Stories of Hope and Healing: Overcoming Anxiety and Digital Overload with Andrew Laubacher

Welcome to Integrative Medicine with Dr. Leland Stillman, the podcast where we explore the best of East and West, old and new, conventional and unconventional, in search of answers to medicine's toughest cases and most difficult problems. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Diagnostics and therapeutics discussed on this podcast may or may not be right for you, so talk to a qualified practitioner before taking action based on what you learn here. If you'd like to become a patient at about my practice, go to stillmanmd.com to schedule a complimentary discovery call. Thank you for listening and welcome to today's episode. Hello everyone, Dr. Stillman here with my good friend Andrew Laubacher. Am I saying that right?

Laubacher, you got really close.

You know, it's funny, we've been friends for a long time now and I don't think I've ever actually asked you, uh, say your last name because I see it written all the time.

That's tough.

Yeah. So I like to start by asking people for their origin story. Who is Andrew Laubacher? Where does he come from and how did he get into health and wellness?

Yeah, great question. I'd say, well, first I grew up in Ventura, California, and I found this stuff out kind of later in life, but my mom was like the original health nut. So she, you know, we had like Shaklee products and were shopping organic. And it was like the wildest day ever if I got like Lucky Charms for breakfast, you know what I mean? And it was, let me tell you, that was a good day. Yeah, I mean, I grew up very active, you know, loved surfing.

What's Ventura, California like for people who've never been there?

Yeah, so I realized my upbringing was like very odd once I started to travel. Ventura's probably, I don't know, maybe 150,000 people at this point. But compared to Southern California, you know, we're an hour and a half north of LA. So we're like a smaller town, you know, but we're kind of nestled in the middle of Santa Barbara's north, Malibu's south. It's really this like little California gold, you know, this little sliver of just an amazing little town kind of nestled up, you know, against some hills and mountains there. But yeah, incredible surfing, amazing beaches, a lot of agriculture. The Lawbachers historically were farmers. So we have a lot of history in that area, just with farming and a lot of agriculture. But you know, it's sunny and kind of perfect, like year-round, you know, the one thing you have is earthquakes.

Do you guys get the June gloom?

We get June gloom. I'm amazed, you know, that we get June gloom, man.

And everyone's like, so depressed and sad, you know, it's like And then, and then you move to the Mid-Atlantic or the North and realize that that's 6 months of the year, and then come to finally understand why people everywhere aren't as sunny as people in California.

It's totally real. And I actually, my first experience going outside of California was Franciscan University. So this is Steubenville, Ohio, in the Ohio Valley, where literally the sun is not out for 6 months and it was the most depressing thing ever. And I didn't know any of your work at the time, which is funny. I look back, I'm the first to admit, in the height of seasonal depression, which I didn't even know what that was, I found a tanning booth in Steubenville, Ohio, which is incredibly sketchy and incredibly ghetto. And I remember sitting in this tanning bed just like, I mean, I felt like a million bucks.

Funny, very funny.

But yeah, my upbringing was very outdoors, surfing. I mean, I was— I got obsessed with surfing, but, you know, played a lot of sports. So it was outdoors, very active. My mother was, you know, a little more on the health train. And in high school, I ate horribly though, you know. It was just ultra-processed crap pretty consistently. And I also had very severe anxiety, and I actually have a lot of hypothesis of how this came to be. And some of the books that I've ventured into reading, you know, with your recommendation and others, is like, okay, this ADHD thing seems genetic from my dad's side, but I, you know, so it might have had some greater genetic propensities to anxiety. But I had, you know, I started having panic attacks when I was 11 and had an amazing upbringing. Like, I have two parents that love me, nothing major traumatic at all, but these panic attacks really came out of nowhere and were pretty severe for years. And I tried to calm that with drugs and alcohol and leaving my faith, and that didn't work. And yeah, I started to realize, okay, diet has a huge impact. Impact on our mental health, you know, but that was kind of post-conversion after high school. So yeah, I was not into anything health and wellness in high school or really in college. It actually happened later for me.

Tell us about it.

Yeah. All right. So yeah, I'm studying theology and philosophy. I was pretty into fitness and stuff back then, but had no connection to light, saunas, sleep. Where were you? I was in Steubenville, Ohio at the time.

At Franciscan. Okay.

At Franciscan. And I remember just being exhausted all the time. And, you know, this is actually like a really great academic spiritual experience there. Like, you know, on Tuesday nights, the whole school gets together and has a night of worship, you know, like pretty different than most other universities, you know. But even, yeah, just staying up late, even just kind of, you know, drinking in moderation.

What does that mean?

