Medicinal Mushrooms with Sachin Patel

Today I speak with Sachin Patel from the Living Proof Institute. And today's conversation really can be broken down into two different topics. I guess we start today by discussing, I guess Sachin's philosophy of living in optimal health and living an authentic life. We do touch on the fundamentals of health, the importance of sleep and the importance of time restricted feeding as examples. But he goes much deeper into our thinking, into our emotional well being and into our overall energetic state. And it starts to touch on topics we've discussed before on the podcast, such as coherence, a term that I became familiar with via the Institute for Heartmath, for example. But the second part of today's conversation is all on medicinal mushrooms. And I think Sachin does an amazing job at breaking this down, discussing why they are so powerful when we might want to be using them, and in some ways really makes an argument for their general usage if we are interested in optimal health and sustained performance. So I really hope you enjoyed today's episode. I certainly enjoyed listening to Sachin and as you will be able to tell, because I really don't say much in today's episode, I let him do his thing. So as I say, I hope you enjoy it. Guys, any feedback? As always, please do reach out and I'll be back next week with another episode. Okay, well, Sachin, would you be happy to share with our listeners a little bit about your background for those who aren't familiar with your work?

Sure, sure. Well, first of all, Alex, thanks for having me here today. I really appreciate the opportunity to shed some light on what we both agree are very important topics, which is patient empowerment and self care and getting people to become their own best doctors. So a little bit about me. I'm trained as a chiropractor and so my philosophical training and even just my belief system and value system has always been around the idea that the body can heal. In fact, I, I really don't know what else can heal us except us. And what I am learning over the years is that no matter what supplements I give somebody, no matter what medications somebody is on, no matter what else they're doing to try to get healthy, it really starts with us. And so most people are conditioned to think that health starts outside of them, whereas I believe health starts on the inside. And not just on the inside of the body, but the inside of the mind also makes a big difference. And most people's minds are hijacked by the media and they're hijacked by pharmaceutical companies or marketing companies that are trying to get up into this trillion dollar asset that we all have. And so my journey over the years, I started off working as a sports chiropractor, working with elite athletes. And I thought I had my dream job until I was on the news in a good way. They did a story about me on elbow pain, specifically tennis elbow and golfer's elbow. We were helping people with a technique called active release technique. And as a result of being on the news, we had a whole bunch of people call the office and, and only one of them out of 80 that called had elbow pain. The rest of them had chronic debilitating health issues like fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, you know, headaches. I had a guy who was taking 16 Tylenol every day for 10 years. So it was like literally thousands of Tylenol. I don't know how this guy was still alive. He was 50, he looked like he was 80. So he was definitely not, you know, definitely not the fountain of youth in those Tylenol pills. So, you know, I went from seeing really, really healthy, high performing athletes to overnight, pretty much seeing some of the sickest people in my community. And, and I felt gutted when I didn't have a solution for them. But I felt even more gutted when I didn't know where to send them, because that was the other thing. There's nowhere to send these people because they're coming from their specialists, they're coming from their medical doctors, they've tried all the drugs. I went home and I talked to my wife, who's a pharmacist, and she's like, well, they're taking all the right stuff from a pharmaceutical perspective, but they felt terrible. And that's when I started looking into alternative options. I feel everything happens for a reason. And I, you know, I was not, I was not going to commit myself to, you know, just letting these people go and having them figure it out on their own. Because what I realized at that time, and this is the entrepreneur in me kicking in, is that, hey, there's people with a problem and nobody's providing a solution. So that means there's an opportunity, an opportunity to make a difference in people's lives and an opportunity to do something meaningful as well as, you know, maybe there's a business opportunity in this as well. So I started doing some research to figure out who else was helping people like this. Maybe not in my town in Cincinnati at the time, but who around the world was helping people with these type of problems. And serendipitously, I Started getting emails from Ron Grisanti, who would later become my clinical mentor. And he was sharing case studies of how he was helping people with things like PCOS and fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis and chronic digestive issues, which is exactly what I started seeing as a result of being on that news report. So started following him, and then he offered a training program. And I actually graduated from that training program as one of the first students ever to go through his online training course. And when I learned this information, I didn't know I was going to switch careers. I didn't know I was going to switch the trajectory of my practice. But once you learn this stuff, you can't unlearn it. And the person I was working for at the time really was focused on soft tissue care. And that's what she knew, and that's what was familiar to her. And bless her heart, she wanted to stay in that direction. And I said, you know what? We can do that, but we can add so much more on top. But some people just want to stay where they're at and offer what they're familiar with. So that prompted me to try to look for a different opportunity. And that's when I started practicing for another company. And I was doing performance chiropractic care in combination with functional medicine. And we were inside a gym, and we're getting amazing results with people. And then, you know, kind of outgrew that opportunity and started the Living Proof Institute. And since then, I've been 100% focused on functional medicine, you know, proving clinically that it works, which we know it does. And what I learned as a practitioner is the less I did and the more I got my patients to do, the better the results were. So I started learning about, you know, the lifestyle and environmental and emotional factors that contribute to one's health, or, you know, if these things aren't in alignment, they can contribute to one's illness. And so then our mission changed. You know, instead of getting people to try to come in and see us, we realized, hey, there's certain things that we're telling everybody to do, and they're not doing them. So what if we got them to do these things before they came and saw us? And many people who started doing the foundational things like going to bed, intermittent fasting, you know, getting outside in nature, you, you know, re establishing healthy relationships, laughing more. The stuff that it means to be human, when they started becoming human again, they started enjoying better health again. But when they were acting as robots, right in our kind of, you know, almost like mentally enslaving world that we live in, you know, they were getting sick and so, you know, the solutions that were being offered to them weren't providing a solution because we are ultimately that solution. So our mantra is, you know, we're going to do whatever it takes to keep you out of our office. But if you do come in, we're not going to cut any corners. We're going to find out what's going on, get to the root cause, but more importantly, empower you. Because, you know, here's the thing, getting to the root cause is one thing, but the reason a lot of people develop chronic illnesses is because they have low resilience. And it's the low resilience created by their environment and lifestyle and mindset that predispose them to that issue. Right? So, you know, maybe some of your listeners are familiar with some of these concepts and they might sound a little out there, but everything is energy and energy is everything. So when somebody's vibrating at a low frequency, they attract low frequency situations, low frequency bacteria and parasites. But when you're healthy, you're attracting amazing circumstances into your life, you're creating an amazing reality for yourself. And you know, a lot of times bacteria and parasites and things like that are not attracted to that low energy, that low vibration. So what we realized is if we can get people's vibrational energy up, which means how are you connecting with nature? What type of foods are you eating? How happy are you? What's the state of your emotional health and what's your worldview? Are you abundance minded or are you scarcity minded? When we started uncoiling some of these things and started changing some of these parameters, we started getting way better results for our patients. Whether we call that an energetic vibration or just biology, it doesn't really matter. But we know that when people are healthier, they're more resilient. So our goal is to really just build resilient human beings because we believe then when people are resilient and healthy and vibrating at their highest frequency, they're able to do better for themselves, but they're also able to do good for the world. So we're trying to create a better world through healthier people.

