Mike Mutzel | Syndemic vs. Pandemic: What The Health Do We Do Now? | Wellness Force #Podcast

Seeing people at our hotel just spraying, sanitizing these kids with Lysol wipes and they're in diapers, I'm like thinking to myself, oh my gosh, if people only knew. The data showing that that changes bacteria that can link are linked with asthma allergy atop obesity. So, Josh, I think all of us need to take a step back and realize that we're going to be exposed to this. But hand washing, sanitizing, distancing and all that is just one piece of the puzzle. And we need to also focus on lifestyle stuff and maximize the quality adjusted years for the population, not just the elderly.

3, 2, 1. Hello World and Facebook land and podcast land and wherever you are. I'm super grateful to be here today with a friend, a colleague, really a mentor at times. Who is Mike Mutzel. Mike, welcome to Facebook Live. Welcome to the podcast, man.

Josh, thank you so much for having me on. And right before this, I just want to mention I did my breathwork, which I've been doing really religiously every morning since we did a podcast about a year and a half ago, and it's changed my life. So, folks, you got to get into breathwork. I mean, it's such a great way to start your day.

It is, man. And I know you just had on James Nestor and there's so many different professionals in the world right now that are giving us tools that are proactive in health. And on your channel on High Intensity Health, this is what I'm most excited to talk about today. You did a video that totally inspired me and it made me reach out to you. And I was like, we have to talk about this live so we can actually have a real conversation with our community. And it was about this term called syndemic. Now, before we get into that, if people don't know Mike, he's the podcast host of High Intensity Health, he's a researcher, he's highly educated. I mean, like the rap sheet of academia hits the floor. So I'll actually link in the show notes today and on Facebook the previous podcast we did. So you can learn more about Mike if you're watching this live. But, Mike, for people that don't know you, man, who are you? In a few sentences before we dig into this really timeless topic. This topic will affect us for a long time.

I know. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon how we learn from this. Right? Yeah. To make a long story short, I've always been interested in health, and I was disenfranchised by mainstream medicine when I had my own health issue my fourth year of college, and that opened up my eyes to this, this huge body of science that we should be looking at. And unfortunately, although a lot of healthcare practitioners go into their training with the best of intentions to help people and stuff like that, they get so busy with charting, with insurance reimbursements, with managing their practice that they're oftentimes not exposed or unaware of all of the research that's out there. And I was just blown away. So I basically healed myself by digging into research and found this thing in 2006, this movement called functional medicine, integrative medicine. And that's what changed my life. And I've been inspired now to help educate people about the fact that we have PubMed, we have Google Scholar, we have access to all of this data, and we'll get into the data specifically around our current public health crisis. And so, yeah, I think a lot of people put onus on, hey, look, my doctor told me I have this condition, I take this pill or I do this, but really we all should be diving deeper and we all have access by way of the Internet to research. So that's kind of been. My mission is to empower people with knowledge and information.

About a year and a half ago, I got to stay at your home. And it really inspired me because you walk your talk like, it's one thing when people see a quote, influencer online. It's another thing when I'm actually at their home and they're cooking like beef tongue and bison liver in the pan in the kitchen. And I'm like, okay, he actually really does what he says he does and what he shares with other people. And the big deep breath that I think we all need right now, man, is what exactly is going on. I have walked the emotional ladder about all the different things that have been triggering me. And I know our audience and everything everyone with us has gone through despair, anger, resentment, distrust. I mean, the gamut of emotions are pretty large. When we look at the plandemic, pandemic, syndemic, however you want to describe this thing, like whatever nomenclature you want to use, it is in my opinion, and I'm curious how you feel to start off this conversation. It is the most grand, large transfer of power, transfer of wealth, transfer of attention that we've ever seen. Even if you look at the Great Depression or going back to the English lords when we came over here in 1776, I mean, there has never been this much transfer of wealth in such a short time. Is it really about health? Yes, we know that There is a virus out there. Just like Dr. Zach Bush talks about 10 to the 31 viruses, which is in his words, a grotesque number. So Mike, like, what's the state of the union from your lens, from your view in high intensity health of what is actually happening right now?

Oh, man, Josh, to be honest, I wish I knew. I have a lot of theories and hypotheses and I think anyone listening to this is listening because they are questioning the narrative and the inconsistencies in the messaging. I think that's the biggest thing. Let's just say you believe everything the media says. There's been multiple inconsistencies and that to me is a red flag. Now, I like to look at data, right? I mean, it's easy to let our emotions get carried away with what's going on. But if you look at the data, and this is where comes into this so called syndemic model, the individuals that are disproportionately affected and are more likely probabilistically to have severe outcomes with this have multiple comorbidities, chronic conditions that by the way, are ameliorated and helped with diet and lifestyle change, which has not been part of the narrative, which has been really frustrating. So, you know, of course we're hearing that this is all about health and this is all about staying safe and. But yet there's really no proactive preventative measures being communicated from the powers that be. And outside of just. And if we could kind of create two buckets, we have the containment bucket, so that would be distancing, masking, hand washing, etc. And then we have supporting the health bucket. There's been little. And that includes everything from breathwork to optimizing sleep to losing weight to exercise to stress management to sleep. None of those things have been prioritized by pretty much anyone until I think it was September 9th, the World Health Organization finally came out and said, oh, by the way, the data, which needless to say, I've been sharing since March, because this data started to emerge in March showing that these chronic conditions increase in the presence of these chronic conditions. And we'll talk about how prevalent they are. I think it's 95% of North Americans over the age of 45 have two or more chronic conditions. And so this is called, we've heard about the term comorbidity, but this has now been, these are called multimorbidity because people have, you know, they have asthma, they're overweight, they're pre diabetic and they're depressed. So people are on polypharmacy, multiple medications, have multiple conditions, so they're at much more higher risk of having a severe outcome. Right. So anyway, this is all a big fancy way of looking at this from a data driven perspective and saying, okay, well if we know that these individuals are much more likely to end up on a ventilator in the icu, on multiple drugs, and possibly have a higher chance of dying and then have a higher chance and higher probability of having a chronic outcome from getting this infection, why are we not talking about these preventative strategies? So that to me was like major red flag. And by the way, friends, you can find all this data just like I did back in mid March. This is when we started to get a lot of the so called clinical characteristics and case studies coming out of Wuhan, then Italy, then New York and then various other cities throughout and countries throughout the world. So it was really obvious to me. And that's when my red flag kind of like, well wait, if we know this science, then it's really unscientifically driven health advice to just say we gotta myopically focus on containment. And that kind of brings us to, you know, why these conspiracy theories are emerging, why people are questioning what's really going on. Because gyms are being forced to close. We know exercise is really good for managing blood sugar and all that, but yet we see McDonald's and donut shops open. So I think there's ample reason for people to start to question what really is going on here. You mentioned the power transfer and all of that. I mean, five seconds ago we heard so much, just to take a small tangent here, we heard so much about the environment. Like this was a presidential election topic. Many people chose political candidates and parties based upon their policies to support the environment, yet they're so quick to just order everything off Amazon, which is a major polluter. I mean, it's convenient as it is, but they're shipping out tons of single use plastic. All of that and all of the takeout from restaurants. I mean, all of that Styrofoam, that's not really. Most people don't know how to recycle Styrofoam or take the time to do it, which it can be recycled. But all these things that we're doing to contain this bug is not good for our health. It's damaging to the environment. And no one is questioning anything, which I think is sort of frustrating, but maybe we can just quickly define this syndemic model. And I think this is where honestly this Is science based. It's not conspiracy, it's not questioning anything. If we realize and what is a syndemic? So we've been told that this COVID 19 disease, caused by this SARS CoV2 virus is a pandemic. Right? Well, but we know that it disproportionately affects people with chronic conditions. So we have two epidemics meeting, and that's what a syndemic is. So when you have one epidemic affects the other epidemic or pandemic, that's called a syndemic because without one, the other one is not as severe. And so if we look at Ethiopia, Kenya, you know, parts of Africa, this is not a big that, you know, COVID 19 is not that big of a deal. If you look at in India, there's a lot of cases, but the case, sorry, the number of deaths per population is much lower than say, other populated cities, you know, in the United States. So. And that to me is another red flag. Like, okay, the science is never settled. Like if you were to tell Einstein, oh, we got this all figured out, we just have to wear masks and stay home forever, someone will be questioning, well, okay, why is it that just a small percentage of people that are infected end up with severe disease? That is the more scientific and the curious question. Why are people not. They're getting exposed to the same bug, but they have different outcomes? That should be the more scientifically interesting question to ask. And unfortunately, unfortunately, no one's asking.