From my understanding, I think the average American is in the 6 to 8 drinks a week. I could be off. The last time I read something like that. So I'd say it was something like that, you know, on the weekends, 1 or 2 drinks with friends, but even like, you know, just staying up late, not caring about sleep. Yeah, I mean, I just specifically remember being tired all the time and, you know, eating at the cafeteria, just crap food, you know what I mean? I mean, I think we were like 3 levels above jail food. I would always joke, you know, with our Sodexo company, it was like, dude, it was horrible. Like, your gut adjusted for like a week when you went back to college, you know? So I'd say, yeah, fast forward. I'm starting to tour and travel.

Tour what? Give people some context.

Yeah, yeah. So, I was starting to play music. I started playing music when I was 12 and that was all rock and roll, reggae, rap in high school. And then, I had this reversion to faith and then started playing at my church and then at these conferences in Steubenville where you're playing in front of about I don't know, 10,000 people in the summer. I just started getting calls to go places and play music. That's when I was really starting to feel the effects physiologically. I've always been wired for why. I've always asked why and incredibly skeptical in a lot of different ways. I remember you have so much downtime. Traveling in between events. And I kind of became a pretty ferocious reader of philosophy pretty early on, like at 19. And I literally remember one day, I was starting to travel, but I was working at a high school at the time as well, doing campus ministry. I remember driving in the car and just asking this question, "What are humans supposed to eat?" 'Cause I was like, dude, it's not like sharks wake up and decide to go vegan one day. You know, animals eat what they were intended to eat. And I'm like, why is this? I'm on a lot of different social media platforms and I'm starting to get interested in some of these topics. And one day a banana—

What drove you to be interested in the first place?

I'd say I started to see that connection. Well, one, I was interested in, my own human experience of like, how do I help heal myself?

It wasn't the panic attacks that were troubling you?

Yeah, they kind of stopped. So I kind of— I started to have less anxiety in general, kind of after my reversion, but it was still definitely there.

Reversion, do you mean like reconversion?

Yes. Yes.

Would you tell us about that for a minute? Because it sounds like you clearly link the two.

Yeah, I mean, so yeah, I say I was persuaded in high school from a secular worldview that science has disproven God even though I'd say I was not a well-formed agnostic or atheist.

You were a teenager. There's no well-formed teenagers.

That's right. And, it was like, "Dude, you want to go smoke a blunt?" And, I'm like, "Sure, that sounds great." There was no like, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't do that." And, At the same time, I have a Christian home, and I'm lying and hiding all these things. It's not like my parents knew. I was very good at hiding all this stuff to a certain extent. I threw a couple of ragers at my house and got caught for those. After high school, I was caught by the cops and sitting in the back of a cop car. And in that moment, I was like, I don't think this life is really what I want. And then, you know, standing in front of a judge where these guys have multiple DUIs, I just see the path that I'm going down. And I actually didn't want anything to do with faith or religion. I was just like, I don't want to be in this situation again. Like, that sucked, you know. And then I got invited to go on a retreat, and then that experience definitely had this kind of reversion-conversion experience. And then I'd say that led to a deeper intellectual journey that, you know, began this really search for truth. And I was watching hours of debates between Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett and Dawkins and all the new atheists with all of your top theist thinkers, you know, that I could find. And I was like, there's actually really highly historical, reliable, scientific, philosophical arguments for this reasonable inkling that most humans have had for hundreds of thousands of years that there is something bigger than us.

What was the experience on this retreat of going from disillusionment with the direction of your life to suddenly then reconfirming your relationship with God?

Yeah. I'd say it was a cluster of things. At these events, it's like there's time for prayer, worship. There's a lot of preaching. And everything just hit me. And I've been on these retreats before, but I would go back to the party scene. But for whatever reason, just that low place in life where I was really realizing the hedonic treadmill of just pleasure was extremely unsatisfying. Even at that age, you know, and super drama-filled. Like, yeah, hookup culture is like extremely dramatic, like all the time. And that was just adding to the anxiety. And I'd say like, turning to marijuana and alcohol, these things that I was trying to calm this physiological anxiety I felt kind of just exacerbated the problem. You know, so it was a combination of things, but at the end I was like, yeah, I mean, I had this experience in prayer that was like I experienced God's love, and it was like, wow, I, I need to change, you know. Um, so I'd say it was definitely an emotional experience, and then post that was this deeply intellectual search to confirm in some ways, and also like through the years, I mean, so many ups and downs intellectually. Um, I'd say I've questioned my worldview than most, uh, most atheists I've actually found. Like, there's very few people that I can connect with that over the years have like had some dark times through the journey of faith, you know. But yeah, I mean, I keep searching and I keep finding, and ultimately that kind of led me down these rabbit holes of wellness. I got fascinated with Jesus's healing ministry specifically. So that's actually what really started to interest me. I really loved healing, and that was like at 21. And I noticed I was going to a lot of these events, and this is when I started playing music and traveling And people are asking me to pray away things that I'm realizing I'm starting to find out are like diet and lifestyle related.