Brilliant. Wow. Yeah. I think there are two really big things there. I think one, the topic of the fact that we are energy. I recently read Dr. Joe Dispenser's book, I think Becoming Superhuman, which kind of blew my mind a little bit. But this idea of resilience as well, it was something I was going to just bring up before you mentioned that term. I read a great paper recently which really compared resiliency to immunity in the sense that it was talking about acquired resilience and this idea that actually we need that little bit of stress exposure. And you've already mentioned it, time outside with sun exposure, time restricted, feeding exercise. Another one they spoke about was temperature differentiation essentially. So cold exposure and hot exposure. And I think it's such a critical point. And I guess a question that came from what you mentioned there was.

How.

Did your clients experience this sort of transition that you were going through? Were they kind of really open to some of these concepts or were some of them a little bit shut down? Maybe because a little bit of it, for want of a better term, is a little bit left field at this point in time.

Well, you know, we can make a mathematical argument to prove everything that I'm talking about. One of the videos that we show our clients is a video on cymatics. So I don't know if you are familiar with that concept, but basically, I mean, this will blow your mind. And I'll just go through it because it's super, super relevant. So if you put sand on a flat plate and you vibrate it, the sand is going to organize itself in a very predictable way. But as you change the frequency, the shape starts to change, right? So it's perfectly symmetrical, but the shape starts to change. And going from one frequency to the next, when the shape changes, it's almost impossible to predict, you know, how that shape is going to look. Okay, so it's predictable at a specific frequency, but if you don't know what's coming next, it's almost impossible to guess. And so as you increase frequency, so as the pitch gets higher or as a frequency gets higher, the complexity of the shape actually gets increases as well. So you get more and more complex designs that are forming on this plate. So what you can conclude, you know, there's certain frequencies we can hear and certain we can't hear. So we, the human ear can pick up between 20Hz and 20,000Hz. So anything vibrating at above 20,000Hz, we're not going to hear it. Right? Dogs can hear high pitched sounds, but human beings can't because we're just not tuned to those frequencies. And if we could hear everything, we would hear nothing. Right. Just like if we could see everything, we would be blinded because there's so many things that are not in our visible spectrum. So it's actually beneficial for Us, because it would drive us nuts if we could hear every frequency. We hear the earth breathing. So the beautiful thing about this understanding is that as you increase complexity, you increase. As you increase frequency, you increase complexity. So then the question becomes, okay, what's the most complex structure in the entire universe? Well, it's the human mind. So mathematically, the human mind is vibrating at the highest frequency as well. And frequencies, as we just proved with cymatics, organize matter, right? So a certain frequency sent through a certain piece of matter can organize the shape of the sand in a predictable way. So literally, our thoughts, which is the highest frequency that we produce as human beings, can shape our material reality. So you can literally build the world around you if you wanted to. And this is the power of the mind that most people don't know. And this is why a lot of marketing that's done is to create awareness. So think about it this way. The more awareness we create around cancer, the more cancer we create, because now we're actually weaponizing people's minds to create that reality. Okay, so if I tell you not to think of a white elephant, well, what are you thinking about right now? Right, right. You're thinking of a white elephant. And in fact, you can't help it. So the mind is actually. The mind works like a computer. So if I want a blue dot to show up on my computer screen, I don't tell them the computer every other color. I don't want it to show up. Right. I tell it exactly what I want it to do. So the mind works the same way. If you want to create your perfect reality, well, that. That reality has to be something you think about constantly, not just something you think about periodically. Because when you're thinking of something else, you're creating something else. But if you're thinking of that one thing or that circumstance or that car that you want to get, or, you know, that. That weight rack you want to get, or, you know, whatever it is or that house you want to buy, all you do, if all you do is think about that, it will show up in your life because your brain has that capability. But most people, you know, their thoughts are transient, or they don't even think that they have the capability to create, you know, their reality. So a simple example. I give patients. And, you know, I tell. I do this in my workshops that I do now because I don't see patients anymore. But I'll tell people. Listen, pull out your cell phone, and I want you to text three people that pop into your mind. And I just Want you to say, hey, I was meditating and thinking of you. Wanted to check in and see how you're doing. And eight times out of 10, people will respond and say, you know what? That's amazing or crazy. I was just thinking about you. There's times where pick up my phone, and this was before I was awake, I would pick up my phone and my wife to call my wife, and she'd be calling me, and I'd answer the phone and be like, oh, my God, that's crazy. I was just about to call you. And so if you see what I did there in the past, I would say, that's crazy. So I would attribute it to complete fluke. Whereas, no, I was actually picking up the phone to call her, and she was picking up the phone. She already dialed me. So we were in synchronicity with one another. And this happens a lot more times than we might be even. It's kind of scary when we admit how often it actually happens. Also with emails, right? So you're about to fire off an email, you log in, and somebody's already sent you an email, and it could be somebody completely random that just popped into your head. And so, you know, we are far more connected than most people realize. And the capabilities of our mind. You know, they say that in this 20th, 21st century that the capabilities of the human mind are going to be the greatest discovery. The discoveries aren't going to be outside of us. It's going to be this internal revolution that takes place where the mind is now, you know, a tool instead of being weaponized against us. I mean, think about it. Your mind is so powerful. That's why companies spend billions of dollars to try to get into it.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's. It ties in, I guess, with some of the work by the Institute for Heartmath in regards to our frequency, our electric magnetic fields, and how that can have an impact on our patients, whether it's supporting them in clinic, face to face, or I guess, even over something like a Skype consultation. That energetic dance that takes place ultimately.

