August 7, 2025 • 40 mins
Our guests this week are Tero Isokauppila and Danielle Ryan Broida authors of the book Healing Adaptogens. We talk about what adaptogens are, how they improve your health and how to add them to your diet.
Follow up with Tero and Danielle at foursigmatic.com or healingadaptogens.com
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
Gib.
(00:08):
Hello andwelcome to another episode of
intelligence for your life. Thepodcast. I'm Gib Gerard, our
guests this week, there are twoof them. They co authored a book
called Healing adaptogens. I'mtalking about Taro is a Coppola
and Danielle Ryan broyden. Nowyou may remember, we've had
Danielle on the show before sheshe talked to us all about
mushrooms, the healing kind ofmushrooms, and how how they can
(00:30):
be used to get yourself, to getyour your brain, your body, into
into a higher plane of health.
And that's what we're going totalk about today with both of
them, with Tarot and with withDanielle, we're going to talk
all about exactly whatadaptogens are, where you can
find them in your diet, and howyou can add them to your life in
(00:53):
order to live your best life, inorder to be emotionally more
centered, in order to have yourgut health be optimized your
every bit of your body can beoptimized with these, with these
adaptogens, these these foodsthat we, you know, we've known
about for for millennia, but we,we don't get in our diet enough.
So that's what we're gonna betalking about today. All kinds
(01:14):
of good stuff coming up, newguests on the podcast coming up
that are we think are gonna bereally exciting for you guys are
trying to trying to get you guysin the place you are the place
you want to be. So here, withoutfurther ado, my interview with
Tara, Isa Coppola and DanielleRyan broyder. Daryl, Isa Coppola
and Danielle Ryan Broida,authors of the new books, of the
new book healing, adaptogens.
Thank you guys so much for beingwith us today. We really
(01:36):
appreciate it. Thanks for havingus. Danielle. We've had you on
the show before we talked allabout, you know, the the
benefits of mushrooms, this sortof mycological revolution that's
going on. I feel like, sincewe've talked this idea of food
that helps us in in other kindsof ways, that helps our brain,
that makes these significantdifferences in our lives, has
(01:57):
really gained a lot of traction,and we're seeing, we're seeing a
lot of that all over the placewith like Netflix documentaries,
and that kind of thing. Is thatwhy you guys decided to write
this book? Why did we why are wedealing with adaptogens in this
way now? Yeah, great question.
The category is definitelyexploding. A lot of people are
(02:17):
hearing this word adaptogen andthey're seeing it on movies, as
you said, in all sorts ofdifferent products. I mean, the
span is huge, and yet what wefind is there's still a lot of
confusion. People are like,Okay, I'm seeing this
everywhere, but what are theyactually? What do they do? How
should I use them to make sure Iget the benefit? So we really
wanted to clear the air andcreate a really accessible
(02:40):
guide, but that is alsodefinitive that covers the
history of use of theseincredible species, a lot of the
gold standard clinical trials toback up some of the claims and
the benefits that are toutedabout them, and just have a kind
of comprehensive but reallysimple way to reference and
(03:04):
be confident about how to bringthese into your life to actually
reap the benefits you guys. Ilove that you guys are
affiliated with. You founded andworked for
the one of the first companiesto really get into this space.
Then you guys have been reallypopular in the podcasting space
for a long time, sponsoring anddoing interviews, but Four
(03:25):
Sigmatic really, really quickly.
Can you guys give people a quickprimer as to what the mission of
Four Sigmatic is, before we divedeeper into the the idea of
adaptogens in general? Ofcourse, I founded Four Sigmatic
about 10 years ago, in 2012with the idea of elevating
people's wellness with theseworld's most nutrient dense
(03:45):
foods.
So Four Sigmatic is a supergeeky and nerdy way of saying we
focus on the top 100 mostnutrient dense foods. It's all
on a bell curve, four standarddeviations from the mean, and
you end up with these. And thewords come plenty. When we
started the company, peopletalked about super foods, we
(04:06):
highlighted particularly on thevalue of the functional
mushrooms in the top 100 foods,because though we felt that
those were underrepresentedand adaptogens, surely in the
top 100 there's a couple dozenof these so called adaptogens
that this book is all about aswell. And the funny thing that
has happened over the years is,I thought I started a superfood
(04:30):
or mushroom or adaptogencompany, but what has actually
happened is we've almost starteda mental wellness company, and
people then have seek thebenefits of these either
elevating or balancing theirbody and and and seek all kinds
of benefits in this superstressful modern day life that
(04:51):
we all live in different formsand facilities and
professionally and personally athome. I think, I think the.
Two fold, right? Like, I thinkthere's the fact that people, a
lot of people, have gotten kindof tired of, particularly in the
mental health space, the sideeffects of a lot of mental
health pharmaceuticals. And sopeople are looking, are looking
(05:12):
for alternatives, alternativeways to sort of get their brains
firing properly. I think we livea life that is also unnatural.
Most of us live a life that isnot what our brains and bodies
were meant for, but is it, youknow, we're sort of shoehorned
into. So I think that a lot ofthat contributes to this desire
for what you're talking about,seeking out this sort of mental
(05:32):
wellness associated with withwhat you guys offer. I want to I
got to answer some, I got to asksome basic, basic questions. So
first and foremost, what areadaptogens. How do you guys
define them in and how does itapply to this? Yeah, I'll take
it. Give it a go. Yeah, I'lltake a stab at this first, and
Terry, you can fill in. Butadaptions are a category, so
(05:53):
think of them like an umbrellacategory of super plants and
functional mushrooms. There'sabout 30 of them. It's debated.
We focus on 21 in our new book,and they all have certain
characteristics in common. Soall of them are non toxic. This
is huge. It means they're safeto take every day. They have a
history of being used long term.
They're more like foods in thisway, rather than medicines,
(06:16):
right? They're incredibly,incredibly nutrient dense,
beyond non toxic, they're allnormalizing. So this is really
interesting. They don'thave a specific exertion in the
body, but rather, they arenourishing and tonifying
multiple systems in the body atthe same time. Do you think
that's like, you think that's abig contributor to why people
are reaching out to this over,not over pharmaceuticals, but,
(06:39):
like, maybe before they go topharmaceuticals, is for this
reason that it's it doesnormalize, as opposed to
creating a an issue withhomeostasis? Yeah, I think
that's a part of it. People arelike, hey, this one thing I've
been reaching for isn't working.
Or, as I mentioned, maybethere's all these side effects.
And what's really cool aboutadaptogens is you can use them
(06:59):
starting for that benefit, like,hey, I want to use Lion's Mane
for brain support. But when youwhat you then notice is because
it's not just targeting that onespot in your body. It's also
nourishing your gut health andacting on your immune system. We
get these other long termbenefits where we're
simultaneously supporting morethe root of where these issues
(07:20):
or where these ailments might bestemming from that we end up
saying, hey, I need thisnootropic to help with. So
there's this, like, dual actionthat goes on where someone might
reach for it for one purpose,and then a few weeks later, be
like, Wow, I didn't expect thisother improvement to happen, but
now I'm sleeping really well. Ornow my, you know, kid got sick
and I didn't contract it, orwhat's going on. So they're,
(07:43):
yeah, regardless of why youfirst turn to them, they're so
packed with nutrients, they'reworking on so many levels of the
body that there's a lot ofreasons to believe, right? And
they're, they're gaining thispopularity for a reason, and I
think that's one of the bigones. So I interrupted you to
ask that question, but you were,you were in the middle of
explaining why. So they're,they're normalizing and non
(08:04):
toxic, and why, what kind ofdraws you to them, and what
else? What other factors do youlook for, aside from those like,
it's, it's more than just, youknow, adding dietary fiber,
which is normalizing and nontoxic as well.
Yeah, there's one, oneadditional key point we've got
to hit on so they're non toxic,they're normalizing. They're
(08:24):
also non specific. This isreally cool. It's similar to
normalizing. But essentiallywhat it means is these
adaptogens have compounds thatwork in either a gas, like a
stimulating way, or a break,like a relaxing kind of, whoa,
chill out way. And depending onthe body that ingests the
adaptogen, the gas effect or thebreak effect, will be louder. Is
(08:48):
kind of a way to think about it,based on what that body means,
right? So we hear, they're like,adapting, like pun intended,
they adapt to our bodies. Theywork with us. So you know all of
these adaptogens about, youknow, the 2030 that exist have
these in common, and yet theyeach are unique, right? They're
not the exact same phytochemicalmakeup. They each have unique
(09:11):
vitamins and minerals anddifferent phyto constituents.
And so they can each offera slightly kind of various range
of benefits, whether it's forskin health or immunity
performance, brain or body. Sowe can really get Cho like, get
choosy and get specific aboutwhich ones we reach towards.