Did you see any— you clearly relate a profound experience yourself with God's love that I think you would— and actually, I just want to confirm this— it led to a lasting shift in you that led to significantly less anxiety, correct?

Oh my gosh, 100%.

What percent improvement would you rate that?

Well, here's the combination of things that happened. I mean, it— I don't have— I haven't had a panic attack in— it's been over 10 years. I mean, I— if you would have told me at 18 that I was going to be, you know, a million-miler flyer sharing, you know, the gospel around the world, I would have probably had a panic attack and died at that moment because I couldn't— I couldn't get in planes. I was I was literally terrified of flying. I couldn't travel places. My anxiety was that severe. And I have family members, you know, that don't drive long distances. I really thought I was going to be just stuck for a long time in this little town in Ventura. And I mean, yeah, God has radically changed a lot of those things. But it was also, I believe, this holistic approach to healing that I began to discover.

So if 0% is where you were with your anxiety at its worst, and 100% is totally and completely as magnanimous and anxiety-free as, let's just say, Jesus Christ— well, that makes it— that really doesn't—

that's good. It's gonna be tough. Start over.

0 is where you're— where you were at your worst, and 100% is where you'd like to be. Where are you now?

Yeah. I'd say I'm in the, yeah, high 80s, low 90s. And there's definitely— yeah.

What percent of that improvement would you relate back to this very specific healing that you had on this retreat?

Yeah, I would say it was a large chunk. I mean, I'd say easy 50, over 50%, and then I'd say the last 30% has been through nutrition, sleep, discovery of the wellness world and then implementing those things in my life, plus some forms of therapy. I didn't find any of those things helpful, slash any SSRIs did nothing for me. So I'd say the last 30% has been, yeah, lifestyle, like living and living my faith.

So you were talking about how you got interested in prayer healing. People were asking you to pray away things that you were finding were diet and lifestyle related. Pick up where we left off before that brief digression.

So I started traveling full-time, I mean, pretty consistently, 2014. And, you know, at these, you know, events, retreats, conferences, churches, hotels, arenas, you know, every venue you can imagine. I kind of look back now and I realize I kind of saw the mental health crisis unfold before my eyes, specifically in young people and, you know, the addictions to pornography. This is when the phones, you know, smartphones coming out, social media. I'm on all these platforms myself, but I started to really see it nationwide during that time and Started to notice a lot on the road that people were wanting to pray away things like different chronic diseases that I started to see. Learning from Dr. Mark Hyman, he was kind of my gateway into this world just by chance and starting to realize, okay, food is information. Even experiencing myself traveling on the road, eating really poorly— like, retreat food life is very bad, processed food at all these, you know, retreat centers around the world, you know, traveling full-time. I mean, I was starting to really feel the effects of jet lag, poor nutrition, not being in one place for very long. So even in myself, again, these issues started to crop up again in my own life. And so it was kind of initially, okay, I'm seeing people like really sick and wanting me to pray for healing. And we did pray for, you know, a lot of people. And I actually did see some things that I would say there's probably 4 or 5 healings that I saw from prayer that I scientifically have like before and after results from, you know, where like one of them— and I still have seen this woman over the years, which is kind of wild. She came to this conference in Northern California, torn ACL, MCL, crutches, you know, brace, the whole thing. And me and some friends and a whole group prayed over her. And after the prayer, like she took the thing off, was walking, was totally better. And then like every year I'd see her at this conference and she would tell me like the physicians that she was working with have no idea what happened.

Yeah, they have no idea what happened. Code for they don't believe it.

Right? Like she shared with her physicians that she was prayed over and like everything's reattached. Yeah. Walking up steps immediately after. I mean, things that, you know, she just couldn't do before.— so there's things like that, even like some Lyme. I mean, I saw some, you know, cancer healed, some pretty substantial things. And— but that wasn't, you know, every— every week. And I noticed that people were going back to these lifestyles of horrible eating, incredible amounts of sugar, no sunlight. So I really got fascinated with how do I really help people heal? And then really, how do I help heal even myself as I'm on the road kind of destroying my health? So Dr. Mark Hyman was kind of that first guy that kind of like opened me up to this functional medicine space. That just led me down again. I mean, I just— I, I'm pretty obsessed with truth. So I was like, again, that question in the car one day, what are humans supposed to eat? All of a sudden just set me down all the rabbit holes. And that was kind of the beginning of my search that led me to Greenfield, which led me to you in 2020. And really looking to help people heal holistically, I've kind of found myself playing these conferences around the world. Just like singing songs wasn't enough for me, like I wanted to help people more. And I remember sharing this. It was 2020, January, probably one of the biggest shows I've done till this summer, actually. It was 10,000 people in an arena in DC, and I'm playing up there. And a lot of people are like, "Dude, you've made it, man. This is it." And I'm feeling incredibly empty inside. I'm exhausted from travel. It looks so cool on Instagram when you're in planes and playing in front of thousands of people, and it's just not— it's really not the reality of the situation.

