Episode #136: Vagus Nerve Part 2 with Dr. Eva Detko, PhD

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Hello everyone and welcome to episode number 136 of the Better Health Guy Blogcast series. Today's guest is Dr. Eva Detko and the topic of the show is the vagus nerve. Dr. Eva Detko is a natural health specialist, writer and podcaster including hosting the recent summit the Mind, Body and Vagus Nerve Connection. Her training in the field of human physiology and nutritional sciences is extensive and includes a doctorate in physiology, biochemistry and nutrition as well as a Master of Science in Human Nutrition. She is trained in clinical and medical hypnotherapy and is a Master practitioner of neuro linguistic psychology. Dr. Eva specializes in working with psychoenergetic and emotional root causes of chronic illness. As a child she was weak and vulnerable as the result of her mother's loss of her sister during a pregnancy, leading to physical and emotional struggles which were exacerbated by bullying and abuse. As a protective mechanism, she tried to control everyone and everything around her and found life unenjoyable. The trauma and stress she experienced led to a massively dysregulated autonomic nervous system, myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and Hashimoto's adopting a comprehensive approach to healing the body's biochemistry, the mind and the biofield, which she calls the triage of health. She has fully recovered her health today. She is grateful for her health and her life and considers it a privilege to be able to be a part of other people's journey to health. And now my interview with Dr. Eva Detko. Hello everyone. If you've not listened to part one of this informative discussion, you can find that in episode 135. In this episode, episode 136, we're continuing with part two of our discussion on the vagus nerve with a focus on potential solutions and treatment options. I'm very excited today to learn about some of the potential solutions for supporting the vagus nerve for unfortunately the list of things we can do the interventions in this realm is actually quite long and I love the approach that Dr. Eva takes in terms of looking at things from a Perspective of physiology from energetics, from the emotional perspective as well. So let's start with some of the basics like singing, gargling, humming, cold showers, playing the didgeridoo. You touched on this in part one, suggesting that these probably aren't the full solution. And so I'm curious, are any of the tools that I just mentioned things that you find can move the needle alone, or could they be worth incorporating into a broader, more synergistic vagal health program?

Yes, certainly it all depends on the person's starting point. I think that's quite important to recognize because if somebody is really, really sick and they have been very, very sick for a long time, you know that sort of situation. When I shared in the first part of this interview when I had chronic fatigue, I couldn't get out of bed in the morning. And when I did, it was just for a few hours a day and I was done right. So if somebody is that sick, then doing this, vagus nerve exercises, even those basic ones, will make them feel better for sure. They will notice that something is shifting and hopefully then they will be encouraged enough to actually then perhaps approach it more holistically. Because from my point of view, what I hear people doing more and more and more is talking about biohacking this, and I don't like that because I actually don't believe that if you talking about optimal health, you can biohack the vagus nerve. And I will explain why in a moment. But that's basically what I think is that yes, you can definitely have an improvement, particularly if you're really, really sick and suddenly you feel like, okay, my vagus nerve is starting to respond a little bit better and immediately you feel better mentally, like we said, you know, all those things that you're going to have happening psychologically, but also obviously on the physical level, the gut is starting to be a little bit more responsive or the supplement you take is starting to work or whatever, right? So there could be a multitude of different advantages from just doing those exercises regularly. But I have to stress this is not a one off thing. That's never going to happen. If you think that you're going to do some vagus stimulation exercises for a few days and then forget all about it, that's not going to work. What I'm talking about is a practice whereby you incorporate as many of those little tricks into your life so they become part of your daily routine. So you're not just piling more and piling more and piling more of the things that you need to do, but rather you take those basic things that we can do and, and you start incorporated, incorporating them into your daily routine. So it just becomes part of what you do. And then, so then you have a decent base and you do that every day. It's something you do every day. But if you want optimal levels of health and not just shifting a needle as you said a little bit, then there needs to be more and we need to be thinking physiology, but also emotional toxicity and also from the energetic point of view, how we bringing it all together. And so in that respect I don't like this idea of like we can just biohack it and just like do this little trick and do this other little trick and then we done. Because I actually think that what that's going to do to a lot of people is going to have them try some gargling and then they're going to, you know, if they already doing okay, they're not going to have that much of an impact. That's my point. It depends on your starting point and how much of those little hacks and tricks are going to help you. But you can definitely have a very profound impact if you approach it holistically. So if you're already doing okay and you start doing this, you might. What you may find is like, you know, yeah, well, yeah, I don't really feel that's doing anything. And then you're going to potentially think oh, this vagus nerve stuff is just like. And you're going to poo poo it and you're going to abandon it because you just wanted to biohack it and it didn't work for you. So that's why I wanna be very, very careful with this biohacking idea.

How important is it to look for things that put the body into a positive emotional state? Maybe even things like meditation, for example. How important are those types of techniques when we're talking about stress, mental emotional health and its impact on the vagus nerve?

To me they are critical. And not just because I'm biased because obviously I love this area and I work in it. A it's because if you gargle or you have cold showers or you have infrared sauna, so you take probiotics or whatever other ways you may want to, like I said, incorporate those little strategies into your life. What you are still not accounting for and dealing with is what arguably is one of the biggest impacts on the vagus nerve and that is emotional toxicity. Right? Because if you have those background, ongoing insecurities, negative self talk, chronic fear Chronic anxieties, chronic guilt, chronic shame, poor self worth and all of those things, which usually is something that people just, you know, live with and they've always, you know, that's the thing you hear a lot, oh, I've always been this way, you know. You haven't always been this way. Right. If you have chronic anxiety, you haven't always been this way, trust me. It's something that is an adaptation. And we develop this as a result of usually childhood trauma, attachment trauma in particular. Right. So if we have that and we had this for a long time, that's what tends to happen. We desensitize to it to a point where we, we think we've always been this way. But that emotional toxicity, that is a background kind of strain on the, on the vagus nerve. If that's not dealt with, it's always going to be there. No matter how many times a day you gargle, no matter, no matter how many cold showers you have. Right. So I hope that makes sense, that from this point of view this is the root cause, vagus nerve work. If we're talking about anything worth doing, in my opinion, when it comes to health, particularly healing and health, When I'm aiming for healing and health, I'm not just aiming for absence of disease personally, I'm aiming for the optimal state of health that I can achieve. And if we're talking about that, then we need to be thinking root cause. How do we not just do a little trick here and there, but how we root out those really, you know, crazy things that really goes on in a lot of people's heads. A lot of emotional conflict, a lot of this kind of battle that goes on between the conscious and subconscious. How do we get rid of that? Because that will always put pressure on the vagus nerve in a sense that it's always going to stimulate fight or flight or even freeze response. And a lot of people are in that fight or flight on an ongoing basis every single day. And, and I just want to remind everybody again, I think I said that previously, but I say it again because it's important. We supposed to be spending 90% of our time in rest, digest, detoxify and heal, which is the ventral vagus response. Now who does that, right? I mean, look at Western society in particular, because obviously I'm not talking about, you know, somebody in some tribe in Africa may well be doing it. Somebody who was born into meditation and qigong in some somewhere in Far east may be doing it. But I'm talking about our Western world And Western society, we born into a toxic, toxic soup of crap. Quite honestly, with society sort of demands and shaming and blaming and fears and, you know, fear mongering everywhere. It's, it's just crazy. Right? So how are we not going to get to a point in our adult lives where we had so much of that that becomes, we become so emotionally toxic that obviously that's going to support a strain on the nervous system. So to me that's a critical component to get that right. And it can be done. It's trauma can be healed, all of this can be done. We've got superb methodologies these days, neuroscience based, we've got energy medicine. All of that is just so, so effective at healing those toxic emotional states and traumas. Obviously that that is where it comes from in the first place most of the time. That and conditioning from the society.