This really goes against, it really goes against the Socratic method as well, where you have to validate and prove a hypothesis. Right. And so we're in this crazy time and I want to pull the E brake because you have such a wealth of information, man, I just want to go over for people that maybe it passed by this endemic. Is this contributing of burden, disease and population also clustering? There's a cluster of things. So I think, in my opinion, if we can go deeper into this, what do you feel? The economic disparity, the 75 million plus Americans and then even more around the world that are being bankrupted, what kind of stress emotionally, physically, spiritually that creates, then stack on top of that, all the deleterious lifestyle things like the fast food consumption and not moving. And then stack on top of that, people being forced to be at home and to wear this, to wear a mask on their face so that you can't have facial recognition. So it cuts off the primordial and the ancient systems that we have to judge by someone's face and their facial musculature if they're safe or not. So there's so many things that are adding to this like sympathetic nervous system load. How can we not be in a syndemic? How can we truly not be in this? And also contrast that with science and the Socratic method about it being a pandemic. Like what's the difference here?

Yeah, Gosh, Josh, I mean, I wish I really knew why this isn't being talked about. And it's. I almost, and I don't want to sound too woo woo here but it seems that the media has created this narrative and this so called like network tribalism such that if you question anything you are deemed a QAnon supporter, a right wing, Trump loving, racist, homophobic, sexist, transphobic. Like if you even question anything. And that's, it's so funny.

Mike, as you're speaking, there's someone cursing on our thing like who is Mike Muscle? And Tom, I get it man, he triggers you because there's some kind of truth exploration that is needed within you. Anytime any of us, Mike or myself are speaking and it's making you react with violence and making you react with swear words and cursing and trying to hurt the other person. There's something to explore there. I digress because it was perfect timing, man. Please continue.

No, I mean that I've gotten a lot of this and it's really weird. I don't know how people have become so, so called pro science and pro data and listening to the experts yet the minute that you present any data or science that conflicts with their confirmation bias, they lose their, their, their crap like they go crazy. And that is anti scientific even in and of itself. And so it's just really kind of a, I don't know how to explain what's, what's going on right now and the polarization that has been created, whether it's intentional or accidental or some combination therein. But I think that the outcome of the solution going forward is all of us need to stop putting on, on public health experts, many of which are not healthy themselves, and take intentional steps in our own life. Managing how we breathe, breathing through our nose, managing our stress, trying to be more proactive, getting involved in nature, grounding sunlight, eating real food, all of these things are very helpful because this idea that if we look at this vaccine, for example, and I'm not a vaccine expert, I'm not anti vaccine, I'm not pro vaccine, I just like to look at some of the science these are being tested and tried in young, healthy people that don't have these so called comorbid conditions, chronic conditions. So to think that you're overweight, hypertensive, pre diabetic, grandparent with fatty liver is just going to have this breakthrough with this vaccine, I think you're going to, you need to manage your expectations. And we can induce a lot of healthy physiologic change independent of weight loss, by just exercising, by just telling people to go out and exercise. And actually there's been some studies in healthcare workers who didn't produce a sufficient antibody response to just the flu vaccine. And they did a 12 week just exercise program, no diet change. Then they had the flu vaccine later and they had a protective serological antibody production for various influenza strains. And look, the data's been there since March. I mean, people say, well, there's not enough time for my uncle who's never exercised. We've been dealing with this for 10 months and the data's been there. And again, even Fauci, all these people, they're not saying it. So that to me is a frustrating thing. And so we all need to start sharing this message because this is data driven. Like, just because CNN's not covering it, it doesn't mean there's no science to substantiate what we're saying.

The article from the Lancet really blew me away and I just posted it in the comments for everyone with us right now. The COVID 19 synemic is not global. Context matters. That's the big one to talk about here. Whether you're spiritual or scientific, y' all know you can feel something is not right. Okay? Like you can look at the data, you can look at the disparate information, but really what this is. Mike and I'll talk about the Lancet study in just one second. From an emotional intelligence perspective, it's very clear what's going on, man. This is confusion by design. And it's here to separate people and to drive people into separate camps. For example, this guy Tom, who continues to curse on the line here. And I get it, it's bringing up stuff in him and other people are commenting as well. The reason why this kind of things divides us is because it uses our ancient brain, it uses our prefrontal cortex, our posterior cortex and our amygdala against us. The media understands these powers that be. And I'm not a conspiracy theorist myself, but it's very clear that if you look at marketing, if you look at manipulation and media, it is ever present where people understand. If you have tribalism, if you put yourself in one camp. It's pro life versus choice. It's mask versus no mask. It's Democrat and Republican. It's me versus you. Guess what, my friends, when you're in that kind of a mental construct where it's always a war and fighting, you are 100% easily to be controlled. That's what this is about. And so if we can all take a massive belly breath and pull way back from the computer right now and start honestly, scientifically and with emotional intelligence, looking at the real data, the real behavioral analytics and the real things that affect our health on a day by day basis, we will all collectively make the choice that it is time to open our lives back up, heal our immune systems and be a healthy human. So let's talk about this study from Lancet and also your work that inspired your video man. Because this clustering of different factors, that is really the syndemic, it's the clustering of all these different pieces. Can you share with us your research on that?