(09:35):
And yeah, continue to besurprised by the way that they
they move and shift and improvemultiple areas of our bodies.
How do you guys identify, youknow, what is the standard for
which we've identified, the youguys stressing the 21 but the 30
that you that you mentionedadaptogens, and I'm assuming it
(09:55):
has to do with just historical,historical context.
And that people have used thesefor generations. Why? Why do we
stop if it is historical,otherwise, how do, how do you
guys?
How do you guys find and orcurate that list, like, what is
the standard you guys use? Yeah,I can, I can try to answer that.
So the three requirements thatwas set 70 years ago by the
(10:19):
quote, unquote founder, ofadaptogens
is sounds really simple, butit's actually quite strict an
herbalism, which Daniel canspeak closely about. Lot of
things are toxic. Lot of thingsare seasonal. So most, like in
traditional Chinese medicine,there's very few of these
(10:39):
Emperor herbs that are notpreventative or healing and
instead can be used year round.
So that's actually quitelimiting. So you would think
it's simple, but it's not. Theother part is that the things
that are safe and non toxicactually are are not
attacking multiple body systems.
So they tend to be mostlyfocused on macronutrients or
(11:02):
micronutrients. Instead. A lotof these adaptogenic functions
are these nano nutrients, youknow, be it polyphenols or beta
d glucans or certain tryterpenes or saponins. So it's a
hard list. And to answer yourquestion, if we would only take
the indigenous use we couldprobably find, you know, more
than 20 to 30 of theseadaptogens. But what's the
(11:25):
beauty of adaptogens is thatthey actually are supported by
Western research. So adaptogensis a perfect Mary between the
West and the East. They've beenused for hundreds, if not 1000s
of years. They're the top one ortwo in their native area. So
each one of these adaptogens is,you know, elevated into this,
you know, immortal status inindigenous cultures or ancient
(11:47):
traditions. And at the sametime, they have hundreds of
research papers, which is rarein food. And we could probably
extend the list by another dozenor two, if we would ignore the
Western research. But in theadaptogenic side, it's really
important that they're alsovalidated by credible research.
(12:08):
And we went through over 1000research papers and and many of
these hype supplements that yousee ads on, you know they might
or might not be good, butthey're not proven
credibly, and that's why thelist is so small. Could we, in
50 to 100 years, have a biggerlist? 100%
(12:31):
I want to get into what'sactually on the list and which
ones you guys think are the mostimportant. I mean, it's some of
them I looking through the tableof context for your book. Some
of them are things I recognizefrom Four Sigmatic products, but
before we even get to that, Iwant do you guys have, like, a
rubric or a primer? Because alot of these words have become
(12:51):
buzz words, like we see Chagaand lion's mane. I think when
you guys started, there wasnowhere and now, or at least
nowhere in like Western grocerystores, but now I'm, you know,
almost every company now makessomething with, you know, like a
Chaga matcha latte or somethingor, you know, it's something
with Lion's Mane extract in it.
How do we what is the standardthat we as consumers can use
(13:12):
when we're looking for this toknow where the snake oil is and
where the the real,the real good, essential
adaptogens that we want to addto our diet are. So that's that
beautiful question. I'll try toanswer that as a CEO of
adaptogen company. And thenDaniel can Gib, aside from
saying just by Four Sigmatic,but I mean, honestly, it's
(13:36):
really damn hard. Yeah, it's soso hard. Like, what you're
asking is super relevant, isthat there's a lot of excitement
on the potential health benefitsof these products. And me, after
doing this for 20 years, and asa CEO of a company, we've tested
literally 10s of 1000s ofbatches of different products.
(13:57):
It's so damn hard, like there'sjust so much data and so much to
manage. And by the way, some ofthese ingredients, you know,
Four Sigmatic, doesn't sell. Soit's also not like these are
just the things to take, in ouropinion. But we wrote this book
for that reason, like I wouldhave wished this book existed 20
(14:18):
years ago to explain what arethe quality factors based on our
research. Both me running forSigmatic and doing all these lab
tests and trying to procure thebest stuff, and us together
reviewing research papers, andDanielle's practice of working
with people in real life, withwith, with these super herbs and
super mushrooms. So it's reallydamn hard. The book is set to be
(14:42):
here, the seminal book for thisfor many years to come, and
explain these answers. And we wehave, like, a shopping guide,
what to watch out for, and wetry to write it in a way that we
don't actually really mentionmany companies. It's more like.
Like, hey, here's like, 10things to consider when you're
(15:03):
shopping, things likeextraction, which impacts by
availability, pesticides, heavymetals, what is the form and
genus of the plant or themushroom in? What form is it the
root? Is it the leaf, and howthat impacts? And how do you
marry those ingredients. What'sthe dosage, based on modern
(15:23):
research, like, is it 100milligrams of extract? So what
amount? And try to debunk someof these marketing mix where you
buy, you know, a super food thathas 75 of these quote, unquote,
super foods and adaptogens. Andthen you start to look at the
per dosage amounts and theforms, and you realize this is
not in any way supported by theresearch on their health
(15:46):
benefits. So that's that's myview. It's really difficult.
That's literally the main reasonwhy we wrote this book is we've
been asked these questions amillion times, and we wish this
book would have existed, youknow, decades ago. But Daniel, I
don't know with your practice,what do you what do you see
being helpful for for people tonavigate this territory? Yeah,
(16:10):
first off, I have a lot ofcompassion for people trying to
navigate this space, because itis really crowded and really
confusing, and people want thesebenefits and so you know, first
Bravo for being curious andwanting to get to the place
where you feel you know what wesay is a life on adaptogens, but
we really focused in on thisthird part of our book. It's a
(16:32):
it's a really practical shoppingguide. And as taro said, This is
so needed. I think the five bigthings that we really hit on to
ensure that you're getting whatyou intended to get is, yeah,
one that form, like, there's, wecall it a power hub. You know,
there's different parts of eachplant or mushroom where the
active compounds lie that willreally give you those benefits.
(16:54):
And so, yeah, it's reallyimportant to use the fruiting
body of the mushroom. Or withashwagandha, you have to use the
root right go to cola. We usethe leaf. So knowing that you're
actually getting the right partof the planter. Fungi is huge.
Dose is another big thing we'reseeing like, Oh, two milligrams
(17:15):
of this one adaptogen on a gummyor on a, you know, beauty
product, or whatever it mightbe, and it's just not enough to
have a true impact in your body.
So knowing that the dose you'reactually getting enough for your
body to utilize and feelbenefits is huge. So we have
form dose, as Tara mentioned,this purity, like the
ingredients have to be clean,they have to be organic,
(17:37):
ideally, they're third partytested, right? You want to get
something that isn't furtherdamaging your body, but that is
actually clean and pure, and theforms used in in clinical
trials,the extraction piece, right,
making sure that what you'regetting is actually able to be
used by your body. We call thatbioavailability.
(17:59):
And then kind of the fifth bonusthat we mentioned is, is
sustainability and reallysourcing your ingredients from
their their native lands. I'mreally passionate about this as
an herbalist. And there's somereally cool things about
adaptogens, where they grow inreally extreme, harsh climates,
often. And there's this thingcalled the doctrine of
(18:20):
signatures, which is, you'veprobably heard of it. It's like
a walnut being good for yourbrain, but how something looks
out in nature is giving usinformation about how it's going
to act and benefit our bodies.
So because walnuts look likebrains, they're good for your
brains. That's it. That's it,right? And there's so many foods
and medicines and plants likethis that are kind of giving us
information. And part therelevancy with adaptogens is
(18:43):
they grow in these crazy, harshclimates where there's huge
temperature ranges, or reallyharsh soil conditions, or, you
know, there's glacier ice caps,or Rhodiola is found in Iceland.
There's like volcanoes eruptingnext to it, and yet, they're
super resilient, right? They'reable to
(19:04):
they're able to survive andthrive despite huge
environmental stressors. And sooverall, you know, if we source
them from these native placeswhere they've developed these
compounds, where they have tosurvive and and really grow
despite what's going on aroundthem that is going to be so much
more significant and have agreater impact in our body than
(19:26):
if we were to get these, youknow, lab grown or right, yeah,
from a different region, right?
So you have to go to where youhave to go, where it is, try to
source it sustainably, but alsothat you're getting the right
one. There's all kinds ofexamples of this too, where
people try to regrow stuff in ormake something in a new factory.
They really, they forget thatthere's a secret part to
(19:48):
whatever, wherever it was,natively that gives it, that
imbues it with the power that wesaw initially. So a really banal
example was there was a sausagecompany that.