Beautifully said. I agree with everything that you said there. It reminds me of a recent conversation that I had on the podcast with Yolanda Hadid and she mentioned that in her work with Dr. Klinghardt that he had commented that 50% of the healing pie is the mental emotional work and that that's such an important focus for us. And so that' consistent with what you're saying here as well. Can various tapping techniques like EFT or emotional freedom technique, can they have a place and are they directly supporting the vagus nerve or is it more of an indirect type benefit through the ability of those things to reduce stress in the body?

So basically EFT or tapping, it's actually not a technique. I use a lot of different techniques, can combine a lot of different techniques. It's not one that I use, but obviously a lot of people do find it helpful. It's actually essentially energy medicine. Yes, because it actually works with meridians, which are those energy pathways. As I'm sure people know in that respect we've got a direct impact on those energy pathways. And in a way it is a more indirect way in the sense that if we're working through trauma, are we working through negative emotional states? It's by changing those states that we then have an impact on the physiological response from the nervous system. So in that sense we're not acting on it super directly. But in either case it's a very powerful technique and a lot of people love it. The reason I don't use EFT is because I actually use havening techniques. And so Havening techniques is another energy psychology type of modality. And it's also a sensory psychosensory. They both fall into a category of psychosensory modalities whereby you stimulate receptors on the skin and you having in that sense you have a direct impact on the nervous system. So you could potentially argue that it is a direct impact on the nervous system because with something like Havening, what you're doing is by stimulating those receptors on the skin that sends a signal directly to the brain and you caught you causing this neurochemical cascade that is a. It's the direct impact on the brain and direct impact on the immune nervous system. But as well as that you also are aware of your emotional state changing which then also have an effect. If that's so, you will perceive it. You will perceive it as my response is changing because my emotional response is changing, so my body is responding. So I hope that that makes sense. But actually in actual fact you acting directly on the nervous system through doing that and EFT is much the same sound healing is exactly the same because you actually acting directly on the nervous system. But when it comes to any of those sort of modalities, I want people to just be aware that they're great because they're great self help modalities. So both EFT and Havening can be taught and learned by somebody. And on a basic level you can help yourself keep on top of stressful situations or a sort of overwhelming emotions that you may not want to hold on to. You want to work through them. And those modalities help help you work through this emotional, which is essentially what we do with emotions. We let that energy work through us and transpire and basically leave the body. It's only when we resist that we're going to have a problem that we can't get rid of. So those help you on this basic level. Somebody, anybody can learn them and learn them very quickly and they can literally use them on themselves. And that's a very good self help tool. But also those modalities have the potential to work. We can work through very complex traumas with those modalities, very complex traumas. We can use them to help us with attachment trauma. So there is obviously a range and scope with both of those modalities. And the only issue I would say is that the modality is only as good as a practitioner who uses it really in my opinion and I'll stick by it. So just because you've tried some something like EFT and you feel yeah, yeah, okay, help me a little bit. Well maybe you didn't have the right resonance with the practitioner. So don't necessarily discard the modality but rather the modality itself, the technique. Just hey, eft and havening both, and I'm talking about them at the same time because they are, in a way, they have a lot of similarities in the way that they actually act on the body. But you do, if you're working with somebody, then that resonance with the practitioner is really, really important. It's one of the absolutely fundamental, critical factors that will decide how effective and how helpful you are going to find. This modality makes sense.

Absolutely. Stephen Porges has said that practicing gratitude impacts our vagus nerve in a positive way as well. It's amazing that something as simple as maybe gratitude journaling, for example, could help support the vagus nerve. And I'm wondering if that's a tool that you use in your work.

