The Hidden Stress Crisis: How Cortisol Shapes Your Aging Process | Ep. 276 - The Aging Well Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
What if the real threat to our health isn't just poor diet or
lack of exercise, but the constant buzz of notifications,
late night scrolling, and a stress response that never gets
turned off? Welcome to the Aging Well
Podcast, where we explore the science stories and strategies
behind living a longer, healthier, and more purposeful
life. I'm your host, Doctor Jeff

(00:26):
Armstrong. In this episode, we're joined by
Justin High, entrepreneur, Wellness innovator, and author
of the upcoming book Stress Nation, to explore why cortisol,
the body's master stress hormone, may be the missing link
in your Wellness equation. We'll talk about how our
overstimulated tech obsessed culture is silently disrupting
hormone health, damaging sleep and accelerating aging and what

(00:49):
we can do about it. It's a conversation about modern
life, ancient biology and reclaiming calm in an always on
world that is trying to age well.
Justin, welcome to the aging Well podcast.
Let's just kind of start off with the big idea behind your
new book, Stress Nation. What led you to focus so

(01:10):
intensely on cortisol and why now?
It's a great. Question and thank you for
having me, Jeff. I really appreciate being on
your podcast. I'm a big fan.
Really, the book is the reason why behind the company Rebalance
Health. And I thought it was really
important to explain what has happened in the past 30 years

(01:32):
that has caused everyone's cortisol levels to go crazy.
And the book Stress Nation really focuses on kind of this
fun narrative around what it waslike growing up in the Sixties,
70s and 80s, right? And how that has morphed in the
last 30 years. The analogy that I like to use

(01:53):
is real simple. It's all based on technology.
The iPhone, right? This device that we now have
hooked to us, it's almost embedded in US, right?
It's one of multiple screens, right?
We're now talking through technology on screens right now,
right? We are addicted to screens and

(02:14):
there's nothing we can do about it because it's the way the
world works. The book focuses on really how
that is taken over and hijacked our health and the it's a call
out. It's not blame, it's just a call
out that Silicon Valley has doneamazingly well in developing
technologies and platforms and products to support the

(02:36):
efficiency of life, but they haven't actually looked at how
that impacts the human body and the human being.
And they are. Companies are rewarded for
gamifying everything. And we are now addicted to all
these aspects. And that isn't how it used to
be. Go back just 30 years.
We didn't have these screens embedded to our bodies basically

(02:58):
24/7, right? And I reflect back when I was a
kid, I grew up in London, moved to America since my family moved
here when I was very young. And I kind of split my life
between California and London. And I remember coming from
England where we had four TV channels over to the United
States where we had literally like 80 or so channels.

(03:19):
But at the time it was the set-top box and cartoons were on
first thing in the morning, right?
And we used to watch those cartoons for an hour or so and
then it was off. And then we went to go about our
day. We played outside.
I mean, you've seen all the social media fun kind of
processes and, and kind of videothat go out talking about we
drank from the water faucet, right?

(03:41):
We, we literally played with traffic.
We want to BMX bikes and try to kill ourselves going over jumps
and stuff. And when the street lights came
on, we knew it was time to come home.
Our parents didn't want about usin that same manner that they do
today. And really, from a parent's
perspective, there wasn't a newschannel.
There was a news hour. There was a news alert.

(04:03):
There was very, very little content that required us to be
in front of screens all the time.
Even if I was a naughty teenagerand I wanted to stay up late and
watch television. At midnight, the national anthem
came on, the wonderful flag was flying, and then it went to
snow, right? You couldn't, right?
You wanted to watch a movie. What did you do to the video
store? And you try to find a video of

(04:25):
something that was on the shelves and that you could
actually, you picked up a cover and there may be two or three
copies behind it. If you were lucky, it was there
and you got to watch a video forthat evening or that weekend.
It wasn't 24/7 streaming content.
And that's really the basis of the book, is that life has
evolved because of technology and the consequence from a human

(04:48):
perspective is quite simple. We're now on high alert.
Our cortisol levels are always in an elevated state, and that
elevated state has really two big consequences.
Number one, it's hard to fall asleep quickly because you're
already on, right? Your brain is on #2 because it's
on. If you are able to fall asleep,

(05:10):
you most certainly can't stay asleep and you wake up.
And why is that the most important point?
Real simple, you make all your hormones in your sleep and your
body's the most efficient and makes the optimum amount of
hormones. When you get 7 to 8 hours of
uninterrupted sleep, that's it. That's the whole aha moment,
right? It's simple.
If you wait, if you wake up, your body doesn't make the

(05:31):
optimum amount of hormones that you need for your body, for your
body very important. Your hormone ratios are as
unique as your thumbprint. And so your body knows what to
make if you allow it to. And so everything that's
happened in the past 30 years has gotten in the way, falling
asleep quickly and staying asleep so that you can be your
best self the next day. And that's what the book talks

(05:53):
us through is how we've become astress nation.
So reminding me so much of my childhood.
And I'm sure I'm a little bit older than you, but yeah, I
think I even lived in that period of time where we didn't
even have DHS tapes. You know, if you wanted to watch
a movie, you you went to the thetheater when it appeared.
And of course the theater was like a dollar back then, which

(06:14):
was nice. Get double features on
Saturdays. But yeah, I mean, I remember
even when HBO and, you know, cable started coming out, it was
a box top on top of the TV and you only had like about 20
buttons. Now all of a sudden it's like we
don't even most of us aren't even subscribing to cable
anymore. It's it's all streaming.