You don't say.

I know. And you're there and I'm there playing, and it is an amazing event. And I know, hope God's blessing people through this music, but on the inside, I'm just like, dude, I can't keep this up. The funny thing is, I canceled all my gigs March and April of 2020 prior to COVID. Hmm. And I was praying that whole time like, God, I need to slow down, you know, just flying 150,000 miles a year nonstop. Really, again, neglecting my health, starting to discover these wellness principles that I'm like, wow, I'm not living any of these, you know, like, And, um, and then yeah, COVID hits and I'm in Jerusalem actually playing music in March of 2020. I'm pretty sure we all got COVID there. We were like some of the first patients, I think, in at least Jerusalem. That hotel I was staying at was like on the news as one of the first hotspots, whatever. So yeah, I fly back and I'm like, at the beginning, you know, this is when we all die. So I'm like, well, I at least want to go surfing while we're dying, while we all die. I'm like, I want to surf a huge wave while we all just get wiped out, you know. So I fly, I fly back home to California. And, you know, I'm mostly doing online events. Mind you, at this point, I'm like 2 to 3 years— I went back to a flip phone, deleted all my social media.

Wow, early adopter.

I was the— I was doing this weird experiment. And yeah, I experienced all the negative effects, I'd say, of living a digital life from the social media standpoint. So I was this weird worship leader dude playing music with a flip phone and no social media. But during that time of COVID you know, I did all these online events on Zoom and I was like, "Dude, I don't know how much longer I can do Zoom events." You know, but during that time is really when I'd say I realized this touring lifestyle is not for me, and I want to go into the health and wellness space and, uh, want to help people heal.

But you went into seminary, didn't you?

Sure did.

And that's when I met you. I remember, I remember the, the discovery call. I used to do complimentary discovery calls before I had staff and big practice. And, and it was so funny, the story of, hey, I'm in seminary and I would really like to work with you, but I'm also in seminary, so there's some logistical constraints, or some so-and-so, something like that.

Yeah.

And I thought, well, that's a new one. I've never worked with somebody in seminary before. And then I think we just kept in touch by email over the years. But yeah, then you left seminary. I don't know if you want to talk about that.

Yeah, I'm happy to share this part of the story, uh, because a lot of people obviously experience this in a lot of different ways. But a little connection to your work though is the time I was studying like theologically a lot of these principles of light. And when you were on, you know, Ben Greenfield sharing the science of light from a quantum perspective, from a wellness perspective, I just saw all these connections and was like Wow. At my seminary, I was helping guys lose weight, helping guys get in shape.

Helping the brothers out.

Oh, yeah. I mean, literally a guy came up to me. This is part of the issue I saw on the road all the time. This guy came up to me and he knows I've prayed for healing and whatever and literally asked me to pray for his blood pressure to go down. Now, mind you, this is a guy that's eating donuts and pizza for breakfast. Not moving, not getting any exercise. So they're— and I saw this on the road all the time, right? People wanting to pray away chronic disease that was largely related to their light environment, their lack of sleep, poor nutrition, alcohol, sugar, etc. So I was like, dude, I mean, I can help you create a plan, you know, that— and we can pray along the way, but like, your lifestyle is affecting your blood pressure. Like, I can't pray this stuff away. But at that time, I was already pretty deep in all the biohacking world. And so, during my seminary— I mean, I was essentially a monk. So when people ask, what is seminary? You literally pray and study. That's really all you do. And it was kind of an incredible time for me in a lot of ways. Now, during that time also in Southern California where the seminary is at, they are holding to CDC protocols to a T, and I'm wearing a mask all day and then sitting next to people like 2 inches away and taking off our masks and eating lunch. The cognitive dissonance was getting to be so painful that, yeah, it was getting hard to continue. Now, you know, I was about a year and a half in. This is when all the COVID mandates with vaccines are in full swing. My seminary decides to have a vaccine mandate where you need to be vaccinated in order to stay and continue to study. And that just wasn't an option for me. I, I knew my wellness, you know, status. I was taking vitamin D, magnesium, you know, getting proper sleep, in the best shape of my life. I'm pretty sure I already had COVID, so had already been immunized naturally. And yeah, at the end of 2021, uh, I mean, about 10 guys had to leave because we either had to take the vaccine or leave. So that was the end of my kind of discernment period. And that's when I kind of went back to the music world during that time. And then I moved to Tallahassee and worked for the governor there for a year because they weren't going to force me to take the shot to work. So thank you, Florida, for the freedom you provide. And yeah, my good friend was the chief of staff for DeSantis and an amazing dude. And, you know, during that time is actually when I started to get all these different coaching credentials and personal trainer credentials. And yeah, realizing I wanted to be an entrepreneur and build something to help people heal. And that eventually led me to Humanality, which is what I'm doing now. And we can dive more into that, but yeah, that's kind of how, how I got here.