Absolutely, 100%. In fact, personally, for me, gratitude is something that I practice multiple times a day. I almost practice it all the time. So when I sit down to eat my meal, I'm having a brief moment of I'm so grateful to have access to this beautiful food. Yes. It doesn't have to be epic. It doesn't have to be epic. It's just something that is present in my life. I look at my partner and I'm grateful that I have love in my life. It's just something that I'm aware of in every almost moment. And I have that gratitude as part of my daily operations. But what's interesting about gratitude is that gratitude in studies has been shown to increase heart rate variability. And we have already talked about that. That's a measure, the best measure that we have of vagal time. So that's been shown in studies to achieve that. And people. So, you know, if somebody wasn't already convinced that that works, there is actually some research behind it. But in terms of this impact on the vagus nerve, you know, the moment we're connecting with feelings of gratitude, we have that feeling of, you know, it's a nice feeling, it's a feeling of peace, it's a feeling of calm. And every time you have a feeling like that, you activate your vagus nerve. So whenever we're talking about what can I do to activate my vagus nerve? Be guided by how you respond to things. Because one thing when we're talking about these tools and techniques, one thing that I absolutely want to emphasize is this. Just because somebody says that meditation or social connection is good for your vagus nerve doesn't mean that it's good for you at this point in time. Because if you, one of these people who, for example, had a lot of trauma or has. Well, which also comes from trauma, but you know, when people have those monkey minds that are really a little bit ocd, the type, the personality type that wants to control and feels the need to control all the time, or the personality type where you need to consciously analyze everything all the time because otherwise you don't feel safe and secure. When you have that going on and somebody says to you, meditation will be great for your vagus nerve, and you sit down to meditate and you're literally starting to get really worked up, your mind starts to spin out of control and you feel really stressed out by it. Then for sure, at this point in time, this is not the right tool for you to activate your vagus nerve, because in fact what it's doing is activating your fight or flight. Does this mean I want you to just forget all about it? No, I don't. I feel that if you're in that situation, you need to get to the bottom of why is it that you're unable to meditate at this point in time successfully enough to activate your vagus nerve? I think it's important. Meditation is a great tool. It's. It always will be a great tool. Meditation teaches us to be more present. That's very, very important for health. So we want to get to a point where we able to do this. But for some people right now, this could actually put them in fight or flight rather than ventral Vegas. So I want people to be very aware, not to just jump on something that is supposed to be good for your vagus nephew. Always need to go back to your own response. If social connection is making you stressed at this point in time, again, it may be great for somebody because somebody may be thinking, oh, the most wonderful thing I can do is to go and meet with my friend and just connect with them in ah, isn't that wonderful? And somebody else may think, oh, God, I really don't want to be anywhere near people right now because they drain my energy or whatever other thing they may be feeling, or maybe they're just socially anxious. So this personal take on this is very, very important. So what you're looking for in whatever technique or tool you're going to use for your vagus nerve, if it's to do with, obviously the emotional side of things, is that it makes you feel good, it makes you feel nice, it makes you feel, ah, that's nice. Yeah, that's the feeling you're looking for. So if it's a massage and it makes you Feel like that. Great. If it's something that you can do, for instance, I don't know, listen to classical music and makes you go like that, Great, right? So you will know by you going by that feeling. But if at this point in time somebody says this is good for your vagus, now do it and you feel really worked up by doing it, or you feel like uneasy, or you feel those feelings of anxiety or stress or whatever, then that's not right for you at this point in time. And maybe you want to expand why that might be the case. One more thing before I finish this piece is that I want to say something to people who feel like they're not able to meditate. First of all, it's not just you. There are a lot of people in this situation where they talk over and over that meditation is good for them and they're just not able to do it just like that. There's a process behind learning how to meditate successfully. So first of all, don't beat yourself up and don't give yourself a hard time about it. It's more common than you think. Second of all, what I want to suggest to you, if you are identifying with what I'm saying, is that a great entry level for meditation and also of course, amazing for vagus nerve activation will be simple breathing exercises. And when you're doing those, you obviously what you're doing and why is it that some people are able to do those breathing exercises and not do meditation is because, you know, if I'm talking you through a breathing exercise, I will give you things for your brain to focus on. I'll get you to count, or I get you to, you know, connect with the breath in one way or another, or focus on the sensation in the body. And so your brain is now occupied with something enough not to go off and wander and kind of connect with those feelings of fears, anxieties, and various other things that you may be going. You may have going on in your mind. Whereas if you were to just sit and meditate and this myth of making your mind go quiet, that's not what meditation is about. But a lot of people think that's what meditation about. So they sit down and they make their mind go quiet. And the moment the mind goes remotely quiet, it's all starts. You know, they're connecting with all these emotions, all the stuff that is overwhelming them, and they just go like, no, no, that's just not for me. And then they never, ever engage with it again, which is a shame. So that's What I'm saying, do those breathing exercises first or little guided meditations would be a step up from that whereby you are given loads of different things to focus on. So there may be that you, you know, like walking through a garden and this flowers there and you walk into this cottage and somebody is cooking this wonderful meal and you can, you know, you think about the things that you see and hear and there's birds singing and da, da, da, da, da, what that's doing, those little guided meditations like this, what they're doing also, they're occupying all the senses and they're keeping the brain focused on something so it doesn't wander off and starts to really, you know, access those things that you at this point, not really ready to deal with. So I hope that helps because I just don't want people to give up on it altogether.

Let's go ahead and segue into a little more conversation about breathing. Since you brought that up, that was actually my next question. So are there specific breathing strategies or techniques that you find helpful? Does something like sleep apnea, for example, does that send a danger signal to the vagus nerve and is there some value in nose breathing or. One of the things that I actually do is mouth taping at night to make sure that I am nose breathing. Does that support the vagus nerve in some way?

Yeah, nose, nose breathing is important from the point of view of just purely physiologically when you think about it, when you in fight or flight and you have to run away or fight a threat, what you need is you need a lot of oxygen coming into the system quickly because it needs to feed the muscles. And in case that you need to run away or fight, you need big muscles activating and you need a lot of oxygen and blood flowing, oxygenated blood flowing to those muscles. This is why when we are stressed, we tend to breathe through our mouth and we tend to breathe quickly. If you slow your breathing down consciously, you slow your breathing down and you deepen the breathing and you breathe through your nose, then you basically sending a simple message to the brain that everything is fine, it's all well. We're not really preparing to run away or fight anything. It's all good. And that's obviously going to make the ventral vagus activated. So taping at night is great because it's almost like you forcing, you're forcing yourself to breathe through your nose. And a lot of people report great results with it. I personally don't do it because I've worked on my breathing patterns and I've Corrected my breathing patterns. But I think what I kind of mentioned it briefly before in our conversation last time, that when you, you can actually start your life with a dysfunctional breathing pattern. If you, for instance, born with, by C section and you know, you come out, they pull you out and they slap you because, you know, for you to take that breath and you take as a baby, you gasp like that and it's all very stressful and there's all the doctors and medical procedures and all of that, and the birth is very stressful. You can actually end up with a dysfunctional breathing pattern that originates in that, in that, in that one moment. And then of course, as you then go through your childhood and you've got different stressful things coming at you that can further deepen and as you go through life, that can deepen further. So a lot of people have those dysfunctional breathing patterns. And just like sleeping apnea, those sleep apnea, those breathing patterns will constantly activate your fight or flight even without you knowing about it, even without you feeling necessarily that you, you know, that you are stressed. So it'd be kind of going again, it'd be that thing that goes on in the background and you're not even aware of it, right? So mouth taping is obviously one way of trying correct the breathing pattern. And obviously there's loads of different actual breathing practices that can help you correct breathing pattern. A lot of people don't even breathe into their belly at all when you ask them, you know, to do this. Let's say you take somebody who's just starting to do these different exercises and you ask them to take a deeper breath. The intercostals are so tight, their diaphragm is so tight that they're even struggling to take a deeper breath. So you be, because you've been dysfunctional with your brain for so long, all this little muscles that are responsible for expanding when you deepen your breathing, they're also tight. You need to just go and you need to massage and rake your intercostals and you need to do all sorts of stretches exercises and then you need to do your breathing exercises to make sure that you even have your breathing supported mechanically, right? So for some people, obviously there's going to be all of that work to do before they can even do slow, deep breathing. But if you're able to take a deeper, slower breath, then that is the way that you trick your brain into immediately dropping out of light and dropping into the ventral vagus. So that's why it's the cheapest Easiest and fastest way of getting into ventral vagus, admittedly, I would say, is slow, deep breathing.

