How to Create Health From Your Home with Sachin Patel & Dr. David Jockers

Hi everyone, it's Satchin. I hope you're awesome. Today is an exciting day for me because I know I'm going to learn a lot of new information and tips on how to keep myself, my family, and of course all of you, my community, as healthy as possible. So today I get and have the privilege to interview Dr. David Jockers. David, welcome. Thanks for joining me today.

Thanks so much, Sasha, and great to be on with you.

Well, I appreciate you taking time out of your very busy schedule. I know with everything that's going on in the world right now, some of us have become busier than ever. I know you've had a very fulfilling few weeks spending more time with your family, spending more time in nature, having maybe a little bit of a pause on life, but also in other areas, people like us are kind of doubling down to be of service to our community and make sure that our clients and our community are able to create the health that they ultimately deserve. So today I wanted to kind of share with our community and share with as many people out there what we can do to stay as healthy as possible and leverage this time in our homes with our families to not only learn how to keep ourselves healthy, but teach our children and model to our children how to keep them healthy. So how about that for a great topic today?

Yeah, I love that topic. And I think we were just talking before. The silver lining in all of this I think is just really a wake up call. I think that's what it should be, a wake up call to mankind, that, that we have got to really honor our bodies and do everything we can to be healthy and well. So when I think about microbes like bacteria, viruses, I mean, every breath we breathe, we're breathing in thousands of microbes, right? So the media creates a panic around one specific microbe. And obviously there are some concerns with that. So I don't want to downplay that. However, we gotta realize that ultimately our bodies, we should be able to adapt effectively to any sort of virus, bacteria, anything that we're really exposed to, we should have this resilient power to adapt effectively to it. And microorganisms have a very important role. Their job is to break down decaying matter. That's what they do. If we didn't have them, we wouldn't, you know, life would not exist.

Right.

So they break down decaying matters. And our job as living beings is to not be decaying matter. Right. It's really to be full of life, full of vibrancy and full of vitality. And we Want to promote that in a daily basis when we do that and then we, you know, some, maybe we don't sleep well or we're under stress, something like that. And we increase our viral load and that viral load now starts to break down our matter, our body. We'll have better adaptive capacity because we've been taking good care of our body. And so we'll be able to respond and bounce back. And especially when we know things that we can be doing when we do feel a little bit down. And I think one big thing is to always be taking inventory of your stress levels, your sleep quality, your energy on a day to day basis, your workload, your thoughts, things like that, being able to be aware of those things and taking inventory to see if you're pushing yourself a little too hard. And if you need to back off the gas pedal a little bit and really focusing on adapting and recovering, I think that's super important. And so, you know, ultimately we have to realize is the virus is not as big an issue as, you know, the media is playing it out to be. It's really about us. We're the ones that are in control. We can really take, take control here and radically improve our health and our immune system. And there's a lot of things that we can be doing, you know, that are, that are super simple, easy things that we can get started with. You know, one is turning off the news, right? Not, not allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed and stressed, taking time to breathe deeply, right? And just breathing deeply in general puts us in that parasympathetic nervous system state where, which allows our body to heal. It allows our body to have a better, more accurate immune response. And so the big thing with viruses is that they're intracellular pathogens, right? Meaning that. So we have all different types of pathogens or disease causing agents, bacteria, parasites, things like that. Those things will live in organs and tissues into the cell, inject their RNA and then cause the cell to combust. And as we start to increase that viral load, we have these, we have a part of our immune system that really works within the cell and inside of the cell. It will create, for some people, create an exaggerated immune response, especially when the viral load gets too high. And that exaggerated immune response creates widespread destruction. And that can be a big issue. And the reason why the body will do this is because we know that infections have killed more people throughout the history of mankind than anything else. And so the body has actually built a hardwired system to prevent against an infection from killing us quickly. I mean, you think about meningitis, we think about things that kill people very, very quickly. This is how most people throughout the history of mankind have died. And so it's more of a recent adaptation for humans to develop this sort of inflammatory storm, right. And when it's intracellular inflammation, we call it a cytokine storm, right. Which is basically just a part of our immune system that really will attack inside of a cell.

Right?

