How to Protect Your Brain and Live Longer | Dr. Andrew Weil

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I wanted to ask you first about cognitive decline. And I feel like a lot of people, especially over the last few years, have a fear of cognitive decline from foods they've eaten, from potential injections they've taken, or other things, or medicines that maybe are hurting or helping. So I wanted to talk about cognitive decline first and your thoughts about this.

And I think there's a lot of fear out there about it also because people know people with cognitive decline. You know, we— people have relatives who've developed dementia. We see people whose memories are failing. I know a lot of people, if they— if if they have memory lapses, immediately begin to think, am I getting Alzheimer's? You know, there's just a lot of fear around that.

Yeah. So what is the root cause of Alzheimer's?

We don't know.

We don't know.

I mean, there is a, a minority of cases are genetic or familial, but most of them aren't, and we really don't know. I, I have to say, my gut feeling with a lot of neurodegenerative disease, certainly with Parkinson's disease and ALS, I think these are environmentally caused. Most really?

Yeah. Is that environment like what's in the air environment?

Is it— it's probably everything, but a big one is things like exposure to agrochemicals. There's a higher incidence of Parkinson's in agricultural workers. I think all the stuff we're reading about plastics— I think it's good to be just cognizant of potential toxins in the environment, right? But I will tell you that in terms of preventing cognitive decline, um, probably the two most important pieces of advice I can give you is don't get hit in the head, you know, which means really being careful if you're playing football or basketball and I must say, I don't know what the future of football is going to be, but I think we're going to see more and more concern about, you know, a traumatic brain injury, and that has long-range consequences. And the other one I would say is don't smoke. Uh, you know that tobacco smoking is the single greatest cause of preventable serious disease, and it strongly affects brain function as well because nicotine constricts blood vessels, so it reduces blood flow. So those are just two You know, basic pieces of advice that I would give you. You know, don't get hit in the head. Don't smoke.

Well, I think, I think people don't understand like the, the, the sadness and the pain that happens when you watch someone that you care about mentally decline cognitively, right? Like my dad got in a traumatic car accident where the car came through the windshield and hit him in the head. He was in a coma for 3 months and he never recovered. He was all physically here, but mentally, yeah, that's really, really sad. It was really sad. For 17 years we lived with that experience with our father. Yeah, it was extremely sad because you feel hopeless. You feel like there's nothing we can do, right? We tried everything and there's only so much farther he can go back to. So number one is definitely don't get hit in the head because that's what happened. But a lot of people don't get hit in the head and they still have a cognitive decline Right. Not a lot of people, but that happens for some people. And is it— I'm hearing environment, I'm hearing smoking, but are there also like foods or other things?

No, there's a lot of other things. So let's talk about food nutrition first. We know that antioxidant protection is very good for the brain. So you want to make sure you're having an adequate intake of protective antioxidants, which you mostly get from consuming a variety of fruits and vegetables of good quality. And in general, it's a good idea to try to eat across the color spectrum. Yes. You know, because each color of fruits and vegetables has pigments that have particular beneficial effects. So that's just one good general rule. Okay. Another is to make sure that you've got an adequate intake of omega-3 fatty acids, which are very important for brain health, especially one of them, DHA. And, you know, the best sources of these are oily fish. So it's salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel. But if you're not a fish eater or you're a vegetarian or vegan, there are now algae-based omega-3 supplements that you can take. But very important to think where your omega-3s are coming from. There are plant sources of omega-3s, things like flaxseeds and hemp seeds, but the plant sources don't give you exactly what the body needs. It has to convert them. So it's good to eat those, but it's good to get some of the preformed long-chain Omega-3s from fish or algae.

Right. So is algae just as powerful as the fish?

Yeah, it's the same. It gives you the same compounds. And that's only become available relatively recently.

Interesting.

Because I used to really argue with vegetarians and vegans saying you got to eat some fish or take a fish oil supplement. But now I can tell them to take an algae supplement, which is great. And there's another one class of compounds that seem particularly important are called polyphenols. It's a large group of compounds found mostly in fruits, vegetables, vegetables, herbs, spices. Tea is a good source of them. Berries, chocolate. And, you know, these have very protective effects on the brain. Now, as you know, I'm a big fan of, of green tea. Yes, a lot of research on that and being useful for cardiovascular health, cancer prevention, brain health. And so I think— and recently there was a— have you heard of the Green Mediterranean diet?

I was— I heard about it researching your current stuff, but I don't know anything about it.

No, it's just gotten some publicity. You know, we have a lot of, uh, of scientific evidence for the benefits of the Mediterranean diet that in terms of its overall longevity and reduced risk of disease.

What's the green?

So the green Mediterranean diet is, is reducing animal foods even more, increasing plant foods, uh, and particularly loading the diet with sources of polyphenols. And they recommended berries and green tea particularly. And of these, of the forms of green tea, the one that I'm particularly fond of is matcha, which is the powdered green tea because of the way that it's grown. It has a higher content of antioxidant polyphenols. And it's also, you consume the whole leaf, it's the whole powdered leaf. So that's the one I would recommend.

Yeah. Not the Starbucks matcha, which has got tons of sugar.

Exactly. Processed.

Right.

And is low quality.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's, you know, and those are the main nutritional Those are the nutritional recommendations that I would give you.

Gotcha.

Then the other things are all the lifestyle recommendations that you make and I make, you know, getting adequate rest and sleep, regular physical activity. You know, those are the obvious ones. Practicing, learning and practicing some methods of neutralizing the harmful effects of stress. The main hormone that mediates stress is cortisol. Cortisol is directly toxic to cells in the brain. Really? So the more stressed you are, the more cortisol circulating, and cortisol can kill brain cells.

Wow.

Particularly in the hippocampus, which is the region that mediates emotion and memory. So just— that's all you need to know, that you want to do something to keep your cortisol levels, you know, moderate or low.

So would you say from that scenario, if someone has kind of a high level of ongoing stress for decades, are they more susceptible to cognitive decline?

Well, I would say probably. I mean, I can't give you hard evidence for that, but knowing what we know about cortisol, that if you have higher levels than you should for your life, probably it's going to damage your brain, right? And there are many options for learning to control stress. My favorite are breathing techniques, and whenever you want, I can, you know, talk about—

what's the top breathing technique?