Beautiful. That's fantastic. In the book Accessing the Power of the Vagus Nerve by Stanley Rosenberg, he talks about some simple exercises with head movements and eye movements and so on to support the vagus nerve. And I'm wondering if you've explored those exercises and find them helpful.

Yes, he's got some neurofascial type exercises. And when it comes to the eye movements. Yeah, we use eye movement exercises in some of the Havening protocols as well. Because again, eye movement, particularly going right, left, right, left, you actually activate the brain slightly differently. And that we use that when working with trauma. And it comes from actually emdr, which obviously is a trauma tool. Right. So all of those things are. Are very helpful. You know, you've got all sorts of fascia type exercises. When you're just doing things like Feldenkrais or Pilates or yoga, you know, there's going to be fascia stimulation within those movements that will also be helpful for the nervous system. So anything like that is really helpful. And what I'll say is, if somebody feels particularly resonant with those sort of techniques, then, yes, that's really what they should go towards, because you should always go first towards the things you obviously resonate with. Yeah.

Is there a place for sound healing or biofield tuning strategies in support of the vagus nerve? Any specific tools in that realm that you like?

Yeah, sound healing is fabulous. Basically, it's a vibration. So it's energy medicine again. And it's the vibration of the sound that directly acts on the nervous system. So it's, in a way, even though sound healing can make you feel relaxed and it has that indirect impact through you feeling relaxed, in actual fact, because of the vibration of the sound and acting on the nerves, you also have that direct impact on the nervous system. So when we talking about sound healing, you could be. Somebody could be using their voice. You could have Himalayan bowls, for instance. And with Biofield tuning, Eileen McKusick does Biofield tuning with tuning forks. Yes. So there's different methods of producing sound. Some people do sound healing with specific instruments. A lot of people use drumming and they really like that. So again, this will be a question of what is the. All of those will be brilliant as long as you resonate with them. So I love tuning, folks, but equally, I have a friend, Misa Hopkins, who uses her voice and she does sound healing with her voice and it's absolutely superb. And I really love that. Obviously Singing balls also. I love that too. So I have to say that when it comes to sound healing, I love it all. But some people will resonate with some things more than others. And it's very much about again, vibration, resonance, it's very much about that. So it will be helpful. But whatever you connect with. And also don't forget, you can make sounds yourself. And whenever we are doing this humming or singing type exercises, which you could argue fall into sound healing because by doing them you actually again, acting on the vagus nerve, so you essentially you're doing your own sound healing, right? So you can do that through listening or listening to somebody playing an instrument or using tuning forks or whatever. Or, you know, you can use tuning forks on the body so you can, you know, activate it and then you obviously put it on the body like in biofield tuning as well. But you can do it yourself. So don't forget that because some people like it, some people like singing and humming, so you should do it more.

I intentionally put the questions in the mental, emotional, nervous system realm of this solutions conversation first because I think we both agree that they are critical, often the most important things to focus on. Now we're going to move a little bit more into some of the physical things that we can do with the understanding that we should still be doing some of the other things that we've just talked about. I want to get into a little bit more on inflammation. When we talk about inflammation in general. How important is diet, for example, in terms of the inflammatory bucket? Do we benefit the vagus nerve by specific dietary strategies that work towards reducing inflammation?

Yes, I will answer that in one second. There's something else though that has come to me and I think it's an important thing before we move away from the piece we just covered and that is that, for example, if you're doing all of the strategies that we're talking about in fact, or most of them can be looked at from the point of view whether they are. Because you were asking about the direct indirect effect. And when you think about it, there is another way of looking at it. Direct versus indirect. And what do I mean by this is you could basically have a direct effect on the vagus nerve, in which case pretty much everything we just talked about is a direct effect on the vagus nerve. But you could also talk about hormesis and that is a more indirect effect on the vagus nerve because you basically achieve that effect through some sort of adaptation. So hormetic strategies that basically strengthen vagus nerve function overall and over time are things like exercise, are things like infrared saunas, cold showers. Those are things that actually in the immediate, the immediate effect on the body is a stress response. But because it's a controlled, low dose stress response, we then develop this adaptation that over time actually rebalances the nervous system and makes our vagus nerve function better. So that is a way also when we talk in the indirect direct, that basically how you could break it down. And so that means that some breathing exercises, and this is important because some people may now run towards breathing thinking, oh, this is great, I'm just going to do breathing. And when I was talking about breathing, I was talking about deep, slow breathing. And that deep, slow breathing is a direct effect on the ventral vagus nerve. And with, if you slow your breathing down in the most simple way, when you breathe in through your nose and you breathe out through your mouth really slowly and you kind of have that moment of pause between your in breath and your out breath, then you have a direct effect on your ventral vagus. But for example, something like Breath of Fire or Wim Hof type breathing, those are stress breaths actually, but they still work beautifully for the vagus nerve. But what may happen with those types of breathing, if somebody has had a lot of trauma or has a lot of shutdown for a very long time, if we get them to do Wim Hof breathing straight off or something like a Breath of Fire, they may actually find that they're gonna be very activated and they may find, this is not for me, this is just totally freaking me out. So obviously those types of breathing are brilliant. They really are great. But if you just starting and maybe you've had a lot of chronic health issues and maybe you had a lot of trauma and you spend a lot of time in shutdown, for instance through chronic Lyme or chronic fatigue or something like that, then the type of breathing exercises I encourage you to explore, explore first are the slow, deep, controlled type breathing exercises rather than something like Breath of Fire or Wim Hof type breathing. Yeah. So, right, so now we're talking about this inflammation. So diet. Yes. Because really, when we talked about this previously, we said that chicken and egg. You know, we remember that bit of the conversation when we said, well, actually, you know, sometimes you don't really consciously know where it originated from. But the point is that if the moment you have more inflammation in the body, there's more pressure on the vagus nerve to stop it. And that obviously interferes with its function. And then because the nervous, the vagus nerve is not very effective at doing it, then you get more inflammation, chronic inflammation in the body and it kind of winds itself up and it winds itself up and it winds itself up. The same with breathing. Like we said, once you have dysfunctional breathing part and you put more stress on the vagus nerve, so then you make it weak and then you wind it up because you're more stressed and your breathing gets worse and so on and so on. So you kind of create that loop, that spiral, the downward spiral that some people can be on. And so that's definitely true for inflammation. So if we can remove anything inflammatory from the diet, we're going to have that positive impact because we are not putting the gasoline on the fire for the vagus nerve to constantly try and stop it. Yeah. And so when we're talking about inflammatory foods, we're talking obviously sugar is a big one. And obviously sugar will also put a strain on the pancreas and that will put a strain on the vagus nerve. So sugar is a big one. Clearly things like gluten, dairy and grains are really tend to be pro inflammatory anyway there it is obviously pro inflammatory. Right. So anything like that. But I think obviously sugar will be probably the biggest from the vagus nerve point of view, I think.