And then you actually contacted us to get started. I think it was around that time that you were in Tallahassee.

Yeah, it's had to have been 2 years at least by now.

And at the time you just wanted some self-quantification. You wanted to see what your numbers looked like. You didn't have any specific health issues, right?

Yeah. And at that time too is when I was still consuming a lot of podcasts, a lot of information. And I remember I think I was vegan for like 2 weeks, like, you know, in like 2016. And then I really wanted an In-N-Out Burger, so I got a Double Double and had a massive burger. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to be vegan. But that was, you know, the journey prior to meeting you guys was like the most confusing thing of all time, just in regards to nutrition, in regards to what products, you know, what type of exercise. I mean, I listen— I had to have listened to thousands of hours of debates with, you know, Saladino, and then like some vegan, and then it was like, you know, Dr. Peter Attia, or, you know, like go down the list. Like I was listening to all of them. Essentially trying to find the truth, you know, and kind of once I stumbled upon, you know, your work, I was like, wow. Well, it kind of started with the vaccine. You're actually just like calling this stuff out. And I was like, these are the kind of people I want to roll with that are critical thinkers and not scared to stand for what they believe in. Um, but there was so much confusion along the way. And actually would cause, you know, some levels of anxiety of like, you know, EMF world, am I doing everything I need to? The formaldehyde or whatever off-gassing from my bed or, you know, like everything just got so overwhelming that I started to have to like really take some steps back from a lot of this content because it was just like one expensive to get every biohack. And to your point of the quantification, I realize people are just selling me a lot of different things. I have no idea what's happening underneath the hood and I'm just guessing and I'm wasting a lot of money.

Not to mention time.

Time. So that was a huge reason. I think, you know, I reached out and then I— and then, you know, you guys just like very systematically helped simplify a lot of things in my life. And, and I think I've been able to keep up such a high-level pace for the time that I have because so much of my wellness stuff has been locked in with what we've been able, you know, to do. So yeah, I mean, it's been incredibly, incredibly helpful.

And then you had an interesting— because one of the reasons that I I set the practice up as a membership-based practice is that things happen. And you were in Dallas, and I remember your initial labs, we had a couple of changes that we recommended that you make. It wasn't very much. A lot of what we do is to, to help people understand what things they don't need to worry about almost more than what they actually need to do. I call it simplifying the clinical picture. But then you moved to Dallas and you had this interesting run-in with mold. What was that like?

Yeah, it's funny because I listened to a bunch of podcasts on mold. Like, I thought I was like totally well-informed with that. Like, I'm sunning very frequently out of my Sauna Space sauna in my apartment, you know, I feel incredibly locked in. And then I start getting really weird acne, which I'd never had. Severe acne in any capacity. At this point, I'm whatever, 32, 33, and just started getting really weird acne. Even my mother's like, what's going on with your face? It starts to get really irritated, red, spread out. That's in maybe August. And I remember, you know, my sink broke in my little apartment and water spilled everywhere. And they came in and fixed it and put some towels in there, put some fans there. "Ah, air it out for a couple days, you'll be fine." In the back of my head, I'm like, "This smells and this, to me, could be some mold." But I honestly really just didn't think it was. Possible. It's like, I'm gonna air it out, it's gonna be fine. That musty smell stayed underneath my sink, you know, for the coming months. So mind you, during this time I'm traveling again non-stop, you know, for, for work. And, um, this cystic acne starts to get pretty severe. And we are going, you know, so now I'm like, okay, we gotta start doing some testing because this is just off. I'm trying to— I'm as tall as Tom Cruise and Lionel Messi. I'm 5'7", and I'm trying to put on some muscle. I'm eating a lot of rice and a lot of vertical diet kind of meals, trying to put on some weight. While I'm constantly traveling, which is very difficult to do on the road, So anyway, I'm thinking, okay, maybe there's something diet related. So we go through some allergy testing, actually discover some stuff on that end, which might have been, you know, one of them was white rice, which I was eating copious amounts of, which from my understanding, you can correct me if I'm wrong here, is that if you overconsume some of these grains, you can eventually become allergic.

Any food that's true for, which is part of why I like to preach Variety, variety is the spice of life. Variety is wise when it comes to your diet because if you look at the populations that have the lowest risks of autoimmune, allergic, and chronic degenerative disease of any kind, one thing that is very much a commonality between them that almost no one talks about is that they have an incredibly broad-based diet. So that's one of my top dietary recommendations to people.

