Heal the Gut-Brain Connection, with Dr. Will Cole

Foreign. Welcome to this episode of the Five Journeys podcast. I'm Dr. Wendy Trubo. Ed Levitin can't be here today, so I'm soloing for one of the first times. And what a day. Our guest is Dr. Will Cole. He's the New York Times best selling author of Intuitive Fasting Ketotarian the inflammation spectrum in the brand new book Gut Feelings Healing the shame fueled relationship between what you eat and how you feel. He's a leading functional medicine expert dealing with thyroid issues, autoimmune conditions, hormonal imbalances, digestive disorders, brain problems and more. Will, welcome to the show. I'm so psyched to be interviewing today. I know Ed's really bummed he couldn't be here.

I know. I'll try not to take it personally. He's not here, but I'm not personal.

He got to see. Remember we talked about off camera double booking experts. So he's double booked with patients and we try never to cancel them. So here we are. Are so.

Yeah, I'm the same way with patients. They come, right?

The patients, patients take over everything. So tell me, tell me, why'd you write this book? This new. Your new book.

Speaking of that, I mean it really is born out of my day job. It's, it's running the Telehealth Center. It's seeing people 10 hours a day for the past 13 plus years in telehealth. It's that. So Gut Feelings is born out of countless conversations that you really here and you're immersed in and you kind of have your ear to the, you know, the, the pulse of, of all of what these complexities that are going on when people are dealing with. It's a conversation between the connection between mental health and physical health and how in the west we will oftentimes separate the two. You know, mental health is relegated to this sort of separate abstract, conceptual quote, unquote, chemical imbalance maybe, but it's like a separate thing. But the reality is it's, it's that mental health is physical health and our brain is a part of our body just as much as anything else is. So gut feelings, even my titling at that, it's gut and feelings, it's physiological that is gut to be that sort of symbolic depiction of that. And feelings, the mental, emotional, spiritual stuff that impacts our health as well. And how physical health will impact mental health and then mental health, the mental, emotional, spiritual things will impact our physical health, will literally influence our biochemistry. So that's what it is. It's looking at labs all day long, running the telehealth center and seeing how both interplay, they interconnect the crosstalk between the two. And it's such a central part of my work.

I feel like you've just described this, you know, the perfect loop of the, of the vagus nerve and the feedback loop. So can you talk to the listeners who may not be as familiar with the gut brain connection and why it's important?

Yeah, sure. So the gut and brain are formed, and when I say gut, I mean the stomach, the large intestines and the small intestines. So it's the gut and brain are formed from that same fetal tissue. And so when babies are growing in their mother's womb, the gut and brain are formed from that same fetal tissue and they are inextricably linked for the rest of our life through what's known as the gut brain axis, or the connection between the gut and the brain. And there's many reasons why. That's one of the reasons why the gut is known in the scientific literature as the second brain. If you think about it, even physically, the intestines even kind of resemble the brain somewhat. And 95% of serotonin is made in the gut or happy neurotransmitter, 50% of dopamine, or pleasure neurotransmitter is made in the gut. So there are many reasons why the gut's known as the second brain. And these neurotransmitters that are made and produced in the gut work upon the vagus nerve, which you mentioned. The vagus nerve is the largest cranial nerve in the body. It gets, its name, translates from the root word which translates as wandering. It's this wandering cranial nerve that impacts our audit aspect of our autonomic nervous system as the aspect of the parasympathetic, the resting digesting that is gut hormone balanced nervous system regulated state. Because most people in the west are in varying degrees of nervous system dysregulation. And what's happening is there's dysfunction or suboptimal function of the neuroimmuno endocrine axis, the intersection between our nervous system, our immune system, I. E. Chronic inflammation and our endocrine system, I. E. Hormones. So it's really, that's what's going on. The vagus nerve is a major part of that and it's a major connection between the gut and the brain. But there's, there's far reaching implications even beyond that. I mean, if you, if, even if you look at the Microbiome, which is technically separate.

Right.

