Best of The Synergee Podcast 2025: Most Powerful Health, Healing & Resilience Conversations of the Year

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Welcome back to the Synergy Podcast. I'm Kelly Engelman and today's episode is a meaningful pause point. It's our final episode of the year and it's an invitation to step back, to exhale, and to recognize what you've built over the past year with your health. The past 12 months, Lori and I have spent exploring some of the most essential conversations in the world of functional medicine and whole person healing. We've talked about mindset, nutrition, hormones, trauma, resilience and what it looks like to be in alignment with your biology and also with your values. We've shared evidence, informed practical tools that you can immediately use in conversations with experts that have shed light on the why behind what you're experiencing so that you can move from confusion to clarity and, and from effort to results. But the most important part of the year has been you. It's been your messages, it's been your breakthroughs, your I finally understand what's going on in my body moments. Those are the real outcomes. That is what keeps Lori and I coming back year after year. It's a true reminder that education is not just information, it's transformation. When education meets the right timing, the right support, the right, the right next steps. So today we're doing something a little bit different. We're revisiting the most impactful, the most replayed, the most shared moments from the past episodes. As you listen, pay attention to what shows up for you now. Because wisdom is seasonal. Sometimes the same truth arrives with new power when you've grown, when you've healed, when you're finally ready to hear it differently. And I want to thank you for being a part of this community, for showing up with curiosity, for thinking deeper, for honoring your boundaries and for choosing integrity in your health next year. We have so much coming that will expand on what's possible for you and I cannot wait to continue this shift of work with you together.

Right, who doesn't want that one peptide, or actually I say a couple peptides that I think are long term foundational, are going to be addressing the skeletal muscle and bone density. And that's where I think we think about things. On the natural discovery side, an ingredient comes to mind. Peptistrong Peptistrong through our collaboration with Noritas, this is the AI finder. They've cataloged over 9 million peptides, now has three human clinical studies published. But Peptistrong is there to activate muscle protein synthesis, modulate fast and slow twitch muscle fibers. It's going to help reduce inflammation and induced by exercise, also improve Bone density, improve strength, performance and recovery. Right. Who doesn't want that? So we're seeing the flexibility of these peptides to modulate regardless of where we're.

At in our age trajectory.

And that's what's exciting, is that we're not in a corner with just one demographic.

And I'm sure you may be seeing this, but we're certainly seeing 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, people having, know, having early stage cognitive decline, whether that, you know, whatever that looks like, or mental health issues that's being driven in the same area. So that's what I'm working on right now. We've got about 50 clinics that are using the software. It's called True Neura. And the goal, you know, if I said in, in five years time, I think that precision brain health should be delivered in senior living centers. And I think that actually that all the incentives exist for that to happen. It's just that it has to be organized in a way that's not as crazy as the, the current way that functional medicine is practiced with like all the labs from different companies and all the numbers hard to understand. And then, you know, the synthesis of all the data. We don't have a decade.

Yes.

So how do we synthesize the data? How do we organize the data in a way that can clearly say this patient, it's mainly mold with a little bit of metabolic inflammation and a little bit of hormonal issues. And based on what we see from other phenotypes who are similar to this, we're going to recommend that you do this, this and this. And it could even be like a large language or small language model eventually. Right now it's set up to help clinicians like you, you know, take on brain health patients and be successful. But our hope is that eventually any clinician can use it, but it will be built on the first database that actually is tracking the reversal of cognitive decline.

The challenges that people are buying these GLP1s on places that they're not knowing where they're coming from, in many cases they're not being dispensed them through a practitioner who's being diligent in monitoring those things. So I just, I, I had to say that, I had to interrupt that because our consumers and our listeners need to hear that is that those things are not intended to be done just for, you know, just the loosey goosey letting someone, you know, dispense them. They are intended for a time for the individual. Right. And for someone to be looking at their whole body care and protecting them in the process of, again, doing something for good, but can be dangerous. But as a result of that, many providers of care have not necessarily been trained to, number one, recognize it and for sure, treat it.