Well, you know, the thing with HeartMath, which. I love it, you know, you can actually speak to your heart. How cool is that? So when we get into a, you know, coherence pattern, we're essentially going into a parasympathetic state. And it's in a parasympathetic state that all healing takes place. So if I give you a supplement, let's say I give you magnesium, but you're sympathetic, dominant. Well, you're going to use that magnesium to burn up blood glucose in the cell and in the mitochondria, Right? But if I give you magnesium and your parasympathetic dominance, well, now we're going to have better peristalsis, we're going to have better dilation of your blood vessels. You're going to use that same nutrient, that same hardware differently based on the state of your physiology. So most people are sympathetic dominant. And that's why we see a lot of diseases developing in the immune system, in the liver, in the kidneys, in the digestive tract, in the reproductive organs. It's because we're actually not even sending blood to those organs anymore as much as we used to. So when people are sympathetic dominant, they're sending blood to their arms and legs, and that blood comes from their trunk, Right? And just something to write down for people is where you send flow, is where you send function. So if I want to send more function to my liver, I don't just take more supplements for liver function. I actually have to send blood to it. And the only way to do that is to be in a parasympathetic state at rest, over 50% of your blood flow goes to your liver and kidneys. When you're in a stress state, it's less than 10%. So you have a significant decrease in blood flow to these organs that do such important things. And all of these people that are seeing functional medicine, doctors, they want better digestion. They have toxins in their body, so they want to detoxify better, they want better immune health, they want better or less permeability of their digestive system. So all of these things are dependent on being in a parasympathetic state. If you study other mammals in nature, and I'm not talking about watching nature documentaries, because they only show the exciting stuff in nature documentaries, the sympathetic stuff in nature documentaries. And that's part of deep conditioning to make us think that we're always supposed to be like that, on edge all the time. So it's an unconscious programming that takes place. And that's why even watching shows like this with your young children will embed that into them. So they'll think that you have to be like this all the time. But if you ever go to the zoo, what's the lion doing? They're just freaking sitting around doing nothing, right? It's like you're, like, bored to tears watching these animals who have the same nervous system as you do, right? But they're parasympathetic dominant. And because of that they're digesting. Because of that, their immune system is resilient. Because of that, they maintain healthy gut microbiome. Because of that, they also maintain intestinal barrier integrity. They maintain healthy reproductive health. They maintain healthy blood sugar levels and decreased insulin. You know, they have better insulin sensitivity. So all the things that we want to do to heal our patients require parasympathetic stature. And this is why, you know, sleep is so beneficial, because sleep is one of the most parasympathetic things that you can do, right? When you sleep, that's when you're sending blood to all these trunk organs. You're obviously not sending it to your arms and legs. So that's why one of the first things we work on with clients is getting them to sleep. If you're not sleeping, you're not healing, and that means you're wasting your time and money with us. So let's get you sleeping better. Let's get you resting, get you more parasympathetic. Let's spend those eight hours in as deep of a sleep as possible so that you can rest and recover. And sleep is pleomorphic. So there's so many benefits from a good night's rest, right? There isn't a single supplement that you can take, even if you took a whole cabinet full of supplements. There's nothing more powerful than sleep. And so getting natural sleep is super important. And how do you get healthy sleep? Well, it starts by spending time outdoors, right? So it starts by exercising a little bit more and staying active. It starts by limiting your exposure to artificial light, right? It starts by making sure that you're not super stressed out. Because when we're stressed, we don't sleep properly. Having some sort of tool to dump your mind, for example, even if you just have a whiteboard by your bed or a journal by your bed, you can dump your thoughts or the things that you have to remember for tomorrow and just relax your mind and get parasympathetic. Another thing that's parasympathetic is fasting. So when we don't eat, we're not spending all this energy trying to detox the meal that we just had. The liver has to filter. And I know we don't really like to call it a filter, but let's just call it that for now. But the liver has to process everything. Let's call it a processing plant in order to make stomach acid. Requires a lot of energy every time you eat a meal, whether it's healthy or not, it's like a million people Showing up at the border. So whether they're a threat to the border or not is irrelevant because you still have to process them, right? So every time you eat, you have an immune response or some sort of inflammatory response. And so when we cut back and restrict calories in a positive way through intermittent fasting or time restricted feeding, then what happens is people can actually heal more. Right? We're not just adding piling more onto the organs, plates in order for them to, you know, process that food because they're Busy doing work 24 7. Right. And every time we eat, we're just adding more stress on those systems. And this is why, like, you know, one of the things we'll tell people who come in with autoimmune disease, you know, the first thing they ask us is, what should I eat? Well, the real question that they should be asking is how long should I not be eating for? And so, you know, we want to then, you know, put them on an intermittent fast, like a 16, 8 fasting routine where they're not eating for 16 hours and they're eating in an eight hour window. Or we might even have people do a three day water fast if they're capable of it. Because, you know, what we're doing when we're fasting them is we're getting rid of all those inflammatory proteins. Okay. So, you know, going back to being, going back to being parasympathetic dominant. When you're parasympathetic dominant, then you're making more stomach acid, which means that you're killing the bacteria and viruses that would normally go through you if you didn't have adequate stomach acid. But stomach acid also helps you digest your protein. And so it's undigested proteins and intestinal permeability or leaky gut that allows those proteins to cross that barrier. And then the immune system is doing its job, it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do, which is attack these proteins. Sometimes these proteins are going to look like our own tissues, right? So for example, gluten looks almost identical to our thyroid tissue and the cerebellum. This is why people who have gluten sensitivity or permeability of their gut and if they eat gluten, they're going to have thyroid issues or they're going to have cerebellar issues. So when we eat these proteins and we don't digest them properly because we're eating in a stressful state, which is how most people eat, it just predisposes us to these foreign proteins coming in and so by not eating for three days, with no new proteins coming into the body, the immune system, digestive system, liver, kidneys and everything has a chance to actually heal and repair and regenerate itself. And it's amazing the shift that we see, like if somebody has ra, like that's the first thing they should do is just fast. And there's a easier way that they can fast. We have a fast that we do. It's basically maple syrup, lemon juice, squeeze of lemon juice and green tea. And what that does is the maple syrup keeps your blood sugar level stable. So you're not going to have these up and down spikes as you're fasting. So for the beginner fasters, they feel amazing because their blood sugar levels are rock solid the entire time. So you're sipping this drink for every 10 minutes or so, 15 mils, and your blood sugar stays super level. Your immune system is not jacked up because there's no protein that you're consuming, there's really no toxins coming in. And your energy is good because you're drinking green tea. And the green tea also helps with breaking down excess fat. So people lose weight, their inflammation goes down significantly, their blood sugar is stable for the first time in their life, and they're getting all the benefits of fasting without even feeling like they're fasting. Like after three days, I mean, you can do this up to seven days, but after three days people are like, can I just do this forever? Because they have so much more energy, right. They're not sending all this blood constantly, three, four, five times a day to their digestive tract. Now they can send it to their brain. Right now that same blood can do other things instead of constantly having to process food all the time.