Had these famous red hotsausages, and when they built a
new factory to make thesausages, the time it took to
move the sausage from one partof the cooking to the other was
(20:10):
too short, and it wasn'tactually getting the same
texture and color that it usedto get, because in the old
factory, they had to walk itdown a longer hallway. And so
the sausage is cooled properlyanyway. That's a really back
where, backwards way of pointingout that, like sometimes, the
the native environment thatsomething comes from originally,
is actually going to give itmore of the quality that we love
(20:33):
about it, than trying to justgrow it in its own in a new,
more idealistic place. Yeah, andthere's a word for it's called
Geno hormesis, so similar tothink of yourself as a as a
living being, and if you exposeyourself to challenges, be it
physically or mentally, you ifonce you get through it, you
(20:53):
become out stronger. So that'sthe hero's journey. But plants
and fungi, there's Xenohormesis, which means that heat,
temperature, shock, radiation,all of these stress responses
increase, for example,polyphenol production, and that
that polyphenol is actuallythere for the plant or the fungi
or the antioxidants to protectitself from those stressors. And
(21:17):
then we can, when properly used,we can leverage those in our
whole in our life. So what doyou think guys are the most
important ones? Like, what arewe missing the most from our
diet?
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's funny,because, like, this top 21 is
really, like the creme de lacreme, so there's really nothing
(21:37):
to cut. And there is ways how weteach based on your body types
and your challenges in life,where to start, because it can
be overwhelming to have startwith 21 so do you are you
focused on your skin or immunityor brain and stress? But I would
say few ones that should bepretty interesting to everyone.
(21:59):
Let me give me my three and thenDanielle can add at hers
to me, ashwagandha, Rishi andSchisandra are some of those
things that everybody shouldhave on their radar. Rishi being
the queen of mushrooms, the moststudied of all the fungi,
ashwagandha being arguably themost studied, top Indian
(22:23):
Ayurvedic herb. And to me,Schisandra is, you know, is the
most diverse, in a way. It'sfive flavors. It hits all the
meridians. There's a lot ofthings with it. So to me,
all the 21 matter. But if you'renew to it, and you don't know
where to start. To me,ashwagandha, Rishi and Sandra
are just the great ones.
Interesting.
(22:47):
Go ahead, Daniel, oh, I'm like,stressing over here. How do I
choose three? It's like, chooseyour favorite child, and you're
like, I don't know there's somany, okay, but I'm on a big
cacao kick right now. And Ithink cacao is an underrated
adaptogen. A lot of us think ofit more as a food. Maybe we eat
it in a highly processed formthat then gets into a chocolate
(23:07):
bar. But we really break downwhat cacao is, right? That true
bean from the Theobroma cacaotree, and cacao is, is the most
nutrient dense, right? The mostidentified phyto compounds of
all foods on the planet. It'sincredible. I'm a huge component
of sleep, and cacao is one ofour richest forms of natural
magnesium. So incredible toeither have that kind of
(23:30):
stimulating or relaxing,adaptogenic quality based on
your body really working withyou individually. It's just such
an incredible plant. Next Iwould choose Moringa. Moringa is
super cool. It's a leafused in a lot of parts of the
world for its nutrient densityas well. So again, this is more
more food like which, as aherbalist, nutritionist, I'm
(23:50):
really drawn to these, thesefoods like adaptogens. It's
actually been used in placeswhere there's malnourishment to
help with repleting These bodiesand just flooding the system
with a huge range of amino acidsand vitamins and minerals and
really, really amazing leaf canbe used in so many ways. And my
third,I'm like, I've got to throw a
(24:14):
mushroom in there. But we'regonna, we're gonna tell the
plants today. So the third forme in this moment, and it
changes every day. Is Tulsi,often known as holy basil. It's
the most sacred plant in India.
I used to live in India, andit's growing all over the place,
wild up in the mountains, everyhome has a Tulsi plant. It's
(24:34):
like a communication between thehumans and the gods. And it's
it's tried doshik. So thisbasically means it's a really
safe, approachable herb nomatter what your body type is.
So regardless of,you know where you live, or you
know if you're prone to be morewarm or cold or a little more
moist, and you'll get it intothis in the book, and really
getting to know like who you areindividually as a body type,
(24:57):
Tulsi is.
Great, really gentle place tostart, amazing to support the
stress response, stress and moodand so much more so cacao,
Moringa and Tulsi in thismoment. Wow. All right. I My
question to you right now is, Iknow we have a highly processed
(25:18):
food diet at this point. Most,most people do right, and we are
starting to see the healthconsequences of that. How do we
begin to correct both as asociety and as an individual?
How do we begin to correct that,the sort of consequences of that
and begin to lean into this morenutritionally dense lifestyle
that you guys are purporting?
(25:41):
Yeah, my take is, is you haveyou don't make progress without
compliance. So if you want toget fit, it's not about having
the best workout program off thegate. It's more about just
showing up and making progress.
Similar with your diet,obviously, depending where you
are in your journey. To me,compliance is everything. So
when I used to do nutritionalcoaching for professional
(26:03):
athletes, I would often startwith upgrades by looking at what
are they eating now and seeinghow can I upgrade? How can I
upgrade your smoothie or postworkout shake? How can we
upgrade your coffee? How can weupgrade your spice cabinet? How
can you upgrade your oils thatyou're using? The other thing is
adding in finding ways, how,without sacrificing convenience
(26:26):
or flavor, how can you addthings to your diet?
Is it like adding I mentionedspices like turmeric? Is it
something you could add or into,into your daily routine, items
and finding ways how you can addthings to soups and broths and
and other meals. And thenfinally, swaps. There's like
(26:50):
swaps, where you have a routineor a habit and you swap it with
something that is more nutrientdense, but similar, like, if you
love evening snacking and youhave, you're creating something
salty and fatty, and maybe,maybe you are deficient in salt
after a sweaty, hot summer day,or something like that, then
finding things like maybeseaweed snacks and other things
(27:13):
that will hit that spot. I thinkrefusing temptations and urges
is actually really dangerousbecause it takes a lot of
willpower and it often ends upfailing anyway. Interesting
reason is that it's body signalof a nutritional inefficiency or
craving. So these cravings areactually there for a reason.
(27:33):
Obviously you have to separatewhat the craving is and how to
support it, but I think you cansupport the cravings and make
huge progress by just, you know,upgrading, adding and swapping
things in your current routine,and starting there you can later
go on and get all thesupplements you want. But I
(27:54):
would not start with thatstrategy. You know, I think that
there's a really, make a reallyinteresting point there, right?
Which is,I think our, most of us eat a
diet that is very caloricallydense and nutritionally void.
And what you're describing thereis the it makes intuitive
eating, which is essentiallywhat you're talking about really
(28:16):
difficult, where you listen toyour body and you eat what your
body's craving. But what we haveare a lot of like poor
substitutes. We have theseprocessed foods that that signal
our brains that we're gettingthe nutrients we need, but are
actually giving us ersatzversions of them, right? And so
we want to listen, we want toeat more, what X, Y or Z, but we
have a hard time doing that. Ifeel like my first step whenever
(28:40):
I'm eating well is to removeprocessed foods, because I can't
listen to my body while theprocessed food sort of
mechanisms are still in it is,does that work? Or are you just
suggesting the swap outs tostart and building from there is
the best way.
Again, there's like 5000different ways to the top of the
(29:03):
mountain. There's one right way,both from five individuality and
genetics point of view, but alsofrom the lifestyle point of view
outside what stress is, what isimportant is, What is something
you can sustain and maintain.
Often, in my experience, thatrequires some level of
enjoyability, both as a habitand as a flavor. So to me, it's
(29:24):
just easier. But I think youmake a good point about like I
grew up foraging, and I've takenpeople out of forage and this
and that, and when you startgetting wild food, you quickly
realize that you are you haveabundance of nutrition and not
enough calories. And then whenyou live in a modern city, like
like many of us do, you start torealize the opposite, where you
(29:48):
have abundance of calories andlack of nutrients. So it's
something super important tokeep mindful of, and maybe, for
example, slight caloric death.
Said, both for longevity andweight, is
pretty easy to if you currentlyare at some level of balance
where you're not gaining weight,or you're not losing weight, or
(30:10):
you're gaining a little bit ofweight very slowly, by doing
couple of these swaps into lowercalorie, higher nutrient density
foods actually could be likeyour coffee creamer and or
something like that, and thendoing those swaps Could, could
actually get you to caloricdeficit and increase nutrient
(30:31):
density of of micro and thesenano nutrients that fuel your
body. So I think whatever youcan sustain would be my main
answer, yeah. I mean, yeah, isit right? The best workout
program, the best diet, is theone that you can that you can
continue, is the one that youcan do. I mean, I think
(30:54):
you we, we get thewe get these foods that, again,
like you're talking about. Youmake these, you make these
nutritional swap outs. You beginto you begin to start to listen
your body. You can supplementwith some. I know that you this
is the last step. Is tosupplement with, with things
like Four Sigmatic but I feellike the convenience factor for
so many people is, is a big is abig barrier, you know, and what
(31:18):
we have in modern life sort ofis we have, we give ourselves
less and less time for thisstuff. Do you have any any
opinions about how to live abetter, more nutritious life
within the context of of oursort of a convenience obsessed
society?