Yeah, and I was trying to get a lot more calories in, so I was like doing a lot of rice. The funny thing was it worked. Kind of— I had probably the most muscle mass and weight that I've ever had during that time. My face is now breaking out. And anyway, we, we do the allergy. There's a couple other things that were on there, uh, that were helpful. And then, yeah, we kind of eventually zoned in on environment. And I remember us being like, why don't we check the environment? I'm like, well, if I'm going to guess, I bet it's probably something underneath my sink, you know? So sure enough, do a, do a test that you recommended with Realtime Labs. I think that was a—

that's a blood test. I would have recommended a Hertzme test to look at actual mold counts. But what I remember about the test or the story was the minute you said my house smells like mold, I immediately thought the mold is guilty until proven innocent. And you really can't— I say that sort of jokingly— you can't really prove mold innocent in my book. The mold is always guilty until the patient is well. And so I immediately said bail on your apartment. Wherever you have to go, go there. What's interesting to me about your case in this story is that you got complete resolution of all of that in a matter of months.

Well, I was actually thinking too, I did do a test.

Um, did you do a Realtime Labs test? Yeah, because you were trying to get after your, uh, you're trying to, trying to dispute a, uh, you wanted some, some compensation for the fact that the property management firm did not handle the But the, the thing people don't understand as tenants is that property management firms, particularly builders, they have the terms weighted in their favor. We have a friend right now who the builder allowed mold to contaminate some element of their HVAC system, and it was known before they moved in. They moved in, they tested, they found it was elevated. They weren't feeling well. They ended up leaving the house. Now they've got this beautiful brand new build that isn't livable because, and, and of course, like I said, they've created a legal framework or what's the word I'm looking for? A legal climate environment where the terms are always weighted in favor of the builder or the property management firm, which is part of why being a mold savvy consumer, whether you're a tenant or a homeowner, is really important because it's, I've seen it. When people won't move out of a mold-damaged building, I don't have any expectation of them getting results no matter how much money, time, and effort goes into the case. I just, and I'll tell them that, which is why usually when I'm confronted with a scenario like this where there's a question of, well, it's just some mold under the sink. I am not living in a flooded basement apartment post-hurricane. I'm not, you know, watching my drywall fall down and crumble in my bedroom from the mold that's been eating it for months. Those are extreme scenarios where usually people in the entire family in the building are sick. This was a scenario a lot of people would have said, well, I'm just going to tough it out, I'm going to buy an air filter, I'm going to open the windows. Those are nice in theory, do not work in practice, generally speaking. But what's so interesting to me about it is that so many people in, in my world, the patients and the providers will zero in on the mold and then they'll completely miss the fact that this may have triggered an unusual food allergy. And that's also why I'm so enthusiastic about the allergy testing that we do, which is not anything that I see anyone else doing. And I think it's the best test out there on the market. What was your experience with that test before and after? Like, how quickly after you made those dietary changes did you see your health improve significantly?

To me, it was, it was largely, uh, the mold. So actually, I did the test. 4 out of 5 species of mold were present, and they were 100-fold higher than normal. Test kit says if, if the overall number is at 15, it's, it's uninhabitable and you should move out. My number was 34, so it was like severe. I did a third-party mold test. The guy found it, took pictures of it, shared. I mean, it was severe, right? So I got out of there, you know, flew back to California and definitely stopped eating, you know, the rice. I think I was allergic to cinnamon, which is funny. As a kid, I remember always having cinnamon and getting like a really dry mouth, you know, and being like, why is cinnamon like not sit well with me? So it's funny, it confirms some of that. I'd need to probably look back and they weren't all like really major food groups necessarily. No. Um, so leaving the mold, and then you put me on some supplements. And the funny thing was, I think I lasted— so I had severe acne, it was getting very bad. My gut was definitely starting to not sit well in general. But the funny thing was, I'm living in this one-bedroom apartment where the kitchen's right there, my office is right there, my bedroom's around the room, but I had my sauna space in the apartment. So every day I'm living in a mold infested environment and then I'm sunning. So I actually think the reason I lasted that long was the sun, and that's such severe— was the sauna. Yep. But once I got home, I mean, I did consistent sauna, uh, we did some supplementation, um, obviously cut those out, uh, but I went pretty heavy on the sauna. And I believe I did a mycotoxin test in January and I moved back to California at the end of October. And I know, I think we talked about that test isn't the best to measure really mold exposure, but it came back like totally clean. All of my symptoms have subsided and I have had zero long-term negative effects, you know, on, on any, on any realm. I mean, I've been totally better. It was getting out of the environment was huge, but we did some, some supplementation that I remember I think did help. It was a Micro Defense.

Yes, that was when I was wondering if it was maybe something else going on in the gut. Did you find that helpful?