Wow. And is there a specific reason apart from the blood sugar balancing aspects for maple syrup, have you tried any alternatives or is that quite a specific recommendation?

Yeah. So you actually want grade B maple syrup. So the grade B maple syrup is going to give you the highest amount of sweetness with the lowest amount of carbs.

Okay.

So, you know, even diabetics can do this, right? The goal is to just find that balance that keeps your blood sugar levels stable. So one thing that people can do, I don't know if they have them where you are, but in Canada, you can actually get a continuous blood glucose monitor. So you can apply that to your upper arm and it reads your blood sugar every 15 minutes. And you could do that the week before the fast and then start the fast on day eight and then you can See what your blood sugar levels look like. And keep in mind that blood sugar and insulin are probably two of the most important markers that we look at. Now, let me talk about blood sugar really quick because most people don't realize this, but the main function of cortisol in our physiology is to regulate blood sugar. So it's not to have a stress response. We think of stress when we think of cortisol, but of course, when we're under stress, our cortisol levels go up as well as our catecholamines. But the main function of these chemicals is to actually raise blood sugar. So we. When you wear a continuous glucose monitor, it's really interesting because a lot of diabetics will be like, oh, my diets, I'm eating low carb, but my blood sugar is still high. It's because your stress is still high. And when you wear a continuous glucose monitor, like I remember, I still remember when I was wearing mine, I got on a call with somebody and, you know, it was. It's a long story short, it was just a frustrating phone call for me. And, you know, somebody invited me to do a radio show. And then after that afternoon, they invited me to. They wanted to sell me advertising. And I had no idea that that was going to happen. So I was just trying to politely say no to this person because it's not what I signed up for. And he was just being really annoying. And you could see my blood sugar going up on my monitor, right? You could also see anytime I sat down in front of my computer, even though I don't get. I very rarely get stressful or annoying emails. Even when I was looking at positive emails, my blood sugar was going up. Right? So we do know that being on the computer can stimulate us, right? One thing to also keep in mind is that bright light stimulates you. And so of course it does. Because, like, think about in the morning, when it's bright outside, you want high cortisol levels, and then in the evening, you want, as the sun goes down, you want the cortisol levels to go down. Right? And cortisol and melatonin are inversely proportional to each other. So, you know, all that to say that. Just keep in mind that blood sugars are closely connected to cortisol. So, you know, working on diabetics, it's really not the physiology that's the problem, it's the patient and their environment. Sometimes that can be the challenge. And their stress in their environment will keep their cortisol up, which will keep their blood sugar up.