Yeah, convenience is big, and weget this a lot. People like, Oh,
(31:39):
I'm not going to remember to dothis new thing, or I don't have
enough time, or all theseexcuses. And we talked last
time, you said that was a bigreason for how you guys
developed. It was everything wassupposed to be easy and replace
a habit that we already, that wealready do. Yeah, this idea of
habit stacking, I think, isreally relevant for a lot of
these excuses. It's like, okay,we get it. We're all busy, and
(32:00):
we have a lot of things toremember, and that's the reason
you're probably reaching foradaptogens in the first place.
You know, you're stressed andyou want to, you want to have an
easier, more clear mind and lessstressful day. And so think
about that. We all have habits,right? We all have habits. We do
every single day, whether werealize it or not. So taking a
few moments to say, Okay, what'sthe routine thing I do when I
(32:20):
wake up in the morning. Youknow, for most Americans, that's
a cup of coffee. It's a really,really easy place to start. Add
an adaptogen to your coffee,right? You don't have to think
about doing anything extra ordifferent, or setting an alarm
or having an extra bottle. Justadd it, right? Stack it to the
thing that you're not giving upand you actually enjoy, right?
As Tara mentioned, this isn'tsomething we want to get rid of.
(32:44):
Maybe there's negative sideeffects to it, but what if we
can add something? We cancontinue the habit, we can still
have that moment, because it's areally food is personal, right?
It's a really intimate thing fora lot of people. And so, yeah,
it's cultural, too. I mean, wewe have a lot of these things.
Are they not just aboutnutrition, it's about they are
(33:06):
cultural touch points for a lotof us. Yeah, absolutely. And we
don't want to get rid of those,right? But when people come to
us and say, Hey, like, I'mexperiencing X, Y and Z issues,
and I'm having headaches, or Iget this crash and later in the
day, or I can't sleep, or I'mreally looking to improve my
performance, we want to honorthose habits and say, Yeah, we
(33:27):
get it. Tarot is a Finn. Finnsdrink more coffee than any other
country in the world. Man up tomy own heart. I had no idea.
Yeah. I think there's also aslower process that happens when
you start improving nutrients inyour body is, is, is twofold.
(33:47):
One is that when you start,especially with things like
adaptogens, you startnormalizing your body systems.
You start to sleep 2% better.
You sleep 2% better. You havemore energy. Maybe you'll go for
a walk or a workout, that willstart to improve a lot of things
very slowly. So then habitstacking, from that point of
view, certain cravings go away,when, when, when you are when
(34:10):
you sleep better and you havenaturally more energy. The other
one is your biome, both themicrobiome, but also the
microbiome. So we have bothbacteria and fungi in our gut
and our skin, and a lot of theseadaptogens and other healthy
foods help support or even healyour biome, and then that leads
to various cravings going away,so especially things like
(34:33):
bitters, like a Reishi or anashwagandha that we already
mentioned, and then,and then things that are like,
have certain kind ofgut friendly compounds be
prebiotics, probiotics,fermented foods, those, those
fermented things will start tothen heal your gut, which leads
(34:55):
to having healthier lifewithout.
Of stress because your biomechanges, so your cravings
change, yeah. Do you think thatthose, those incremental changes
are harder in a society obsessedwith feeling the effects and
instant gratification like theall the stuff you're talking
about, it has a cumulativeeffect that does not hit as hard
(35:19):
as a pharmaceutical, forexample, and do you think that
that's that's difficult, thatthat's part of the problem, that
you have to climb 100%and that's why, for example, in
our formulation, we often thinkabout like, what our body
systems that have a fast cycle,for example, mitochondria,
energy production and cognitivefunction. Those are benefits
that you can notice faster,right, versus immunity, gut
(35:41):
health take a longer time tobuild. Your skin will heal in 35
days. But your mitochondria isconstantly your cellular energy
production is constantlyhappening. So, you know, having
a formula where you have a thinglike a Cordyceps, which is an
adaptogen that increases cellenergy production and oxygen
intake, you often notice itimmediately, which you know that
(36:03):
instant feedback loop says,whoa. I really feel this one and
and then evenanother, adapting like Alliance,
maybe has some fast actingbenefits for brain and and and
memory and things like that. Butthen it has like, slow, active
benefits for longevity purposes.
(36:24):
So I think what's great aboutsome of these adaptogens is that
they instant benefits, like acacao, like when you get, like,
an immediate kind of rawchocolate, raw cacao high but it
also has many things forlongevity. And many people
who've lived 100 years reportthat they ate dark chocolate on
a regular basis. So, so, butthere are certain adaptogens and
(36:46):
there's certain health practicesthat people struggle with
because they do not give theinstant gratification. Yeah, but
I think adaptogens are more inthe category that do give it
while providing long termbenefits, which helps many
people will leverage them, andthat's why I think a thing like
ashwagandha has recently passedgreen juice in Google search
(37:07):
volumes, and it's really hard totype and spell ashwagandha,
pretty mind blowing that a weirdIndian root has surpassed the
huge health trend of greenjuicing and people. And I think
it's only possible because itworks. Yeah, yeah. All right.
Well, we'll put a link to whereto buy the book in the show
(37:27):
notes. Healing adaptogens. I'mgonna ask you guys two last
questions, first and foremost,aside from buying the book, How
can God, how can people followup with you
guys? Yeah, you can see us bothon Four Sigmatic, on all social
channels, four sigmatic.com youcan also head to healing
adaptogens.com for more infoabout the book specifically, and
(37:47):
I can be found at Danielle Ryanbreider and tarot, I will share
that you can be found at I amtarot, T, E, R, O, I'll put a
link to your guys' socials. Andthose websites, both the book
website and four sigma x websitewill be in the show notes. Last
but not least, and this is toboth of you, what is one thing
(38:08):
we can all start doing todaythat will make our lives a whole
lot better?
Drink more water. Oh, issomething accessible to
everyone?
I think sleep more is theeasiest. But that's not easy for
everyone. But I think drink morewater is most of us are
(38:28):
chronically dehydrated and anddry, both physically and
sometimes some of us mentally aswell. So drink more water is
huge. And then, if I may, throwanother one is add spices, get
brand new set of organic spices.
Pretty much everybody can affordto have a spice cabinet and then
use them liberally for both Godpurposes, but also many other
(38:52):
health benefits. Interesting,Daniel, do you agree with all of
that? Oh, yeah. I mean so manythings. I'm like cheering. I'm
like, yeah, yeah, the same,agreed. But I'll offer one more
thing, and then I got to have abonus too, to keep it even. So
the first, it feels like alittle bit of a cheat, but add
an adaptogen into your dailyroutine. I think switching to a
functional coffee, a mushroomcoffee, if you're a coffee
(39:15):
drinker, is so, so simple. Sostart there. And again, those,
like, 2% 1% those incrementalchanges, just be open and
excited about how they'llcontinue to move and improve in
your body. And then a secondone, which is, is free, kind of
like the water, something that'sreally important in my life, is
a breath practice. So insteadof, like, having to find a whole
(39:37):
practice, and like, Oh, my God,breath work is a huge category.
See if you can count yourinhales and exhales, and see if
you can make your exhalationstwo seconds longer than your
inhalations. So that's a littlestress hack that we can do if we
don't yet have an adaptogen onboard to calm our nerve.
(40:00):
The system and just be able tohave more stamina to face all
the stressors that we're goingthrough in this crazy modern
world we're living in. Yeah,yeah. I mean these simple
changes, right? Guys, it's allright. Well, Taro Isaac Coppola
and Daniel Ryan broido, thankyou guys so much for your time
today. We really appreciate it,and you've I'm excited to dive
into this book, and I hope thateverybody else is. Thank you so
(40:23):
much for having us. Thanks forhaving us. That's it for the
show today. Thank you guys somuch for listening. If you like
the show, please rate, commentand subscribe on Apple podcast.
Stitcher, Spotify, wherever youget your podcast. Helps us out a
lot. Follow up with John atfacebook.com/john,
Tesh. He's also on Instagram, atJohn Tesh. Underscore, if, well,
I'm Gib Gerard. You find mefacebook.com/gib, Gerard, or at
(40:44):
Gib Gerard on Instagram andTwitter, I try to respond to
every DM, every mention of theshow, because ultimately, I do
the show for you guys. So thankyou so much for listening.