From our own. It's its own separate entity that lives within us and are on us on our skin. But we have our gut microbiome, the skin microbiome, which, that influences a lot of these neurotransmitters that the metabolites these bacteria produce actually work upon the vagus nerve in this crosstalk between the gut and the brain. So it. And they are also, we know from studies that I talk about in gut feelings that these certain colonies of bacteria, depending on different bacterial overgrowths or deficiencies of beneficial bacteria, are associated with things like anxiety and depression and fatigue and other neurological issues. So there are many connections between the gut and its influence on the brain and vice versa.

You just said like a year's worth of unpacking here. Well, right. You know, I'm sort of thinking it's.

Hard to boil it down. Right?

Well, you did boil it down, but then there's a ton in this. Right. You've touched on the microbiome, you've touched on the. You call the gut the second brain. I know that's what it's called in literature, but I really feel like it's the first brain. And we just think of this as the first brain, but the gut really runs the show. And then you've talked about the vagus nerve and all of the things that influence our mood. So I guess the question is, where do we start to untangle that in a way that's sustainable, manageable, accessible for people? Right. Like someone who's listening to you might be like, oh, that's a lot. So where does someone start? Obviously read the book, but where do they start to go to get on track?

The book is meant to guide people through that because it's less overwhelming than people think. I mean, to start moving in the right direction. Now, healing is non linear. These are not quick fix issues. When you're dealing with complex issues, the patient base that I see of people that have autoimmune problems, people that have hormone problems or detoxification impairments, there are bigger things to unpack. But at least if someone's saying, okay, I don't know where to start, I am overwhelmed, actually. The body's amazingly resilient and you can start seeing changes pretty significantly, pretty early on when you start cleaning up your life. And by that I mean eat foods and eat in alignment with things that love you back. Eat foods that love you back. And so if you haven't started looking at foods, I would start there. And I have a Big conversation in the book between this food confusion within the wellness community and conversations online and this toxic tribalism that I think happens between toxic diet culture and what I would say is equally toxic anti diet culture, where this, they're both just saying these broad sweeping over generalized statements instead of looking at nuance in context and bio individuality. And as someone that looks at labs all day long and sees there's a science and art to wellness, if I hung my hat on one way for everybody, I'd be proven wrong all day long. There's some low. Right. Isn't that shocking?

I think the only thing that I would say is there is a theme that could run through food, meaning try to have it look like what it started as in life, don't eat lots of sugar or food that's been highly processed and minimize your alcohol. I would go to the mat on that one. I would fall on my sword on that sort of broad generalization. But then when you drill into, yeah, not every human needs to be vegan and not every human needs to eat red meat. Right. There's a lot of variation in that. And not everyone needs to avoid gluten or dairy.

Absolutely. No, I know. And I could think of somebody that a dairy works great for somebody. Someone that doesn't. Someone gluten works great for somebody. Someone that doesn't. Legumes, nightshades, nuts and seeds, eggs, high carb, low carb, high fat, low fat. There's a lot of bio individuality between all of that because it's not just about what they're going through at this point in their life, but it's what's their preference? Because. And that's sort of the feeling stuff. If someone has stress and obsession and shame and like it's like this arduous restrictive thing, their inner resistance towards that food, that meal or whatever wellness practice you're talking about and exerc supplement, whatever a protocol that stress and anxiety around that thing is going to produce a completely different outcome, even if that thing is in theory irrelevant for them on paper. So it's, it's that head in the heart space. And that's why a lot of what I'm talking about, gut feelings, is not just about what you're feeding your body, but what are you feeding your head and your heart. Like, what is the, your relationship with food? What's your relationship with your body? What's your relationship with life itself? Because that stuff really, to use a small example, I see people that, you know, they will go on vacation and they can get away, quote unquote. They won't have the digestive problems, they won't have the flare ups, they will have the bloating or the fatigue from the foods that they could never get away with at home. And food quality is part of that conversation if they're going to Europe or something like that. But I knew the stress, the head and heart space in which you eat the meal influence what is the outcome of it. So I don't know if that's your question question, but I, I do agree with you. Like there's some low hanging fruits that really don't work for most people and it's going to be refined carbohydrates, added sugar and, and that's varying degrees. Like some people have higher carb sweet spots than others. Industrial seed oils, I don't think over consumption of them is healthy for people. I think in small amounts they can work for some people. But it's really things like canola oil, vegetable oil, soybean oil and it's really the ratios of these polyunsaturated fatty acids. If the Omegas 3, 6 and 9 that the modern westerner over consumes. Omega sixes and nines and not enough long chain omega threes and conventional dairy I don't think works most well for most people. But there are better versions of dairy like grass fed, organic, cultured, all of that stuff, right? A two, a two, a two, a two. Yeah. So it's looking at those, those if you want to start there, decrease those.