Yeah, excellent point, Josh. And I think this is where we should all be focusing. But yeah, I mean, this clustering and if we look at the disparity in outcomes the media has talked about, people of color and all that, some of these folks that have a high concentration of the black and brown communities don't have access to real food. They're eating food at convenience stores, pharmacies. I remember just a small little side story that was really sad. I used to do a lot of work in Chicago and I would stay out of the city because hotels were super expensive. And I would go in the suburbs and stuff. I remember going to the cvs. I was getting some mouth tape. Actually, it was a Sunday night, it was like nine o' clock and. And I saw a bunch of families grocery shopping at the CVS drugstore and their cart was filled up because it was really cheap. Buy one, get one half off Pringles candy and all that. And it just made me realize that folks that are working multiple jobs, single moms and all that, multiple kids, they don't have access to this grass fed beef that we might have access to, to avocados. And these clustering of communities that have been eating this way for probably their whole life, overweight, pre diabetic, all the whole thing. And so it's like, how do we protect those people? I don't have these answers, but I do believe that subsidizing soy, corn, wheat, sugar and all these commodity crops, making those foods artificially cheaper than they ought to be probably is not Helping matters, the situation. So everyone knows about this farm bill and all that. And so it's really, I think it's incongruent of these politicians to say, you know, hey, look, we're all about health. We're mandating this, we're cranking out PPE like you would never believe. But yet at the same time, they're subsidizing the very food that are making people more susceptible. So, you know, I think if we're gonna do one, if we're gonna talk about health, we need to really focus on what's been driving this. And if you look at these politicians that have been pro mask, pro lockdowns, they have been supporting things like the farm bill since the late 90s. Joe Biden, for example, was one multiple Democrats have created, you know, these food welfare type that are feeding people, that are giving people access to junk food. And this is not a partisan issue necessarily. I'm just sharing with you the actual data. So Josh, I think the data is clear. Your lifestyle choices impact your body's susceptibility to all sorts of diseases, not just chronic disease and acute diseases. And so if we take a big, you know, 50,000 foot view, if we look at why mainstream medicine has been really ineffective and inefficient at managing things like hypertension, things like prediabetes, diabetes, asthma and all that, whereas lifestyle change really matters. They're using the acute care model to manage chronic conditions. And as a society, we are similarly making that same mistake looking at the world and our mitigation strategies through the lens of just acute like, like, let's minimize our exposure to this virus and that we're forgetting about how important lifestyle is to affecting how our bodies respond when we are exposed to this virus. Look, the virus is invisible. Many people, I think the CDC self reported data from people that have been infected. 85 or 90% of people who have new infections say I distance. I wore a mask, I washed my hands, I did all that. I had a client who I was working with and his spouse was just vigilant about mask wearing. She would go to McDonald's and sanitize our coffee. She still got COVID 19. He didn't. Right. So it's like we can't see this bug. So to think that we're going to. And no one in the world, by the way, no countries, I should say, that are of large populations with cities of tens of millions of people have been able to contain this. So this idea that we're going to contain this forever, it's just a pie in the sky idea. We need to include the narrative of improving our health with intentional strategies.

The big phrase that comes up for me, Mike, that you remind me of is a conversation we had with Rob Wolf about two months ago, and we were talking about the unintended consequences of trying to control nature. Let me ask everyone this just as we go into this section of the conversation. If you stand in the middle of a storm, it's calm. As soon as you go out to the edges of the storm of a tornado, for example, try to stop it. Try to put your hand up and stop a tornado, it ain't gonna happen, right? And again, if you're spiritual or scientific, we all have these universal truths that we can all feel with our somatic system and just our general intelligence that we all know to be true. And so the unintended consequences of trying to manipulate and control nature anytime, right? You take matter and you move matter. There is a corresponding result. And from your studies, specifically around the unintended consequences and also your time in college, you know, with what you wrote with and the belly fat effect and everything else that you've worked on. Like, can you share with us, like, maybe the top three unintended consequences of what's really happening when we look at the plandemic syndemic of what we're experiencing right now?

Yeah, that's such a great question, Josh. You know, I think on the personal level, and then we can look at populations, but on the individual level, I really think the biggest unintended harm that we're doing to ourselves is social isolation. We know that social isolation is linked. And gosh, there's this UCLA researcher, I'm drawing a blank on his name that has looked at the impact on physiology of being socially isolated is on par with smoking. And so I see a lot of depression amongst my clients. I've had several clients who start out our consult and they start crying, and I just sit there and listen and breathe. And they are so emotionally frustrated that it's reverberating and causing deleterious health outcomes from weight gain to diabetes to all of this. So to me, that's the biggest thing. So then we're distancing ourselves, and so then we compensate with things like junk food. We're trying to get that dopamine hit from maybe social media, from pornography, from gambling, from opiate deaths, all this. So to me, I think that's the biggest thing because we, as you mentioned earlier, we are tribal creatures and our online tribes are polarizing us in crazy ways. So I think. I think that's the biggest thing. I think various studies have actually looked at continuous glucose monitor measurements from type 1 diabetics throughout the world throughout lockdowns. Lockdowns are not good for your blood sugar. And what's kind of paradoxical about that, about the lockdowns is they're making people more susceptible to severe outcomes. So this is the thing where, like, our treatment is increasing the probability that when these people are exposed, they're going to suffer more severely from the disease that we're trying to prevent them from being harmed by. And so it's like this really interesting. And again, this is data driven. This isn't some right wing conspiracy QAnon stuff. This is scientific. Scientists have been talking about this.

How many people. I'm sorry to interrupt you because the point you made is huge. Before we go into the other ones, how many people watching or listening can feel what Mike is saying beyond just like looking at a published data study of behavioral psychology? How many people can feel what's actually going on right now when you are being forced to stay at home in a lockdown, not have other people in your life? Personally, I'm not going to name names, but I have a family member and I am actually going to see him this weekend to console and give him emotional strength because he's a young man. He's dealing with incredible anxiety and depression and stress from not being able to play his lacrosse, not being able to play sports, and being forced to sit down, be quiet, wear a mask, and do what you're told. And it breaks my effing heart. I mean, it literally breaks my heart because I'm thinking, we all need to stand up right now. This is not the time to be silent. This is not the time to kowtow that emotional piece like you talked about with your clients being depressed and whatnot. I had to tell you that because it really hits home for me. Like my heart actually constricted when you were talking about it. So please continue, man, because there's other points that are going on that are really an unintended consequence of this lockdown, of this BS.

I'm with you 100%. And my third kind of thing that I was gonna mention on both the individual level and societal level is the negative impact on because children rely, first of all, I mean, if we just look at their risk of having severe outcomes really low. I think out of there's 100 million people under the age of 21 in this country, maybe 120 million. And I think all of like 200 people have died. And so you're like, well, if that's one of your. That was my child. Maybe I would talk about this differently. But on a. We have to focus on maximizing what's called quality adjusted life years. QALYs that's what we're talking about. We're never going to prevent every single death. That's never going to happen. People die. I mean that's just the reality. 100% of everyone listening to this right now, the probability of you dying is 100%. It's just when. So we need to maximize what's called the quality. It's the quality adjusted life years. And our strategies ought to focus on maximizing those quality adjusted life years. Children have the largest bank account, so to speak, of quality adjusted life years to lose. And so our intervention strategies are literally chipping away at their potent. At their. We're taking massive withdrawals from their quality adjusted life year bank account. And look, I have family members that I deeply care about that are over the age of 70. Right. With all due respect, they don't have their bank account of quality adjusted life years is not. They don't have as much to withdraw from because they're older. So we need to look at the pool of quality adjusted life years and focus on, and this is called an aggregated public health model and say, look, if we only focus on just the elderly, well then we're going to chip away and take massive withdrawals from the young people who have the most to lose. So this is where we need a more targeted. And this is the beauty of like coming from a functional medicine perspective. You know, mainstream medicine is like, everyone get the same thing no matter what. Every baby born needs hepatitis B no matter what you're like, well, are they going to be exposed to hepatitis B as a newborn that is transmitted from sex and IV drugs. Probably not. So this is where kind of having this framework of personalizing precision or personalized medicine and individualizing the treatment and we should be doing that on a societal level. And, and like you mentioned your family members. I have teens. They are being disproportionately affected by this and these changes early in life, the recidivism, if you're overweight or depressed or diabetic as a young person, that doesn't just suddenly go away when you're 18. A lot of people carry this on and the epigenetic imprinting that's occurring from say pregnant mothers that are super stressed. What are the health, health ramifications of those Children that have yet to be born, the microbiome changes in toddlers and all the sanitization. We were in Hawaii kind of unplugging and all that. Seeing people at our hotel just spraying, sanitizing these kids with Lysol wipes and they're in diapers. I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh, if people only knew. The data showing that that changes bacteria that can are linked with asthma, allergy, atopy, obesity. So Josh, I think all of us need to take a step back and, and realize that we're going to be exposed to this. But hand washing, sanitizing, distancing and all that is just one piece of the puzzle. And we need to also focus on lifestyle stuff and maximize the quality adjusted life years for the population, not just the elderly.