It's a cell signaling immune response. And you know, that's again to help protect us from dying quickly because we know that inflammation, we can live a long time with inflammation. However, an infection can kill us pretty quickly. So the body has this built in immune response. And when we're looking at a lot of the people that are not doing well with COVID 19, for example, they're having an over exaggerated immune response. So we need strategies that are going to help to modulate or balance our immune system. It's kind of like, you know, if you were to go and play darts with a blindfold on, that's kind of what's happening for a lot of people with their immune system. They're just throwing darts all over the place, but, you know, no real direction. And so what we want to do is provide direction for that. And one way we do that is helping balance our nervous system, our, our sympathetic and our parasympathetic nervous system. So creating more, you know, just a better parasympathetic tone. And we do that through, through breathing practices, right? Deep breathing, you know, so taking three to five minutes every hour and just really being intentional about breathing deep, long, deep breaths. The body knows it's not in a, you know, it's not, it's not in a survival state or it's not at threat. You know, there's nothing chasing us or anything like that. When you're breathing long, deep breaths. And so that can be a really powerful strategy. Being in a grateful state, you know, just being thankful for what you do have in your life. And I know a lot of people are being affected, the economy is being affected. There's a lot of negativity we could be focusing on, but we could also be focusing on what we're grateful for, right? That we have a home that we can stay in, that we have food that we have, hopefully toilet paper. Right? So, you know, we could be grateful about all of those things and then also spending time with people close to you, right? So hopefully you're not just living alone. If you are, certainly this wouldn't necessarily be a strategy. You can do. But you can reach out on the phone and maybe connect with people. But actually touching and holding people, even though we're talking about this whole social distancing, if you have a family and you have kids and you have a spouse or something like that, actually touching. So human touch releases oxytocin, which is one of the most powerful hormones and really helps ramp up parasympathetic tone. So actually just really gentle loving touch is really, really important. So kids, spouse, things like that. Now you can get the same oxytocin release by like me having a conversation with you right here. So just a good conversation with somebody that is in align, that's not obviously an adversarial conversation. Right. So good conversation, laughing.

Right.

Things like that all help boost oxytocin. So these are easy, free strategies that we can be doing to help improve our immune system. We could talk about a lot more, but I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Sasha. No, I definitely love everything that you're saying. The tone of the nervous system is so vital in determining if our body's healing, repairing, regenerating, or if it's in a state of breakdown. And I love that little tip of every hour, just take five minutes and reset and recalibrate your nervous system. And right now is a good time for us to be making long term decisions. And I know that when we're in our parasympathetic state, we're much more likely to make better long term decisions. When we're in a sympathetic dominant state, we're better at making short term decisions. And so right now, if we want a clear mind, if we want to dive a little bit deeper, lean into our health, which I think is really both of our messages, is how can we lean into our health so that it's our friend and not our foe. I think a lot of people are confused and scared right now because they don't have certainty in their health. You know, the people that you know who have been taking care of themselves all this time and have had the know how and have, have had the, have made the investment in their health, they seem to be less anxious and less worried about what's happening right now. And that's not to minimize what's going on. I certainly don't want to do that. But I do want people to know that you can also have way less anxiety and confidence if you know what you're doing. And everything that Dr. Thiokar shared with us is simple. It's free, it doesn't cost you anything. I Guess we need to make it sexy. That's what we need to do, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

So what are some tips that you advise your clients to get them to do this? Because I think that most people watching this probably are nodding their heads and saying, yeah, I know I need to do that, or they've probably even known they need to do it. But what do you think is a great way to motivate people and inspire them to actually get them to do it? Have you found any specific strategies that tend to work really well?

Well, I think number one is just really trying to understand our self worth.

Okay.

I think that's a really important thing. We can all get into addictive cycles. Okay. And in fact, my wife and I were just talking about this the other day. So sometimes it's like 9:30 at night, we finally get our kids down and then we're scrolling around on our phone. It's like, okay, I know I need to go to bed, but it feels good to be on my phone right now. And so it's kind of trying to identify any sort of addictive behaviors that are fine in moderation but need to be kept under control. Right. And because they can be sabotaging, they can self sabotage us. And so trying to really put boundaries on those things and then also writing out your goals. So writing out the kind of person you want to be, the kind of energy that you want to have, the kind of, you know, just the energy you want to bring on a day by day basis, who do you want to be and what does that look like? And then really visualizing that on a regular basis. So in the morning you read through the characteristics, the, you know, maybe you want to be an enthusiastic person, maybe you want to be, you know, an energetic person, an encourager, right? So you can write these things down and then look at them multiple times throughout the day. So that way it's just a reminder, hey, this is the person that I want to be. So what kind of behaviors do I need to have in order to be that person? Right? And so if you want to be an energized person, then you know, scrolling around on social media at 11:30 at night, not probably not a great idea, right? It's not going to help set you up for success. And so the more you're looking at those sorts of, you know, the more you're looking at these sort of affirmations or these characteristics that you want, that you want to model, right? That you want to be, that you want to represent you, the more that you're going to be in alignment, your behaviors are going to be in alignment with that. So I think that's a really good checkpoint. A lot of times we're just by default, the individuals that we are without putting any intentionality into it. And, you know, truly successful people in life are intentional about who they want to be. And they have practices. It's not like they were just born that way. They have actual daily rituals and practices that they follow in order to make sure that they're showing up the way that they want to show up. So I think that is super important.

Well, just to add to that, if I may, is that even though they have these intentional practices and conscious practices on a daily basis, I just want to emphasize that that doesn't mean that they love doing them.

Right.

So people think that, oh my God, like, I can't do that because I don't love doing it. Well, the reality is, is that they may not love doing it either, but they know it's one of the keys to success. And doing something, you know, just for a week may not be enough. It's doing it consistently over a period of time. And I think we have enough time right now that people are asked to be, you know, kind of cooped up in their homes or isolated from each other where they can create a daily practice. They can actually even. And even if they don't get their morning routine into the morning, what if they get it into the day?