And when you talk about shameful nation, are you talking about essentially internalizing the shoulds? But when we're not doing, you know, I should, I, I always joke with my patients that this is like the confessional booth except there's no, there's no penance involved with me. Right. You're never in trouble and I'm not going to yell at you. But people like bless me doctor, I didn't do what I should. I'm like, oh my God, there's a lot to unpack here. Like we don't use the word should in my practice because it's, to me should is, is just a shame inviting word like you didn't do what you should, shame on you. Right.

So 100%.

So how do people untangle that?

Yeah, it's, it's, it's unpacking, it's starting to re. Learn what wellness looks like, what foods look like, how do you use, what's your relationship with food and wellness in your body? It's a healing process and healing Your relationship with food just as much you're as you're using food to heal your body. And that takes time and it certainly is non linear. But yeah, shameflammation is my made up word concept about the research of the mind body connection and the research of chronic stress and its impact on physical health. The research on shame and its impact on physical health and the things that cause shame, like unresolved trauma and chronic stress and body shame and food shame like orthorexia, like disordered eating around healthy foods, all of these things are part of that shame inflammation spiral that many people can find themselves in. That is shame and inflammation. The impact that shame and other emotions like that will impact our biochemistry because our body is a cellular library and our thoughts and our words, our emotions, our experiences will influence our biochemistry just as much as a food that doesn't love us back. So it's really these things and how do we start there? It's these, what I call in the book metaphysical meals. It's not just about what you're feeding your body with breakfast, lunch and dinner. What are you serving your head and your heart. Like how can you really look at from even from a mindful eating standpoint, like starting with intentionally being focused and taking in your meals, not be on your phone scrolling, not be standing, running around, do everything you can to be supportive of that parasympathetic grounded present moment awareness eating, to be congruent with the parasympathetic while you're eating. And then it's beyond that. I talk about the science around breathwork and around somatic practices and therapies like EMDR and these things that are really very supportive at metabolizing stored trauma and stress and shame that impact things like inflammation and that neuroimmuno endocrine axis that I talked about earlier.

I want to go back to when you're talking about, I'm going to call it mindset, right? When you have a mindset that disempowers you and you behave inconsistently with that mindset, you create a state of inflammation and I'll call it dissonance or dysfunction. And what I'd love to draw the line between is because I think because our listeners are really into detox. And so when you think about you're creating a state of stress and a state of a state of dysfunction that trickles down into what happens in your liver and what happens in your gut. Because if you're in a state of fight, flight or freeze, which is essentially a state of stress, you're not going to detox and you're not going to poop properly and the microbiome is thrown off and then your toxins are all a mess because. And you're wondering like, why am I such a mess? Why am I gaining weight? Why am I losing hair? Why aren't I sleeping? Well, some of it contracts back to the thoughts you're having serve as their own source of stress. And the beliefs you hold can serve as your own source of stress and toxins. Right? Like they serve as a toxin unto themselves.