The 4-7-8 breath. It's so simple and free and takes no equipment. It's an ancient yoga technique, and I've popularized it and it's got, got incredible traction. Uh, you know, the, uh, the YouTube videos of me teaching it are— all you have to do is put in 478 breath and my name. I mean, millions of views.

Wow.

And it's every, every—

like every—

yeah, I will. And a few, every few days I get newspaper articles about it from India, from Indonesia, you know, another story about the 478 breath. A, a ballet company in Toronto produced a ballet based based on the 478 breath. I have no idea what that was. It's like the, uh, the late Prime Minister of Japan who was killed, uh, Abe, uh, gave new interviews saying that I taught him the 478 breath and it was very helpful to him. I never met him, so I don't know what he was thinking of. Maybe he read it somewhere. But you know, this is just— it's a great thing. So, and I learned it from one of my mentors, was an elderly osteopathic physician, Robert Fulford. I met him when he was in his 80s. Best healer I've ever met. Just used gentle hands-on, and he said breathing was the most important function of the body.

Really? Yeah.

And a lot of his work was designed to free up restrictions in breathing, and he produced incredible cures. Anyway, he taught me this. So the basic method is you breathe in through your nose quietly to a count of 4, hold your breath for a count of 7, blow air out forcibly through your mouth to a count of 8, You repeat that for 4 breath cycles and that's it. It takes, you know, all of 30 seconds, but it's a practice. So the benefits of it come from doing this regularly. So you have to do this religiously at least twice a day. Really? Yeah. I do it in the morning when I first get up before I do some sitting meditation. I do it when I get in bed to fall asleep, and I do it any time in the day that I feel stressed or I want to relax. So I'll just show you what it looks like together. So it's— if you're— you can do it in any position, but if you're seated, it's good to keep your back straight and your feet on the floor. So you— and in yoga, this is a yoga breath, and in yoga you're asked to keep your tongue in the yogic position, which is touching the tip of your tongue to the ridge of tissue behind your upper front teeth, like that. So you blow air out around it, so it looks like this. That's it, 4 breath cycles.

Wow.

It's a little hard for me to come back and talk to you after I do it because you're so relaxed. Yeah, no, it produces a very nice altered state of consciousness that I'd rather stay in, right? Yeah, for longer. Yeah. Anyway, so only 4 breaths at one time. You can do it more frequently, but you got to do it at least twice a day.

Got it.

And the— and after a month, if you're comfortable, you can do it 8 breath cycles, and then that's the absolute maximum. And it's good to learn how to slow it down as you practice What limits you is how long you can comfortably hold your breath, but with time you can extend that. And after, um, you know, 4 to 6 weeks, there are really amazing changes. It lowers heart rate, lowers blood pressure, improves digestion. It is the most powerful anti-anxiety method I have ever found. Wow. That, that makes the drugs we use for anxiety look pathetic. Uh, it's, it's, it gets better the more you repeat it. One of the most useful things I've ever discovered. And of all the, you know, I've explored the world for natural remedies, and of all the things that I've found and told patients to do, this is the one that I've gotten the most spectacular feedback on.

It's free.

It's free. No equipment.

There's no money involved. No.

And by the way, this is, I think, a perfect example of what integrative medicine can do. It can find things that aren't even on the radar of conventional medicine and bring them into the mainstream and lower healthcare costs and improve outcomes. So anyway, that, that That is my personal favorite method of stress reduction to keep cortisol levels low. And one of the aims of that is preventing cognitive decline and promoting brain health. Now, other things you can do, you know, you're big into physical exercise, physical activity. I think mental exercise is very important too. And there are many, many choices there. I love to do word puzzles. My favorite are acrostics, which I find more interesting and challenging than crossword puzzles. You know, they're great. It's like, it's a brain exercise for me, and it's fun. You know, have you played Wordle, which is going on? I've done it a couple times.

I need to get into it.

Unbelievable how that has gained popularity all over. So I usually do, you know, Wordle every morning when I get up. Really? Yeah. Anyway, that keeps my brain active. Another wonderful method is to learn a language, another language. You don't have to master the It's the attempt to learn it that— that's challenging.

Yeah, I'm in the attempt right now. It's difficult, but it makes you like work your brain.

Absolutely. I speak Spanish, and I really— and what interesting, what I discovered is I, in high school, I studied German. It was horrible experience. I had it, my teacher was from Berlin. He was a real sadistic German teacher. And it was 4 years of like, you know, drilling, blah, blah, blah. And I afterwards, I went to Germany and I could speak passively. But for Spanish, I just went and lived in Mexico, in a village in Mexico, and I was in a place where I was forced to, you know, speak Spanish. And in, in a month, you know, I was speaking passively. And then I drove to South America, and when I got to Colombia, where I lived for a few years, I gave a lecture in Spanish.

Come on, seriously?

That's incredible. Now, so, you know, and what I've learned— and this is not, you know, big news— you know, babies do not have Minds that learn grammar, right? And they learn language. And the only skills you need to learn a language are to be able to listen and imitate. And you have to have strong motivation. So babies have really strong motivation.

To survive.

To survive, right? So if you put yourself in a situation where you have to learn and you listen and you imitate, you learn. You don't need to learn grammar and study rules and all that, which makes it much harder. We all have that capacity. Capacity to do. Anyway, that's a very good thing for your— for your brain. Another is trying to learn a musical instrument. I'm terrible at that. I, you know, I, I failed. I was forced to try to play the clarinet when I was a kid as a dismal failure. So, uh, that, that didn't work for me. But for some people, that's an example. Sure. Here's another one I'll give you. You know the, the frustration of trying to deal with a new computer operating system? You know, there's like several—

switching from PC to Mac.

Yeah, you know, there's a, there's a period where it is just— that's exactly where you want to put your brain.

You want to put—

you put— you want to put your brain in that place where it, you know, where you have to like change gears, rewire. That, that's, that's good exercise for the brain.

Is there too much of that where it hurts the brain, or is it—

well, I don't think— no, I think you just get frustrated. And then one other tip I would give, I think it is very good to associate with people who are healthy, happy, who have positive outlooks. And, you know, when the— some years ago, the MacArthur Foundation did a study of successful aging. They identified a large group of people as successful agers, and they looked to see what they had in common. The two factors that stood out, and this overrode everything else, whether they took vitamins, whether they ate this, whether they exercised, the two that stood out were, it was maintenance of regular physical activity throughout life. And the second was maintenance of good social and intellectual connectivity. And I think that last one, that is a challenge. First of all, in our society, As people get older, they tend to get isolated with other people, other old people.