Yeah, right.

And we can then collapse that timeline. So, hey, if you have a list of things you want to do, like meditate and affirmations and deep breathing exercises or singing or chanting, you know, you don't have to do it all in the morning. You can, you can expand it throughout the day, and then at the end of the day, you can kind of carefully evaluate, okay, what are the things that I actually need to work on and what are the things that I'm really doing good at, so you can kind of pat yourself on the back, but then you also have an idea of what to focus on later, either that day or the next day or looking forward into the week. So I love, I love the simplicity of this, and I love the paradigm shift that you're helping people create, which is understanding their self worth and behaving as if they're the person that they want to become. You know, one of the exercises I have my clients do is write down their perfect day, and there might be 30 things that they write down that qualify that for them. And as a result of that, they realize that, hey, of the 30 things I wrote down, I can do 25 of them tomorrow if I wanted to. And if that's what's required of you when you're functioning at your optimum and best, you're going to have to do it anyway. So let's start doing those 25 things now. And those other five things will start falling into place for you because they're predicated on those other things being done first. So simplicity is always, always the solution. Now, I know that you have so much that you offer. You know, I had a chance to go through your website and look into some of the amazing work that you're doing and you've created. You know, just some amazing courses. I know you just recently had a book that you released. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that because I think that, you know, it's very relevant right now. You know, really leaning into our diets and being conscientious and careful about what we eat. This is a. This is like a. As difficult as it might seem for some people, this is the best thing we could have ever asked for, if you view it that way. So tell us a little bit more about some of the courses you've created. And of course, let's talk about the book as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you're absolutely right that every tragedy really is an opportunity. And so there's a lot going on, a lot of people talking about health. And what we've got to realize is we're in control of our health. And our decisions are going to make the biggest impact in our health outcomes. And what we put in our body nutrition plays a huge role with that. And so when it comes to our immune system, we know that sugar and things that turn into sugar that really elevate our blood sugar, impair our immune system. So one of the ways that we get rid of viruses and pathogens is a process with one of our immune cells called our macrophages, where they go in and they eat other cells, right? So they eat viral infected cells and destroy them and they eat other pathogens. And that process is called phagocytosis, where they're eating them. And so we know that when basically all the macrophages have a certain phagocytic index, meaning their capability or their strength, their ability to break down damaged cells. Right? And so basically what happens when we eat sugar, processed foods, things like that, our blood sugar goes way up. And we know that a high blood sugar, a blood sugar of 120, actually reduces our phagocytic index by 75%. So we're only at 25% capacity when we have a blood sugar of 120. Now if you wake up in the morning and your blood sugar is 120, we call that pre diabetic. So diabetic would be over 126. Pre diabetic is roughly 100 to 125. And so you'd be a pre diabetic. So you may be out there, you may have prediabetes. In fact, it's one of the fastest growing conditions in our world today. Metabolic issues and prediabetes and diabetes, really fast growing issues. And we know that most of the people that are dying with COVID 19 or that have very severe cases, have comorbidities and diabetes is one of the most common. Diabetes, high blood pressure, different lung issues, copd, heart disease, these things all go together and they're the people that are at highest risk when it comes to, or they're in that same category of people that are at highest risk when it comes to having a severe issue with COVID 19. And so you may not have, you may have a good fasting blood sugar in the morning, and this is kind of another category of people. You may have a good fasting blood sugar in the morning, but then you eat a meal, you eat cereal for breakfast or oatmeal, even something that you know is considered healthy, and your blood sugar jumps up to 160, 180, you know, maybe even higher. I've had, I've seen people 200, 250 that didn't have prediabetes, right? And just blood sugar goes way up and it stays up for two or three hours. So during that period of time, your immune system is crippled. It's not at its full capacity. And then oftentimes you know your next meal, then you know your, eventually your blood sugar comes down, you're hungry, and oftentimes you have cravings for more sugar and starch. And so you continue to go through the cycle impairing your immune system. So one of the best things you can do is keep your blood sugar really stable. And the way that you do that is through a diet that's basically very low in carbohydrates, low in sugar and starch, high in healthy fats, things like olive oil, avocados, olives, butter, ideally grass fed butter, which is pretty, pretty easily available now, Kerrygold butter or something like that, coconut oil, coconut products, nuts and seeds, these are all healthy fats. You want to get good proteins. Protein is really important for your immune system. Fact, all your immune cells are basically proteins. And so we need good protein and so getting high quality. And you want to always. We always want to be thinking about getting food that has the maximal amount of nutrients and the minimal amount of toxins. And that's a really important consideration in today's society where we just have so many chemicals and these chemicals will reduce our immune resiliency. So try and do your best to get organic grass fed animal products. Especially because the animal products, if they're not organic, they're going to oftentimes have high levels of chemicals in them, sometimes antibiotics that will damage the immune system. So we want to avoid that. We want to try our best to get organic grass fed animal products and then using a lot of non starchy vegetables. So that's, you're going to be things like your cruciferous vegetables, great things for the immune system