Yeah. And we want you to leave today with some resources. Right. Dr. Shoemaker has a website that he developed called survivingmould. Com. There's a lot of information on that website. Website regarding Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome. You can find links to a lot of the research that's been done that supports this diagnosis. And you can also find a map of providers that treat this diagnosis. And I think that's really important because.

You can give all the estrogen you.

Want, you can give all the progesterone.

You want, you can give whatever you want. But if you're not paying attention to cortisol, it will backfire on you, because.

Cortisol will always, always win, no matter what. Because if it doesn't win, you're in the woods and the bear is eating you. It doesn't have an option.

So how does that show up for you in counseling? And how do you. How do you help someone kind of bridge that gap?

Yeah, well, I feel like the modalities, like brain spotting and I do IFS and somatic work, so I feel like it's the lens I see things through. So whether I'll. I'll tell a client. Whether you recognize or feel your emotions, they're there, their neurological responses. And so it doesn't mean we don't have them, it just means you're disconnected from them. So I kind of set that framework up from the beginning. You know, you kind of have to tease out the root cause of, like, how did we get to this place of fatigue? Is it just overall malaise societally, or is there something specifically going on? So that brings us into the mitochondria for sure.

So the mitochondria, if you remember all the way back In, I guess, 8th or 9th grade biology, the powerhouse of the cell. So we've always thought about it just as ATP production and we think about it living the cell, but we don't realize that our mitochondria help dictates how we're able to show up. And I was just reading an article about mitochondrial attrition in the brain, like the loss of mitochondria as we age and how it affects our cognition. So I'm so excited to be able to have this conversation with you and really dig in and give people kind of an anchor for what they can be doing to nourish and Feed their mitochondria. And what. How their everyday life may be kind of taking them backwards.

We now have identified they cross the precious border, your blood, brain border into your brain. We have microplastics in our brain. We each eat now about a credit card size of plastic a month. And it's traveling into our organs, into the placenta, into everything. So how can you minimize plastic, you know, without going crazy? Because we live in such a plastic society. But brushing your teeth, you brush your teeth with these little teeny pieces of plastic. So I now use boar, boar bristle toothbrushes that I get on Amazon. And not microwaving food in plastic and trying to purchase as much as you can, like ketchup and mayonnaise in glass. And if the stores don't have it, bug them, bug them, bug them. The squeaky wheel makes a big difference.

And I will say this. I have several dentists in my practice currently that I'm treating, and all of them are super interested in ongoing education as it relates to environmental. And one of the things that I tell them is I don't want you exposing yourself or your team. Think about all the things that you've been exposed to throughout your career. I want to make sure you're protected as the dentist. Right. And that your team's protected because you guys are exposed every single day. And so making those changes within the practice, they're not easy changes, but there's plenty of courses out there. Dr. Stewart not only I mentioned him earlier, he does some training in his office in Marble Falls. So dentists can actually go out there and get trained in some of these environmental techniques. So we count on you. Dental health is so important, and we need an environmental dentist on every corner, 100% for sure.

And as you say, we're stronger together, right?

So I think it's funny the things that we go to for connection, I guess is why I'm saying that.

Right?

Yeah.

And you know what?

Like, own it. Like, people get such a freaking hard time about it. I'm like, I check all my boxes all day long. If I'm. I don't feel bad at all. I mean, I just. Whatever it is that's gonna fill your cup, as long as it's not like, hurting you or someone else or illegal, you know, but, like, just do own it. Whatever that looks like for you, own it. Who cares if you binge watch a show every night? Like, that's fine.

I would have to say categorically, they are the most stressed out people, especially in the last few so what do you guys do to help dissipate that? Because, I mean, it's a huge responsibility. I mean, you are in charge of people's money, right? You're helping them make huge decisions about their finances that impact the quality of their life ultimately. So what are some things that you guys do to help dissipate that stress and help you live the best life possible? Jason, I want to give kudos for you for really encouraging those boundaries in your workplace. It is so important. I tell my team all the time we're playing the long game, not the short game. And we need to be mindful of the taxing effect that just dealing with other people's lives has on us personally and honor that and take the time and set those boundaries so that we have time to recover and show up our best every day.