Why is that in our society?

I think we don't want old people around, you know. We don't want to look at them. They don't— they remind us that we're going to get old. Really? Yeah, we want them out of the way.

And like, but in other societies they don't do that.

Well, in some, like Japan, is, is notably different. Uh, I would say in most Latin societies, no, older people, it's like they live with you. Yeah, you know, they're not isolated in old age. Homes. Uh, but I think the, the— so I think the opportunities for social and intellectual connection diminish in this society as you get older. Uh, and I think that's been particularly bad during the pandemic. Uh, you know, there's been much greater social isolation, people staying at home, people interacting virtually. And I think that's— this looks really key to good brain health, is like having, uh, you know, I'd say vibrant social intellectual relationships. Yeah.

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It's interesting because my girlfriend Martha, she's from Mexico, and her, her family is very socially connected. Yeah, you know, activities all the time, you know, involving the grandparents with the grandchildren, like, and connecting the dots, constantly playing games, having fun, and singing music, and playing instruments, and like adventures.

So I gotta hear— I've got a story for you. It's very powerful. I knew a woman who was a pediatric intensive care nurse, and she told me over a period— this was over a period of about 6, 7 years— she had seen a number of cases of kids, teenagers who'd been in devastating and mostly motorcycle accidents, devastating head injuries, who were in vegetative states in the hospital. And she said she saw of, I think it was like 8 or 10 cases of kids who recovered completely to the astonishment of doctors. But after she'd seen about a certain number of them, she noticed that they were all Hispanic and she'd never seen an Anglo kid in that state recover. Really? And she so thought about what's the difference? And then she realized that with the Hispanic kids there was always at all hours an extended family around the bed. People talking to the kid, touching the kid. And the white kids were always there by themselves. Really? Nobody. Yeah. And she said that clearly was what made the difference.

That was the only difference, right? Essentially, is seeing that environment.

They were all in basically the same vegetative state.

And some of them—

it was that kind of constant stimulation, touch, you know, that kept their brain— that made their brains recover even when they were in comas and vegetative states. Yeah.

And she said that they had— some of these had like full recoveries or big recoveries.

Full recoveries.

Yeah, walking around talking. Yeah, yeah, thinking clearly.

Whereas the other kids, right, she'd never seen it happen in an Anglo kid which had— who had nobody in the room with. Wow. Yeah.

Or maybe they would come for like an hour and then— yeah, or something, right?

Or—

yeah. Wow.

So that's very powerful. And, uh, you know, I think that that's something we should really guard against, you know. It's like not getting socially isolated and spending time with people that stimulate us.

Well, it's interesting because we were just talking about this beforehand. Um, you told me you're 80 years young. Yeah, 80 years young. I'm going to be 40.

You're a kid.

But here's what the funny thing you said. You said, you know, when I was young, 80 seemed like, you know, ancient, ancient. And 40 used to think like, oh, they're really old too.

Yeah, right.

When you're like 8, right, you see a 40-year-old, you're like, you're old, man, right? So I still feel like I'm a child in a lot of ways, childlike energy.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Not childish, but childlike energy. And I feel like you have that too.

Yeah.

You've got this joyful, youthful energy about you. If you could go back to 40, I mean, you've lived an amazing life and you've been changing the world for the last 40 years, but if you could go back, is there anything you would do, add to support you longevity. Now you know everything beyond what we talked about, or anything you take away from habits you did to support you in, in setting yourself up for these last 40 years and beyond?

You know, I grew up in a row house in Philadelphia in a city, so I was pretty disconnected from nature. And, uh, I— and then I was, you know, in school for a long time. I think if I could go back, I would spend much more time out in nature and and in wilderness at an early age. Why is that? Because I think that's very— it is very good for your spirit as well as your physical being. And, you know, I, I would like to have had more time for that when I was young. I didn't eat very wisely until, you know, in my early life. Uh, I didn't know, and, uh, you know, I would probably adopt better eating habits early on. I'd probably practice my 4-7-8 breath earlier in life, things like that.

Sure.

Yeah.

And speaking of the, you know, the bad eating habits, what do you think are the foods that everyone should avoid?

Like, oh, that's the biggest killer. That's very simple. I mean, it's so simple. It's refined, processed, and manufactured food. You know, it's, it's, that's, that's it. That's simple. You know, you want to try to eliminate that. It's all the stuff, mostly all the stuff in the middle the supermarket, you know, all the stuff.

5% of stuff you should eat. Yeah, right.

It's all that. And that's, that's, that's the first, you know, I advocate an anti-inflammatory diet because, uh, you know, chronic low-level inflammation seems to be the root cause of most serious disease that kills and disables people prematurely. And the mainstream diet promotes inflammation. Yeah. Uh, and it's— and that all that processed, refined, manufactured food gives us the wrong fats, the fats that promote inflammation, the wrong kinds of carbs, and not enough of the protective elements like those polyphenols, antioxidants that are mostly in fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices.

What causes more inflammation in the brain? Is it stresses of life or foods?

I think it's— I don't think you can separate that. It's all of it. Yeah, it's all of it.

If you had to eliminate one Like, which one is less damaging, do you think? Like, if you eat healthy perfectly but you're constantly in a low level of stress or high level of stress versus I am around beautiful people in a great environment but I'm eating—

that's too hard. I don't know. I don't know. I, you know, I wrote a book on, uh, on eating well for optimum health, and I quoted in it— I think she was 106— 106-year-old Russian woman who was asked what was the secret of her longevity, and she said, I never eat vegetables.

It was like against everything, right?

Right. So, and you know, when you see people who've smoked all their lives and drink like fish, and, and they're— so they have very good exceptions. They have good genes, right?

But maybe they could have lasted longer. Exactly right.

Yeah.

I've never ate vegetables.

I never eat vegetables.

That was hilarious. The secret of her long life. Oh my goodness, did she have a different type of diet? Was she like I think she ate meat and potatoes.

Wow.

That's amazing.

And probably vodka.

Now, how— we talked about this a little bit the last time, which I think is fascinating that you were willing to talk about relationship stuff because I think it sounds like good social connections is the key to successful aging.

Right.

And probably a great intimate partner or relationships intimately are— can be supportive or harmful.