Yeah, no, that's brilliant. And I think you actually touched on a word that I use sometimes with clients, which is stimulus. Because ultimately, we are overstimulated the majority of the time through the technology that we use, etc. And I think it's often a huge obstacle. If we can just reduce the amount of stimuli that we're exposed to, that's surely going to have a significant impact neurologically on getting us a little bit more parasympathetic as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, now that you mentioned parasympathetic, I'll dive down this rabbit hole a little bit. You know, one of the most powerful tools that we found, and we call it functional medicine in a cup of, is actually reishi. So reishi is a mushroom that's been used for over 2,500 years, and it's actually revered in China as a national treasure. It's called the mushroom of longevity. Ganoderma is one of its names, which means shiny skin. So it's just a gorgeous mushroom. It looks like the starship Enterprise if you ever see it. And it's like this bright, shiny red. Reishi is what we call the Snoop Dogg of mushrooms, because it takes you from being sympathetic, dominant and tonifies your nervous system and gets you more into a parasympathetic state. And like we talked about earlier, when you're in a parasympathetic state, everything is healing, everything is regenerating, everything is repairing. When you're in a sympathetic state, the exact opposite is happening. So this is one of the reasons reishi works so well at promoting liver detoxification, at promoting kidney detoxification, at improving digestive function, at improving spiritual potency. That's another name for it, is the mushroom of spiritual potency, because now we're getting out of our reptilian brain and into our higher centers of our brain. And these are the centers of our brain that separate us from all the other animals. Right. It's our prefrontal cortex. And in order to use that prefrontal cortex, you have to send blood to it. But when you're in a stress state, you're sending blood to your reptilian brain, because that's the part of our brain that's wired for survival.

Brilliant. So maybe that's another topic to sort of migrate into, because I know it was something off air that we discussed would be an interesting topic. So what else can you share with us in regards to mushrooms and their health properties?