Yeah, and it's, I think one of the challenges is we are all very committed, you know, to what, to what we do. And there are times where you take that commitment and you, you use that as justification to not take personal time. Right.

Or not shut it off at 9.

O' clock at night or whatever the case may be. And, and it just, you know, it doesn't work. You need, you need that hard stop to, you know, recharge and, and have the time for yourself and your family, certainly.

What about things like spirulina and chlorella? Is there any advantage to using things like that as binders and, or gut support and, or nutrient support in a whole food based form?

Yeah, absolutely. They help to improve detoxification, in fact. And another one that will, you'll often see in a mix with some of those that you just mentioned, you'll often see cilantro show up. Yeah, and some of those too. And I was fascinated. I remember reading some agricultural literature some years back and they would plant the cilantro next to their other crops because it was so effective at pulling the arsenic out of the soil. So it would spare like the tomato or whatnot from concentrating the arsenic. So it's even a, it's so good at detoxing and binding it and grabbing it. It's even a strategy that's used agriculturally speaking now.

So Jim, Lori and I, in our practices, you know, I think back to 10 years ago, we kind of pulled together and developed a gut protocol around restoring the gut microbiome prior to, or in addition to using hormone replacement therapy. Because what we learned was the patients that were inflamed and had unhealthy guts did not do well on hormone replacement. Therapy. So we have worked together in creating a protocol that we have implemented for over 10, maybe 12 to 15 years at this point. Today, we get to dig into the gut microbiome and longevity. And I would love to sequester this conversation to our 55 and over population. But honestly, what we know about the gut microbiome is it starts really in utero. And so we want to dig in with Jim and talk about, like, how is our gut microbiome? Why is it important? What is it? How is it established? And then, you know, all is not lost. If we are over 55, like most of us on this podcast are, how do we, you know, rectify a gut microbiome that's gone bad? I know we're talking dollars and cents, but I just want to encourage our audience and our listeners that, you know, all investments in health don't have to do with dollars. It costs nothing to go for a walk, nothing to go put your feet on the ground and breathe in the air.

Right?

It costs nothing to have a good conversation with your friend, to offload some stress. So think about it not only in dollars and cents, but think about it in time. Are you budgeting enough time to truly care for yourself in a way that's going to pay you back? So I love the dollar and cents talk, but I want to make sure we're looking at our health comprehensively too, in a way that is going to, like I said, it's going to pay us back long term. So those little things over time do matter. Those little warning signals that we oftentimes just brush off, like, I'm just tired or it's been a long day, there's been extra stress. And we don't really say, hey, my body's talking to me and I'm not.

Listening, or even the back injury, I was like, wow, I hurt my back, I need to stretch more. And it was like, that's true, you know, I didn't need to stretch more. But that wasn't what was going on.

There was a deeper issue. I've heard you say, you know, we live in an inflammatory environment, and I think that we underestimate that. Oftentimes, as Americans especially, we don't realize all of the stressors that our body does encounter in any given day. So having these strategies, even I would say for the person that's not sick, right? The person that's well, and they want to maintain health and wellness over time, I think there's extreme value. If I could go back to my younger self and say, do One thing it would have been really to focus on pacing and to focus on keeping my nervous system calm. You can't remove all stressors.