You can't— yeah, exactly. Can be either way. Right. Right.

Yeah. How does one learn with your amount of wisdom to step into a healthy, loving relationship and sustain it?

Well, I think a big key— we talked about this— you have to start by loving yourself.

And it's so good. That's why I love this guy. It's so good.

And that's a hard one for a lot of people, you know, that we seek love in another person. Them. You know, we project something of ourselves onto them. And, uh, you know, but it has to start with loving yourself. And from that place, you can, I think, enter into good relationships with other people.

When was the age where you feel like you fully loved and accepted yourself?

I think it was not until my— it might not have been until my 40s.

Really?

Yeah. So you got your right at the cusp there.

Lots of pain and suffering before.

Yeah, yeah.

Really in your 40s.

Yeah, I don't know that I want to go back and be young again. I mean, in some ways I'd like to have a more elastic body and, and things like that, but I, I think it's— things are easier now for me.

Why is that? Because you love yourself?

Yeah, and I think I'm more accepting of myself and more accepting of things. You know, when I, I, I wrote a book on healthy aging, um, and one of the things that— one of the things I looked at was what What gets better with age? And what can we see? What are examples out there where we see that things improve with age? One of them I wrote about was cheese. We were talking about cheese.

Stinky cheese.

Okay, stinky cheese. So some cheeses get very better with age. Violins, old violins, old trees, you know, and you look at wine, you know, what are the qualities in these older things that we like? They're more complex, they're deeper, they have more character. Right. So you can see that in people as well. And, you know, that if we lived in a society where we valued old people instead of shutting them away, you know, they can be great repositories of wisdom. And I interviewed a lot of older people about what they saw get better. Interesting answers. A lot of people felt that they were more accepting of things as they got older, that they had more equilibrium, that things didn't throw them off balance as much as when they were young. Uh, you know, that's interesting.

They weren't as triggered, or they could like manage life easier.

Yeah, some— I, I've heard some, uh, scientists say that their memories have gotten better with age, and they think it's because they have more filed away. So when something new comes along, they, they have more to compare it to, to know where it fits. And that's interesting, you know, in terms— when we think about, you know, cognitive decline, some things may get better.

What have been the main benefits for you?

I think greater self-acceptance, uh, you know, definitely as well. And, uh, in some ways I'm sort of— I, I'm less patient with things and people that take up my time for no good reason, you know. I really want to spend time with, with people that make me feel good about myself, about the world.

Uh, so you say, you say no to a lot of things that you maybe would have said yes to earlier in life? Yeah, exactly, right.

Yeah, I think I'm more, more discriminating about that.

What was there a process or like a moment that allowed you to say, oh, actually this I can accept and love myself, and this is how I'm learning how to do it? Was there like a period of time?

No, I think it was gradual, but it was in my, in midlife, definitely.

Did you have a crisis before then? Did you go through midlife crisis?

I had a period of depression, really, uh, of several years. Yeah. Uh, and you know, that just lifted at some point. I think some of it was becoming more physically active, some of it was changing my diet, uh, some of it was practicing, you know, meditation and my breathing technique, and some of it was, I think, a natural process that happened with getting older. Yeah.

I've never had a, uh, like a midlife cr— I don't want to have a midlife crisis. It's not like you never know.

Yeah, right.

But what do you think causes that for people, like, to go through a quarter-life crisis, midlife crisis, where they, like, say, I'm just going to change everything, I'm going to go through a divorce, I'm going to get married to this, I'm going to do that, I'm going to, you know, buy a sports car, whatever it is that happens for people. Why do you— what causes a crisis?

I guess, you know, people sometimes feel stuck, and it often just seems to happen around 40 and that period, right?

Do you think it's because people aren't in alignment with like where they think they should be going, or they're, they're not living their purpose?

I think that's a big one. Yeah, yeah.

But you were, you were living your purpose though during that time. You were doing the medicine stuff.

I was, I was off on my own. And but, you know, I was, um, uh, you know, people thought I was crazy because I dropped out of medicine. I wasn't practicing. I was, you know, living like a hippie, exploring other— exploring, right? And I did not get a lot of reinforcement from the world for what I was doing, especially not back then. Back then. But I knew what I was doing was right and what I had to do, right?

So you lived in— you lived in Germany for a while?

No, I visited there.

You lived in Mexico for a while?

I lived in, in South America, Colombia especially. Yeah.

For how long?

About 3 and a half years.

What was it about the, the South American culture about longevity that inspired you?

Well, I was interested in, uh, when I was growing up, I remember having a kid's book. It was about, uh, I think it was about a South American village, but it was about the Andes Mountains. I thought they were my mountains, you know, Andes Mountains. So I developed this.

Yeah, so my mountains were my mountains.

Yeah, so I had this, I know, some of a deep thing I wanted to visit there, and then When I was a student at Harvard, my mentor there was Richard Schultes, who was the father of modern ethnobotany. And he had lived in the Amazon for 14 years and discovered all sorts of hallucinogenic plants. And he was a fascinating teacher, and he sent me down there to study medicinal plants. And so I think what really drew me down there was the culture that was very connected to nature and to plants. And, uh, so I learned a lot of things there, you know. I visited shamans and did all sorts of crazy stuff, experimented.

Yeah, interesting. Um, how— you know, you, you joked about the woman who, you know, said my secret was not eating vegetables.

Yeah.

How important are plants in improving cognitive brain health in general?

Well, as I said, you know, a lot of the, the, the main sources of these protective polyphenols and antioxidants are plants. And, you know, there's so many plants out there with so many different properties. And, you know, the, the foods that have become popular up here are such a small slice of what's possible. So I've also spent a lot of time in Asia and in other cultures, and I always am interested in the foods that people eat, and I've tried to bring them back here and turn people on to them. Yeah.

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What are the main foods that you try to have consistently, like, that are unique or different than kind of the standard American diet?

Well, I, I, you know, I, I use a lot of herbs and spices in my own cooking. Uh, you know, one of the ones that I'm very big on these days is turmeric, you know, the yellow spice, uh, which Indians eat every, every meal from infancy to old age. Uh, and in, in North America, until recently, the The only way we got it was in yellow mustard, which is more a turmeric preparation than mustard preparation, and in curry. It's what makes curry yellow. But now, when I was doing that research on aging, I made a number of trips to Okinawa, which at the time that I was doing it had the highest number of centenarians in the world. And I made a number of trips there. Diet there is astonishing. You know, they have an incredible variety of sea vegetables, land vegetables, fish. Uh, it's not like the Japanese— mainland Japanese diet. Okinawans are not Japanese. They're another— there's something else.