Oh, my God. How much time do we have? So I'll give People, a primer, because this is just super fascinating. And what I'll tell you is that I've been down this rabbit hole for about a year, and in my 15 years of being in practice and coaching hundreds of doctors and really having exposure to thousands of different products, I've never seen anything do what mushrooms are capable of doing. And it wasn't until I started paying attention, because they've been there all along, right? It's not like they just popped up a year ago in nature. They've been here for billions of years. In fact, they were here before us. So what's really fascinating is that fungi, which is the correct way of saying it, versus fungi, fungi and Animalia used to belong to the same kingdom, and then the two split millions and millions of years ago. So literally, we come from mushrooms. So that's why all of our organs look like mushrooms. So if you look at the brain, it looks identical to lion's mane mushroom. If you look at the liver and the kidneys, they look exactly like a reishi mushroom. If you look at our reproductive organs, they look like mushrooms. If you look at our lungs, they look like mushrooms. So we actually share anatomical genes, they're called Hox genes, with plants and with mushrooms. So it's not by coincidence that these, our body parts, look like them. Now, what's really interesting is that shape affects function, right? So the way something is shaped, there is a mathematical code in that item or in that living organism that gives it that shape. So if we look at a walnut, a walnut looks like a brain, and we know, okay, it's good for the brain. If you look at lion's mane, lion's mane looks identical to a human brain. And lion's mane contains one of the most powerful nootropics that's ever been discovered in nature. So there's actually a new study that pulse or a patent that Paul Stamets has, who's the leading mycologist in the world, where you give people psilocybin, lion's mane and niacin, and it basically resolves Alzheimer's. The solutions are already there. So mushrooms have been part of us for millennia, for millions and billions of years. Mushrooms are what actually turned all of the rock on this planet into. So without mushrooms, we wouldn't have any soil on this planet. So what they do is they create enzymes that break down and extract minerals from rocks, which breaks them down, and then that extraction of minerals is what feeds the plants that are growing in the soil. Mushrooms share 50% of our DNA. Mushrooms are very fascinating because they actually breathe oxygen just like we do. And so they're exposed to bacteria and viruses and that attack oxygen breathing organisms. And this is why they create resilience against these things. And that's why like fungal infections in humans are so difficult to kill, because our DNA resembles their DNA. And this is also why they can be so potent as healing agents for the immune system, because they have to develop immunity against the same types of bacteria and viruses that we have to develop immunity against. So they've already created a solution for these problems and all we have to do is eat them or consume them or drink them, however we get it into our body and that installs that software, right? So it's like basically getting a major software upgrade for your body. So there's different mushrooms that can be used medicinally. There's chaga, which is excellent for your immune system. Chaga acts as the immune system of a birch tree. So when a birch tree is dying and it's immunocompromised, the mycelium that's growing in the tree will then turn into a chaga mushroom. And so that acts as the immune system. So if you ever are harvesting chaga, you have to make sure you take it off carefully because if you pull it off and you take out all the mushroom then you take basically taking the tree's immune system away and the tree will become, will die pretty shortly afterwards. So you have to make sure that you're careful when you're harvesting it. So that's one chaga, great for immune system. It's a great prebiotic, so it's great for your digestive health. And then you have lion's mane, which is excellent for the brain. Most powerful nootropic ever discovered in nature is contained in lion's mane mushroom. You have reishi, which is a mushroom of immortality. Has over 3,000 published peer reviewed articles on it. Is used as a cancer treatment in Japan. Decreases inflammation 11 different ways. Has been shown to heal. Leaky gut. Has been shown to be an excellent prebiotic for healthy gut. Microbiome de plaques the brain from Alzheimer's plaques. This is all peer reviewed, so this is all known information. It destroys several different types of cancer in Japan. It's used as a cancer therapy. So then you have reishi and you also have cordyceps mushroom. Cordyceps is a mushroom that helps with breathing. It also helps with oxygenation of our tissues and it's great for resilience. So it's a great precursor for a workout. So if you're going to work out. Cordyceps is a great product to take. And then you have turkey tail. Turkey tail looks like turkey tail. It's this beautiful bouquet that grows on dying tree stumps. And turkey tail has been used as immunomodulator, but it's also been shown to dissolve breast tumors. And so what's really fascinating about mushrooms is there's actually three parts to them. The biggest biomass of mushrooms is called the mycelium. So it's like this underground network that lines the entire world, actually. But when you walk into a forest, the forest knows you're there. So when you step on the forest, underneath your feet is thousands and thousands of miles of mycelium. And this mycelium is basically sharing communication and information and resources amongst the different plants. Plants don't compete with each other. They actually cooperate with each other through the mycelial network. So even above, it might look like they're competing and they're trying to hog the sun from one another, but they're actually cooperating through the mycelial network. When you step on that mycelial mat that lines the entire forest floor, you're stepping on the digestive system, nervous system, immune system, and lungs of the forest. So the mycelium breeds in oxygen, breeds out carbon dioxide. It digests dying plant matter and turns it into medicine for, you know, for us to consume. It's an externalized nervous system, okay? So it senses things and propagates and sends information. And it's the immune system because it's being exposed to millions and millions of bacteria while it's being buried under the dirt and it's creating resilience. So all of this is happening, and what's happening is the, the mycelium is basically spreading throughout the entire forest. Now, the tips of the mycelium are hypernucleated. So what that means is you have basically concentration of nuclei here. So they're looking for new food sources, they're looking for threats in their environment. So they're constantly learning as they grow, and that information then goes back through the entire network. So they're super, super intelligent. Okay? When the conditions are right, which includes a drop in temperature, moisture, sunlight, and adequate amounts of oxygen, the mycelium then takes these basically dying leaves and plants and branches and hydrocarbons and turns them into carbohydrates. So carbohydrates. That's why mushrooms are mainly carbohydrates, because the hydrocarbons are transformed into carbohydrates. So just like our liver takes just like Our liver takes toxic material, right, and turns it into non toxic compounds. That's exactly what the fruiting body of the mushroom does. So when Reishi grows off a tree, right, it's taking that dying tree and turning it into medicine. So it's taking something that is toxic to the forest and then turning it into something that's super beneficial. And so when we consume it, that's why Reishi mushroom fruiting body is so powerful for our own detoxification, because that's exactly what its function is in the forest. So if it does it in nature, and we're part of nature, it's going to do it inside us. It's not by coincidence. It looks exactly like your liver and if you turn it on its side, it looks exactly like your kidneys, right? So that function is stored in that three dimensional structure. And then once you have the fruiting body, the fruiting bodies, depending on the type of mushroom, might die off a few days later. Or those fruiting bodies can stay on the tree for quite some time. Some Reishis are dozens of years old. There's some that are over 100 years old. A garrukon is one of the oldest mushrooms in the world. So these fruiting bodies then release spores and the spores are what then allow the mycelium to grow again. So it's the reproductive organ of the mushroom. On the bottom of these mushrooms you have these tiny little pores that open up. So these are called polypore mushrooms. And these spores fly out literally in the wind and they go everywhere. Sometimes if animals eat the spores, then it goes through their