I feel like it did. Yeah. And then, yeah, the skin took a while to heal. But eventually that did. And yeah, I mean, again, the key— like, that was an incredibly stressful time for me because I'm like, I have— I mean, I'm literally playing music. I'm like finishing this national board exam for health and wellness coaches, flying back and forth, flying for speak. I mean, it was insane. And to have like you guys there to message and like get some answers on this stuff was like an incredible game changer. And I realized if I had to go make an appointment with a physician and just get that little touch point with them while I had all these other questions, I mean, dude, it would have been really brutal. So that— I, I was incredibly grateful for, you know, the team, but also like my access to the team and you, uh, because I got my supplements quick, I got out of there fast. You wrote me like a note, you know, to like, yes, to the team, even though they did nothing, totally screwed me over. It was incredibly helpful during a very stressful time for me.

Yeah, and that's why we went membership, because what I found happening in scenarios like you were in is that you would get sick, your life would be derailed, you wouldn't know what to do. You would spend a ton of money, ton of time looking for answers. Most people in my world book out 3 to 6 months. Some of them have year-long waiting lists or more. And what that means practically speaking when you get sick is that you have no access to care except the conventional care that you're used to and that you're disillusioned with and that isn't going to help you get to the bottom of this problem. It's gonna be, hey, you're not dying right now and your labs are normal, so until your labs are abnormal or you're dying, then— or we have some kind of discrete diagnosis we can hand you. Or another caveat to that, right, was a lot of people would, with, say, cystic acne, would end up going to a dermatologist who would try a bunch of creams, a bunch of pills. Then they would wind up maybe going the laser therapy route or, you know, various other anti-acne treatments without ever getting to the root cause, which was And, and this is where your, the sequence of events becomes, it's academic what made you sick. Did the mold derail your digestion which led to something like say SIBO or a microbial imbalance that then led to acne that then led to this imbalance in your tolerance or your lack of tolerance for various different ingredients? We have no idea. And that's okay. We just know what we needed to do in order to get you better. And what I love about the membership model, which is also true of our programs— we have intensive programs that we recommend to people coming into the practice— is that we're able to take the time to make those recommendations, to explain them, and to do it intelligently. Because I remember hearing about your case before you and I sat down to review the data, and I was thinking to myself, something doesn't smell right here, pun intended. This guy is young, he's healthy, he's health-conscious, he's had no history of any of these problems before, he is doing the things we recommend. It is extremely uncommon for someone in the practice to get sick while under care, and I always go back and look at those cases because I'm very concerned with quality control. And invariably, something has entered the clinical picture that, you know, we they didn't know about, we didn't know about, which is why we actually have a system where we go through different questions with every patient. And this depends on the membership or the plan or program because we can't afford this amount of time in some of the tiers of membership. But the goal is to find anything that's going to derail their progress, because the most disappointing thing to me as a clinician is when we've done the supplements, we did the lab testing, they followed through They did the work, they showed up, and then we find out, oh, you were living in a moldy building and that's why you didn't get progress. You were eating a food you were allergic to and that's why you didn't see results. You were inundated with something like EMF or toxic light, or you had a toxic relationship and we didn't figure it out. Now, figuring it out is just the beginning and maybe half the battle. Figuring out what to do about it, depending upon the complexity of the problem, how it plays into your life, that's a totally different story. But, you know, when your goal is maximizing results, getting people really significant, durable progress in a short period of time, you, you have to stay focused on these fundamentals, otherwise you'll lose. And so I was really glad that we were able to, and that's why, again, I love the memberships, is that I didn't have to, I didn't have to get to know you from scratch. I already knew the case. And then it was pretty easy to find the problem, and we found it early. I mean, imagine where you would have been if you'd spent 6 months getting an appointment.

Totally. Yeah, and it probably happened in June. I started to see symptoms in August, and then we really discovered, you know, went through a good amount of testing, which obviously was expensive. But to me, the, uh, you know, coming out in October with a clear answer and not having to spend more on— because I was going down all the acne product route. I was going down all that stuff and yeah, that would have been endless. And there's a few friends right now I actually have that are literally going through the same thing and don't have, I think, this level of care. And it's like, man, it's brutal. And people usually share like, oh, I— because I share Dr. Stillman's work a lot. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, I go to Florida once a year to do this, have this continuity of care. And, you know, people always make fun of me for trying to be this health, you know, nerd. And I'm like, okay, we're all gonna die of something. I get that. And I'll pro— you know, like, you're gonna get some rare disease and die of something young. It's like, that doesn't negate how great I feel right now. Like, what I'm doing now, like, I— it feels great to feel great.— and the investment, you know, now of maybe paying a little bit more money for some type of membership or that flight once a year, I have found I'm actually going to be saving hundreds of thousands of dollars, I think, eventually. Statistically looking at the reality that most Americans are going to be getting sick in the next 10 to 20 years from some type of chronic disease, from some type of cancer, So I actually find what I'm paying up front for these things now pales in comparison to what most Americans are going to be spending in the next 20 years. Um, and so I think the investment I share with people is like, okay, you're going to pay a little bit more money now or a lot later. You can pick.