What's different than the mainland?

They drink jasmine tea, not green tea. They eat more pork, and the pork is long cooked to reduce fat. They eat more tofu. The tofu has a higher fat content. And they eat this great variety of unusual vegetables. But the beverage that I— it was very hot and humid when I was there at that time of year. And a very popular beverage was cold unsweetened turmeric tea made from a fermented form of turmeric. Delicious, really delicious. And I'd just recently been able to bring it into this country and sell it through our matcha company, Matcha.com. You can drink it hot or cold, but anyway, turmeric is the most powerful natural anti-inflammatory agent that we know of.

Turmeric? Yep. The most powerful, you think?

It is. It's the most powerful natural anti-inflammatory agent. A lot of research on it. And interestingly, India has the, the lowest rate of Alzheimer's disease in the world, and people think that has to do with the amount of turmeric they can—

lowest rate. I think they're also highly social family ties.

It's like they're not— I mean, their cardiovascular health is not great, their food habits have changed, but they have some protection against Alzheimer's. And turmeric might be— yeah, that might be the factor that accounts for that.

Wow.

Yeah. So anyway, that's, that's an example of something.

Lowest amount of Alzheimer's.

Yeah. In the world. Yes.

India. Is it regions of India?

I think rural India especially. Yeah. Wow. So interesting. But that's, you know, turmeric's a good thing to include in your, in your diet.

And even just like a turmeric supplement every day is a good thing.

That's fine.

And to cook with it, everything, right?

All that. You know, you can't like, um, we don't know how to cook with it, you know, like Americans.

Yeah, yeah.

And if you, and if you put too much, it's astringent, not pleasant. Uh, I had a student, a family physician from South India India, and she was a very good cook. And she said she tells her patients to try putting a level teaspoon of powdered turmeric in beans, bean dishes, stews, soups. That level of it is good.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah. But that fermented turmeric is a great drink. It's delicious.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I've never been able to get into fermented. It doesn't— this doesn't taste fermented.

No, no. But fermented things are good to get into.

I know, that's what I hear.

It's so good. But if you like stinky cheese, why don't you like fermented thing.

The stinky cheese is amazing.

Well, that's a fermented product. That's got a living culture.

It's got a different smell and taste than like a liquidy or like a fermented, like, I don't know, vegetables. Like, I don't know, it just doesn't— it's just like a weird aftertaste.

Huh.

The stinky cheese.

Maybe you've never had good fermented stuff.

Maybe that's what it is.

Because to me, good fresh, good fermented stuff, it's got a fresh, really, really fresh crisp. I make my own sauerkraut. I make kimchi. I make pickles. It's really delicious. You need to— I gotta get you some good stuff.

I have the palate of a 7-year-old.

No, if you like stinky cheese.

Well, that's the only thing I can eat. But most stuff, like, I'm very picky. That's the challenge. What are the main benefits of fermented foods?

Well, mostly you're eating— first of all, the foods are partially digested, so they're more assimilable. You know, the microorganisms have done work for you that your body doesn't have to do. But the living cultures are what's really important. You know, this is— this feeds your gut microbiome. And this, this is one of the most exciting revolutionary changes in medical thinking in my lifetime. When I was in medical school, you know, I learned that we have these organisms in our gut and that assist in digestion, and that was it. And that people who took, uh, ate yogurt or took acidophilus supplements were health nuts. And now, you know, we're the gut microbiome. It looks like it's, it's involved in everything. I mean, it, it, it conditions your mental health. It influences your interactions with the environment. I mean, it just, it's, it's the key to health and how you move through the world. Right. So the gut microbiome in our society has changed for the worse. In the, in recent years as a result of several things. One is incredible overuse of antibiotics, which do wreak havoc on the gut microbiome. Um, decline in breastfeeding, because breastfeeding gives, provides organisms, you know, early in life. Increased consumption of these refined, processed, and manufactured foods, which feed the wrong kinds of organisms. And then, and finally, the unbelievable rise in cesarean deliveries. Wow. Because when babies are born normally, the, the, uh, organisms they pick up come from the birth canal and colonize the gut, right? When they're born by cesarean, they come from the skin, and it's a different population of, of microorganisms, and they get established for life, right? So the, the combination of those things, I think, has— I think, and this has to do with why there's a rise of allergies, autoimmune diseases, maybe things like ADHD. So you want to keep your gut microbiome healthy. So one way to do that is to eat fermented foods.

Oh man, sorry, I don't like the smell of the taste of fermented foods. Is there anything else besides kombucha? Well, you can—

you— yeah, no, you don't have to. I don't, I don't drink kombucha. Uh, I, I like sauerkraut, I like kimchi, good pickles, miso.

Uh, miso?

Yeah. Okay, that's a good one.

All I think miso soup.

Okay.

Yeah, that's fermented.

Yeah. Miso is a fermented—

it doesn't have the smell of the—

no, I hear you. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Another one.

Did you ever eat tempeh?

Yeah, I can do tempeh.

So tempeh is a fermented soy food.

I don't like soy as much, but I mean, that's got the benefits.

Well, fermented— the tempeh doesn't taste like soy.

Yeah, yeah.

It tastes like it's meaty, right?

Okay, so tempeh.

Okay, you can take— you can take yogurt you know, that has living cultures in there, kefir. You can take probiotic supplements, but they may not be as good as the, as the foods. And the other thing you can do is, is make sure you're consuming enough prebiotics, which are foods that feed the, the beneficial microorganisms. And that's mostly fiber-containing foods— fibers, beans, beans, vegetables, whole grains.

So you want prebiotics and probiotics, both.

You want to consume a lot of them daily, or prebiotics you should have on a regular basis, you know, that should just be part of your diet. Uh, and probiotics, as you know, whatever foods you can take, or you can take, as I said, a probiotic supplement.

Sure, sure. Okay. All right. So if I— I'm going to have the palate of a 7-year-old, take the probiotic supplements.

But especially important if for any reason you have to take antibiotics, you know, it's really important afterwards. It will be from the moment you start taking the antibiotic. Yeah.

What happens if you're taking antibiotics and you're not taking probiotics at the same time?