like onions and garlic and you know, celery, cucumbers, things like that, a lot of herbs, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, oregano, basil, sage, thyme, these things are all fantastic. They make your food smell good, taste good and they're great for the immune system. And so that's how you want to prioritize your diet. And there's actually a state you can get into called ketosis and ketosis is actually a metabolic state. So it's not really necessarily a diet. You can do it through dieting. You can also do it through fasting, intermittent fasting. And that's another great immune strategy, is to condense your eating window. So instead of eating right when you wake up in the morning and then, you know, finishing eating like maybe an hour before you go to sleep, like most people do, instead, what you want to do is only have food with calories, okay? So if it has calories, you keep that in a certain period of time, like for example, an eight hour window. So you might eat your meals between 10am and 6pm Okay? I like to do more of a four or six hour eating window. So I'll eat my meals today between 1 and probably 6, 6:30, okay? And that works great for me. And what that does is that keeps your insulin down, keeps your blood sugar really, really stable and allows your immune system to work really well. Because when you keep your insulin, which is a hormone that takes sugar out of the bloodstream and puts it into the cells, when you keep that down, you reduce inflammation in your body, you allow for better immunoregulation and you increase something called human growth hormone, which is one of the best simulators for good immune function. So intermittent fasting is really helpful. And you'll boost up these ketones. Okay, now you also do. You can also boost ketones through diet practices, right? Focusing on a lot of fats, keeping your carbohydrates really low. Right. And eating the foods I just talked about. And when you do that combination, ketones actually are really, really powerful for regulating your immune system. And in fact, there's something called our NLRP3 inflammasome. And we know with COVID 19 that one of the ways it causes widespread damage is when it activates this cell signaling pattern, the NLRP3, which works with this cytokine storm. And so we know that ketones are a natural inflammasome, neuroinflammazone, as well as the NLRP inflammasome inhibitor. So they actually inhibit it. So getting ketones elevated in your bloodstream is one powerful way to help basically modulate your immune system and allow it to work the way it's supposed to work, really effective and efficiently. And so my book, which you can see right behind me, the Keto Metabolic Breakthrough, is really a great book for helping people understand the benefits of getting into a state of metabolic ketosis and, and then transitioning your diet. So for many people who are eating a lot of very high carbohydrate diet, going immediately on a very low carbohydrate diet can be very stressful on the body. And so it's kind of like, you know, running a marathon. It's like somebody who's. Who's not regularly exercising, and then they go out and they try to run a marathon. They might be able to do it, but it's gonna be really, really painful, and they're gonna be sore for weeks, right? So this shows you a gentle approach to get your body into a state of metabolic ketosis and then how to cycle in and out of ketosis. Because really, our ancestors spent a lot of time in ketosis due to the fact that either food wasn't always available, so oftentimes they will go days without eating just because food wasn't available. They didn't have food storage and things like that. And what foods were available, Right. So during the winter season in northern climates, you really didn't have access to higher carbohydrate foods. And so they would be eating a very low carbohydrate diet. However, when food. When higher carbohydrate foods were available, like fruit or tubers or things like that, potatoes, you know, things like that, that they can pull out of the ground. Root vegetables, they would obviously be eating them. And so some sort of variation in our diet can be really, really helpful. And so in this book, I go through really how to cycle in strategically, nutrient dense forms of carbohydrates and what the benefits may be with that. But then also how to know where you feel best, right? As far as, you know, getting your body in that state of metabolic ketosis and then cycling in and out, how to balance your hormones, your adrenals, your thyroid, sex hormones, how all of that works together and how to balance those correctly. And then one other big thing I talk about in the book is your gut, right? Because we know the gut plays such an important role. You know, we've been talking about the immune system. The gut plays such a critical role. In fact, they say about 80% of your immune system really lives in your guts and your microbiome. And a lot of people have major issues like poor stomach acid production, bile release stomach acids necessary for breaking down protein, sterilizing your gut so pathogens can't get in, absorbing minerals, absorbing amino acids. Bile is really important for emulsifying fats as well as sterilizing the small intestine. So I go through a lot of strategies in the book on how to improve stomach acid levels, bile flow, pancreatic enzymes, so you can really optimize your digestion and improve your overall quality of life. So anyways, that's the book. It's full color, right? Lots of pictures. I also have a quiz that really helps you understand if you're having some sort of a plateau on your ketogenic journey. How, how to troubleshoot that, how to figure out what may be causing that and what areas to really lean into and help improve. So that's the book. I also have a online summit coming up. It is all about fasting, Best practices for intermittent fasting and extended fasting. So look out for that. We actually start promoting that next week. But I've interviewed 35 of the top experts in the world when it comes to intermittent fasting and extended fasting and the best strategies for doing that. I really think that fasting is the most ancient, inexpensive, and perhaps the most powerful healing tool known to mankind. You know, it's been, it's been practiced throughout, throughout history, since the beginning of mankind. And it's something that literally allows our body, allows the innate intelligence within us to become alive, right? So it removes interferences and allows our body to heal at a very, very deep level. And so it's something I'm really, really, really just excited about the potential of what fasting can do for mankind.