Yeah, absolutely. And when the body's in that dysregulated state, when that neuroimmuno endocrine axis is dysregulated and in a hypervigilant state that is absolutely, like you said, it's the antithesis of the body congruently supportive of these detoxification pathways. So everything's going to be more sluggish, everything's going to be impaired or has a potential to be impaired. And you will see that reflected on labs. You'll see that reflected on different inflammation markers many times. You will see impacted in some people, higher liver enzymes and other signs of detoxification impairments. So it's absolutely you. If somebody's interested in detoxification, there's a whole section advantage on detox in gut feelings. Because of that, when your body is in that hyper vigilant state, it's really gonna impair any quote unquote detox export, supporting detox in a positive way because the body is in not an optimal state. Everything's going to be more impaired and sluggish. So it is, it starts, but it's, it's a lot more. I understand these are complex things. It's easier and more prescriptive for me to say, all right, focus on these foods. They've been shown to support detox. Don't have these. It's more linear, it is more complex and big to unpack to things like, okay, don't have shame, don't have stress, don't have unresolved trauma. You just can't drop that like that. You can, you know, a cupcake or something that's going to cause some that doesn't love you back so much. So you're going to have to really cultivate these practices, these metaphysical meals to start to nourish your body. Because just like you would want to eat a food that's been shown to support detoxification pathways or a certain herb or something in a nutritional standpoint, these practice metaphysical meals will support the proverbial metabolism or detoxification of stored trauma or stored thoughts that are living in your body that are impairing the physical detoxification. Because I see people that have all the food reactions you can think of, right? They have all these food sensitivities, all these food reactive reactions, they have the methylation impairments, they have all the things that they know physiologically that make them more hyper sensitive to certain things and they know they don't detox very well. But when they start dealing with the head and the heart stuff, the feeling stuff, the methylation gene variants don't matter as much. The food sensitivities calm down, everything's a lot more congruent because they're emptying that proverbial bucket with things that are filling up that they have never dealt with. So it's very, very important to deal with the mental, emotional, spiritual stuff. So the physical stuff can happen more unimpededly.

Right? I mean the, the emotional pathways for detox absolutely impact the physical. Tell me something. You just were referencing the labs. Tell me more about someone who hasn't done the labs. What are they experiencing? If, if they're, if they're in a state of dysautonomia or dysregulation. How will someone know without the labs? If they're just sort of listening and they're like, oh, that's me, you know. Can you describe who they are?

Sure. So if we're talking about a dysregulated neuroimmuno endocrine axis off of how you feel. Well, it can be. A lot of people explain it as feeling wired and tired, they're anxious and exhausted, they have fatigue. A lot of times, you know, it'll be lumped in many people that have quote unquote adrenal fatigue, which is as you know, but for people that are newer to this, it's a brain based issue. It's the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. That's the brain adrenal axis. That's a large part of that. That adrenal fatigue is part of that neuroimmuno endocrine axis dysfunction. Because it doesn't, it's not really an adrenal problem per se. It's not Addison's disease. It's a brain based issue that's impacting what cortisol is doing. Cortisol is not inherently bad. It's an endogenous immunosuppressant. It's a natural anti inflammatory. So typically inflammation levels are high. The Body's trying to attenuate that inflammation. And like you said earlier, like there are physiological stressors and then psychological stressors. There's like underlying gut problems, nutrient deficiencies, chronic infections. We see a lot of mold toxicity and environmental toxins like glyphosate. That's going to stress the body out just as much as like a stressful work event or a toxic relationship or unhealthy boundaries with people. Both the physiological and psychological impact how they feel anyways. So they feel wired and tired, anxious, exhausted. They can have things like brain fog, fatigue, digestive issues, IBS C and D could be sluggish, GI motility, lucifer stools or vacillating between the two. Uncomfortable bloating. That can happen throughout the day. A lot, lot of times they will have dysbiosis or sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth because there's a decrease of the migrating motor complex that mmc the gut brain communication where the gut, the nervous system is not innervated appropriately. So you have suboptimal communication between the gut and the brain. So the bacterial overgrowth. And just like people can have SIFO or small intestinal fungal overgrowth where you'll find this even without labs, they will have symptoms like bloating, ibs, food sensitivities, these type of issues. Food sensitivities like histamine intolerance is something that I see a lot clinically too with these cases. And skin flare ups can happen for some people, but it exists on a spectrum. Like you said, dysautonomia is the end part of that where they're perpetually stuck in a hypervigilant state. And that's associated with certain autoimmune issues, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, panic disorders, anxiety disorders, things like that. But that there's everything in between. Sometimes that they're not like diagnosable, but they're feeling that background anxiety, that digestive problem, bloating, uncomfortable, things like that. So that's. Those are some telltale signs that something the body's telling you something, there's a check engine light that we want to see what it is. And there's a lot of possibilities what are the pieces to that health puzzle. But those are some signs that your nervous system is not optimal.