It drastically changes your gut microbiome. You know, it wipes out a lot of the good organisms.

How long does it take to get back to like a healthy space?

We don't know. We don't know. I mean, maybe the body comes back pretty quick from that. I don't know. Wow.

But it's important to take it before and during. Yep. And after, it sounds like. Yeah, yeah, to get it back to baseline, man. Because I just took some antibiotics a couple weeks ago from a dental surgery I had to take, and so it didn't get infected, right? But it's— I should be overloading now on probiotics, it sounds like. Okay, so I should have talked to you before.

Talked to me before. Too late now.

What is it you mentioned that India is the lowest rate of dementia or Alzheimer's? Alzheimer's. What countries or regions are the highest rate of Alzheimer's? Do we know?

I don't know the answer to that. I mean, Alzheimer's is pretty consistent around the world.

Yeah.

Uh, so as I say, we don't—

seems lower in India.

It seems lower in Indian rural Indian population.

Yeah, but it's consistent around the world.

Yeah.

There's not one country that has a higher—

not that I know of. Not that I know of.

That'd be interesting.

Yes, I, I— maybe we do know that. I don't know that.

It seems like it's—

there's a—

there's an issue in America. I mean, maybe I'm just hearing about it, but is it? And when does it usually—

well, you know, we used to call— when I was, uh, growing up, my, my mother's father was senile. So that's what we said, you know, people got senile. Uh, that was dementia. Now there's different forms of dementia. Alzheimer's is one kind of dementia, um, that's associated with particular brain changes. So maybe there's an increase in our population. Maybe that's because we have more older people around. I don't know that it's actually increased. They may call it by a different name, but there are a lot of people over 100 who don't have decline as well. Exactly right.

But it sounds like they're doing a lot of these things correctly. They have strong social ties. They're, they, they're doing the exercises and brain games or music or— right, exactly right— doing something challenging for the brain that's like making them think, or puzzles, or whatever it might be. They're also eating generally well, it sounds like, with these types of foods and polyphenols and antioxidants and all these different things, and anti-inflammatory turmeric and stuff like that. So it sounds like they're doing more of these things. Obviously, these exceptions— yep, you hear someone smoking their whole life and living to 100. Yeah, but in general, it sounds like you do a lot of these things, you could live a longer, healthier Now the other one is, is trying to do whatever you can to avoid, uh, environmental toxins.

And that's not so easy. Yeah, you know, you can get a water filter for your home, which is a good idea, um, you know, maybe an air filter depending. But I think things like getting plastics out of your life, avoiding secondhand smoke, um, you know, just paying attention to all this, like, like You know, I'm a big proponent of organic agriculture, not mostly— not because I think the food's necessarily more nutritious, but to avoid contamination with things you don't want. And, you know, it's gotten easier to get organic produce, but for many people it's difficult. Either it's not accessible or it's expensive. So a good thing to do is to learn which crops are most likely to be contaminated And a good source of information on that, there's a group in Washington called the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org, and they periodically publish a list of what they call the Dirty Dozen, which are the 12 most contaminated crops. Strawberries are always at the top of the list.

Really?

You know, other things like green beans, you know, and then they have also a Clean 15 list, which is the least contaminated, things like avocados and bananas is. So if you're buying something from the Dirty Dozen list, it's probably worth making an effort to get it organic or not eat it.

Got it.

From the Clean 15 list, doesn't matter. So that, that's a way of—

yeah, so trying to get organic on that list if possible. But isn't sometimes like organic still has chemicals or pesticides even if it says organic?

I mean, no, we have good— we have good organic standards now. I mean, the industry is constantly trying to whittle them way.

Okay.

But we've beaten it back so far. I mean, there was when they first got that USDA organic certification, I remember there was an attempt to allow— the industry wanted to allow sewage sludge to be put on crops and still call it organic. That we beat that back.

Wow.

Yeah. But if it's got that seal on it, it's good. Now, however, also realize that it costs money for farmers to get that certification. So small farmers often can't afford that. So if you're at local farmers markets and small growers, often growers will say that they're pesticide-free. You know, they can't afford the USDA organic certification, but they'll say that their crops, they don't use pesticides. That's still good. Yeah, yeah. I also, you know, don't keep poisons around the house— herbicides, you know, pesticides, um, all of those things. You don't want to be exposed them.

When you mention plastics, avoiding plastics, what does that include? That includes plastic bottles, living with plastic in your life?

Yeah, as much as possible, because what's— what you see happening is that plastics that we've always considered safe turn out not to be.

Like what?

I don't remember what the latest, you know, the latest one that I've seen. So like drinking out of a plastic bottle, or like drinking out of a plastic bottle, using plastic storage dishes for food. You know, use glass instead. Uh, use glass bottles or tin or something else.

Right.

Yeah, with plastic wrap for food, there's, uh, you know, there— some of them are— can have, uh, chemicals called phthalates in them.

Plastic wrap, like a wrap to store the food.

Yeah, but there's some brands that don't have that.

So don't get plastic when you're wrapping.

Or look again, this— use that EWG site that I gave you. They rate all these products. Products.

ewg.org.

Yeah, the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org. They also have, uh, you know, they— you can look up things like cosmetic products, shampoos and lotions, creams and deodorants, and they'll— you'll tell you which ones, you know, they have a color code, green being safe and red being no. Yeah, that's very useful.

EWG has a lot of this stuff on all these products.

Yeah, out in the market, online, right? And they're rated by brand particular brands. Really?

Yeah, based on how environmentally friendly, or if they have plastics, or what chemicals they got, or whatever. Yeah, all that, right?

They test them, and you know, it's a very good organization.

Okay, I'm going to look at that for sure.

Yeah.

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Who is more likely to go through cognitive decline in general, men or women, and why do you think?

Ah, I don't know the answer to that. You know, women live longer than men, and we don't know why that is either. When you look around the world at areas where there are, you know, people over 100, when you get up in those age ranges, it's mostly women. There's one exception that I know is the island of Sardinia off Italy, that a high population of centenarians, and men and women are equal, and nobody knows why. Really?

But that— there it's more equal versus other—

yeah, other places women greatly outnumber men when you get up in the upper 90s and hundreds. There's one theory that the, uh, the Y chromosome is toxic, that it, that it produces toxic gene products that do men in.

I don't know.

Interesting answer to that. I mean, it's also possible that men engage in more risky, risky behaviors.