I think I have a better way to wear the mask. I was just thinking about it. Why don't we wear the mask like this and that way we can actually breathe our biome through our nose and our mouth and we can shut our eyes to all the crap that's going on in the media, in the mainstream media. Because what's really happening here is we're trading a perceived sense of safety and security from our quote, godparents, right? The US government, the WHO and the cdc. And in turn for that we're giving our most valuable resource and that is our sovereignty and our health and our health freedom. Because again, going back to this concept of unintended consequences, I get it. Like I really do understand, I understand why people think that it's good or you know, caring for their fellow humans to wear a mask. I totally get it. It's the empathetic wiring in our brain that Jason Silva talks about in brain games. We all understand we're empathetic creatures, we care for one another, we need each other. Unfortunately, that same wiring in our brain is being taken over by the people that drive billions of dollars in clicks on cnn, CNBC and all these different media channels. This is really what's going on. And Mike, one thing I love about you man, is on the front lines. You're doing the research. You're actually going in and digging into the PubMed studies and really sharing with your audience at High Intensity Health, like what's going on. But what's behind that and what's actually making you do the things that you do to educate people right now is this is actually nothing about health. And I'll speak for myself. I'm curious how you feel. I think this has everything to with, do, do with People being controlled and with our current economic structure being transferred from the very, very few, we're talking like the 0.001% of people that are going to profit the most from this event. Have you looked into that aspect at all? And have you been called a conspiracy theorist?

I have been called a lot of names, yeah. So, yeah. So I think, honestly. So if I'm being totally honest and I might irritate some people with this, I think there's multiple so called nefarious things at work here that are occurring simultaneously, if I'm being real. Okay, so we know we have access. There's going to be a blockbuster vaccine that will be probably mandated in some countries, hopefully not the United States. So Even if you make $1 of profit on that, you have how many billion people on the planet? Over 6 billion. Close to 7 billion people. So that to me is like one narrative that could be going on. We had the election, right? And the virus has been conveniently politicized to influence how to vote. So you have that narrative. You have the big business. If you look at Facebook, you look at all the advertising to the news, you have Amazon is just crushing it right now. So you have that. So I honestly think there's probably people that are capitalizing on the attention and the ability to merchandise this virus for their own influence. And there's multiple things occurring.

That's a really good way to say it. Oh my God. Merchandising the virus. Let's just let that land for a moment. I have not heard that yet. That's real. That feels.

You know where I got this from? Nancy Pelosi, actually there was a video on C Span where she talked about how you merchandise. So you can say negative. This is how politics works. And she in her own words talks about this on C Span, okay, Where a politician will make fake accusations to another politician, say of a different political party. And then the media will report on those fake accusations. This person's a racist, this person's a transphobic. And then because the media reported on, then the politician that made these inaccurate accusations can merchandise that because. And she says in her own words, because the media has already reported it. So people will think it's real. When I heard that, I was like, this is what's going on. This is insane. And she was literally, this is on C Span, Josh, I'll share with you this video. Just like it's entertaining. Cause you're like, well, wait, this is how politicians, dirty politicians do their work. And then it was frightening because it's like, wow, people actually believe this stuff and they don't see through it. So that was. Anyway, so, yeah, merchandising is an interesting wow.

I think about that phrase, you know, in Spaceballs where he's like, merchandising, Merchandising. It's the same thing. Like Spaceball's the Schwartz, Spaceball's the watch. I mean, I hate to make a joke on this, but like, it is, you know, as the Chinese call. I believe it's the Chinese symbol for crisis is danger and opportunity. And within any crisis there are people who are going to capitalize and who are going to monetize often of other people's pain. Unfortunately, I've heard from many people and watched many documentaries about 9, 11, when the buildings were going down immediately where traders were going is what trades can I make to capitalize on the buildings falling down? And this is the shadow of our collective. You know, Young does a deep dive into the shadow and I think Jordan Peterson talks about this as well. The shadow part of ourselves is the part that we really are scared to look at and we really are terrified to explore because. Because we're scared that we might get stuck. And Mike, in my opinion, brother, I feel like we are all being forced. There is no way we cannot look at our collective shadow right now. Because every bit of pain, every bit of suffering and all these things, when the pain teacher comes to ring the bell of education for us, we are eventually forced and grabbed by the hair to look in the mirror of who we've become. And at that point we will understand what have we created here? We have created a unconscious capitalistic model. I'm not anti capitalism, I'm for egalitarian capitalism. But we have also created a world structure of economic and agriculture and business and insurance companies and pharmaceutical and medical that really just siphons resources from people at all cost. And if you look at the laws of nature, Mike, and I'm setting this up because I want to know what you feel about this when we look at nature versus science, because you have the very heavily science, heavily science in your background. If we ever think in nature that there is going to be 100% year over year over year over year growth, we are mistaken. It does not exist. Yet we are driving this engine and we are driving ourselves into the ground by ignoring the laws of nature. Can you talk about this comparison between the laws of nature and nature herself versus what we're trying to do with worshiping science as if science was a God?

That's a brilliant question. Like Rob said, I don't know that we can control nature and as we can't. Right? And so I think we need to just really look at what we're doing, the damage that work, the unintended damage that we're doing to the environment in what we're trying to do to contain this virus. I mean. I mean, we're seeing face masks everywhere. I was just in Maui in this beautiful blowhole where it's like this lava tube and then the waves would come in and shoot water up 200ft. And there was people's face masks littered right by the blowhole. And so I picked it up and everything like that. But I just, I really worry about the damage that we're creating to the environment with all the plastic and the spit shields and spit guards and this and that. Everything's being sanitized. So. So I think we need to realize, as uncomfortable as it may be for some of us to realize that, you know what, this virus will claim the lives of people. And that is really unfortunate. And so enough with all the fear mongering. We need to empower people because fear mongering just makes you more controllable. It doesn't empower you to make more intentional decisions about ways you can improve your health. And so I think we need to transfer eyes to, hey, look, you gotta start exercising. If you're scared of people, take off your mask and go for a walk. The risk of outdoor exposure or transmission is really low. So do things to empower people, to wake them up. And I feel like the people that are most scared and are most convinced that they're just gonna die from this virus if they ever get exposed to this are the very people that are not meditating. They're not going to church, they're not doing any spiritual type work. They just believe in this authoritarian regime, the state telling what to do. So the more intentional people can be about their health, the less fear they're going to feel and the more healthy they will feel. So I don't know if I totally answered your question exactly as you wanted, but I think we need to embrace nature, realize it's hard to control it, like you and Rob have said, and make intentional steps to make our bodies more resilient to ebbs and flows of nature.