So let's dig a little deeper then into the glial cell activation, neuro inflammation, the role that that inflammation has on the vagus nerve. Could things like curcumin or resveratrol or CBD, for example, could those potentially be helpful? I know one listener in preparing for this show suggested that a topical CBD cream actually helped them balance their autonomic dysfunction. And so I'm wondering what your thoughts are about some of those tools.

Absolutely. But I would always say it's the same, the same with emotional stuff and the same with this. If you currently eat at McDonald's, right, and then using the most expensive curcumin or resveratrol or whatever that you can find, then that's quite backwards in my respect, in my, in my opinion. So in this respect, that's why I'm starting with okay, what, what is that we overloading with that is inflammatory that we really need to take out. Right. And once we've done that, then it makes sense to then go towards this kind of more strategies that are almost more like fine tuning then because you're not overloading with, with eating sugar all day long. So now you can think, well, how can I take it a step further? And those different beautiful anti inflammatories in terms of, you know, the different herbs that we have or all those different extracts, then that will be really helpful. And definitely CBD is obviously amazing because it's got such a multitude of different effects, whether it's pain, you know, inflammation, or, you know, it acts on so many different receptors in the body. Because I'm sure people know we've got all this CBD receptors throughout the body. So that's a very helpful one for sure. But I would say don't jump in with that and buy the most expensive CBD oil you can find before you remove some of the things that you eat and drink on a daily basis that are clearly ramping up this inflammatory, you know, those inflammatory states in the body. Right, makes sense.

Yeah, 100% agree with that. Are there specific supplements or herbs or nutrients that are nutritive or tonifying of the vagus nerve? I know Alpha GPC is one that I've heard discussed. And then I wondered about homeopathics, for example. Could a low potency acetylcholine or something in that more homeopathic or energetic realm also help us in our vagus nerve health?

Yes, that's, that's, you know, when we're talking about fine tuning, that's, that's really taking it further still, isn't it? Because now we're being really specific. So we removed the inflammatory things. And when we're talking about removing inflammation, we obviously need to talk about, about the gut more here because obviously if we, if the gut function isn't right, then you can take all of those and not necessarily have that effect on the vagus nerve. So whatever messes up your gut also needs to be addressed. And that could be something like gluten or it could be, you know, something like a specific food you eat that everybody thinks it's amazing, but it just happens that it's not amazing for you and you have a response to it that is negative. You know, it could be broccoli. Broccoli. Amazing. Everybody should eat broccoli. Well, not everybody should eat broccoli if broccoli is not something that the body tolerates at this point in time very well. So as you get healthier and the body becomes more tolerant of things, you may find that you may introduce it again and you'll be fine. But if at this point in time something like almonds, or everybody should be eating almonds or everybody should be eating this, everybody should be eating garlic. Well, my husband tends to happens to be allergic to garlic. So if I give him lots of garlic he's going to have horrible skin inflammation. So that's not good for him, but it's going to be good for a lot of other people. So we also need to be really thinking individually about what can cause inflammation in terms of food, right? And any type of foods that are prebiotic, probiotic type foods to help along with the gut being well functioning is really important. And then we talked about the things that can help us with potentially reducing inflammation, like curcumin, antioxidants of all kinds. And so now we kind of jumping up a level and thinking, well, can we actually just fine tune this neurotransmitter that the vagus nerve uses to be able to carry out all those functions, that is the acetylcholine and obviously things like choline itself. Obviously you can get choline from food, but you can take it as a supplement as well. L carnitine as well. Potentially. When we talked, mentioned I think briefly Diana Driscoll's Parasym, Parasym Plus. So that's what's in that. So, you know, if you don't want to reinvent the wheel, you can just use that product. And Chinese club moss is another ingredient in that formulation, isn't it? So obviously we can use that. But I think to me, most people are not there to go to the nth degree trying to fine tune because they haven't done the basic stuff really well. You need to do the basic stuff really well. That's important.

When you're talking about the acetylcholine piece and things like Diana Driscoll's Parasym plus, for example, I think it's also important, and I believe you mentioned this in part, but to think about the fact that there are anticholinergic medications or pharmaceuticals that people are often taking, not realizing that that's reducing acetylcholine in the body and that could itself have a negative effect on the vagus nerve. I know there's a drug called mestinon that some people have found helpful in terms of supporting the vagus nerve. Is that something that you have any experience with?

No, I am not saying that I am antidrugs, but to me the ide of using a drug for something that can be done hundred percent naturally is ridiculous on the face of it. And I am just, I'm not, you know, this is just me. It's not that I am. Anti drugs have their time and place and in acute situations in particular, it's a good thing that we have modern medicine because at times we really need it. But I think there is this tendency to try and kind of over medicate at whatever, you know, every possibility. And at the end of the day, this is the brainwashing and the conditioning that comes from the big pharma because obviously that makes them money. We don't actually, I don't think we need it. I just don't. But that's, that's me.