Yeah, I love how you were talking about this because the thing that I'm present to as you're talking about is that the body will let you know that there's something to look at and if you ignore it, it's going to get louder Right. So it's almost, for me, not even like, check engine light or not. Because essentially when the. By the time the check engine light comes on, we really have a problem. It's the clunk that you ignored. It's really what's happening. Before you get to Cris, state that I'm. I'm really interested in altering the trajectory of that so that people. I mean, I wound up with an autoimmune disease. I never. I say to people, like, on my watch, you should not be getting an autoimmune disease. We should be reversing your autoimmune disease, not developing. So I'm always interested in how do you. How do you recognize that moment before it's what I'll call bad enough. You know, how does it get bad enough before it's bad enough? And you're really debilitated. And I'm always curious about that. And I think you've said some really useful things about. Well, let's back up. It sounds like a lot of the shameflammation comes from our past. Yes. Like the way we were brought up, the modeling we had, the experiences we had. So how do you start breaking that open and altering the future and changing the narrative? Where does that come from?

Well, and it's going to be a bit of both for some. For many people, it's. It's the past trauma, it's the current stress all contributing to that shameflammation. For some people, it is predominantly in the past, where you'll talk to them and they'll say, these are things that people would say that they'll say to me, well, I. My life is great. Like, there's nothing wrong with my life now. I just know I have a great relationship. I have great friends and family. My job isn't stressful, but I feel like, this anxiety. I feel this dread. I feel this fatigue. And I don't know why I'm feeling anxiety. I have nothing to be anxious about. For those people, there's physiological issues going on, certainly that need to be addressed. It could be mold toxins that are causing these symptoms. It could be chronic Lyme for some people. It could be underlying gut problems. It could be environmental toxins that are contributing to that. But part of that potential is not just the physiological stressors. It's the psychological stressors from their past that's playing out in their life today as if it's still going on.

Right. It's not actually the past. Right. It's. It's present.

Yeah. It's present in their Bodies. Yeah, exactly. It's. It's replaying. Yeah. So one of the things we look at in functional medicine, as you know, but for people that are, that are new to our approach, is we look at adverse childhood events or experiences when we measure what's called an ACE score. And we're talking about things like was there physical abuse growing up? Was there psychological verbal abuse growing up? Was there sexual abuse growing up? Was there substance abuse in the home growing up? And the researchers show, the research shows that the higher the ACE score, you're more likely to have different autoimmune problems, metabolic issues, trouble losing weight, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypervigilant nervous system, things like anxiety and depression later on in life. So it's not the only ingredient. It could be the mold toxins that set over the edge, or it could be the virus that said it over the edge. But oftentimes there's contributing to that bucket overflow are these mental, emotional, spiritual things that haven't been resolved or unresolved trauma. So, and many people will say, well, they'll almost like gaslight themselves and say, well, it wasn't that bad. Or they'll look at somebody that like went through something worse and they'll say, well, they're fine. So therefore, like it can't be that bad. And that's what they're talking to themselves about these things and they're gaslighting themselves. But the research shows it's not the experience by itself. But what is your bio individual? How did your body receive that experience, that trauma? So it's, it's, it is so bio individual as far as like what's considered a trauma. Right. This is an experience that's impacting your body today on, even on a cellular mitochondrial level. You may not even know it. That practices and therapies like breath work and somatic practices in emdr I've seen be tremendous. And people think, yeah, my a square they're a squ was relatively not even that high. But it wasn't until they started doing these practices that really are vagal nerve exercises. Right. They are vagal nerve strengtheners that the feeling side of gut feelings, they really move them past that plateau where they were stuck at on their healing journey. So that's what you do. You do things that are strengthening the parasympathetic. Now nutrition supporting gut health, supporting detox pathways are all supportive of the parasympathetic, certainly. But the feeling needs to be dealt with. And it's something that is not linear. It's a little bit more Nebulous in the sense of, you know, it seems like woo woo, like you tell me to breathe and like do meditation. But these practices are very good on a quite a physiological level to tone that vagus nerve to allow the nervous system to be more regulated to the sympathetic. The fight or flight stress state is not so overactive. You can start to strengthen that weakness. Think part of your nervous system, the parasympathetic.