Nature, man. Let's totally get into the factors for physical resiliency in right now, because I do. I don't want this conversation to be a railroad and just be like, take off your mask, stand up. Even though I feel that way, I do Want to lovingly turn to the people like we have a comment from Pam. I wear a mask, I eat well, food deserts are real. Show us solutions. All right, cool. Let's talk about this. So Pam's asking for solutions. Let's go into the real solutions to fortify our microbiome health, starting with our nose and our mouth because people forget that we breathe in our biome. And then secondly from a maybe supplementation aspect or just general lifestyle modification aspect, like let's talk about bulletproofing us so that no matter what narrative is going on outside of us, or sprays in the air, which there's 10 to 31 viruses, how do we do this? How do we fortify ourselves, man?

Yeah, I mean there's a bunch of different ways. In early May, I launched a video of like the 15 ways you can support immune system health based on science. And so I go through all the details but you know, since you've inspired me so much, Josh, with your breath work and the hyperts, the hyperventilation followed by retention, the so called boxed breathing, I think that's really effective because it's not only a great way to mitigate some of the mental turmoil that we're all going through, but it's a great way to help support your body's immune system response. And that's been validated with WIM HOF study in the Netherlands that came out that was really very impressive I think, I mean showing that just a few weeks, I think it was like six weeks or three weeks or something of breathwork training and then exposure to a very pro inflammatory bacterial particulate called endotoxin. When they separated the outcomes of the two groups, the folks that practiced the breath work versus the age matched controls that didn't do the breath work had a dramatic reduction on that bacterial's ability to create inflammation. So we can mitigate our body's immune system response intentionally. So breath work and that goes to how you're sleeping, right? If you're breathing through your nose while you're sleeping, you're getting much more restorative sleep. Our immune system, a lot of people don't realize our immune system is actually very active when we're sleeping. And so if we're short changing our body sleep or we have sleep disorder breathing which is breathing through your mouth, or we have the extreme version of that of sleep apnea, there's a spectrum of sleep disorder breathing, then we're not getting the appropriate recovery that we should be getting and our immune system is not doing what it needs to do. And so sleep is very important. Breathing through your nose while you're sleeping, exercise, getting sunlight, going out outdoors, movement. I think the only downside, I'm sorry, the only upside to closing gyms, although I do not agree with that policy whatsoever because it's not supported by data, I think 2.5% of cases in various studies have been from gyms. You're much more likely to get exposed to by going to McDonald's compared to going to a gym. But anyway, exercising outdoors, I think it's. Closing of gyms have forced people to get creative and so they're doing outdoor workouts. So moving outdoors, breathing nature, breathing air is great and grounding things like that. But exercise is up there in the top three because we know that exercise is so good for your body's immune system and for reducing the prevalence of those comorbid conditions that make you more susceptible. So squashing down the ebbs and flows of your body's glucose levels, glycemic variability, having a bunch your blood sugar, do this all the time. The more variable your glucose levels are, the more at risk you are of having a very poor outcome if you are exposed to this virus. So low carb foods, eating whole real food, not processed sugar, ketogenic, carnivore style diet, match basically your carbohydrate and your calorie intake with your overall energy expenditure. If you're sprinting, if you're an athlete, you're doing crossfit, whatever, okay, you can afford more calories, you can afford more to eat more carbs. But if you're sedentary, you don't need to eat a lot. Just focus on protein and fat, your relationships, so your relationships with technology and media, all of those things really matter. What else? Micronutrients, zinc, vitamin D, probiotics, eat more fermented foods, chew while you're eating. A lot of us, you know, we had Thanksgiving and just wolf down food.

Yes.

Put the fork down, take a breath. You know, the digestion really starts right here in your mind. And if you are not not being mindful of how you're eating and how you're chewing, you're not sending the post meal processing, you're not going to process your food like it should be. So insulin release, all the gut hormones, all of that depend upon mindful chewing and eating. So again there's a long list but I think breath, work, sleep, exercise, sunlight are like on the top and then the other stuff is kind of extra credit and we can all be doing this no matter our income or current financial situation.

It's awesome, man. And there's the video you talked about with the 15 things. We'll link that as well. Morgan says fermented foods. Woot woo. Exactly. I mean, there are things in nature that are so healing and so powerful, but if we are not accessing and we're being blocked by nature because we are worshiping science as a God that tells us we need to stay at home, there's something fundamentally and really morally wrong. I'm not a religious person, but I am a deeply spiritual person, as I know you are. We've talked about, about explorations of different consciousness before, but one thing that I do see that's a correlation here is we breathe in our microbiome. We use amylase and protease that actually gets our food and starts the digestive process. You know, there are certain things that nature does to get a foothold and then to make progress with us and just really to guide us and lead us throughout our lives. And so the more that we get in the way of this and the more that we're blocking the microbiome. Biome, let's talk about this one specifically. That's why I wore the mask over my eyes, because I'm like, man, that's actually healthier than putting it on our mouth. We would actually be more healthy just putting the mask over our eyes and being outside, maybe in a safe space, not near cars or anything dangerous. But when we breathe in our microbiome and when we actually are eating these fermented foods, what are the ways right now that that is actually being blocked? How is our health being sacrificed by believing this false God, this who, this cdc? What's really going on there with the gut microbiome, starting with the mouth and the nose? And how does this mask get in the way of it?

Josh, that's such a great question. You know, to be honest, I haven't looked at what the scientific literature would say about this, but I do think there is probably some unintended harm from just, you know, because there is this mask mouth, you know, dentists are talking about, so changing possibly the PH of your oral saliva, which is causing it an imbalance in the growth of different bugs. And so I think that's probably part of it. And look, I'm not anti mask. The first time I wore a mask was in February, actually, when I was going to get a surgical procedure in Canada. I was hearing about this coronavirus. I was like, dude, I don't want to get sick and get some unknown. We didn't know much about it back then. So on an airplane, I think it's a good measure to wear a mask if you're in a confined environment with a lot of people you don't know. Probably a good idea wearing a mask on a hiking trail. Totally unsubstantiated by science and really silly. So that's. Again, this should be selective masking based upon risk, based upon duration of exposure and all of that. But you have people now who are wearing masks in their cars 24 7. Anytime they leave their house, they're wearing a mask. And that is, I think, problematic because, yeah, you're getting the unintended harm. Because, look, it's. We're touching these masks. And I'll just share a small side story. I've been making kind of satirical videos over the last several months, and I made one good.

I love the Fauci one that you made. It was so funny.