You.
Gib.
(00:08):
Hello andwelcome to another episode of
intelligence for your life. Thepodcast. I'm Gib Gerard, our
guests this week, there are twoof them. They co authored a book
called Healing adaptogens. I'mtalking about Taro is a Coppola
and Danielle Ryan broyden. Nowyou may remember, we've had
Danielle on the show before sheshe talked to us all about
mushrooms, the healing kind ofmushrooms, and how how they can
(00:30):
be used to get yourself, to getyour your brain, your body, into
into a higher plane of health.
And that's what we're going totalk about today with both of
them, with Tarot and with withDanielle, we're going to talk
all about exactly whatadaptogens are, where you can
find them in your diet, and howyou can add them to your life in
(00:53):
order to live your best life, inorder to be emotionally more
centered, in order to have yourgut health be optimized your
every bit of your body can beoptimized with these, with these
adaptogens, these these foodsthat we, you know, we've known
about for for millennia, but we,we don't get in our diet enough.
So that's what we're gonna betalking about today. All kinds
(01:14):
of good stuff coming up, newguests on the podcast coming up
that are we think are gonna bereally exciting for you guys are
trying to trying to get you guysin the place you are the place
you want to be. So here, withoutfurther ado, my interview with
Tara, Isa Coppola and DanielleRyan broyder. Daryl, Isa Coppola
and Danielle Ryan Broida,authors of the new books, of the
new book healing, adaptogens.
Thank you guys so much for beingwith us today. We really
(01:36):
appreciate it. Thanks for havingus. Danielle. We've had you on
the show before we talked allabout, you know, the the
benefits of mushrooms, this sortof mycological revolution that's
going on. I feel like, sincewe've talked this idea of food
that helps us in in other kindsof ways, that helps our brain,
that makes these significantdifferences in our lives, has
(01:57):
really gained a lot of traction,and we're seeing, we're seeing a
lot of that all over the placewith like Netflix documentaries,
and that kind of thing. Is thatwhy you guys decided to write
this book? Why did we why are wedealing with adaptogens in this
way now? Yeah, great question.
The category is definitelyexploding. A lot of people are
(02:17):
hearing this word adaptogen andthey're seeing it on movies, as
you said, in all sorts ofdifferent products. I mean, the
span is huge, and yet what wefind is there's still a lot of
confusion. People are like,Okay, I'm seeing this
everywhere, but what are theyactually? What do they do? How
should I use them to make sure Iget the benefit? So we really
wanted to clear the air andcreate a really accessible
(02:40):
guide, but that is alsodefinitive that covers the
history of use of theseincredible species, a lot of the
gold standard clinical trials toback up some of the claims and
the benefits that are toutedabout them, and just have a kind
of comprehensive but reallysimple way to reference and
(03:04):
be confident about how to bringthese into your life to actually
reap the benefits you guys. Ilove that you guys are
affiliated with. You founded andworked for
the one of the first companiesto really get into this space.
Then you guys have been reallypopular in the podcasting space
for a long time, sponsoring anddoing interviews, but Four
(03:25):
Sigmatic really, really quickly.
Can you guys give people a quickprimer as to what the mission of
Four Sigmatic is, before we divedeeper into the the idea of
adaptogens in general? Ofcourse, I founded Four Sigmatic
about 10 years ago, in 2012with the idea of elevating
people's wellness with theseworld's most nutrient dense
(03:45):
foods.
So Four Sigmatic is a supergeeky and nerdy way of saying we
focus on the top 100 mostnutrient dense foods. It's all
on a bell curve, four standarddeviations from the mean, and
you end up with these. And thewords come plenty. When we
started the company, peopletalked about super foods, we
(04:06):
highlighted particularly on thevalue of the functional
mushrooms in the top 100 foods,because though we felt that
those were underrepresentedand adaptogens, surely in the
top 100 there's a couple dozenof these so called adaptogens
that this book is all about aswell. And the funny thing that
has happened over the years is,I thought I started a superfood
(04:30):
or mushroom or adaptogencompany, but what has actually
happened is we've almost starteda mental wellness company, and
people then have seek thebenefits of these either
elevating or balancing theirbody and and and seek all kinds
of benefits in this superstressful modern day life that
(04:51):
we all live in different formsand facilities and
professionally and personally athome. I think, I think the.
Two fold, right? Like, I thinkthere's the fact that people, a
lot of people, have gotten kindof tired of, particularly in the
mental health space, the sideeffects of a lot of mental
health pharmaceuticals. And sopeople are looking, are looking
(05:12):
for alternatives, alternativeways to sort of get their brains
firing properly. I think we livea life that is also unnatural.
Most of us live a life that isnot what our brains and bodies
were meant for, but is it, youknow, we're sort of shoehorned
into. So I think that a lot ofthat contributes to this desire
for what you're talking about,seeking out this sort of mental
(05:32):
wellness associated with withwhat you guys offer. I want to I
got to answer some, I got to asksome basic, basic questions. So
first and foremost, what areadaptogens. How do you guys
define them in and how does itapply to this? Yeah, I'll take
it. Give it a go. Yeah, I'lltake a stab at this first, and
Terry, you can fill in. Butadaptions are a category, so
(05:53):
think of them like an umbrellacategory of super plants and
functional mushrooms. There'sabout 30 of them. It's debated.
We focus on 21 in our new book,and they all have certain
characteristics in common. Soall of them are non toxic. This
is huge. It means they're safeto take every day. They have a
history of being used long term.
They're more like foods in thisway, rather than medicines,
(06:16):
right? They're incredibly,incredibly nutrient dense,
beyond non toxic, they're allnormalizing. So this is really
interesting. They don'thave a specific exertion in the
body, but rather, they arenourishing and tonifying
multiple systems in the body atthe same time. Do you think
that's like, you think that's abig contributor to why people
are reaching out to this over,not over pharmaceuticals, but,
(06:39):
like, maybe before they go topharmaceuticals, is for this
reason that it's it doesnormalize, as opposed to
creating a an issue withhomeostasis? Yeah, I think
that's a part of it. People arelike, hey, this one thing I've
been reaching for isn't working.
Or, as I mentioned, maybethere's all these side effects.
And what's really cool aboutadaptogens is you can use them
(06:59):
starting for that benefit, like,hey, I want to use Lion's Mane
for brain support. But when youwhat you then notice is because
it's not just targeting that onespot in your body. It's also
nourishing your gut health andacting on your immune system. We
get these other long termbenefits where we're
simultaneously supporting morethe root of where these issues
(07:20):
or where these ailments might bestemming from that we end up
saying, hey, I need thisnootropic to help with. So
there's this, like, dual actionthat goes on where someone might
reach for it for one purpose,and then a few weeks later, be
like, Wow, I didn't expect thisother improvement to happen, but
now I'm sleeping really well. Ornow my, you know, kid got sick
and I didn't contract it, orwhat's going on. So they're,
(07:43):
yeah, regardless of why youfirst turn to them, they're so
packed with nutrients, they'reworking on so many levels of the
body that there's a lot ofreasons to believe, right? And
they're, they're gaining thispopularity for a reason, and I
think that's one of the bigones. So I interrupted you to
ask that question, but you were,you were in the middle of
explaining why. So they're,they're normalizing and non
(08:04):
toxic, and why, what kind ofdraws you to them, and what
else? What other factors do youlook for, aside from those like,
it's, it's more than just, youknow, adding dietary fiber,
which is normalizing and nontoxic as well.
Yeah, there's one, oneadditional key point we've got
to hit on so they're non toxic,they're normalizing. They're
(08:24):
also non specific. This isreally cool. It's similar to
normalizing. But essentiallywhat it means is these
adaptogens have compounds thatwork in either a gas, like a
stimulating way, or a break,like a relaxing kind of, whoa,
chill out way. And depending onthe body that ingests the
adaptogen, the gas effect or thebreak effect, will be louder. Is
(08:48):
kind of a way to think about it,based on what that body means,
right? So we hear, they're like,adapting, like pun intended,
they adapt to our bodies. Theywork with us. So you know all of
these adaptogens about, youknow, the 2030 that exist have
these in common, and yet theyeach are unique, right? They're
not the exact same phytochemicalmakeup. They each have unique
(09:11):
vitamins and minerals anddifferent phyto constituents.
And so they can each offera slightly kind of various range
of benefits, whether it's forskin health or immunity
performance, brain or body. Sowe can really get Cho like, get
choosy and get specific aboutwhich ones we reach towards.
(09:35):
And yeah, continue to besurprised by the way that they
they move and shift and improvemultiple areas of our bodies.