Well, it's all about retraining. I think when you think about, I don't, I don't know if the listeners know. Okay. If you're in fight, flight or freeze sympathetic, you're going to be running from a lion. Guess what? You're not digesting, you're not detoxing, you are not sleeping. So when you breathe out longer than in, when you do EMDR tapping, I want to talk, come back and talk about ketamine in a minute. When you're doing things that are essentially cutting the trauma lines, you're increasing parasympathetic, which does increase rest, relaxation, digestion, absorption, detox. And so you. I always think of it like, am I tipping the scales towards sympathetic or parasympathetic? And if you know me personally, you know that I run a mile, mile a minute. And so I always have to work on, you know, quieting that down and increasing the parasympathetic because that's where the magic is. So talk to me about ketamine. Do you use, do you have patients on it? Do you recommend it? Do you do it? My partner Ed, who's not here two weeks ago, came back from a ketamine conference and did ketamine and had an amazing experience. And now it's like, now we're gonna start it up in our practice.

Yeah, I mean, there's so much evolving. I talk about psychedelics in the book and the research around it of it really metabolizing these stored things in the body and working upon the nervous system, working on inflammation in many ways. The pathways are, you know, we, we don't even fully understand the pathways and how it's metabolizing, but we know the outcomes and we see the dramatic improvements in so many people. So, yeah, it's a tool within many of our patients. Toolbox, not all of them. And it doesn't have to be, you know, ketamine assisted psychotherapy therapy. It could be micro dosing for some people and stacking, like pairing microdosing with other nutrients that are supportive, like neurotropics and adaptogens, for example, and really supportive of that hypothalamic pituitary, endocrine ax and nervous system regulation between the parasympathetic and sympathetic. So yeah, it is. The ketamine is one of those ones that because it's an anesthesia, it doesn't work for everybody, just like any psychedelic. Like it's not a magic cure all for everything and should be done with. The doctor should be assisted. You should be a good candidate for it. So I wouldn't recommend going and picking up some random psychedelics. Some shrimp.

Please don't do that.

No, no, no.

You need to be supervised.

Supervised with the doctor that's trained in this. So look at MAPS as a great resource as far as the research of psychedelic psychedelics. Dr. Will sue is another amazing psychiatrist that's doing a lot of research in this space and he facilitates ketamine clinically and is a part of MAPS in the research too, beyond ketamine, but psilocybin as well.

Yep, yep. You talk about food piece. Can you tell the listeners what that is? And also have we covered how to achieve it?

Yeah, so it's, it's a big topic and something that I really wanted to have a nuanced conversation between, something that I mentioned earlier between toxic diet culture and I would say toxic anti diet culture. And what I mean by that is one side is, you know, eat less, work out more restriction. It's about thinness and vanity and it's sort of what a lot of us grew up with. Right. As far as like dieting and it's that stuff. And then I would say this newer phenomenon in our culture today is anti diet culture that is very, can be very malignant in, in many ways. And the equal opposite of toxic diet culture, which says they'll say there's no such thing as a bad food and eat whatever you want and, and any food intervention, any food changes. Meaning if a food doesn't love you back, calling that food out and saying it doesn't love me back is automatically labeled as toxic diet culture. And I think it's lacking nuance and context when you're dealing with digestive problems and autoimmune problems. It's confusing a lot of people because certainly, as I say in gut feelings, eat whatever you want. But use meals as a medicine and a meditation. That should be the ultimate rule. And if a food does not love you back, avoiding that food isn't restrictive, it's self respect and continuing to eat foods that don't love you back and wondering why you still don't feel good and you feel miserable. It's like staying in a toxic relationship and wondering why you're still miserable. You it's about healthy boundaries with food. So this third way of what I talk about in the book is food piece where it's not about it's like ending the food wars, ending this toxic tribalism between like high carb versus low carb, vegan versus carnivore, paleo, whatever, doesn't matter. Like be your own n of one experiment. Let's like remove layers labels and say yes, there are some foods that are going to impact your blood sugar negatively. There's going to be some foods that raise inflammation, that hurt your digestion, that contributes to chronic health problems. And it's okay to have an honest, frank decision a conversation about these things. And it's not restrictive for diet culture to say this food doesn't love me back. And I love feeling great more than I thought that I wanted something that doesn't love me back. And that's different for everybody. So it's okay to have a bio individual conversation about that and realize we're all on our own journey. So that's what food piece is about. It's really a functional medicine conversation about what's going on in social media when it comes to these food conversations.