So I made. So check it out. So during that video, I was joking around and exaggerating the point that we'll talk about right now. A lot of people, they touch their phone, they're in the bathroom, they're on the commode, whatever. Then they touch their mask, they move their mask. Even Fauci himself. I remember a video in June where he was at some sort of press conference at the White House, and he was touching his mask like 30 times. So we touch our mask a lot. And then so we. Our hands are really dirty. So when I was making that video, I touched my eye. No kidding, Josh. I had an infected eye for like two and a half weeks just from that. And people were like, no, that's not what caused it. And I did slow motion on the video. So I went like this, and I really, egregiously touched my eye to make a point. And so the point is our hands are super dirty. And so we're touching this thing. We're putting our mask around our phone in our pocket. So that, to me, I think the unintended harm could be increased exposure to pathogens just from our hands and our phone being out in the environment. So I think that's a major source of unintended harm. I think the other source, kind of independent of masking, is sanitizing everything and a reduction of the exposure and the diversity of microbes, especially for children. This may not be so important for adults because our immune system has been appropriately or inappropriately educated from our early life environment. But children and their immune system, while it's developing during the first, say, six years of life. It's being influenced in educated by their environmental exposure to bugs and their own microbiome. And so for reducing the diversity there, we're essentially shortchanging them of education that can help them later in life avoid things like autoimmune disease, skin disorders, atopy, depression and even obesity. So I think that to me is a big disservice. So like, I think maybe people will call me irresponsible, but. But if your kid's playing with another kid, take the mask off. I mean, let them get exposed to stuff because they have the biggest, they have the most to lose from 247 masking in my opinion. And yeah, I just think we need to be more smart about this. I mean if you're out riding your bike, take your mask off. I mean, give me a break. If you're a cashier at a high volume store, it probably makes sense to wear a mask because you're gonna be exposed to a lot of people. And even if you're super healthy and this is where the data supports this vit viral load is important in your outcome. So you can be super healthy. But you know, if you get a lot of virus that can overwhelm your body's immune system response, that can be a problem. So I think we just gotta be more smart about this. Use common sense. This is what the principles in America has been built on.

A lot of these stories too that are shared in the media really for fear. And you've done a few of them. There was a gentleman who I guess was a crossfitter and he was healthy and he got Covid and I guess he was in the hospital for like a month, but then literally in the hospital as he's being wheeled out of the hospital or something like this, he's drinking a Coke, he's saying how excited he is to go to Burger King and like get a Whopper or McDonald's and get a Big Mac or something. I mean just because somebody physically looks healthy does not mean they're healthy. And what's happening is we're getting these like really examples that the media gets. You guys, I'm not doing joking. We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue here. Anytime that there's stories that create novelty. If you look at storynomics, which is a really good book about this, or if you look at some of like the tipping point work from Malcolm Gladwell where he talks about thought contagion and emotional contagion, what's happening is we get these studies from so called Healthy looking people, they may even have a six pack. But their immune system, their nutrition, the way they live their life, it actually makes them completely unhealthy, which then makes them more susceptible, like you said, to viral load and to having viruses like Covid or any other virus affect them. And then they're put out there as a fear mongering stick to say, well, you better be careful, you better stay at home, wear a mask, do what you're told, don't think for yourself and it's okay to go and eat McDonald's. And look, this guy in the hospital is doing it too. I mean, we are living in the most fucking insane time. I honestly can't even believe it sometimes where I'm just like, guys. It kind of makes me want to cry. I've had moments too. And I know all of us that are here have felt this way. We see these things happening and there's a part of our heart and our emotional intelligence that knows this is all bullshit. What is it though? What is it about? First talk about this gentleman who you highlighted where he was supposedly healthy. But what is it about us as a society that we just get so hooked in to these stories and it just takes us for a ride. So please contrast the two things.

Yeah, I mean we're so gullible and I honestly think it has to do with, with the fact that we haven't been so called red pilled lately. And I don't know how else to say it, but if we haven't been disenfranchised by the state, and I'm not playing victim here or anything, or mainstream medicine, if we haven't seen inconsistencies, then we tend to believe the powers of authority is kind of where I think this stems from. But you bring up this great story. This is, and I saw it. So Tim Ferriss retweeted this from Reddit. There's a new nurse based in San Francisco called. His Instagram handle was the bearded nurse. His name is Mike Schultz. He was, I think 43 years old, super fit looking guy. So the media was like, see, if this can happen to him, it will happen to you. Now here's the thing about this story that a lot of people don't realize. I've done anabolic steroids before in college, I've made steroids, I've sold steroids. So I can tell when someone is on anabolic steroids. It's just a look to their muscle that is hard to describe. It's almost. But you can see it. Okay, so he was clearly on whether it was illegal anabolic steroids or testosterone replacement therapy. It was on one of the two. Combination of both. Okay, I could just tell now what made this story most dramatic for the media and why they ran with it is because in the hospital, he didn't have his anabolic steroids or testosterone. So you have this super jacked looking dude who went emaciated, lost like 50 pounds or whatever because he was on a ventilator. So it was a perfect contrast. To tell people, like, jacked guy gets super skinny and frail, like, oh, my gosh, this is scary. So they loved this. And so I started to look through his Instagram and he had multiple pictures of him drinking soda, eating breadsticks. And in the hospital, he's in the ICU drinking a liter or half a liter or whatever of coke. And then the very first thing he did, he took a selfie at McDonald's upon leaving the hospital, eating a Big Mac. And you could see the french fries. And so it was like, okay, you have a guy who just because he looked physically fit and muscled, he's probably pre diabetic or has a lot of chronic inflammation. And the other side of the story that didn't really get talked about is he went to some massive rave and presumably did a bunch of drugs and stuff like that, and so was probably sleep deprived and all that, and that's where he got infected. So there's so many nuances to the story if you just take five minutes to dig a little bit deeper that the media didn't cover. They just wanted you to focus on Jack. Dude get super sick, you are not as ripped as he is, so therefore you'll get even more sick. So stay home, wear your mask, never see your family again. And that to me is super, super disingenuous. And the fact that someone is even during the midst of a pandemic or anytime, allowed to drink a large soda in the hospital data clearly shows that when you drink, even a glucose tolerance test, which is around 70 grams of glucose, it totally trashes all of your different immune cell subtypes, from macrophages to lymphocytes, monocytes, all of that. So refined sugar is terrible for your immune system. And this guy just recovered from the virus and he took a selfie and he posted it on his own Instagram. So that just told me that as a nurse and a health professional, he has a major disconnect between diet and obviously, the media. I think this is super dishonest journalism. I mean, look, Josh, you and I Both have platforms. I would never share a story after doing five minutes of investigation, realizing that like this dude didn't really have a healthy diet, probably not a good representation. And so anyway, after that sure drove.

Some clicks, didn't it?

Dude, it was really what this is all about. Tim Ferriss. It was very popular, Josh. That's the thing. It went, this thing went viral. All the, all the media sites talked about it, but no one did any investigation. And I was a little disappointed. Tim Ferriss didn't even, he just tweeted it, retweeted something from Reddit, like see. And so the problem is we are so busy. What I figured out, we're so busy in our lives that we don't have time to spend the extra five minutes to, to vet a story. We trust these stories based upon face value because we assume that just like we assume when we go to Target, that soap that I buy that has parabens and phthalates and perfumes, it must be healthy for me because Target is selling it. So we believe that MSNBC and cnn, all that the things that they're feeding to us are vetted by unbiased journalists, which they are not. They are, are. It's thinly veiled propaganda really. And so we all need to vet our media.