How do you guys identify, youknow, what is the standard for
which we've identified, the youguys stressing the 21 but the 30
that you that you mentionedadaptogens, and I'm assuming it
(09:55):
has to do with just historical,historical context.
And that people have used thesefor generations. Why? Why do we
stop if it is historical,otherwise, how do, how do you
guys?
How do you guys find and orcurate that list, like, what is
the standard you guys use? Yeah,I can, I can try to answer that.
So the three requirements thatwas set 70 years ago by the
(10:19):
quote, unquote founder, ofadaptogens
is sounds really simple, butit's actually quite strict an
herbalism, which Daniel canspeak closely about. Lot of
things are toxic. Lot of thingsare seasonal. So most, like in
traditional Chinese medicine,there's very few of these
(10:39):
Emperor herbs that are notpreventative or healing and
instead can be used year round.
So that's actually quitelimiting. So you would think
it's simple, but it's not. Theother part is that the things
that are safe and non toxicactually are are not
attacking multiple body systems.
So they tend to be mostlyfocused on macronutrients or
(11:02):
micronutrients. Instead. A lotof these adaptogenic functions
are these nano nutrients, youknow, be it polyphenols or beta
d glucans or certain tryterpenes or saponins. So it's a
hard list. And to answer yourquestion, if we would only take
the indigenous use we couldprobably find, you know, more
than 20 to 30 of theseadaptogens. But what's the
(11:25):
beauty of adaptogens is thatthey actually are supported by
Western research. So adaptogensis a perfect Mary between the
West and the East. They've beenused for hundreds, if not 1000s
of years. They're the top one ortwo in their native area. So
each one of these adaptogens is,you know, elevated into this,
you know, immortal status inindigenous cultures or ancient
(11:47):
traditions. And at the sametime, they have hundreds of
research papers, which is rarein food. And we could probably
extend the list by another dozenor two, if we would ignore the
Western research. But in theadaptogenic side, it's really
important that they're alsovalidated by credible research.
(12:08):
And we went through over 1000research papers and and many of
these hype supplements that yousee ads on, you know they might
or might not be good, butthey're not proven
credibly, and that's why thelist is so small. Could we, in
50 to 100 years, have a biggerlist? 100%
(12:31):
I want to get into what'sactually on the list and which
ones you guys think are the mostimportant. I mean, it's some of
them I looking through the tableof context for your book. Some
of them are things I recognizefrom Four Sigmatic products, but
before we even get to that, Iwant do you guys have, like, a
rubric or a primer? Because alot of these words have become
(12:51):
buzz words, like we see Chagaand lion's mane. I think when
you guys started, there wasnowhere and now, or at least
nowhere in like Western grocerystores, but now I'm, you know,
almost every company now makessomething with, you know, like a
Chaga matcha latte or somethingor, you know, it's something
with Lion's Mane extract in it.
How do we what is the standardthat we as consumers can use
(13:12):
when we're looking for this toknow where the snake oil is and
where the the real,the real good, essential
adaptogens that we want to addto our diet are. So that's that
beautiful question. I'll try toanswer that as a CEO of
adaptogen company. And thenDaniel can Gib, aside from
saying just by Four Sigmatic,but I mean, honestly, it's
(13:36):
really damn hard. Yeah, it's soso hard. Like, what you're
asking is super relevant, isthat there's a lot of excitement
on the potential health benefitsof these products. And me, after
doing this for 20 years, and asa CEO of a company, we've tested
literally 10s of 1000s ofbatches of different products.
(13:57):
It's so damn hard, like there'sjust so much data and so much to
manage. And by the way, some ofthese ingredients, you know,
Four Sigmatic, doesn't sell. Soit's also not like these are
just the things to take, in ouropinion. But we wrote this book
for that reason, like I wouldhave wished this book existed 20
(14:18):
years ago to explain what arethe quality factors based on our
research. Both me running forSigmatic and doing all these lab
tests and trying to procure thebest stuff, and us together
reviewing research papers, andDanielle's practice of working
with people in real life, withwith, with these super herbs and
super mushrooms. So it's reallydamn hard. The book is set to be
(14:42):
here, the seminal book for thisfor many years to come, and
explain these answers. And we wehave, like, a shopping guide,
what to watch out for, and wetry to write it in a way that we
don't actually really mentionmany companies. It's more like.
Like, hey, here's like, 10things to consider when you're
(15:03):
shopping, things likeextraction, which impacts by
availability, pesticides, heavymetals, what is the form and
genus of the plant or themushroom in? What form is it the
root? Is it the leaf, and howthat impacts? And how do you
marry those ingredients. What'sthe dosage, based on modern
(15:23):
research, like, is it 100milligrams of extract? So what
amount? And try to debunk someof these marketing mix where you
buy, you know, a super food thathas 75 of these quote, unquote,
super foods and adaptogens. Andthen you start to look at the
per dosage amounts and theforms, and you realize this is
not in any way supported by theresearch on their health
(15:46):
benefits. So that's that's myview. It's really difficult.
That's literally the main reasonwhy we wrote this book is we've
been asked these questions amillion times, and we wish this
book would have existed, youknow, decades ago. But Daniel, I
don't know with your practice,what do you what do you see
being helpful for for people tonavigate this territory? Yeah,
(16:10):
first off, I have a lot ofcompassion for people trying to
navigate this space, because itis really crowded and really
confusing, and people want thesebenefits and so you know, first
Bravo for being curious andwanting to get to the place
where you feel you know what wesay is a life on adaptogens, but
we really focused in on thisthird part of our book. It's a
(16:32):
it's a really practical shoppingguide. And as taro said, This is
so needed. I think the five bigthings that we really hit on to
ensure that you're getting whatyou intended to get is, yeah,
one that form, like, there's, wecall it a power hub. You know,
there's different parts of eachplant or mushroom where the
active compounds lie that willreally give you those benefits.
(16:54):
And so, yeah, it's reallyimportant to use the fruiting
body of the mushroom. Or withashwagandha, you have to use the
root right go to cola. We usethe leaf. So knowing that you're
actually getting the right partof the planter. Fungi is huge.
Dose is another big thing we'reseeing like, Oh, two milligrams
(17:15):
of this one adaptogen on a gummyor on a, you know, beauty
product, or whatever it mightbe, and it's just not enough to
have a true impact in your body.
So knowing that the dose you'reactually getting enough for your
body to utilize and feelbenefits is huge. So we have
form dose, as Tara mentioned,this purity, like the
ingredients have to be clean,they have to be organic,
(17:37):
ideally, they're third partytested, right? You want to get
something that isn't furtherdamaging your body, but that is
actually clean and pure, and theforms used in in clinical
trials,the extraction piece, right,
making sure that what you'regetting is actually able to be
used by your body. We call thatbioavailability.
(17:59):
And then kind of the fifth bonusthat we mentioned is, is
sustainability and reallysourcing your ingredients from
their their native lands. I'mreally passionate about this as
an herbalist. And there's somereally cool things about
adaptogens, where they grow inreally extreme, harsh climates,
often. And there's this thingcalled the doctrine of
(18:20):
signatures, which is, you'veprobably heard of it. It's like
a walnut being good for yourbrain, but how something looks
out in nature is giving usinformation about how it's going
to act and benefit our bodies.
So because walnuts look likebrains, they're good for your
brains. That's it. That's it,right? And there's so many foods
and medicines and plants likethis that are kind of giving us
information. And part therelevancy with adaptogens is
(18:43):
they grow in these crazy, harshclimates where there's huge
temperature ranges, or reallyharsh soil conditions, or, you
know, there's glacier ice caps,or Rhodiola is found in Iceland.
There's like volcanoes eruptingnext to it, and yet, they're
super resilient, right? They'reable to
(19:04):
they're able to survive andthrive despite huge
environmental stressors. And sooverall, you know, if we source
them from these native placeswhere they've developed these
compounds, where they have tosurvive and and really grow
despite what's going on aroundthem that is going to be so much
more significant and have agreater impact in our body than
(19:26):
if we were to get these, youknow, lab grown or right, yeah,
from a different region, right?
So you have to go to where youhave to go, where it is, try to
source it sustainably, but alsothat you're getting the right
one. There's all kinds ofexamples of this too, where
people try to regrow stuff in ormake something in a new factory.
They really, they forget thatthere's a secret part to
(19:48):
whatever, wherever it was,natively that gives it, that
imbues it with the power that wesaw initially. So a really banal
example was there was a sausagecompany that.
