely think that three of the most powerful things we can do are, you know, practicing yoga, practicing meditation, and eating more plants. It's that simple. So I'll leave it at that.

Cool. Well, thanks for coming on the on the show, Jason. And folks, until next time, this is Ben Greenfield and Jason Wakob signing out.

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Sam.