And, you know, it kind of fits into this philosophy that, you know, the greatest sign of sophistication is simplicity. So, you know, so then we ask ourselves, what's the simplest thing that we can do to unlock the sophistication of our body and remove that interference? Like you said, right. Sometimes the interference is the air we breathe or the water we drink. But a huge part of people's interference is their mindset and their nutrition. And often those two are very closely connected because the food that you're willing to put in your body is a reflection of your self worth. Right. Which is all associated with the mindset. So the two, the gut brain connection isn't just that physical connection through the vagus nerve and the microbes. There's also that emotional kind of spiritual connection between the two that are very closely related. And you know, just to kind of echo what you're saying, that we tell people the three most powerful tools that they can, that we can offer to them is stop eating. Right. Shut up and sleep.

I love it. Yeah, exactly, right.

If people could do that, which is absolutely free, then they're going to see leaps and bounds of vitality unlocking just by simply doing those things. And we see this in children. When children don't feel well, what do they do? They're quiet, they don't feel like eating anything as much as the parents want to feed them. And they go to sleep and they wake up the next day and they're like perfectly fine. Because the innate was able to do the work without the interference from the human. Right. The interesting thing that you also shared earlier, and I wanted to touch on, because it connects back to the book, is do you advise people to wear like a monitor of any sort so they can see how their blood sugar or ketone levels fluctuate throughout the day?

I think that's a really great strategy. You know, continuous blood glucose meter is fantastic. They're harder to get, but believe you need a medical prescription in order to have that inserted. But yeah, I've seen a lot of people that are using that are getting, you know, amazing changes because they're able to see, you know, and it's not always cookie cutter. What will elevate your blood sugar. For example, I always tell people, watch out if you're consuming something regularly and you notice that that increases cravings, right. Or you just see a big change in your energy a few hours later, more than likely causing a blood sugar swing and elevating your insulin levels.

Right.

So that's a really big thing. And you can actually see that and track that data on a continuous blood glucose meter so you can get those. And so for, you know, anybody that's, as a practitioner, certainly, certainly having that and utilizing that, especially with diabetic patients. Right. People that, you know that, that's really where I believe insurance covers it, you know, things like that. So. So that can be fantastic. And then also trying it out for yourself is great. Now, outside of that, you can do, like, there's a company called Keto Mojo where you can do blood ketone testing. And so the most popular form of ketone testing is urine testing, but it's not a very good form because basically in the beginning, when you first start going into ketosis, you're not going to be very good at utilizing the ketones for energy, and so you'll end up urinating them out. So a lot of people will say within a day or two, they see high ketones, ketones on their urine strip and they think they're in ketosis, but they're actually not. Their body's not using the ketones for energy, it's just urinating them out. And then as they actually start to use them for energy, they. They start to see low to moderate levels on the urine strip and they think something's wrong. But actually, they're now, now starting to become more efficient and use those. The blood meter will actually track your beta hydroxybutyrate, which is your main ketone that you're using for energy. Okay. And so basically, that's really the best way. There's also breath measurements as well that you can look at that are a little less invasive. Okay. Accuracy on those, probably not quite as good as the beta hydroxybutyrate, the blood measurement that's considered the gold standard. And typically, the way that you know you're in nutritional ketosis from a testing standpoint would be your blood ketones would be between 0.5 millimoles. And typically, unless you're doing an extended fast or taking exogenous ketones, you're not going to get your ketones up much more than 3.0.

Right.

So usually that's in that nutritional ketosis state. If you're doing extended fast, you may see them get up to around 7 or 8. That's not dangerous. Ketoacidosis is a dangerous condition where you have very high blood sugar and high ketones. So your blood sugar might be 3 or 400 and you would have high ketones around 20. Okay. And that can be a very dangerous state. And that's really in an uncontrolled, unmanaged, type 1 diabetic is where you're going to see that, where they're, they just are not able to produce any insulin and get the sugar into the cells. Right. That's really the case there. So that's really the best way to test as far as the blood measurement. Now, the way that you can know just subjectively is that you just feel very energized, very mentally clear. Okay. And you can go long periods of time without food and you don't see any change in your energy and your mental clarity.

Okay.