poop and it, you know it. And that's what the mycelium does. It detoxifies the poop, right, and turns it into mushrooms and turns it into medicine, right? Or turns it into a non toxic compound. So you have, so you have this life cycle, okay? Now the spores contain the highest and most coveted nutritional data that's available. And the hardware that's in there, which is, you know, the hundreds of antioxidants that are in there, contains all 50 known nutrients. So everything's in there. It's highly concentrated in the spore. But the spore's purpose is to go through you. Now if you're ever going to consume spores, you want to consume them in a form where the wall is cracked open. So there's actually two shells to that spore that are hard as a coconut. So both of those have to be broken open so that when you consume the spore, you actually get the nutrition out of it otherwise you just have poop that's sporulated. Okay. And so those are the three parts. So the mycelium, we never really see it. Right. So most people don't even know what that is. That's the again the nervous system, immune system, digestive system and lungs of the forest. So guess what happens when you consume mushroom mycelium? It heals those systems in your body. It has the code to do that because it's already doing that. Right. So it's not far fetched to think that this can happen. But we also see that in published research the fruiting body is the detoxifying agent. Particularly reishi is potent at detoxification and it looks like your liver and kidneys and then the spores contain all of that's the reproductive organ, contains all of the information. Kind of like an egg. Right. The egg contains all the information to grow the chicken. So if you eat a chicken breast versus an egg, the chicken breast has different information in it versus the egg. The egg has all the information to grow all the parts and all the organs and all the systems. So the spores are the most coveted and most potent part. And typically to make, you know, you need 2,000 pounds of spore powder to make 2 pounds of spore capsules. So it's a large biomass that's condensed down into a small viable biomass. So they're usually more expensive but super, super potent. They're about 75 times more potent than consuming the mycelium or the fruiting body itself. So one of the things that Reishi does specifically amongst the other ones, is that it tonifies the nervous system. So it's a very potent adaptogen, which means that if you're stressed out, it's going to de stress you. If you're in a slump and you're ultra parasympathetic, which some people can be when they're burnt out, it's going to tonify your nervous system so that it's going to feel you more uplifting. When they've done studies on Reishi, it's actually more potent as a relaxant than Valium. So they put it up against Valium and it was more potent as a relaxing agent. Like I said, it treats several different types of cancer. It reduces inflammation through 11 different mechanisms. So, so everything that we try to do with our patients, that one mushroom already has the technology to do it in our bodies with little to no side effects. There's really no known toxicity level of it either. And it's just been remarkable like the results that we're seeing with patients. Like we had a guy come in and all he did was switch his cup of coffee to a coffee plus reishi combination. And in five days his IBS disappeared like he used to. He had to know where every bathroom was on every trip he was going to. And he would drive an hour to come to our workshops. He never became a patient of ours even. Which makes me even more proud, right? I didn't have to put him through all the testing and the rigmarole and all this stuff. I just had to change his coffee and just install this hardware and software upgrade into his body. And the intelligence is already there. And so it just did what it had to do and it put his nervous system in the right state so his body could heal itself. And so, you know, there's really, really fascinating stuff that Paul Stamets has done. I'll share this really quick. They had a bioremediation, there's a video online, maybe I'll share it with you when you get a chance and you can put in the show notes. But what they did was they had this company, this school bus company that had a diesel challenge. So there was diesel spilling all over the place and they were being fined by another government authority. So they had to remediate this diesel situation. So they had six different companies come to try to remediate soil. And so what Paul did was he took oyster mushrooms, used their spores and spread it all over the soil. Came back six weeks later and everyone else, it still smelled like diesel, it stunk, it was like vile. Theirs, the smell was completely gone and it was just filled with oyster mushrooms. Okay. And so then what happened is when they kept that open, birds would come, right? So they would eat them and bugs would come and flies would come and they would eat the mushrooms. So as the mushrooms decomposed, you know, maggots started forming. The maggots attracted birds, the birds attracted seeds. And then over a period of time, basically that soil completely remediated itself. So it went from being super toxic to being non toxic. And in fact, it became its own little mini ecosystem after that. So if they have the power to do that, right, to basically remediate diesel fuel, then imagine what they can do in a relatively healthy person, right? Another, there's another great video. It's a slime mold video. So they took slime mold and they basically put down little pieces of oat in the configuration of the major cities around Tokyo. And they just let the slime mold grow. And in 26 hours it basically configured itself as a single cell organism in such a way that it was more efficient than the engineers that created the Tokyo subway system. And in fact, it was a more resilient system than what these engineers spent years and millions of dollars creating. And it was done by a slime mold in 26 hours. So it's like super, super fascinating. They've put slime mold through mazes to find food sources, and they find it super quickly when they do that as well. The slime mold actually has memory, so it'll find it when you put it in there the second time, it'll find it even faster because it remembers what it was doing. So there's an embodiment of intelligence in these things. They're super, super intelligent. And we don't give them as much credit because they don't look like us, but they are part of us. 50% of our DNA is shared with them. So if something shares 50% of our DNA, chances are it can probably has information in it to heal us, right? DNA is just information. So they're coated with information that resembles half of the information in our body. So of course they have this potential to heal us. And everything is a fractal, as above, so below. And because we're part of nature, what you witness outside of your body can happen inside of your body, right? Because we're just a microcosm of the macrocosm. And so it's just super, super fascinating, man. And I truly believe I was telling my wife this this morning. If I didn't have her and my son and something were to happen to me and I had to give all my money away to somebody, I would give it to Paul Stamets because of what I believe, the knowledge that he has, the research that he's done and is what I think is the only thing that can actually save this planet in so many different regards. There's ways to save the bees, there's ways to remediate pollution. Mushrooms can actually take plastic and turn it into mushrooms because you take hydrocarbons, turn them into carbohydrates. They found mold growing in certain parts of Chernobyl that highly concentrate radioactive waste. So they actually thrive on radioactive waste. You can actually take, you can use mushrooms and grow food, right? So it's just super, super amazing. Like every single challenge that the Earth has right now, these guys have already solved for us. We just have to look to them for answers, but we won't until, you know, you know, people really start opening up their eyes and really start, you know, we just need it we need an economy that's based on looking for solutions in nature instead of at technology. Technology basically creates a lot more problems and we don't need to spend billions and billions or trillions of dollars researching this stuff. The tools already exist. So I tell my wife all the time that I think the mushrooms are here to save us from ourselves. And they're doing it in our patients, they're doing it in nuclear reactor sites where they've exploded. They're doing it in terms of fuel remediation. You can take an oil spill and sporulate an oil spill and mushrooms will grow. You can actually take. If you grow oyster mushrooms in a bag, they'll bloom a couple of times and then after that there's not enough hydrocarbons in there. If you take the oil from your car and you pour it into the wood chips where the oysters were growing, the oysters would start growing again.