And it's also like the, the size, you know, it's like, is it harder to pump pump blood and recover when you're bigger, you know, physically than a woman.

Yeah.

I don't know if that has something to do with it. And maybe in Sardinia there may be like tinier men.

I don't know. We don't know. I haven't been there, so I can't say.

What do you think is, um, you've been in this kind of health and wellness industry for a long time. You've seen trends come and trends go. You've seen new discoveries happen over the last, you know, 40, 60 years. What do you feel like we're missing in this, you know, health world that we need to be focusing on more that we haven't actually leaned into or discovered yet? And what do you also think will be happening over the next 5 to 10 years with new discoveries?

Can I say a word about psychedelics?

And say what?

A word about psychedelics? Yeah, yeah. Um, I never thought I'd write another book. You know, I've written 15 books. My publisher has persuaded me to write a book on psychedelics. Yeah. Uh, so I'm just starting work on that, and it's titled Psychedelics Can Save the World, which I truly believe. And, uh, you know, I've been involved with them since way, way back, and, uh, I am very excited to watch this, what's happening with them. You know, they are really entering the mainstream. I think they have tremendous potential for healing, and I'm a little disappointed that all the attention has been on the possibilities of using them in psychiatric medicine for depression and PTSD and so forth, which, you know, is great. But I think they have incredible potential for physical healing as well, because I've seen that again and again. And, uh, frankly, I think it's the only thing I see out there that has a potential to save us from disaster. Really? Yeah, because we are clearly headed for disaster, and it's only going to be through a, a transformation of consciousness. Wow. Uh, that I think we can save ourselves, and they have the potential to do that. Uh, and, and as you know, this is— it is amazing. Before the pandemic, when I was traveling around a lot and speaking, no matter where I was and what I was talking about, whether it was on an anti-inflammatory diet or integrative medicine or healthy aging, the questions I get would be about psychedelics. You know, where can I get them? How can I take them? How can I do this? A few months ago, Vogue magazine had a cover story on psilocybin. Town and Country magazine, of all places, recently had an article titled "Why Is Everybody Smoking Toad Venom?" I mean, this is like clearly becoming a mainstream phenomenon. Sooner or later— sooner, I hope— they will be forced out of the restrictive drug schedule they're now in.

Sure.

They'll become available. And I think the potential out there is tremendous, and I've seen remarkable physical healings in people, instantaneous, uh, you know, of lifelong patterns that can change. Sure. Just by changing something in your head.

Now I want to ask you a question about this, because I've never taken psychedelics.

I've never been high.

I've never been drunk in my life.

Well, that's admirable.

Never been.

Yeah, I don't know if that's admirable or just a choice I decided to make. Now it doesn't mean I didn't have pain and suffering in other ways, and maybe getting high and smoking weed would have helped me relieve certain pains. I don't know, because I've never done it. But I want to ask you, I want to, I want to ask you a question about this, because I think it's interesting. I've been, I've been conflicted with psychedelics. And I know a lot of people that do them and swear by them and say they've had these miraculous healings. I'm like, that's awesome, if it's supporting you, right? And then I see other people that keep taking them, and nothing changes. But they swear by it. Well, I had this healing, but then they're still in darkness. And it's like, okay, You know, is it something we use consistently, or is it a tool that unlocks us to start integrating like holistic—

I don't think it's something you need— you use consistently. Okay. And, and also weed is not a psychedelic, right? Right.

But I mean, just like drug weed, but then I mean psychedelics in general.

Yeah. No, I think for, for many people, a single experience with them, you know, or occasional experience does it, is enough. Yeah. And, and I wrote my first book was called The Natural Mind, and it was about Altered States of Consciousness and Drugs, written in— it's 50 years ago.

Wow.

Came out, still in print and still used. And, uh, Alan Watts, uh, gave a blurb for the book. Wow. And, and he, and he was quoted that I really like, referring to using drugs frequently. He said, you know, when you get the message, you hang up the telephone.

You don't need to keep using it.

No, exactly.

Now, here's, here's another question for you. You know, you, you studied meditation and spirituality and a lot of these different things and study with a lot of people as well have done that. I have found that in my meditative practices, when I truly allow myself to be in calm consistently— now, this might take days, you know, till I can get to that point where I'm like fully disconnected from stresses and environmental things that are causing me to be feel triggered or reactive.

Yeah.

But when I am able to go into those places, which, you know, it's a privilege to be able to do that and take a few days and do that, I get it. When I'm able to do that, I feel like I'm having the most transcendental journeys in my mind and feeling the physical benefits of that as well, of healing through my own internal pharmacy. Yeah. Without an external thing causing the pharmacy internally to transform. It's also with the integrative of constant healing and applying the lessons I learned from that and having support in that way, which allows me to keep integrating it. So what are your, what are your thoughts on first practicing like other holistic ways before the psychedelics? Yeah, because I'm all for it if you've tried everything, you've, you spent time in nature, you've done different therapies, and you're still suffering and there's no way out. What I get worried about is when people say, uh, I feel like I'm stressed, let me take a psychedelic, or I feel like I'm overwhelmed and I'm just like, I don't know how to manage this, let me take a psychedelic. That's my only concern.

Well, that's not how I think they should be used, right? You know, I think there should be preparation for the experience and so forth. First of all, it's very likely that we have an endogenous psychedelic in our brains, inside of us. Yeah. It's probably DMT, which is found in many plants in that psych— you know, in that psychedelic toad. It's probably produced in the pineal gland.

Yes.

May— and, and maybe when you have profound experiences through other methods, there's a release of that in the brain. Yes. So that's, you know, first thing, the third eye.

Yeah, getting into the pineal gland and, and moving the energy up into the pineal gland and having that DMT experience, we can create that without the drug.

Yeah, but I think the, the transformative experience that I've seen have mostly resulted when people have been prepared, haven't done preparation for these, not taking it casually and not to sort of fix themselves.

Right, right. Okay. Yeah, I'm just a big— I'm all for learning, exploring, but I'm also like, man, I've never done that stuff. So I know you have but I know there's other healing modalities that are available without that.

True. However, the other healing modalities tend to be slow, and, and the psychedelic can provide that almost instantly.

It's true. Just going to talk therapy, you may not get those results. It might take years, right, of like going once a month before you get very little results. Yeah.