If you're running off of sugar, if you are a sugar burner and not able to use ketones for energy, okay. After about four or five hours between meals, you'll oftentimes notice your energy will go down. Sometimes you'll notice that you feel irritable, you have anxiety, maybe headaches, nausea, different issues like that. You just notice you have noticeable issues. That's a sign that you're not in ketosis. So you should naturally, you know, just feel great between meals, not have strong cravings. I always tell people I don't actually get hungry until I start eating. Like, when I start eating, it tells my body, okay, it's eating time. Now let's make sure we get a lot of calories in. But I can go very long periods, 24 hours without food and not really have to even think about it. And that's a sign that my body's very good at utilizing these ketones for energy. And that's freedom, you know, because I don't have to rely. I mean, when I travel, I always fast. I don't have to rely on always having food around. Right. And it also helps with our parasympathetic tone too, because really, ultimately we only want to be eating when we're in a relaxed state. Because eating is very energy demanding. We need to produce a lot of stomach acid, bile and pancreatic enzymes. And for constantly, if we need to eat every three or four hours, we're going to end up eating on the go a lot. And that is terrible for our digestive system. We're not going to be able to digest food effectively. We're going to create more inflammation in our gut, more inflammation in our body, and you know, it's going to be problematic. So it's much better to do something like two, maybe three eating times a day. Okay. Depending on who you are. But also taking time to take some deep breaths, be in a relaxed state before you do consume that food. And that, that's going to really help with your digestion. It's also going to help with your blood sugar when you're eating on the go. We tend to see much higher postprandial or higher blood sugar spikes after the meal too. It's much better to be in a relaxed state when you go ahead and do eat.

You know, we've had in Canada here the blood sugar monitors. You can order them online for yourself so you don't need a prescription. And we've had a few of our clients ask for one for their parent. The parent has uncontrolled diabetes or blood sugar medication, just keeps going up and no end in sight. And of course my friend was trying to coach her father and how to eat healthier, wouldn't listen to her. She slapped the device on him and he gamified the process. By the end of the week he was no longer diabetic. So he realized he was eating himself into the condition and we didn't have to do any coaching. He self regulated, self coached and he flatlined his blood sugar in a good way obviously and stabilized it himself. Another thing that we noticed is pay attention if somebody's wearing one of these to pay attention to what happens when they're stressed out, what happens when they're watching tv, what happens when they're answering their emails, what happens when they're going into the office. You know, certain forms of light can be very stimulating and release cortisol. Our stressors when we're stressed out or how we perceive a situation of course can raise cortisol. And cortisol's one of its main functions is to raise blood sugar in the body so it's not just food because there's sometimes people are eating a perfect diet but they can't get their blood sugars down and it's because of this chronic low grade stress or inflammation that they haven't dealt with that's contributing to that. And the monitors are great at helping indicate that for people.

Yeah, that is fantastic. I'm glad they're doing that in Canada. Hopefully that will trickle down to the United States where it'll be easier people to get them because getting that continuous feedback is so powerful. Right. That biofeedback to just understand what's happening. And like you said, stress plays such an important role and sometimes you have food sensitivities. Right. So people always ask me, can I drink coffee when I'm fasting? Right. That's one of the most common questions I get. My answer is this. If you drink coffee, you should feel amazing after drinking coffee. If you drink coffee and a few hours later you notice you have more cravings, you're more irritable, you have more anxiety, joint pain, things like that, it's all a sign that your body's not reacting well to it. And something like a continuous blood glucose meter may be able to track that as well.

Right.

But then also, just listening to your body, I think, is also a very important thing as well. Just listening to your body and asking yourself, you know, how you're feeling with the foods that you're consuming, with the actions that you're taking, trying to really identify and isolate certain things that you know are affecting your mood, are affecting your hunger, your appetite, your cravings, affecting your mental clarity, things like that. And doing your best to try to minimize those, like you said, lights, different things like that. Yep.