Yeah, I think that's a very valid point. In my own personal healing journey from Lyme disease and mold illness, coffee enemas were a top tool for detoxification for reducing pain and inflammation. I understand that they all stimulate the vagus nerve. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are around coffee enemas.

Well, they're great, aren't they? Because obviously they help us with bile flow. And we talked a lot about how bile fits in with all of this. So obviously great. But what is great about NMS and also I really want to bring in here, colon hydrotherapy is that it actually has brilliant effects on stimulating the enteric nervous system so that the nervous system, system of the gut. And it's immediately. If you ever had a treatment, well, if you ever had enema, then, if you ever done that, then you will know that if you do it, then it does. I mean, some people, obviously some people don't like it, but it does give you that feeling of relaxation. And when you actually do a full colon hydrotherapy treatment, apart from the first bit that most people find unpleasant, it's actually a very relaxing treatment. It's supposed to be a relaxing treatment. I'm trained in colon hydrotherapy and I'm telling you it's supposed to be a relaxing treatment. But it's amazing how that actually, that is direct. If we're talking about direct effect on the nervous system, it doesn't come more direct than that, in a way. So I personally love it. Those are great strategies from my point of view. There are some people who you would not in a million years talk them into having a colon hydrotherapy treatment. But there are many, many advantages to those methods. Obviously, enema only goes up as far. It really covers the descending rectum and part of the descending colon. Why colon hydrotherapy is in some ways superior is because it's able to go all the way around. So it goes out the descending transverse colon and also the ascending colon. And what we need to all remember is that even if you have regular bowel movements, it doesn't mean you clearing out your bowel properly because there are so many those tiny little pockets and when you have that water treatment is obviously a filter water treatment. And it comes in and just very gently just washes everything out. And so it exercises the colon. It exercises, it becomes. So you get a lot more kind of natural peristaltic movement that is sort of like a well trained muscle. It becomes really good at that. So we were talking about issues with constipation in our. In part one. Colon hydrotherapy can really help ease of constipation because constipation means that your colon is lazy. And if you have colon hydrotherapy treatment, you can retrain. You can literally retrain that smooth muscle to work better again and to work properly again. And obviously not to mention keeping it clean. We know that clean colon is a healthy body. How many. The prevalence of colon cancer is crazy. And it's such a preventable disease. Such a preventable disease. Yeah, it's a positive ways.

Interesting that you brought that into the conversation. And I have also benefited from colon hydrotherapy over the years as well. And so making the connection between that and relaxing the system and the vagus nerve is another great takeaway from our conversation. I wondered about the impact of structural on the vagus nerve. Meaning if we have, let's say, an issue with the atlas or the cervical spine or are physically out of alignment, can things like chiropractic, for example, or cranial sacral work, can those be helpful when there is some type of structural issue? Or maybe even people now dealing with things like craniocervical instability or cci, what's the role of structure and the vagus nerve?

So you don't, from the point of view of, you know, if you have a neck that is not, you know, well aligned, it doesn't actually touch the vagus nerve directly because it's a deep nerve. Right. And I am not a chiropractor, I'm not an osteopath or anything like that. But what I do believe in is that this type of work and treatment needs to be part of your overall health program. To me, that's very important that it's, it is part of your maintenance, if you like, once you've sort of resolved all those, you know, subluxations or misalignments that you may have, that it becomes something that you have in your overall health problem as a maintenance because it. Basically what those methods do is they are designed to keep your nervous system healthy, making sure that there is nothing kind of compressing any of the, of the nerves. But even though it doesn't necessarily press on the Vagus nerve directly. Everything in the nervous system is connected anyway. So if you have a subluxation and you, you have a compression of one of your cranial nerves, you may find that your, your stomach is not gonna work very well because that nerve supplies, you know, the stomach, amongst other things or whatever. You know, this is just an example and suddenly you find that you may have low stomach acid and it could be coming from something like a subluxation. So in that respect, I think this is something that is important to address. And certainly something like craniosacral therapy, things like that are also very calming to the nervous system. So you have that immediate calming effect. And again, whatever gives you that calming effect obviously activates the vagus song.

I wanted to dig a little bit deeper as we start wrapping up into the microbiome and its connection to the vagus nerve. You mentioned earlier probiotics and prebiotics. Are there specific things that we can do in support of the microbiome? And then how is that microbiome health impacting the vagus nerve? Or is it the vagus nerve impacting the microbiome or is it both?

Well, basically vagus nerve is part of the gut brain axis. So it's both. It's both because again, you have that thing that goes round and round because the signals go back and forth via the vagus nerve. And I think I did mention in our last conversation there are studies that actually show the specific bacterial strains that we know have an effect on the brain and behavioral things, behavioral changes. They can. For instance, if we know that if you low in certain microbe strains, you could have, you know, more anxiety or something like that. Right? So we know that those connections are there, but when they were looking at some of those, specifically when they cut the vagus nerve, there was no communication. Communication was minimal, almost non existent. So that tells you right there that the microbiome and how it connects to the brain, you know, if that vagus nerve connection is not there, then you don't have that impact. So a lot of people obviously put a lot of emphasis on treating depression or any kind of neuroinflammation type disorders. Depression is clearly one of them, or even things like Alzheimer's, things like that. And they always talk about the importance of the mic of a healthy microbiome. But again, if the vagus nerve is that thing that is the highway, it's part of the highway. It's not the whole story, but it's a major part of that highway. And if it's not there Then you can have as good a microbiome as you like and your effect on the brain and all of those disorders, like depression, for instance, which we know definitely have, that microbiome connection is going to be, you know, you're not going to have that impact. It's going to be minimized. Right. So that's a very, very important thing to bear in mind when it comes to looking after the microbiome. A lot of the things that apply here is what we already covered. So, for example, if you have a lot of sugar in your diet and you're gonna be messing it up like there's no tomorrow, right? Also, anything that keeps that transient bacteria there, because a lot of the bacteria in your microbiome is actually transient, which is why we have to do those things regularly. We need to look after our microbiome not just once a year, but regularly. And it is an individual thing. There are lots of different tools like viome tests and things like that where you can actually look specifically at what's going on within your microbiome and some of the, you know, the bugs that you may be lacking or the foods that you need to be eating to boost them and so on and so on. So there is more and more of those tools now available to be a little bit more individualized with our microbiome and so care about it in a way that is specific for us. And actually that's going to obviously ultimately give us the best result. But again, I wouldn't go and do that before you get the basics right. And if you have, if you eat a lot of glutinous grains, for instance, if you eat a lot of wheat products, if you eat a lot of dairy products, and if you eat a lot of sugar, you're not going to have good microbiome, you know, no matter what you do and how much you want to hack it with supplements and all the rest of it and even probiotics, to be honest. So again, I always bring it back to get your basics right. And when you get your basics right and you still think your function can be better. So maybe you already eating probiotic foods, you know, maybe you, you're making your ferments and that's all great because that could be the next step. Once you've got your basics right, maybe you want to try eating more fermented foods and wider range of fermenting foods. So it's not always the same thing, because one thing with microbiome is not, it's not about those one or two strains, although of course, you may be deficient in a particular strain, in which case you need to boost it, and then you can get a probiotic that just has that one strain you're deficient in. That's great. If you measured it and you know that's the case. That's the case. However, overall, what applies for pretty much all of us is that we want biodiversity. That's more important than the amount of whatever probiotic you're going to take is the diversity.