What's challenging, I think, to our subconscious, which is where 90 plus thoughts or 90% of our thoughts really live and exist and direct our lives, is that potentially the people that we've so called trusted for our whole lives, whether it's even our parents, right, they lovingly do the best they can, but they're coming at us with the level of consciousness and awareness and education that they, they have. It's the same thing with us as a collective society. It's the same thing with how we look at politicians or media or even doctors. There's a, there's a person who commented saying that CDC is a false God. Sounds goofy to me. Common sense measures, high lightning. Functional medicine would be helpful. I agree. And look, what I'm saying by this is we all get to take a huge belly breath and pull way back from this thing and just ask ourselves like some key fundamental questions. Questions here. Number one, when in life have we ever seen through epidemiological studies or just through trusted journals that science is always 100% pure and never controlled by money? I mean, look, this isn't about conspiracy. Like I'm not a conspiracy dude. What I am is I just want to know what is true. I just want to know the truth. And that's what you and I share. Is this like real eagerness for what is the truth and what supports that truth? And so yes, Pam, I do believe that CDC is praised as a false God. But even if you look at the narratives from the cdc, it's wear a mask, don't wear a mask. There's no asymptomatic transmission now. There is. I mean, the constant flip flop in such a short span of time. Doesn't that make you want to think for yourself? Doesn't that make you want to experiment on yourself? And I mean, this is what people are going crazy for in the comments right now and all of us are feeling is like we are sovereign beings, we make our own decisions. Just relying on the CDC and the WHO or science as a quote God figure is not intelligent. What do you think about this?

I'm with you, man. Look, scientists can be wrong. I mean, look, if you still ate what the Experts in the 1990s, late 90s told you to eat, you'd be overweight, pre diabetic, hypertensive and depressed. And that was, and I ate that way. A lot of us that ate that way and realized that it was affecting our health. Remember 7 to 11 servings of grains? Remember that food pyramid with bread and all that? I mean, give me a break.

And then they came out with myplate.gov which is basically the same thing. It was almost the exact same thing.

You're like, dude, scientists can be wrong friends. And to think that scientists cannot be bought. There's a book behind me called the Big Fat Surprise that talks about how fat has been wrongly vilified and we've been taught wrongly that carbohydrates, carbohydrates are necessary and needed and we need to have lots of them. That's all based upon industry influenced industry influencing scientists to then come out with messaging to influence the public. And so, yeah, I mean, so that's the thing. So if you have not done any exploration into the conflicts of interest in scientific messaging from the nutritional standpoint, then you're probably going to believe everything that you're hearing now from this virus. And so for many of us that have seen inconsistencies in messaging from past other public health issues, the obesity outbreak and epidemic and all that, we're able to see through this. And so I would encourage people to start exploring the history of nutrition in this country. The government subsidies the cardiovascular and American Heart Association's influence of high carb diets and vilification wrongly of fats. And remember back in the early 2000s, it was cholesterol was the enemy. Everyone needs to be on statins. Statins are going to be in the water. Oh my gosh, now we're realizing that, well, maybe even higher LDL cholesterol is actually protective. People can stave off things like dementia and Alzheimer's and there's a correlation between neurologic protection with high LDL cholesterol levels. So, yeah, I think the point that I think you were alluding to that is really important to remember is the science is never settled, right? I mean, there's laws and we can identify physiologic functions functioning that are not going to change, right? You still have a brain, you're always going to have a brain. We have cytochromes, we have mitochondria, all that. But the idea that the science is totally settled, right? It's not. In fact, there was a face mask study that was. And this is why I've been questioning face masks is a broad public health policy for everyone in public that hasn't been studied. There's been mathematical models and modeling and well, this county mandated face masks, but this didn't. Let's look at the prevalence of infections and so on, on. So there's that been that. But there's never. Up until last. Was it last Tuesday or last Wednesday, scientists in Europe, this was over the summer, they had people not wear face masks. They randomized people as like 3,000 subjects wear a mask in public, don't wear a mask in public. And they looked at the total, you know, at the end of the study who got infected the Most. It was 48 infections in the masking group to 51 infections in the the non masking group. So it was statistically non significant. There's really no outcome. And that was the only study that was randomized in humans that we have to date for public masking. So we've all assumed that there's all this science and there's so much. It's mathematical modeling. We all know that the models have been way off. Remember Fauci said 2 million people are going to die. That didn't happen. So modeling does not equate to science. Those are rough approximations.

And I get they're trying to cya cover their ass. But at some point there has to be accountability for decisions and really based on data decisions, that behavior of society gets to be changed. Right. And so what breaks my heart the most, man, and how we can round out this conversation is we've explored a ton of what I believe is going on that is control, mind control, and control of our destiny as humanity. And that's incredibly heartbreaking for me. It's not something that we need to bathe in. I'm not saying we need to sit here and just be angry and shake our fist in the air. But if you look at the scale of emotions, anger is way more powerful than despair, right? And if we are to go from despair to anger to acceptance to then what are solutions and then taking inspired action on solutions, there's a graduated approach that we can all take here. What does that approach look like to you? Like, for example, if you could wave a wand and high Intensity health could like quadruple its impact in the world, which already reaches like millions of people a month here. But if you could take that and let's say you could reach 100 million people in one month, what is a narrative that you might say to them about this graduated solutions approach?

Yeah, Josh, that's such a great question. I think the solution there is what scientists have talked about, certain scientists, as an aggregated public health model focusing on maximizing the available pool of quality adjusted life years. And so if we just kind of unpack what that really is, what that means is taking more of using a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. So right now we're taking a sledgehammer to our society saying there's a virus that stop and shut down everything, but there's major consequences to that. Collateral damage to the environment, to people, to businesses, to everything. So I think the scalpel approach of saying, okay, we have people who are vulnerable, vulnerable, let's implement and make recommendations to reduce their vulnerability by way of intentional lifestyle choices, exercise, mindset, breath work, sun exposure, et cetera. And then the people who are not vulnerable, the young physically active people, don't want to play sports as long as they're not exposed to elderly, let them live their lives like they normally would. And by the way, this is going on in states right now. States like Texas, states like Florida, kids are going to school. You know, if you look on the coastal, you know, New York, LA, all that, everything's locked down, people are in fear. But in other countries and other parts of the United States, people are doing this. So we need to look at again, and this is not just me, epidemiologists are talking about this. There will be less long term societal and personal harm if we, if we focus on maximizing the quality adjusted life years and protecting the vulnerable and trying to intentionally make the current people who are vulnerable less vulnerable by intentional choices. And that's what I think. And it just makes the most sense. I mean, this isn't a partisan thing. It's just like, look, dude, this is not going away. The lockdowns didn't work the first time. If you look at California has been basically shut down since March. They've had the strictest lockdown, mask mandates, all of that. They lead the nation in cases, then they're third in overall mortality. So you're like, there's. There's not a strong correlation between draconian measures once this thing has been circulated. Right. And outcomes. And so, again, so we need to focus on kind of the scalpel versus the sledgehammer approach and maximize quality adjusted life years.