So just to put in perspective, vitamin C. Now, I don't want to diminish the effects of vitamin C. One molecule of melatonin can quench up to 10 free radicals. And even the metabolites of melatonin act as antioxidants. But melatonin is a primary one, which. Now if we make the clinical translation and say, okay, well, how does that shake out in terms of my life or my risk of certain diseases? And so just start explaining. And especially because I have dealt with this personally, they're a little bit more willing to listen as well, that they're not discounted. And like they've had other doctors just, yeah, this is all in your head. And I'm like, yeah, your head and your body, it's all the same thing. So let's, let's process with it. So they normally are pretty open once I kind of introduce the possibility because they've normally tried so many things and this is something they're willing to try. Humans are meant to move, and it's when we don't move that we start to have issues. So I love that. Movement is medicine. I was a busybody. I have always been as both. I've adopted it, but my friends always say I'm naturally caffeinated. And so movement for me is, is just a way of expending all of this additional energy that I've got going. And, you know, you could go back and you could talk to my parents who, who would tell you that from a very young age, I was a very busy person. They put me in gymnastics at the age of three because they were like, this girl needs to expend some energy. And that was. Even though I was. I'm. I grew up on a farm, an actual working farm. And it was my mom, dad, and my sister. So we always said we were my dad's girl crew. And so I work on the farm. From the time when you walk, you can work. So movement for me is just a necessary part of being. And I've always found joy in that dance movement. You know, whether it is more as people think of structured exercise, I like that too. But I, I just like to move.

I love what you said about normalizing the conversation because I do think that some of us grew up in a period of time in which those things were just not talked about. And I'm happy to see our younger generation being willing to have those conversations. And I don't necessarily think it's an age thing. I think it is, well, more. Well accepted. But we do have to create a environment that it's not taken personal. Right? It really isn't, because it's not. It is a season to which we're going through and taking it easy on yourself and recognizing that, too.

There's nothing that can be done about it.

Right.

Just wait until you need dialysis. So what would you say?

So I used to believe that till last year. Okay, so it's a myth. Once you have stage four or five, your kidney function is not reversible. That is true. Because it causes fibrosis in the kidneys, and the loss of function is usually not reversible. But you can still optimize your kidney so that you don't end up on dialysis tomorrow. And it will delay the progression of kidney disease if you optimize your health. I encourage clients to be bored. Figure out.

Okay, so this is really funny, Melanie, because we have a video. Lori and I have a video that she's telling a patient, if they're bored, it's because they're boring, right? That's. That was when we didn't know because.

They'Re cleaning up food, right? They're saying, you know, about my food. I'm so bored. Like, if I eat one more piece of chicken, I feel like I'm gonna have wings and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, if word you're probably being boring. So I said, you saw me sit back in posture, like.

So you're telling us to get bored, right?

And we. Every time we pick up our phone, I mean, have you ever picked up your phone? You're not really sure why he picked it up. You're just like, it's just a natural. That's. You're going for a dopamine hit. And it's like, the more we do it, then the more we've got to keep doing more and more to get it. And so we kind of become resistant to the dopamine hit that we get. It pains me to see in the.

Fertility field that siloing of PCOS as.

An issue solely related to fertility, when in fact, we know this is a metabolic issue that's going to affect this person for the rest of her life and possibly her progeny, her children, and her grandchildren. So because.

Because our, you know, we are the.

Result of our grandmother's eggs that were in her body and our. And when our mother was in utero. So.

And we can make that shift now and again.

That's where I feel almost like an activist. Like, I feel it's so empowering to say if you make this change now.

You'Re literally changing the future of health. Not for just one generation.

Right.

For three generations at least. We're changing the trajectory of that health. And so it is so impactful. It's an intrinsic nutrient and antioxidant that the body can make if we have the cofactors to make it. So let's talk about glutathione.

Yeah, I love glutathione. It's a major intracellular antioxidant for the body. And in terms of the detox piece, we think about the liver, and it's very nourishing to the liver. But you also brought up things neurologic. And I think that that's. That's fascinating as well, because the brain really concentrates and needs high levels of glutathione. In fact, when we think about things like anxiety and depression, most of us would think about a neurotransmitter, and maybe that neurotransmitter is too low, something like serotonin.

But we've got OSHA saying that 50%.

Of our buildings and 85% of our office buildings are got water damage and water exposure.

24% of people working in 50% of the buildings. Well, let's see. 50% of the US is 160 million people. 25% of those is 40 million people. How many million people are diagnosed with fibromyalgia?