Also, I heard wonderful, uh, I don't know who said this about talk therapy is that, you know, when you've got a poisoned arrow in you, you want to know how to get it out. You don't know— you don't want to know how it got there, right? Right.

That's funny.

Yes.

And that's why I think when, you know, I've had to try to take the approach of like extreme, you know, measures when it comes to like healing, like really diving into like intensive workshops, really diving into like intense— I've done 8-hour therapy sessions where I'm like, Oh, let's get to the roots. Like, give it to me.

Yeah.

So I think you've got to be willing to go there.

Yeah, I agree.

If you don't take the psychedelics, you gotta say, I'm gonna face this pain head-on, bring it on, let's go. I'm willing to open up and do the work.

Yeah.

Because if you don't, it's going to just continue suffering. So anyway, that's my caveat for— yeah, my, my consciousness, to make sure I speak about that as well. But I know I have friends who swear by ayahuasca and different psychedelics supported them in awakening things that are holding them back. And then, but you still got to take the action consistently once you're aware of it.

So, well, we'll see what happens, but I'm very hopeful about seeing this, you know, that you think that's going to be the next wave though.

Yeah, yeah. I hope people do it consciously and effectively. Of course, this is like, you know, a casual thing.

No, it's a challenge.

Yeah. Um, anything else you feel like we're missing that is going to be coming with after psychedelics in terms of healing and wholeness?

Because, you know, I'm a big proponent of mind-body medicine, and actually it's something that I've learned from psychedelics is that by changing things in your head, you can change things in your body and in the external world. And, uh, that, that has been so ignored in medicine, you know, conventional medicine and science really don't believe in the mind and that the mind can affect the body. Really?

Yeah, our thoughts Yeah, can affect the body. Yeah, my thoughts do affect the body.

Yeah, obviously, but that's, that's not taken advantage of. It's not acknowledged, and it's because our science and medicine are totally dominated by a materialistic paradigm which does not see the reality of the non-physical. Uh, I think that's going to change, and I think that'll bring a lot of good. It'll free a lot of things up.

But there's so many frequencies that are not physical, not material. Real, you know, the frequency of thinking, the frequency of feeling love, of love. Those are frequencies that you can't measure physically, right?

But they're real.

And then, and you talked about last time how, like, you know, you allowed yourself to heal more when you, when you created love.

Yeah.

Felt loved by another human and got into relationships. Your body healed.

Yeah.

So how do we study that? And how do we get into that next of, like, the studying the mind and the emotions?

Well, they're— we're creeping up on it. You know, these new techniques of brain imaging, you know, we can, we can image living brains, and we've been able to show that placebo responses really are associated with actual activity in certain brain regions, or that experienced meditators have changes in the size of certain areas of the brain. So this begins to make it real for for, for people.

Yeah, I went to a 7-day meditation retreat with Dr. Joe Dispenza a few months ago, and he had a lot of different scientists there, I guess, you know, studying, I don't know, 15 different test points, I guess, from like brain imaging to blood to feces to saliva to all these things, everyday mapping and exploring like the, the benefits. And it's amazing to see the natural farm right, that we have in terms of healing ourselves. Yeah. With thinking, with breathing, like you talked about the 4-7-8 breath. This is a healing experience, and incorporating the mind-body, I think, is a very powerful thing. How can we start to learn to teach this earlier so kids have this philosophy?

You just do it. I mean, you can like teach kids the 4-7-8 breath, for example.

Yeah, this is beautiful stuff. Um, I'm very excited about this, and I'm excited about everything you're creating and the message you bring to the world. Um, I want to mention, before I ask the final questions, I want to mention about, uh, your website at matcha.com. This thing is pretty cool. I'm going to try this integrative hydration, matcha plus electrolytes. Yeah, I think it's really cool.

I'm a big fan of electrolytes, but why add matcha? Because you're getting It's for the polyphenols and the antioxidants and all that good stuff. And, you know, while there is caffeine in matcha, uh, it's moderated by this other amino acid, L-theanine, that, that has a calming effect. So the stimulation of, of tea and matcha in particular is very different from that of coffee and other caffeine plants. It's like, it's like a calm alertness, people describe. Really? Yeah.

So it's not a jittery—

not jittery like coffee? No.

Gotcha. So when you add matcha with electrolytes, what does that do? It adds—

well, it's very tasty, first of all. You know, it's a very pleasant drink. You get the, you know, a nice alert feeling from it. It's good. I'm a big fan of matcha, and, and, uh, you know, I started this company, matcha.com. Yeah, it brings high-quality matcha and turmeric, fermented turmeric.

So now you got fermented turmeric there as well?

Yeah.

Um, and what is the main website for you where people can—

it's drweil.com. D-R-W-E-I-L and also, um, I recommend that people check out the Integrative Medicine Center at the University of Arizona. Uh, it's integrativemedicine.arizona.edu. There are a lot of wonderful educational offerings, including a number for general public.

Okay, cool. I asked you these two questions last time, my final questions. I'm curious where you're at at this season of life from two, almost two years later. Before I ask them, I want to acknowledge you, Dr. Wow, for, for how you keep showing up and keep being curious and keep trying to bring new ideas to the world and exploring and adapting them so that we can consume them. So I really acknowledge you for your generous wisdom that you continue to bring to all of us to optimize our health. I asked you this last time, um, so I'll have to go back and look and see what your response was, but it was the 3 truths question.

3 truths.

So imagine you get to live as long as you want to live, uh, and accomplish everything you want to accomplish for the rest of your life. For whatever reason, you got to take all of your work and your message with you, so we don't have this conversation. Your books, everything's gone for whatever reason— hypothetical— but you get to share 3 lessons of wisdom you would share with the world from everything you've known about your life. I call it 3 truths you would share. What would be those 3 truths for you?

Well, I think one of them is everything is as it should be.

It's hard for people to accept.

I know. I think another one is that you have the ability to heal yourself and that it's really important to love yourself.

Why do you think most people are never taught how to love themselves?

That's a good question. Yeah.

It's almost like that should be one of the first things.

Absolutely.

Is how to love and accept who you are. Even if you're not where you want to be, you can still love and accept who you are and the mistakes you've made and move forward. But— and this could be my next book, How to Love Yourself, right? Figure that out.

Good.

I love those 3 truths. This is the final question. What is your definition of greatness?

I think really using your full potential.

There you go.

Yeah.

After a while.

All right.

So much. Appreciate it. Pleasure.

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