Yeah. And I love what you said, that we need to really get back to the basics. A lot of times, even on the physical side of these interventions in Lyme and mold and whatnot, I see people getting excited about jumping to do $30,000 worth of stem cells or this or that, and they're still living in a moldy house and not doing anything to detox and not doing anything to work on the nervous system and so on. And so I think, I think it is important. Oftentimes the piece that's being missed when someone's not moving forward is that foundational kind of basic aspects of health and healing. I want to ask you.

And you know what, may I just interject, because that's exactly right. You're so, so right about it. And you know what the problem is? The problem is that people will listen to some of this information, go, yeah, I know that. Yeah, I know that. Yeah, yeah, no, I know that. That's, that's like basic. Yeah, I know that. It's not the point that you know that. Are you actually doing it and are you doing it consistently? That's the point. And it's exactly what you just said. And you find that people are prepared to sometimes spend crazy amounts of money on some, you know, thing they just heard about. There's a next new thing. There's a next new shiny thing, like, oh, piece of candy. New shiny thing. New shiny thing. This test, that test, the other test. Oh, this supplement, that supplement, the other supplement. And the basics are still not right. It's absolutely, I would say, is the number one issue in our health community. It's the plague. It's the epidemic of actually just wanting to go to this next fancy supplement or new fancy treatment or new fancy method or strategy or protocol. And the basics are still not right. So we can't stress that enough, to be honest.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. There are a number of devices that are available and emerging in support of the vagus nerve. I personally like and use frequency specific microcurrent for a number of different things. But also in support of the vagus nerve, the limbic system, the parasympathetic nervous system and so on. I started doing some early exploration around a device called the Nuvana Zen. I've heard people talk about gamma core. In fact, Gamma core they're talking about now I believe just got emergency FDA approval to potentially be used in helping to minimize cytokine storms from COVID 19, which is very interesting. There's a device called the Tens Pro, the Nemechek Vitality. Do you have any thoughts or experience on using these vagal nerve stimulators as an adjunct? Obviously we want to do these basic and important things that we've talked about as well. But any value to exploring these devices?

Yes, as long as we do the basics. Yes, as long as we again, don't think that we can just stimulate with a device and then we can be as emotionally toxic as we like and it's all good. Right. So obviously back to the same thing in that respect. But yeah, I mean what's interesting is those, those are starting to pop up like mushrooms after the rain really. And so I can't possibly say that I've got experience of all of them because I'm not going to buy 20 million vagus nerve stimulating devices. I don't need it. Most of the stimulating of the work that I do for stimulating my vagus nerve is not actually device based. Having said that, Pent therapy is probably the one that I will use the most only because I actually have a very good device and it's part of Nest Health system and I use Nest Health in my work. So I have that. So that's really, really good. Obviously frequency specific microcurrent is great. I can't really comment on those specific ones that you just mentioned. There's obviously other ones as well. This Modius health that I hear good, good sort of feedback from people, they actually advertise it more for weight loss. But it is, it does have the ability to stimulate the vagus nerve. There's also a Healy, that's another one. It's a kind of bioresonance type device. I actually have two bioresonance technology devices, machines that actually were quite expensive and they're quite complex. So bioresonance technology also will do that, it will have that effect. And so I am not getting any more right because for starters, like I said, I don't actually feel I need it in any way. But yeah, those two I am familiar with and PEMF therapy is the one that I use if I use any device, it's that one.

And just for clarity for listeners, what you're talking about with PEMF is pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. And so that's something I've done a previous podcast on as well. Lots of different tools out there. I do also have and have explored a little bit the HEALY devices. And so that's an interesting thought that it could potentially be helpful in this realm. How does the limbic system fit into the discussion? If we look at tools like DNRS or the Gupta program, or maybe neurosculpting, there's a tool called neuropraxis that I've become aware of. What are your thoughts around the benefit of working on the limbic system and that also helping to balance the nervous system and recalibrating the vagus nerve?

Yeah, they are all very, very good tools. It's very interesting because I actually know Lisa Wimberger.

Neurosculpting.

Neurosculpting, yeah. So that's obviously it's kind of neuroplasticity based program if you like, very specifically stimulating the brain to boost the neuroplasticity, which is great. That's really great. And as for the DNRs that sort of utilizes these different components because it combines things like cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, emotional work, neuro linguistic programming. So I don't use that because I've over the years acquired so many tools that I almost developed my own program and way of combining all of those different tools. So in my work I combine physiology, neuroscience, energy medicine. Right. So I combine a lot of those strategies that they combine. But basically, yes, you know that that's definitely very, very helpful because ultimately, you know, the limbic system, when it's overactive, you're going to have a lot of those over the top emotional responses like fear for instance. Yes. Which could be in response to real threat. But most of the time it's not a real threat, as we know. So whatever can sort of calm that down will certainly, certainly be helpful.

Yeah. Because it seems to me that if the limbic system is over firing, being hyper reactive to your point, to maybe even a perceived threat, not an actual threat, that that also then is potentially driving us into either a flight or freeze response and then affecting the whole parasympathetic nervous system, the vagus nerve. So it's interesting because so much of what I'm hearing in our conversation is there's so many connections here, unfortunately, so many things we can do. The last thing I want to ask you about relative to the Vagus nerve is the potential application of topical essential oils. And I'm wondering if you use those. I know, for example, Jody Cohen has a product called Parasympathetic from Vibrant Blue Oils that I've heard some good things about. Wondering what your thoughts are on essential oils being used for the vagus nerve.