I love, I love how our philosophies are very much in alignment with one another's. And you know, people who are listening to this, I hope you're absorbing, absorbing and becoming aware of this simplicity, taking care of yourself. We haven't really talked about what to take. We've talked about food, we've talked about what not to eat, certainly we've talked about certain foods that you should be eating and incorporating. We've talked about balancing blood sugar. We've talked about simple breathing techniques and the consistency. We've talked about self worth. We've talked about all these things that you can do that cost you absolutely nothing, that you can teach your spouse or your children how to do and arm them and equip them, them with a very powerful tool for them to heal. You know, Doc, I know you and I probably both agree very strongly with this, is that health is not just wealth, it's everything. And you know, it's not just a financial legacy that we pass on to our children. What's more important is the health legacy that we pass on to them. And we're starting to realize that no matter how much money you have, there is nothing that can buy health. You've got to work for it, you've got to earn it, you've got to go after it. And the other thing too is that nobody can take that away from you unless you let them take that away from you. So it's this very powerful tool that we have. And I believe that in the future, and I used to say five years, but I think we're going to See this very relevant right now. Within the next six months, your greatest asset is going to be your health. Because if you don't have good health, especially in this new world that's kind of emerging, then you're not going to be able to have a career. Right. If you don't have good health, you can't be in public anymore. Almost. Right. It seems that, that way. So, and we don't know how long this is going to last for. And you know, just quarantining yourself in your house isn't magically going to make you healthy. This is your chance to do the work, to lean into your health, to lean into these simple strategies. And then doc, I'd love to talk a little bit more about perhaps what nutritional support products people can take to, you know, superfoods or things like that that they can take that can add into the mix as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, I'm in total agreement with you. I think that the idea of just running away from pathogens is, you know, that that idea is a victim based mindset rather than kind of an empowering mindset. Really strengthening our body and our immune system is a muscle. So it actually needs challenges in order to grow and get stronger, just like exercise, you know, so when we exercise we're actually creating damage to our muscle tissues. But if we recover properly, get enough rest, get the nutrients we need, then we recover and we get stronger and we get more physically resilient. And on top of that, you know, when we, we also get emotionally and mentally more resilient when we exercise and things like that. And so really being exposed to microbes helps us build more resilience. Okay, now there's, there's an appropriate level in understanding if you are immunocompromised. You know, practicing social distancing can be, can be helpful there. But we also need to realize that you can't, you know, this infection, for example, you know, research just came out in the uk, or at least the epidemiologist in the uk can't remember his name, but he just came out and said that he believes that 50% of the UK has already been exposed to COVID 19. Okay, so reality is, even with social distancing, you're going to get infected with this at some level, at some point. And so we've got to really start now to improve your life and your health. And so eating really good foods, we talked about some of them, onions, garlic, a lot of the herbs, basil, oregano, turmeric, rosemary. So these types of things I Always tell people your meals. When you consume meals, they should really smell great, should be very, very aromatic. And just smelling them like that will help stimulate your stomach acid, pancreatic enzymes, your bile flow. And you know that those herbs are packed full of nutrients to help support your immune system. So these are all from plants. And plants basically have to, you know, weather the storm of tons of pathogens on a regular basis. And then we take in those compounds and they confer those benefits to us and make us more resilient. So getting a lot of those types of herbs can be really, really helpful from a supplement perspective. You know, I'm a big fan of vitamin D, so most people are very deficient in that. If you're able to get a lot of good sun exposure, then that's great. That will really help optimize your vitamin D. It's so much better than getting a supplement. However, most people just need, they need more vitamin D. They're not, we're, we're living indoors, okay? We're not getting out, we're not sunbathing on a regular basis. So getting a good, high quality vitamin D3 supplement be really important. That helps to modulate your immune system. And I know in the natural health world, we oftentimes use terms like immune boosting, okay? But really we should be talking about immune balancing because, you know, even somebody that's. Unless you've got a genetic condition, you know, a lot of people are dying from COVID 19. Their immune system is overreacting, right? So we don't necessarily want to boost it. We actually want to balance it and modulate it. So their immune system itself, that's scarring up their lungs, creating pulmonary fibrosis. And so we want to balance that immune system to make it more efficient and effective. Vitamin D is one of the best things for that. Zinc can be really helpful for that vitamin C. So I tell people when, if you're trying to be preventative, like in a cold and flu season, taking something like 500 milligrams to a gram twice a day can be really good with vitamin C. And then if you're feeling symptomatic, taking something like three to five grams, three to five times a day or until bowel tolerance, meaning that if you take too much vitamin C, you end up getting loose stools, right? So if you take, if that happens, you back down, right? But just loading that vitamin C is powerful because all those macrophages with white blood cells really depend on that vitamin C in order to handle more oxidative stress. It Actually makes them more resilient. And when we don't have that, they're not very resilient. They're very weak in their attack. So have you found.

I'm sorry, not to interrupt, but on the vitamin C topic, have you found that when people are sufficient with vitamin D or hyperdosing vitamin. Vitamin C. I'm sorry, that they crave sugar less?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yep.

So a lot of times with vitamin C, people will just notice that they have more energy. You know, vitamin C plays a role with adrenal function, also helps with sleep, believe it or not, too. So it plays a role with. With that. And yeah, absolutely. They can have less sugar cravings as well. So I have noticed that insulin is needed in order to get vitamin C and glucose into the cell. And actually they compete. Glucose has a greater affinity for getting into the cell than vitamin C. So this is why when your blood sugar is high, you lose. Your phagocytic index goes down because your white blood cells aren't able to get the vitamin C that they need. So when you load up the vitamin C, you obviously help enhance those white blood cells and their ability to withstand the attack from different pathogens. Right. And actually be able to eat those pathogens. So real powerful from that perspective. And then there's a lot of great, great compounds like quercetin, resveratrol, which are both really, really good. So we know that with COVID 19, for example, one way it gets into the cell through this ACE2 inhibitor, this ACE2 receptor on the cell. It's called an angiotensin converting enzyme receptor. And then it causes a major imbalance with your urine and angiotensin system, which can cause high blood pressure and issues like that, trouble breathing. And so vitamin D helps modulate that. Quercetin also very, very effective for helping modulate that. That quercetin helps it from the virus from actually getting into the cell. Right. So with the ACE2 receptor. So that really helps with that. That component of it, resveratrol also is another great compound that that helps. And then you've got things that are just good at immune modulating.

Okay.

There's a lot of talk about elderberry online. People are thinking that elderberry increases cytokine storm, so you'd want to avoid that. But actually, the research shows that elderberry is immunomodulatory. So although any. Everybody can have. Everybody has the right to have a poor reaction to any herb or supplement.

Okay.