Much of what I try to do in the memberships and programs is to train people to be healthy. Because that's the greatest service I can really offer them. That's why I love quoting Hippocrates, the father of medicine in the West. The greatest medicine of all is teaching people how not to need it. And that's my goal. Most people don't show up with that mindset. They have to be invited to adopt it. And then we have to compete with all the other things in their life that lead them to say things like, well, I just want you to tell me what to do. Or I just want you to make it simple, which I respect the, we've all got goals, we've all got hopes and dreams, we've all got a limited amount of bandwidth. I have the luxury, so to speak, of this being my whole life. But I say that, and the funny thing about it is I actually, I actually live so much smaller than I could. I could see more patients, I could do more consults, I could work more hours. But you know, the reality is I'd rather be able to, I'd rather be able to still put the money I need to into labs, supplements, and my self-care and live smaller on these other things. By, by far, the people who get the best results in the practice have the same mindset. And it's when you really step back and look at the numbers here, it's, it's chilling. I mean, think about it. If we set you up for success so that you don't have any comorbidities or, or or illnesses, chronic diseases going into later life, we're dropping your risk of death by significant proportions. And we very commonly find people who are in the moderate to high-risk category for heart disease and bring them into the low-risk category in a matter of 6 to 12 months. And even if you're not changing that risk level when you're working with us, if we train you how to think, we train you how to live, we give you these healthy habits, we show you the way, We are dramatically increasing your likelihood of having a long, healthy life, at least in my view. And that to me is, I mean, you know, I mean, I'm biased, but I think what we do is invaluable.

So, oh, and I even think of one, you know, one instance of my labs where like my LDL is high and, you know, it's like you've read all the stuff on like cholesterol and that whole argument. If you go on YouTube and try and listen to like Dr. Berg or Saladino or some other physician, it's so confusing just to get a read on what is cholesterol. Should it be this number? Is that too high? And I remember, you know, having mine be a little high and then just doing a little bit more, you know, deeper into ApoB and some of these other metrics. Um, like, I wouldn't have gotten any of that, and I probably would be on a statin, you know. But you kind of like have looked at, you know, like, cholesterol and things, and like, that wasn't something to be, you know, super alarmed with, which like saved me the time of having to read and study all the different clinical studies on cholesterol, you know what I mean? Right. So that's incredibly you know, valuable there because you're not necessarily giving like the standard of care in the normal medical system, which I have a lot of issues with myself, you know, like how that process has looked. Um, so just little things like that I've, I've also found very helpful insofar as like I know you've done the work on those things and I can trust that you're not just doing what your average doctor is doing, which is just, here's a drug.

Andrew, thanks for joining me today. It's been a pleasure chatting with you.

Hey, I, I point people to Dr. Stillman as much as I can, and happy to be on the journey together.

Where can people find out more about your work, potentially work with you? I don't know if you're taking clients as a coach, uh, or talk to people about Humanality for a minute.

Yeah, my main work now is actually Humanality. So that word is humans engaging reality. We're helping people detox from digital addiction to phones, screens, social media, pornography, gaming. We run little villages, I call them, at universities where students go through a whole protocol to be more fully human and heal from a lot of these negative effects from from the digital landscape. Dr. Stillman has been a part of our curriculum, and you can go to humanality.org. We are not on any social media platforms, but my coaching kind of focus is all, all in that realm. So really helping with the technology piece and how do we use it with intentionality, right? Like, we're all using technology right now. I have a Light Phone. I try and use these things as tools. But that's our main work and we're looking to help families, individuals, and high schools, and really help people get their time back and live more like a human being. So that's kind of my main work and people can find what we're doing at our website.

Which is?

Humanality.org.

Do you want to spell that for the—

Yeah. Human. It's just human. Humanality.org.

And are you taking clients or—

No, this— yeah, I mean, I'm really investing all of my coaching, uh, you know, practice now into, into Humanality. So, you know, we're essentially going to be launching these villages for families and, and implementing a lot of— there's so much connection with what you guys are doing too, but, um, you know, having families come together and and learn more about the science behind what technology is doing to us and creating new challenges in your day like walking 3 times a day for 10 minutes and no phone in the bedroom and don't have your phone at meals, no phone in the bathroom. We know people aren't going to the restroom for 45 minutes and staying scrolling on their phone. I'm implementing a lot of you know, my interest there in the health and wellness world in our kind of digital detox, um, in-person villages. So that's where I think people, if they want to, you know, have a better relationship with their technology, they feel like they're just wasting time getting stuck doom scrolling, I think we're going to be like the premier movement that helps people live in reality.

Big fan of that right there. So I encourage everyone to go check it out. Thanks for joining me again, Andrew. It's great to see you as always.

Thanks, Doc. Great to be here.