The ultimate rejection of self Gaslighting basically. Right. Like my favorite. I can't remember how many kids you have. I have four kids.

I have two kids. Yeah.

So I. We have a very busy house and, and there are times when my husband or children might come up with what I would consider to be an absolutely insane cockamamie idea. And my go to response over the last 20 plus years, at first, you know, you justify or you say no. And what I've really gotten to will that I'll offer the listeners because it's so powerful because nobody can argue with it is really sweetly smiling and saying that doesn't work for me. Who's going to argue? Yes, it works for you. Right. So when they come up with these wacko ideas, you know, to, to you know, dig up the entire front yard and put the chicken coop there, I'm like, that doesn't work for me. So I'll offer it to listeners because you know, if you know me, you know I don't eat gluten, I don't eat a lot of cow's dairy and I work really hard not to eat sugar. Cause it doesn't work for me. I don't feel good when I eat. I mean I have celiac, so that really doesn't work for me. So I'll offer that to people is really trusting. Like, if it doesn't work for you, don't do it. That's like standing under a waterfall and wondering why you're wet.

Yeah, exactly. And look, when. When you're. When you're dealing with a culture that we have the most chronic disease, the shortest lifespan of all industrialized nations, and yet we can't have an honest conversation that some foods don't love us back. These are largely driven by lifestyle factors. And to ignore the food component is. Is literally killing people. It's decreasing the quality of life. But I don't feel it doesn't make you a bad person. I think that's the difference. And that's where toxic diet culture is disordered. Because it doesn't make you a bad person for eating a food that doesn't love you back. But you have to. If you care about somebody, you want to share with them the fact that that food may not love you back right now. And eating it is contributing to how you feel. And I want you to feel good. I want you to feel. Be the best version of yourself. And sometimes you have to be honest and not placate people with virtue signaling.

I mean, the other part of it that you're talking about is even recognizing the expectation that you should feel good when you eat. I'm not a huge fan of the word should, but when you eat, it would be expected that you feel good. And if you don't feel good, that's a good indicator that something is a possibility. But the other thing is, this isn't a moral conversation. It's not about morality. This isn't about penance. This is really about what works in your body, what makes you feel good, what brings you the best vitality and energy. And again, it's not. You're not a bad. You know, people sit down in my chairs and they're like, I cheated. I'm like, there's no cheating in my world. You either ate something that didn't work for you or you ate something that worked for you. That's it. There's not a moral conversation.

Exactly.

You don't have to, like, there's no Hail Marys and penance and like, no. No kneeling. None of that.

No nearly needed cheating. Cheating. That concept is antithetical to, like, a healthy relationship with food. There's no wagon to fall off of. Like the wagons. You're like life. It's just like, learn. Learn about what your body's telling you.

Yeah. And the Other thing I say to people is you can have general guidelines for. Here's what I know works for me and I know I'm going to a wedding or a special event and you're going to eat those foods. But a lot of people use those events as a. Something to take, take them completely off the path and then for six months they're off the program because it's like oh well, I screwed it up. I can't be perfect. And I used to be a surgeon and perfection is the enemy of good. Good, better is the enemy of good. If you're doing a good job, should be good with that. I want to pivot to something. You have a 21 day gut feeling plan. What is, what is that designed to do for people? What would people expect to get out of that?