How many million people are diagnosed as.

Depression that doesn't respond to antibiotics or antidepressants? How many people are walking around with.

Lyme disease that doesn't respond to antibiotics?

You know, the numbers start adding up, and 40 million sounds like a lot.

Of people with SIRS.

But you can almost guarantee that if you work up with a new patient with SIRS that they will say aha near the end of the interview.

This is just like Mrs. I went to school. I went to high school with her.

And the csrs word may not be.

Around, but the fatigue is around. And feed fatigue and all that is.

Too real anxiety. That's a common symptom as well that we see repetitively.

So this is one that we hear a lot, and we're hearing it on the app, but I'm also hearing it clinically every day. Is I used to be able to handle stress well. I could roll with pretty much anything. And now I feel so dysregulated, I get hit with a Stressor. And it not only knocks me down and off my game, and I may respond in a way that's just not very helpful, but it also makes me feel fatigued for a few days after.

And a lot of times what I'll say to them is, listen, let's go back to the basics foundationally. What are you doing in respect to what are you eating, what are you drinking, how are you sleeping, moving and thinking. You got to think about your adrenals, your stress response. We have to think about your thyroid, which is your metabolism. And we definitely have to think about how are you fueling your body to keep blood sugar nice and stable so you're not broken. That's what I would tell them. You're not broken. You know, spend some time really dissecting what you're currently doing.

And if we keep those adrenal glands nice and healthy by protecting our sleep, getting adequate protein, controlling our blood sugar, moving our body, all of those things, then we tend to rock through sex hormone shifting quite well. But if we start having sex hormone shifting at a time when our adrenal glands are stressed out, that's more often the time when we feel more dysregulated. We feel like we don't have a safety net. And in fact, you don't have a safety net in that situation.

There are actual chemicals in your body.

Being released that are damaging your body, damaging your tissues. The catecholamines, like epinephrine and norepinephrine, they're causing vasoconstriction, making your blood pressure go higher because you're stressed.

It's not just an emotional thing.

There is a physiologic response occurring when you are stressed. So understanding how to mitigate stress, how.

To what type of stress mitigation techniques.

Whether it's breath work or yoga or.

Tai chi or whatever it is that.

Works for you, understanding how you need.

To take advantage of those things to improve these stress hormone levels that are elevated that can cause damage.

So oftentimes we hear we become the average of the five people we hang around, right? So choose wisely, guys. Choose wisely. I'm lucky because my best friend is a functional medicine provider. And, you know, she. She's always challenging me to do, to level up, how I'm taking care of myself, how I'm talking to myself. But a lot of people don't have that. They don't have that person. I'm also lucky in that my husband's a really good supporter of lifestyle change. So what do we Say to people that don't have their top five people that are supported in their health and wellness journey. And they're just getting started.

So 2,700 cherries to get a modest physiologic dose of melatonin.

So what about tart cherry? A lot of people are touting tart cherry at bedtime. Does that have any mechanism of action for melatonin production?

Now, most fruits, seeds, nuts, especially the reproductive portion of plants contain some level of melatonin. So some people say, oh, you know, I, I'm sleeping better because I'm taking tart cherries and that helps me with melatonin and because it's supplying melatonin. But actually if you look and calculate how much you would need in the way of tart cherries, I mean, it's not a standardized amount. Right. You don't know how much you're getting in tart cherry juice. That's not on the label. And we know that plants are very unpredictable based on their growing. I did a calculation in the paper that we published in the Nutrients Journal and I just took a paper, identified a general range of plant melatonin and tart cherries. And of course there are different varieties, so even you have that. But what I calculated was in order to get 0.3 milligrams of melatonin, you needed 2718 cherries. And I remember that number just because I get the question all the time. So 2,700 cherries to get a modest physiologic dose of melatonin. I think cherries as a food is incredible because of the polyphenols because I.