One of the listeners, Morgan, says, my body, my choice. Which I agree. Isn't it that simple? Now, just because something's simple, it don't mean. And it's easy because, man, what a tough choice we're in as a society. Right? Like, who decides if older people get to perish because of their comorbidities? And as Zach Bush says, this is a large, sweeping genetic update that happens all the time on planet Earth. And then at what point do we say, no, enough is enough? Like, my body, my choice. My sovereignty, my choice. My health freedom, my choice. I am the captain of my ship, and if I'm the captain of my ship, and if each one one of us are the captains of our families, you're a father. You know what it's like when someone tries to tell you how to raise your child or how to run your family. It's an immediate no. It's not a rebellious no. It's a no. I'm sovereign. But I feel like what's happening right now is we are being forced to make decisions on a grand scale from a sledgehammer approach. Like you talked about. Either a blanket or 0 or 100. It's either you do this or nothing at all. And that is just absolutely not true. Like, there is so many nuanced things that we can do, and it really puts a lot of fire in my belly. Mike. And I'm curious, as we say goodbye, like, how you could unpack this for us. People are feeling angry. People are feeling despair. As I said, 75 million Americans bankrupt, leading towards suicide and emotional health problems that we are just seeing the tip of. This is nothing compared to what's gonna happen next year when everybody forecloses on their house and the bubble pops and we're in an absolute insane time. How do you, as a father, navigate this space and what to parents specifically, can you share how they can navigate what's going on right now, too?

Yeah, Josh. I mean, it really breaks my heart to even think that that will be the fate of some people. It's really tough. So, you know, one of the things that I like to do, and I don't know if it's good or bad or whatever, is I like to get outside in nature and unplug from this stuff. So over the summer, because I find it's so easy to get into this. This vortex and become negative, and you feel like there's no hope in society and all that, and you get pissed off. Just go out in nature. So hiking, go to the beach, leave your phone in the car. That's the best. And that's what I'm doing. That's what I have been doing to my daughter. So we go camping a lot. And what I realized is, like, you know what? Even if society crumbles, if I were to lose my house, heaven forbid, or lose my job, whatever, like, you know what? I can be fine. Like, we have our tent and some water, the ability to filter water. Water. Everything's going to work out. And so it's just a nice way to just kind of touch base with nature unplugged. So that's just my solution. So as parents, I find that a lot of parents are afraid to get their kids in nature because, like, bugs and there's mosquitoes and, oh, my gosh, that's where all the good stuff is. Whatever.

That's all the good stuff.

You got to get your kids outdoors and exercise, and it's good for your body. So I think that that's the biggest thing. And if we're living in fear, it's hard to be creative. It's hard to think about, okay, let's say your business, the government shut down your business, or due to the policies, maybe you were a wedding photographer and everyone's scared to have a wedding. Right. So you're like, well, you need to be creative to think about, okay, what's your plan B? What are you going to do next? And it's really hard to be creative if fear is dominating your mind. So all of us can benefit from getting out in nature and just helping to think about, okay, what am I going to do now? How am I going to react? How am I going to make money? Whatever. That's what we do.

Yeah. I really appreciate your stance and your understanding of this, really syndemic, which is the coolest term because it really talks about all the nuances that we've explored today. This is whether you want to look at, at it as a plandemic or a scamdemic or it's just maybe something that's happening for a genetic update. What's really going on here is there's multiple factors and this is what we've discussed today. Really in depth, man, and I so appreciate your expertise. There are multiple factors in a circle, in a holistic circle that really affect what's going on right now. And if we can just take a big breath and do our breath work and just take the time, literally just take the time. We have lots of, lots of time. A lot of people are at home, like a lot of people aren't working. So we have lots of time. If we can just do that and just. If I could recommend just doing the breath work and then also just sitting in silence at times in the morning and just being with yourself. The answers of what to do next will come through. The answers of what to do do not come when we're a state of compression and contraction. Right. Dr. Kelly Brogan talks about the spiral path where in life there's always contraction and expansion over and over, over and over again. Right now, Mike, we're in a massive contraction. Everyone's in fear, everyone's amygdala based. Everything as far as logic and reasoning is shut off as we say goodbye. What can you share with someone who's feeling that contraction? And what kind of guidance can you give to them to navigate this, whether they're a parent or just everyday human?

Josh, great question. And I will tell them something that you taught me and that's cyclical breathing. Super important. You can change your physiologic state in like 30 seconds through your breath. And so this to me, me, yeah, I've known of breath. And there's this. The Healing Response by Herbert Benson. I've read about those things, but it wasn't until, Josh, you taught me this. Hyperventilation followed by retention. And I don't know why I didn't do this earlier, but that has been the most powerful and transformative way to shift your mental and mood state. So I would share with people because we all know we should be meditating. But like, look, we've tried meditating and a lot of people think they don't know how to do it. Their mind is going. And so I found that I've really been so much more consistent with my meditative practice that I've been trying to be consistent with since 2015 by doing this cyclical hyperventilation followed by retention, breath practice, and then meditating after that. So I would say, and this is free. This is accessible to everyone and it should be taught in school. I have my daughter doing this. My friend Ben lynch, who you've had on your show, has his kids doing breath work. So that's what I would say is get in touch with your breath and look up some of your videos. We did a tutorial on my channel with you. So yeah, that's what I would say. Get in touch with your breath. It can be super powerful.

Mike, so appreciate you, man, and the way that you keep an even keel head. And yes, we're all triggered right now. You know, Morgan says response versus react. Absolutely. I mean, that's what this is about. It's about we all get triggered. To be human is to be triggered. But what do we do after that? What do we do after we're triggered? It depicts the quality of our life and I love so much, man, just what you stand for in this world. I think when people see your title High Intensity Health, sometimes I almost feel like, well, in order to really have health in this world, you do have to fight some intense forces that are coming at you. And so just super appreciate you being here on the live. We had a lot of people and a lot of comments and you shared a lot of wisdom. So hell yes to Mike Mutzl and to what you stand for in the world. So where can people dig into your work? Obviously high intensity health, YouTube, we've linked that here. And where else can people actually start to engage in these intelligent conversations that are research based and also just common sense based?

Yeah, no, I love that. And Josh, thank you so much, man. You have. So you just spin off so many great book recommendations. I'm gonna have to go back and re listen to this and type in remember some of the books that you suggested. Um, so yeah, yeah, I share a lot on Instagram. That's kind of where I'm a little bit more unfiltered, for better or worse. So if folks want to connect on Instagram, it's metabolicmike and I have a podcast as well on a YouTube channel. So yeah, thanks for tuning all the way in. Hopefully folks enjoy this. And yeah, Josh, thanks as always for teaching me breathwork, man. That's. I've literally, I think I've missed like two days out of the last like 420 days since you taught it to to me. So I'm really. And I've improved my ability, my exercise tolerance, all of these. I feel like my lung. My lungs may not be bigger, but the functionality of them has dramatically improved since you're teaching. So I'm grateful for that.

Wow, man. Thank you, Morgan. Thank you, Heather. Thank you, Pam. Thank you, Annette. Thank you all. To everyone that joined us today, a resource for this that Mike is talking about is our Breathe Breath and Wellness program, also Letting Go, which right here, if you're watching on YouTube, this is from David Hawkins, one of the most powerful emotional intelligence tools you will ever take into your life. So combine that with breathwork. It's breathwork IO, there's a podcast, 25 coupon code. You can get there for 25% off. Also, Mike has some incredible programs, too, starting at the root level of health. So the tools are out there. Like everything you need is at your finger tips. And there's people that like Mike and myself that really want to help you. So you're not alone. You are loved. You are supported. So just continue to keep gathering this evidence that allows you to be physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually well until Mike and I see you again, we're both wishing you love and wellness. Thanks, Mike.

Thanks, bud. Bye, guys. Sam.