Had these famous red hotsausages, and when they built a
new factory to make thesausages, the time it took to
move the sausage from one partof the cooking to the other was
(20:10):
too short, and it wasn'tactually getting the same
texture and color that it usedto get, because in the old
factory, they had to walk itdown a longer hallway. And so
the sausage is cooled properlyanyway. That's a really back
where, backwards way of pointingout that, like sometimes, the
the native environment thatsomething comes from originally,
is actually going to give itmore of the quality that we love
(20:33):
about it, than trying to justgrow it in its own in a new,
more idealistic place. Yeah, andthere's a word for it's called
Geno hormesis, so similar tothink of yourself as a as a
living being, and if you exposeyourself to challenges, be it
physically or mentally, you ifonce you get through it, you
(20:53):
become out stronger. So that'sthe hero's journey. But plants
and fungi, there's Xenohormesis, which means that heat,
temperature, shock, radiation,all of these stress responses
increase, for example,polyphenol production, and that
that polyphenol is actuallythere for the plant or the fungi
or the antioxidants to protectitself from those stressors. And
(21:17):
then we can, when properly used,we can leverage those in our
whole in our life. So what doyou think guys are the most
important ones? Like, what arewe missing the most from our
diet?
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's funny,because, like, this top 21 is
really, like the creme de lacreme, so there's really nothing
(21:37):
to cut. And there is ways how weteach based on your body types
and your challenges in life,where to start, because it can
be overwhelming to have startwith 21 so do you are you
focused on your skin or immunityor brain and stress? But I would
say few ones that should bepretty interesting to everyone.
(21:59):
Let me give me my three and thenDanielle can add at hers
to me, ashwagandha, Rishi andSchisandra are some of those
things that everybody shouldhave on their radar. Rishi being
the queen of mushrooms, the moststudied of all the fungi,
ashwagandha being arguably themost studied, top Indian
(22:23):
Ayurvedic herb. And to me,Schisandra is, you know, is the
most diverse, in a way. It'sfive flavors. It hits all the
meridians. There's a lot ofthings with it. So to me,
all the 21 matter. But if you'renew to it, and you don't know
where to start. To me,ashwagandha, Rishi and Sandra
are just the great ones.
Interesting.
(22:47):
Go ahead, Daniel, oh, I'm like,stressing over here. How do I
choose three? It's like, chooseyour favorite child, and you're
like, I don't know there's somany, okay, but I'm on a big
cacao kick right now. And Ithink cacao is an underrated
adaptogen. A lot of us think ofit more as a food. Maybe we eat
it in a highly processed formthat then gets into a chocolate
(23:07):
bar. But we really break downwhat cacao is, right? That true
bean from the Theobroma cacaotree, and cacao is, is the most
nutrient dense, right? The mostidentified phyto compounds of
all foods on the planet. It'sincredible. I'm a huge component
of sleep, and cacao is one ofour richest forms of natural
magnesium. So incredible toeither have that kind of
(23:30):
stimulating or relaxing,adaptogenic quality based on
your body really working withyou individually. It's just such
an incredible plant. Next Iwould choose Moringa. Moringa is
super cool. It's a leafused in a lot of parts of the
world for its nutrient densityas well. So again, this is more
more food like which, as aherbalist, nutritionist, I'm
(23:50):
really drawn to these, thesefoods like adaptogens. It's
actually been used in placeswhere there's malnourishment to
help with repleting These bodiesand just flooding the system
with a huge range of amino acidsand vitamins and minerals and
really, really amazing leaf canbe used in so many ways. And my
third,I'm like, I've got to throw a
(24:14):
mushroom in there. But we'regonna, we're gonna tell the
plants today. So the third forme in this moment, and it
changes every day. Is Tulsi,often known as holy basil. It's
the most sacred plant in India.
I used to live in India, andit's growing all over the place,
wild up in the mountains, everyhome has a Tulsi plant. It's
(24:34):
like a communication between thehumans and the gods. And it's
it's tried doshik. So thisbasically means it's a really
safe, approachable herb nomatter what your body type is.
So regardless of,you know where you live, or you
know if you're prone to be morewarm or cold or a little more
moist, and you'll get it intothis in the book, and really
getting to know like who you areindividually as a body type,
(24:57):
Tulsi is.
Great, really gentle place tostart, amazing to support the
stress response, stress and moodand so much more so cacao,
Moringa and Tulsi in thismoment. Wow. All right. I My
question to you right now is, Iknow we have a highly processed
(25:18):
food diet at this point. Most,most people do right, and we are
starting to see the healthconsequences of that. How do we
begin to correct both as asociety and as an individual?
How do we begin to correct that,the sort of consequences of that
and begin to lean into this morenutritionally dense lifestyle
that you guys are purporting?
(25:41):
Yeah, my take is, is you haveyou don't make progress without
compliance. So if you want toget fit, it's not about having
the best workout program off thegate. It's more about just
showing up and making progress.
Similar with your diet,obviously, depending where you
are in your journey. To me,compliance is everything. So
when I used to do nutritionalcoaching for professional
(26:03):
athletes, I would often startwith upgrades by looking at what
are they eating now and seeinghow can I upgrade? How can I
upgrade your smoothie or postworkout shake? How can we
upgrade your coffee? How can weupgrade your spice cabinet? How
can you upgrade your oils thatyou're using? The other thing is
adding in finding ways, how,without sacrificing convenience
(26:26):
or flavor, how can you addthings to your diet?
Is it like adding I mentionedspices like turmeric? Is it
something you could add or into,into your daily routine, items
and finding ways how you can addthings to soups and broths and
and other meals. And thenfinally, swaps. There's like
(26:50):
swaps, where you have a routineor a habit and you swap it with
something that is more nutrientdense, but similar, like, if you
love evening snacking and youhave, you're creating something
salty and fatty, and maybe,maybe you are deficient in salt
after a sweaty, hot summer day,or something like that, then
finding things like maybeseaweed snacks and other things
(27:13):
that will hit that spot. I thinkrefusing temptations and urges
is actually really dangerousbecause it takes a lot of
willpower and it often ends upfailing anyway. Interesting
reason is that it's body signalof a nutritional inefficiency or
craving. So these cravings areactually there for a reason.
(27:33):
Obviously you have to separatewhat the craving is and how to
support it, but I think you cansupport the cravings and make
huge progress by just, you know,upgrading, adding and swapping
things in your current routine,and starting there you can later
go on and get all thesupplements you want. But I
(27:54):
would not start with thatstrategy. You know, I think that
there's a really, make a reallyinteresting point there, right?
Which is,I think our, most of us eat a
diet that is very caloricallydense and nutritionally void.
And what you're describing thereis the it makes intuitive
eating, which is essentiallywhat you're talking about really
(28:16):
difficult, where you listen toyour body and you eat what your
body's craving. But what we haveare a lot of like poor
substitutes. We have theseprocessed foods that that signal
our brains that we're gettingthe nutrients we need, but are
actually giving us ersatzversions of them, right? And so
we want to listen, we want toeat more, what X, Y or Z, but we
have a hard time doing that. Ifeel like my first step whenever
(28:40):
I'm eating well is to removeprocessed foods, because I can't
listen to my body while theprocessed food sort of
mechanisms are still in it is,does that work? Or are you just
suggesting the swap outs tostart and building from there is
the best way.
Again, there's like 5000different ways to the top of the
(29:03):
mountain. There's one right way,both from five individuality and
genetics point of view, but alsofrom the lifestyle point of view
outside what stress is, what isimportant is, What is something
you can sustain and maintain.
Often, in my experience, thatrequires some level of
enjoyability, both as a habitand as a flavor. So to me, it's
(29:24):
just easier. But I think youmake a good point about like I
grew up foraging, and I've takenpeople out of forage and this
and that, and when you startgetting wild food, you quickly
realize that you are you haveabundance of nutrition and not
enough calories. And then whenyou live in a modern city, like
like many of us do, you start torealize the opposite, where you
(29:48):
have abundance of calories andlack of nutrients. So it's
something super important tokeep mindful of, and maybe, for
example, slight caloric death.
Said, both for longevity andweight, is
pretty easy to if you currentlyare at some level of balance
where you're not gaining weight,or you're not losing weight, or
(30:10):
you're gaining a little bit ofweight very slowly, by doing
couple of these swaps into lowercalorie, higher nutrient density
foods actually could be likeyour coffee creamer and or
something like that, and thendoing those swaps Could, could
actually get you to caloricdeficit and increase nutrient
(30:31):
density of of micro and thesenano nutrients that fuel your
body. So I think whatever youcan sustain would be my main
answer, yeah. I mean, yeah, isit right? The best workout
program, the best diet, is theone that you can that you can
continue, is the one that youcan do. I mean, I think
(30:54):
you we, we get thewe get these foods that, again,
like you're talking about. Youmake these, you make these
nutritional swap outs. You beginto you begin to start to listen
your body. You can supplementwith some. I know that you this
is the last step. Is tosupplement with, with things
like Four Sigmatic but I feellike the convenience factor for
so many people is, is a big is abig barrier, you know, and what
(31:18):
we have in modern life sort ofis we have, we give ourselves
less and less time for thisstuff. Do you have any any
opinions about how to live abetter, more nutritious life
within the context of of oursort of a convenience obsessed
society?