Oh, I love essential oils. Yes. The one thing that I wanted to add to what you just said is a lot of the activation of like over the top activation of the amygdala really comes from trauma. Right. So really the best thing we can do for that ultimately to remove this issue is to heal it, heal the amygdala through dealing with trauma, through healing trauma. So that's obviously very important. I also remembered something else and that is earthing. So I said that the only device actually I use is pen therapy, but that's actually not entirely true because I have an earthing mat as well. And earthing also has that effect on the nervous system.

So that my feet are currently on an earthing pad as we're having this conversation.

So, yeah, there you go. So obviously there you go. So that's another one. And, and here's what I was talking about earlier, how we can be doing what we're doing and at the same time we actually doing something for the nervous system by having our feet on the mat. This is what I'm talking about. So when we talk, when it comes to, you know, biohacking, which I don't like to talk about in terms of vagus nerve, but we can do some of those things, little things, to make sure that we put ourselves in this ventral vagus as frequently as we possibly can through the day. So that doesn't mean we have to meditate 24 7. We can use all of these other things. We can do gargling after we clean our teeth, we can put our feet on the earthing or whatever, right? We can listen to music in the background whilst we're doing something else, which is calming us down. Equally, coming back to essential oils, you can have essential oils sort of diffusing whilst you're doing something else. So you can be smart about it. So don't get me wrong, you can be smart about it to kind of encourage as much calm and ventral vagus activation into your life as you can. But you do need to deal with the background destruction and the background issues that can cause ventral vagus to go haywire when it comes to essential oils. So as you may have heard, I don't know whether you've talked to Jody and interviewed her. But when it comes to her little combination of her vibrant blue oils, she talks about putting it behind the ear. So we do not put any essential oils inside the ear. Even if you have an earache and you want to use something like clove oil, you put it around and behind and kind of, you know, down here. Right, but the combination that you're talking about specifically, that's Lyme and clove. Right. But that, that doesn't mean that these are the only two oils we can use to, to work on the vagus nerve. Because when you think about, we're talking about vagus nerve toxicity. We were talking about that, we were talking about inflammation as well. And, and generally we have a lot of oils that can just create peace and calm. So we could use things like lavender or Roman chamomile, which basically not just the calming oils, but they also have this ability to bring inflammation down. So we can use those. Obviously clove is an anti infectious oil. So if you have a vagus nerve infection then that would be a great one. Cinnamon is another really super one. Things like oregano too time. They're all very kind of antimicrobial type oils. And something like geranium for instance is a great one because not only is it antimicrobial, but it also fights inflammation and it's also a nice smelling oil. But particularly for ladies, I'm thinking rather than use nasty, horrible chemical perfume, you like put a little bit of geranium behind your ear and sort of you're doing all of you achieving all of those things and yet it makes you smell nice at the same time. If you like the all age particularly I do like this one, so that's why I'm saying. But it's a, obviously it's a floral scent, so maybe not for men, but definitely for ladies. It could work.

My last question is the same for every guest and that is what are some of the key things that you do on a daily basis in support of your own health?

Okay, so we already mentioned gratitude, which I basically bring myself back to throughout the day. I actually start my morning with Wim Hof breathing. So the first 15 minutes before I even get out of bed, it's a routine. And we do that, we both do that with my husband. So that's a really great one. I do exercise pretty much every day, so that counts towards vagus nerve activation either mostly at the moment because it's, it's wintertime where I am so not so much outside right now. Today is very cold and Windy and rainy, so generally feel like going out. But I've got a gym at home, so running and yoga are probably the dominant things for me right now at this time of the year. Qigong as well. I like qigong. Sometimes I will just do a little qigong exercise for a few minutes, because qigong is basically movement and breathing, movement and breathing. So it's really excellent. And I also. What I. What I actually do and put a lot of emphasis on is to be present and aware pretty much as, you know, as much as I possibly can. Unless I'm like, concentrating on doing a bit of work and I have to be engrossed and immersed into what I'm, for instance, writing about. But even then, but even then, I'm pretty much always aware what's going on in my body because, you know, I've trained myself to do so. And it's so, so important because you do have to feel your body and that, that feeling of if you're in that present moment and you feel your body and you respond to it as it. And as things kind of arise, then you don't let stuff build up. For starters, this is a problem that a lot of people have just let it. So ignore it, suppress it, repressive escape, run away from it. And then it builds up and builds up and builds up because that emotional energy is not going to go anywhere. It needs to work through you. If you suppress it, it's going to implode down the line and cause you to have a physical issue. So I. So I put a lot of emphasis on that, on kind of being in the now. I also, I use tuning forks sometimes. I've got the tunic just next to me and I kind of have those moments where even without thinking about it, I could be focusing on work, but I kind of check it out and I just kind of, you know, play around with the tuning fog, just kind of, you know, just when I feel kind of drawn towards it, I resonate, I go towards it. So I do listen to myself in terms of. I'm being guided all the time towards the things that are right for me. Because I trained myself. I had a lot of trauma. I had to work through that trauma. And I'm at a point where I just. I mean, I experienced peace and calm pretty much all the time because I dealt with all that emotional crap that was burdening me and that. All that emotional crap that was basically putting me in fight or flight all the time.

This has been such a beautiful conversation. It's one of the ones recently that I'm most excited to share share with people because I feel like there's so many tools and ideas and connections that you've made that are so critical for healing. I think there's just so much good stuff in this conversation. So I am grateful to you for the opportunity for us to be able to talk and for your generosity and spending so much time with us and sharing your experience. I know that this conversation is going to create a ripple effect and help so many others. So I'm grateful to you and honor you for your work. Dr. Eva, thank you so much for being here today.

Well, thank you. That's why we do it, to create that ripple effect. So, you know, thank you for your work that you prepared to put it out there and I'm always happy to share. So thanks again for having me.

Thank you. To learn more about Today's guest, visit dreva.com that'S-R-E-V a.com doctoreva.com thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a positive rating or review as doing so will help the show reach a broader audience. To follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Miwi, you can find me there as Better HealthGuy. To support the show, please visit BetterHealthGuy.com donate To be added to my newsletter, please visit BetterHealthGuy.Com newsletters this and other shows can be found on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify.

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