So there's no, you know, one size fits all for everybody. So you always Want to be cautious when you first begin a supplement, especially if you have a history of food allergies or food sensitivities. You know, if you have an allergy to peanuts, for example, you'd want to be careful as you start to add in things, right. And just be observant. But most people respond really well to elderberry. It's one of the best things for helping reduce your viral load. Right. So that can help. Echinacea is another really good one that can help. Goldenseal can help. Or any sort of berberine compound can be very, very helpful as well. And trying to think about probiotics, right? So probiotics, doing things to help support the gut can be really, really helpful. And let's see, wormwood actually really another really good one. Antiviral, antibacterial, anti, parasitic. Right. So another really, really great compound that can be used, you know, pretty much all of your anti inflammatory type of agents. Proteolytic enzymes can be helpful. So that would be things like bromelain or other proteolytic enzymes. Seratopeptidase would be another one that can be really helpful for the immune system. So pretty much just about all of those right there. And we can get some of those in food like quercetin we find in onions. Right. However, to get really high doses, we're definitely going to want to take supplements in order to do that.

Yeah, I love that. So where can people learn more about where to get high quality supplements or you know, what are some good things for people to look for when they're reading labels? Because I think supplement sales are probably at an all time high right now. And I know we talked about this, you've seen a significant uptick because people are pretty primed to take better care of themselves. That's right, because people are buying supplements and because we're listing names and things that people should be taking, I'd love to know what people should look for on the label, what are some red flags that they should try to avoid. And then I'd love to know where people can go on your, on your site and find out more information.

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, I definitely have a bias towards professional brands because we know that the batches have been tested for pure, for purity and also for efficacy. Meaning that, you know, anybody can do a test once on a batch of supplements and then that's it and just say, okay, this is, you know what's in there and that's it. But not get future batches tested and also not really be Able not really follow the shelf life, the appropriate shelf life on supplements. A lot of times this happens in the supplement world. And so I actually go with brands that test. They have a third party come in and test every single batch to make sure that they're pure. So they test for heavy metals. They're non gmo, which is very important because a lot of supplements have corn derivatives in them and corn is highly spray. You know, most, most corn production is genetically modified. They have Bt toxin in them that, that can damage the gut microbiome. And so, um, so you want to make sure it's non gmo. You want to make sure also that your supplements are gluten free too. And a lot of supplements also will have some level of gluten or wheat in a binder, so you want to make sure of that as well. And so your supplement should say free of, you know, wheat, corn, this and that. Right. Non gmo. Right. Should be on there as well. And some supplements will use corn.

Right.

But they're non GMO forms. Okay. Unless you have an allergy, that should be totally safe and fine. You just want to make sure it says non GMO on there and third party tested. Right. So, and that again, that means that it's being tested for purity, but then also efficacy, meaning that that batch has actually been tested to be, to produce the response that you want to have. Right. It's got the amount, the clinical dose of whatever the main ingredient, whatever the active ingredient is, and that it's going to be effective.

Right.

So that's what you're looking for there. And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of supplements out there that you can go that are not doing those things. And so, so professional brands are always the best thing. And the way you find professional brands is you look for brands that really market to doctors. Right. Or doctors own professional brands. So if you resonate with a particular doctor, maybe it's your doctor or somebody that you read a lot online, most likely they've got, you know, good professional brands that they're utilizing because their reputation's on the line and they want to make sure their products are safe and effective and they're using them one on one with clients that, you know, are typically very, very sick. And so they've got to make sure that those, those supplements that they're utilizing with them are going to get the results that they need.

Absolutely. Very well said and thanks for those insights because I want to make sure that, you know, buyer beware. Right? That's the thing. Like we want people using high quality products because especially if it's their first time using something, because we want them to know that these things actually do work. If you buy something that has allergens in it, or binders and fillers that now your immune system is going to react to things it's never seen before, may not know how to respond to it, and it could be a negative response versus products that don't contain some of these things. And you talked about it earlier. You said, you know, with food specifically, you want to eat food that's as clean as possible and has as little toxicity as possible. Same thing with supplements. You want supplements that have the highest quality ingredients as possible without any of the binders and fillers and things that can create an adverse response for some people. Doc, you've been so generous with your time, so generous with your knowledge. This has been a very enlightening interview. I know for many, including myself. And I just really love the, the message that you have, the simplicity of the message, the level of integrity and all the information that you put out there@drjockers.com is fantastic. It's so easy to read. You know, we're actually, truth be told, in the process of redesigning our website and yours has provided us with a lot of inspiration because it's so easy for the average person to read and follow. And there's lots of great infographics, great shareables, you know, great resource for family and friends to go to. So I'm excited to send some traffic your way and get that great information in front of as many people as possible. So thank you again.

Well, thank you, Sasha, and I really appreciate that and I want to acknowledge you for what you're doing, just really getting this information out and helping so many people and so many practitioners be able to put it into action.

Well, thank you, my friend. It's been such an honor and pleasure and I look forward to continued conversations between us.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Bye for now.