Just want to highlight what you said, those list of symptoms because Lori and I are seeing this in our practices. Right and left. So young guys, 20 years ago we didn't see this. 15 years ago, we didn't see this. Even 10 years ago we didn't see this. But we've got young, healthy guys, they look like they just stepped out of a magazine. They're fatigued, their labs low sex drive, they're not performing the way that they want to perform, they're frustrated and their labs are a mess. And so this has not just happened to people that have over trained. Right. Like in the Navy SEAL world, I would think a lot of that was over training. Right. But this is happening in just mainstream day to day people that are just not able to compensate anymore.

Right.

I even think post Covid we're seeing more and more business owners that are this way too. So this common denominator of these overachievers. High performance.

Yeah. I mean, my private clients now are run all over the spectrum. Most of them are entrepreneurs and C suite kind of guys.

We need a diverse gut microbiome. We need lots of different fruits, vegetables, polyphenols every single day. You have the power to shift your gut microbiome in one day. Let's get it done in January.

Your membership fees that you would pay to a direct primary care clinic can be paid pre tax, which you asked.

Me at the beginning.

What's the biggest issue that holds everything back? And maybe we should just finish with this. I think if everyone listening to this, whether you're a patient or a doctor or a practitioner or whoever you are, you could recognize that the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies have way much, way, way more control over medicine than they should. And ultimately you might also agree with me that really the only two people that matter in medicine is the patient and the practitioner.

Right.

Because the patient is actually the one who's the most important patient centered care. So in this legislation that comes out January 1st, basically insurance and pharma can both get kicked out at the same time. Because ultimately, if you're a practitioner and you are licensed to practice medicine in your state, and you can have a direct relationship with a group of 400 patients, you can decide the standard of care. You don't take insurance, and they can pay for it with pre tax money. So it's a once in a generation opportunity to realign the finances of medicine. And primary care is the most important thing. If you have high quality primary care, the rest of the system, you know, shrivels because you don't need as many of everything else that happens. It's really the most important thing. And so I think we have a once in a generation opportunity to transform medicine. But what it takes is practitioners and doctors to step into the responsibility for taking care of those 400 people directly. So this is a moment for all of us and I think it's the most exciting legislation that's existed because it allows a situation to unbalance what has been horrifically unbalanced for generations, which is the control of pharmaceuticals and insurance over medicine.

I think of my patient Kenneth. I know both of you read the story of Kenneth, who was a veteran, and he was in the gym lifting weights one morning and he lifted more weight than what his muscle could endure. And so rather than grow his muscle, it broke his muscle. And he came into the emergency room with his bicep literally in the middle of his arm instead of attached to his shoulder, where it should have been. So applying that, then to anything. And you know this from reading the book, my definition of trauma is anything, anything, anything that for any reason at that time was more than what we could handle. And rather than being able to grow us, it broke us in some way. And then that's why there's these lasting effects on our bodies, because it wasn't just a story stress that we can rest and recover from. It broke something, and once it breaks that it needs a specific repair. And so it's hard when. Yeah, you know, how does this look where we can keep doing that? But yes, the business can still run.

Yes.

Yeah. You know, when you say, yes, you know, Lori, what do you think about that? Or yes, you know, yes, we can relate 110%. I think when I look in the rearview mirror, of the things my greatest growth, growths in life were the biggest obstacles or difficulties or circumstances. And when you reframe them as opportunities and you shift your mindset and when that happens early, you know, when the big things happened at, you know, younger 30s and then happened, you know, in the mid-40s, it's. Each time those big things happen, it's quicker to the point where you can.

Say that, okay, this is.

What opportunity are you trying to teach me in this? Right.

Variables are obviously more accurate, but wearables are not nearly as accurate as they portray themselves to be. Right. So because it's an algorithm, it's working off of an artificial ideal. And so people will come to me like, I can't get 100 on my sleep score.

Right. You're not supposed to.

That might not be right for you. He's like, well, your perfect night's sleep might be an 80. Right.

Right.

And. And you could even have a worse night's sleep. This may be a 90. So it's a useful tool as long as you're not using it as the end all. As long as you're not saying.