So it's a introduction, it's a leaning into, it's a game plan to, to experiment with that vagal nerve toning that every day. There's a gut and a feelings tool. There's a physiological and a mental, emotional, spiritual tool to serve that, that strengthen that weak hypo function of hypotonic action of the vagus nerve. The fact that they have. If they have poor vagal tone, how do we strengthen it? Well, on a physiological we can talk about supporting gut health and we talk about things like the GAPS protocol in one day. We talk about the gut and psychology syndrome or gut and physiology syndrome depending on how we're using it clinically. But it's using things like soups and stews to be nourishing to the gut, to allow the gut to. It's like a proverbial siesta for your gut so your gut can be less taxed and stressed. The vagus nerve can start being supported and on a feelings it could be a breath work for a day or the next day. I talk about the research of forest bathing of Shinrin Yoku, the research out of Japan and South Korea of using nature as a medicine and meditation to support the vagus nerve and support that neuroimmuno endocrine axis. Or another day could be, it could be breath work. I mentioned meditation, just different meditation practices. In breath work I talk about holotropic breath work. We talked about psychedelics earlier. The holotropic breath work, man, it's born out of psychedelic research of a way to tap into the same parts of the brain that the psych is that psychedelics seem to be working upon. The holotropic breathwork has similar mechanisms of action as far as having These psychedelic experiences and allowing the body to clear things out and clear out these toxic thoughts, these toxic experiences that live in our body. So that's an interesting section of the book is holotropic breathwork a kind of psychedelic breath, if you will. And then I talk about this, the research out of Japan of Ruikatsu, which translates as tear seeking. It's a kind of cathartic crying and releasing and allowing tears in this, the opiate releases that are released endogenously when you cry and allow stored stress and trauma to be leaving your body through crying. There's so many free, accessible, interesting science backed ways to support vagal nerve tone. And that's what each day, each day you get to experiment with something new.

I think that's fantastic. Well, so the first comment I'll have is people should go get the book Gut Feelings Healing the shame infused relationship between what you ate and how you feel. Is that on Amazon? Is that at Barnes and Noble? Where can people get that?

Yeah, all the, all the places. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, independent bookstores, all the places. Yeah, but the links are on@drwilcool.com too.

Perfect. That was my next question is where can people find you and how can they engage with you and participate? What's your favorite venues?

Yeah, everything's@drwilcool.com the links to the telehealth center are there. I have a podcast called the Art of Being. Well, that is a new episode every week. Week. I'd love to have you on. I can't wait for you to come on. Yeah. So, and, and everything's, everything's there. I'm on social media. I'm on probably Instagram the most at Dr. Will Cole, but Facebook, Twitter, tick tock, trying to talk out. So all the places.

Awesome. And is there anything I didn't ask you that you want to make sure people get sort of in their heart, in their soul. And as a takeaway, well, something on.

The back cover of the book is a mantra at the telehealth clinic here and it's a, it summarizes a lot of what I talk about in the book and the science around it. It's, you can't heal a body you hate. You cannot shame your way into wellness, you cannot obsess your way into health. So your head and your heart set. And that in relationship with the thing, the wellness tool is really important. That's really what I want to delve into because there's a lot of people that are interested in wellness that are, you know, health nerds as they would consider themselves that end up being in a very. They've lost their way in some ways, like they obsess and shame and the stress about, like stressing about healthy foods isn't good for your health. And it's really a reckoning about, okay, how can you love your body enough to nourish it with good things and check yourself on your motivations. And you probably started out with good intentions, but sometimes people can think more is always better and they're ended up with like three different foods they can eat and they're so restricted and they, they've kind of gotten to that orthorexic zone, which is not good from a mental health standpoint and a physical health standpoint. So that would be something that I think is a good place to, to leave the conversation on.

I think that's fantastic. So thank you for coming on this podcast. Like, this is awesome and this is very valuable for people. So thank you, thank you. And for the listeners, thanks for being listening to another episode of the Five Journeys Feel Freaking Amazing podcast live. Like you matter if this was valuable. Leave us a five star review, go follow Dr. Cole and we'll see you in our next episode. Thank you for being here, Will.

Thank you.