Yeah, convenience is big, and weget this a lot. People like, Oh,
(31:39):
I'm not going to remember to dothis new thing, or I don't have
enough time, or all theseexcuses. And we talked last
time, you said that was a bigreason for how you guys
developed. It was everything wassupposed to be easy and replace
a habit that we already, that wealready do. Yeah, this idea of
habit stacking, I think, isreally relevant for a lot of
these excuses. It's like, okay,we get it. We're all busy, and
(32:00):
we have a lot of things toremember, and that's the reason
you're probably reaching foradaptogens in the first place.
You know, you're stressed andyou want to, you want to have an
easier, more clear mind and lessstressful day. And so think
about that. We all have habits,right? We all have habits. We do
every single day, whether werealize it or not. So taking a
few moments to say, Okay, what'sthe routine thing I do when I
(32:20):
wake up in the morning. Youknow, for most Americans, that's
a cup of coffee. It's a really,really easy place to start. Add
an adaptogen to your coffee,right? You don't have to think
about doing anything extra ordifferent, or setting an alarm
or having an extra bottle. Justadd it, right? Stack it to the
thing that you're not giving upand you actually enjoy, right?
As Tara mentioned, this isn'tsomething we want to get rid of.
(32:44):
Maybe there's negative sideeffects to it, but what if we
can add something? We cancontinue the habit, we can still
have that moment, because it's areally food is personal, right?
It's a really intimate thing fora lot of people. And so, yeah,
it's cultural, too. I mean, wewe have a lot of these things.
Are they not just aboutnutrition, it's about they are
(33:06):
cultural touch points for a lotof us. Yeah, absolutely. And we
don't want to get rid of those,right? But when people come to
us and say, Hey, like, I'mexperiencing X, Y and Z issues,
and I'm having headaches, or Iget this crash and later in the
day, or I can't sleep, or I'mreally looking to improve my
performance, we want to honorthose habits and say, Yeah, we
(33:27):
get it. Tarot is a Finn. Finnsdrink more coffee than any other
country in the world. Man up tomy own heart. I had no idea.
Yeah. I think there's also aslower process that happens when
you start improving nutrients inyour body is, is, is twofold.
(33:47):
One is that when you start,especially with things like
adaptogens, you startnormalizing your body systems.
You start to sleep 2% better.
You sleep 2% better. You havemore energy. Maybe you'll go for
a walk or a workout, that willstart to improve a lot of things
very slowly. So then habitstacking, from that point of
view, certain cravings go away,when, when, when you are when
(34:10):
you sleep better and you havenaturally more energy. The other
one is your biome, both themicrobiome, but also the
microbiome. So we have bothbacteria and fungi in our gut
and our skin, and a lot of theseadaptogens and other healthy
foods help support or even healyour biome, and then that leads
to various cravings going away,so especially things like
(34:33):
bitters, like a Reishi or anashwagandha that we already
mentioned, and then,and then things that are like,
have certain kind ofgut friendly compounds be
prebiotics, probiotics,fermented foods, those, those
fermented things will start tothen heal your gut, which leads
(34:55):
to having healthier lifewithout.
Of stress because your biomechanges, so your cravings
change, yeah. Do you think thatthose, those incremental changes
are harder in a society obsessedwith feeling the effects and
instant gratification like theall the stuff you're talking
about, it has a cumulativeeffect that does not hit as hard
(35:19):
as a pharmaceutical, forexample, and do you think that
that's that's difficult, thatthat's part of the problem, that
you have to climb 100%and that's why, for example, in
our formulation, we often thinkabout like, what our body
systems that have a fast cycle,for example, mitochondria,
energy production and cognitivefunction. Those are benefits
that you can notice faster,right, versus immunity, gut
(35:41):
health take a longer time tobuild. Your skin will heal in 35
days. But your mitochondria isconstantly your cellular energy
production is constantlyhappening. So, you know, having
a formula where you have a thinglike a Cordyceps, which is an
adaptogen that increases cellenergy production and oxygen
intake, you often notice itimmediately, which you know that
(36:03):
instant feedback loop says,whoa. I really feel this one and
and then evenanother, adapting like Alliance,
maybe has some fast actingbenefits for brain and and and
memory and things like that. Butthen it has like, slow, active
benefits for longevity purposes.
(36:24):
So I think what's great aboutsome of these adaptogens is that
they instant benefits, like acacao, like when you get, like,
an immediate kind of rawchocolate, raw cacao high but it
also has many things forlongevity. And many people
who've lived 100 years reportthat they ate dark chocolate on
a regular basis. So, so, butthere are certain adaptogens and
(36:46):
there's certain health practicesthat people struggle with
because they do not give theinstant gratification. Yeah, but
I think adaptogens are more inthe category that do give it
while providing long termbenefits, which helps many
people will leverage them, andthat's why I think a thing like
ashwagandha has recently passedgreen juice in Google search
(37:07):
volumes, and it's really hard totype and spell ashwagandha,
pretty mind blowing that a weirdIndian root has surpassed the
huge health trend of greenjuicing and people. And I think
it's only possible because itworks. Yeah, yeah. All right.
Well, we'll put a link to whereto buy the book in the show
(37:27):
notes. Healing adaptogens. I'mgonna ask you guys two last
questions, first and foremost,aside from buying the book, How
can God, how can people followup with you
guys? Yeah, you can see us bothon Four Sigmatic, on all social
channels, four sigmatic.com youcan also head to healing
adaptogens.com for more infoabout the book specifically, and
(37:47):
I can be found at Danielle Ryanbreider and tarot, I will share
that you can be found at I amtarot, T, E, R, O, I'll put a
link to your guys' socials. Andthose websites, both the book
website and four sigma x websitewill be in the show notes. Last
but not least, and this is toboth of you, what is one thing
(38:08):
we can all start doing todaythat will make our lives a whole
lot better?
Drink more water. Oh, issomething accessible to
everyone?
I think sleep more is theeasiest. But that's not easy for
everyone. But I think drink morewater is most of us are
(38:28):
chronically dehydrated and anddry, both physically and
sometimes some of us mentally aswell. So drink more water is
huge. And then, if I may, throwanother one is add spices, get
brand new set of organic spices.
Pretty much everybody can affordto have a spice cabinet and then
use them liberally for both Godpurposes, but also many other
(38:52):
health benefits. Interesting,Daniel, do you agree with all of
that? Oh, yeah. I mean so manythings. I'm like cheering. I'm
like, yeah, yeah, the same,agreed. But I'll offer one more
thing, and then I got to have abonus too, to keep it even. So
the first, it feels like alittle bit of a cheat, but add
an adaptogen into your dailyroutine. I think switching to a
functional coffee, a mushroomcoffee, if you're a coffee
(39:15):
drinker, is so, so simple. Sostart there. And again, those,
like, 2% 1% those incrementalchanges, just be open and
excited about how they'llcontinue to move and improve in
your body. And then a secondone, which is, is free, kind of
like the water, something that'sreally important in my life, is
a breath practice. So insteadof, like, having to find a whole
(39:37):
practice, and like, Oh, my God,breath work is a huge category.
See if you can count yourinhales and exhales, and see if
you can make your exhalationstwo seconds longer than your
inhalations. So that's a littlestress hack that we can do if we
don't yet have an adaptogen onboard to calm our nerve.
(40:00):
The system and just be able tohave more stamina to face all
the stressors that we're goingthrough in this crazy modern
world we're living in. Yeah,yeah. I mean these simple
changes, right? Guys, it's allright. Well, Taro Isaac Coppola
and Daniel Ryan broido, thankyou guys so much for your time
today. We really appreciate it,and you've I'm excited to dive
into this book, and I hope thateverybody else is. Thank you so
(40:23):
much for having us. Thanks forhaving us. That's it for the
show today. Thank you guys somuch for listening. If you like
the show, please rate, commentand subscribe on Apple podcast.
Stitcher, Spotify, wherever youget your podcast. Helps us out a
lot. Follow up with John atfacebook.com/john,
Tesh. He's also on Instagram, atJohn Tesh. Underscore, if, well,
I'm Gib Gerard. You find mefacebook.com/gib, Gerard, or at
(40:44):
Gib Gerard on Instagram andTwitter, I try to respond to
every DM, every mention of theshow, because ultimately, I do
the show for you guys. So thankyou so much for listening.
You.
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