As long as it's not stressing you out even more. Yeah.

Right. And a ton of people do, like, a ton of people. Like, I don't think I got enough deep sleep. Like, my REM sleep was this and my deep sleep, and it's like, I can't do anything about that. Neither can anybody else. Like, all we can do is improve your sleep to where you're getting the best sleep you can possibly get. And that ratio is going to be what is going to be. There's nothing I can say or do that's going to me. Oh, get More REM and do this, you know, get more deep. It doesn't work that way.

Then that third step looks at the.

Lifestyle changes and also some more advanced.

Brain retraining techniques and re engaging with joy. And then level four is when we start looking at, well, our stress reactions and our parts and how we can maintain that equilibrium in our nervous system. So it's done step by step, gentle. And our program, we say, is a minimum three month program. And so it is. You know, a lot of people are used to saying, well let me pop some pills, right? That's going to cure everything. You know, something goes wrong with the body, we pop some pills. That's the way it's done. Whether it's supplements or you know, medications. But this really is an investment into your own health of a minimum of 30 minutes a day. And I say to people, you know, if we can't invest 30 minutes in our self care each day, then we have got lost in the world, we've got lost in the doing or we are not human doings. And so it was something that certainly took some time to uncover. But that's again why I think it's so helpful to have a professional counselor sort of guiding you through something like.

This, giving you the space to process that. Right. And so I just commend you as a man for number one. Your second call was to a counselor. Like how many people do that? Honestly, I just think that's profound and I think we should all be open to like who can I seek and get help from that's reliable and have a safe space to process out those emotions. So I want to say that my.

Partner and I, they asked us one time, what are the ways you feel most loved by the other person? And I never knew like just sitting over closer to Jim on the couch made him feel loved. I had no idea, you know, and it was nice to know, okay, well I could do that for you sometimes.

Yeah.

So what I hear you say is also, it's seeking first to understand before trying to be understood. It's approaching with clarifying questions. I'm sure that posture and, and the energy that we're emitting. Right. Understanding that our body language speaks volumes too, and not a word. But how important that is.

Alcohol does the opposite. So when you take ambient with alcohol you get no sleep. And, and in fact that's what I saw when I sent the seals in to get sleep studies. And again, they weren't complaining about sleep. Like this was just life. It's like, hey, I can't I wake up at 4. I can't go back to sleep. I just come in and work and work out and try to get tired that day and go home and go to sleep earlier that night. And they've been doing it for five years, hasn't worked yet, but their seals are going to keep putting their head down and running harder and figuring out how to do it better. And so, you know, I, I said, well, you know, every single symptom, like, I didn't think every single symptom would resolve, but I thought every single symptom they have could be correlated to this poor sleep thing. I'd have them do. I'd have them do sleep studies. Their sleep studies came back 99.9% stage two sleep. So no deep sleep, no REM sleep. Now, y', all, y' all have been practiced long enough to know how much BS there is in the medical literature. But, you know, academics would tell you that those guys would die, right? They, they can't. You can't survive that.

You can't survive that way. Yes.

They've been doing it for, you know, five, 10 years. So it's like, you can survive. I don't know how, but you can. And so, you know, I finally, you know, I talked a bunch. I mean, by the time I kind of figured out what, what I thought was going on, I. I probably already had 100, 150 guys depending on me to help them. And so I said, well, I really think the sleep is going to be a big component of it. Right? And yeah, there's a ton of resistance to that, you know, because sleep is for the week. Sleep, you sleep when you're dead like that.

It's kind of like trying to tell a runner not to run.

Right? Something like that. Right. And, yeah, and so I, I talked them into trying and of course, I couldn't just, you know, take their Ambien away and say, suck it up, you know, I had to give them something else. And so I went to, like, very traditional things like Cochrane database, you know, PubMed stuff. And I was like, what, What? Supplements have been proven to help with sleep. And then I was learning a lot about sleep and what happens when you sleep, so I could figure out why you're. Why those supplements. Supplements work. It makes sense.

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