Wow, that's a brilliant. It must be the best example of really the innate wisdom and intelligence of nature.

Yeah, I've never come across anything like it. So that's like all day, every day. That's what I'm doing when I'm listening to stuff. Now, if it's not about mushrooms, I don't want to hear it because this is the solution. And we're just seeing that more and more and more. And every day I'm just more and more blown away by what they can do for us. And I'm glad we had a chance to talk about this because I think it's a very untapped resource. And I don't even think a lot of practitioners are actually using this as a tool with their patients because they're unfamiliar with it. We don't learn about this stuff in school. So if you haven't taken a keen interest in it and gone down the rabbit hole with it, I mean, you're leaving a lot on the table. So there's so many ways that we can use them as a knowledge base to actually serve us and help us. And what's really fascinating to me is that, you know, when I don't know how familiar your audience members or you might be with fractals, but, you know, if we look at the biggest things in the universe and go down all the way to the smallest things in the universe, they use the same branching architecture. So if you look at all the dark matter in the universe and then you zoom in. So if you look at the universe itself and then you zoom in, then, you know, let's say you come to Earth. You'll start seeing river deltas and how they fan, right? You zoom in, you'll start seeing tree branches and how they grow and tree roots and how they grow and. And mycelial networks and how they branch. This branching architecture is in everything, including our bodies, right? Our lungs branch, our brain is branching, our fingers branch. So this branching architecture is completely seen at every single scale in nature. What's brilliant about this branching architecture is that the surface area of this architecture provides significant amounts of data storage and significant amounts of stability. That's why you can't pull a tree out of the ground, because it's in there, right? And so there's stability in that, and then there's also stability and information, right? So you can actually, as you increase surface area, you increase data storage, so you can store infinite amounts of data in this fractal branching system. So this is why, you know, mushrooms can be so powerful, because they use that same branching architecture and they can store tons and tons of code in that branching architecture. If you were to just throw it, put a twig into the ground and just had one, you know, one little line in there, it's easy to pull it out. It provides no stability, right? It provides, you know, so. But it's that branching that provides stability. So we look at, you know, where our world is hurting right now, where it's failing right now. Medicines, you know, for example, instead of taking the entire branch, it's like, imagine this is the branch with all the information. It's like taking, you know, just one. It's like making. It's like trying to pretend that my thumb is a hand, right? It doesn't have all the capabilities and doesn't have all the information. That's why whole foods work so much better, because all foods, all fungi, all use this architecture because they're part of nature. And so that's why medicines don't work so well, because it's like one line of code when there's really thousands of lines of code that need to be installed, right? Medicine is one line of code, whereas, let's say an herb or a mushroom or something is thousands of lines of code of information. So if I were going to update your computer system, I wouldn't just chain one line of code, right? I would update the whole thing simultaneously. And so this is why drugs will never work as a solution, because we're forcing pharmaceutical companies to leave out all of the information that's necessary to work with the rest of that information. And so just, you know, again, I could go down this hole pretty deep. But I don't want to lose anyone. I just think that it's super, super fascinating. And when you start looking at it and when you look at it through a different lens, then you start seeing so much value there. And, you know, our kind of our nutrition paradigm and healthcare paradigm is stuck on hardware, right? So even in functional medicine, we're stuck on how much magnesium do you have, how much calcium do you have, how much iron do you have? But it's like your computer, right? Your computer has hardware. It's got a keyboard, a screen, a cpu, speakers, mouse pad, all that stuff. But it's not the hardware that makes your computer amazing, it's the software that makes your computer amazing. Try using the latest computer with old software. It's going to be a terrible experience. And so when we go to the doctor, they're constantly updating our screen, they're updating our keyboard, they're updating our mouse pad. Right. They're charging our batteries, but they're not changing the software. And medicine doesn't have a software solution. Only nature has that software solution because it's coded into nature, which means it's coded into you because you're part of nature.

Brilliant. And I think taking it full circle, this idea of the branching component you discussed and the stability that comes with that is I guess, another way of just talking about what we spoke at the very beginning, which is resilience. You know, you need that stability. Resilience, ultimately.

You got it.

I'm aware of time, Sachin, but I have one final question, if I may. And hopefully it'll be a relatively quick one, which is just in the research or just through your experience, is there any synergism between these mushrooms? So would we want to combine them together for a bigger benefit, as it were?

Yeah. So different mushrooms are going to focus and benefit on different systems in the body. So the reason I like Reishi personally, because it focuses on the central nervous system and it gets that person parasympathetic. And when they're parasympathetic now I'm seeing sending more blood and more resources and better function to all the organs in the body. Okay. Turkey tail, as I mentioned, is great as a prebiotic, but it's also really good as an immunomodulator. Chaga is an immunomodulator. Lion's mane is great for health, and cordyceps is great for performance. So I actually take a five mushroom blend, I take a dual extracted five mushroom blend, and I actually add that to my reishi infused coffee and that's what I drink every morning. It's my pre workout. So it's a really clean, healthy, you know, pre workout. But it just allows me to function at my best, not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, neurologically. And even my thinking is a lot more clear and I'm more articulate. Like, it's just amazing, like the upgrade that you get from it. So I use those five synergistically.

Okay. Amazing. Well, thank you very much for coming on. It's been an insightful hour and I think I've got a few hours of research to go and do now.

Yeah, I'll send you some videos, man. And I don't know how busy the rest of your week is, but this is going to consume you. So you'll have fun with it. Just let it play in the background. It'll just blow your mind.

Absolutely brilliant. Well, thank you, Sachin. I'm sure our listeners are going to love this and it will be out very soon.

All right, you're super welcome. And if I may, I just want to give a quick plug here for those of you that are looking for a really simple solution. We've got a great 30 day program. So if you go to our website, 30in30.org, so 30in30.org, then you can check out our free 30 day program which is designed to keep you out of our office. And there's lots of practical, easy, simple tools and resources that are there for you that are all free and it can complement whatever you're currently doing or if you're trying to stay out of the doctor's office, then make sure you check off these 30 things and do them, you know, as many of them as you can on a daily basis. So I appreciate you, Alex. Thanks for the opportunity and I appreciate all of you for listening. I hope this enlightens you and at least opens up your eyes to some new possibilities.

100%. Thanks, Sachin.

Thanks, my friend.

Okay, guys, and that is a wrap for today. I hope you enjoyed listening to Sachin share his wisdom, knowledge and experience. I will be back very soon with another episode of the podcast where I'm going to be speaking with Victoria again. Victoria will be coming back on for her third appearance on the Health Path podcast. And we're going to be talking about trauma and the role it can play in health ultimately and some of the things that we may want to consider if we are on our healing journey and have a history of trauma in our life. So I'm really looking forward to sharing that conversation with you. But for now, take care of yourselves, take care of one another, stay happy and healthy, and I'll be back very soon with that episode.