(06:34):
And so it's everything immediately on demand.
And, you know, we get upset if we're yeah, we, we can't.
We want everything now. Exactly.
And it's no wonder instant gratification is getting in the
way, right? Yeah.
So, you know, talk about the hormones that are made during
sleep, but you you really refer to cortisol as the master
hormone. And so for those who are a

(06:57):
little bit unfamiliar, hopefullypeople aren't so unfamiliar.
But those who are unfamiliar, what exactly is cortisol and why
is it so foundational to our health?
Yeah, it's a great question. Cortisol is the body's alarm
clock. Really.
It's the alarm mechanism that goes off when something isn't
right. If you go back in history, it's,
you know, there was a fire, there was a Saber tooth tiger

(07:19):
attack, you're going to get mugged.
Something happens in your instantly this cortisol rises,
right? It's not adrenaline.
Cortisol is the body's alarm wake up call and adrenaline is
the one that kicks us into action to do what we need to do.
So cortisol is just something that is commonly referred to as
the stress hormone and it's beengiven all kinds of wacky names

(07:40):
of the past few years and peopleare calling, you know, things
like cortisol face and, you know, they're taking serious
disease, disease, I call it disease, but disease symptoms
for like cushions where you do get a puffy face, right?
And they're they're kind of making that an everyday term,
which is I feel a little unfortunate because people are

(08:00):
really suffering with major diseases and all of a sudden
everyone's waking up from havingtoo much, you know, sodium or
sugar the night before and they wake up puffy and now they have
cortisol face. This is not the case.
Okay, it just isn't cortisol is why I'm just enamoured with it
because almost every molecule inthe human body has a cortisol
receptor. No other hormone functions that

(08:22):
way. So literally when causal is
elevated it fix the entire body from head to toe system and that
controls the ability for your body to make other hormones in a
indirect way and the indirect way is through sleep.
If your cortisol is elevated allthe time, it turns off your
metabolism because it's an alarmsystem when you running from

(08:44):
your for your life, you don't need your metabolism, right?
You want to retain as much energy and food sources as you
can. So it shuts down metabolism,
shuts down libido. You certainly don't need libido
when you're running from a Sabertoothed tiger, right?
And so cortisol is a really, really interesting hormone from
the way that it supports the entire body.

(09:05):
But because of technology and because we're always getting
notifications and alerts and every time that thing beeps and
Dings, it triggers a, is that good news or is that bad news?
And that keeps us in this elevated state of, of high
cortisol, which then really, really impact sleep.
And, you know, I, I, I've listened to so many of your

(09:25):
episodes and everyone's got an opinion.
But at the end of the day, if you can't sleep, you're in
trouble. And sleep is the original bio
hack from my opinion. You need to protect your sleep
and even more so as we get older, because if cortisol is
nice and low, you can fall asleep, stay asleep, and you can
make the hormones. And then a lot of the symptoms
that the world suffers from today tend to go away.

(09:47):
And people talk about I'm gaining weight, I can't keep
muscle mass. If you're perpetually in a high
level of stress, high levels of cortisol and you can't sleep, no
wonder you can't sleep and you feel not so great.
And that's kind of a kind of a logical process.
But at the end of the day, cortisol is a master hormone
because if it's high, it's goingto stop you from making the

(10:08):
other hormones that you need to function at your optimum levels.
I like the the idea of calling it the master hormone.
And we've so long called the stress hormone and it's a bit of
a misnomer because it is much more of a regulatory hormone.
And I've really been stressing to my students, you know, that
it is a regulatory hormone, but we want to control it.
We want it to be high when it's supposed to be high, low and

(10:31):
it's not supposed to be high. And keep it consistent.
You know, there's this pattern up and down, not up, down, up,
down, up, down all the time or up all the time.
And so I love, you know, the concept of your book and really
what you're pushing and your passion for cortisol.
I mean, it shows when you're talking about it.
I mean, your energy just rises. And it's a very positive energy

(10:52):
about about it. But you what led you to really
become interested in cortisol wasn't necessarily a positive
thing. You share in the book your
wife's diagnosis with Cushing's syndrome and how that was a
turning point. How did that personal experience
shape your research and your perspective on stress and
hormone health? Absolutely.

(11:12):
And just to be clear, I started Rebalance Health about a year to
18 months before my wife's diagnosis.
We had no clue. So from previous companies,
there was always an interest in endocrinology.
We've been fascinated with testosterone, with, with HGH and
all the different peptides that were associated with hormone

(11:33):
production that were very prominent in the world and
especially in the 90s and early 2000s and heading towards where
we are today. But really around 2019, the
government FDA reclassified almost every single peptide as a
biologic, so not suitable for human consumption.

(11:53):
And that just further kind of caused our curiosity to look
into more endocrinology and, andhormone productions and kind of
the, the, the channels and the routes and what was going on in
the body and the effects. The world was kind of just going
crazy pre Kovid with CJC, IPA, IPA, Morala and all these other

(12:14):
kind of peptides that people were taking sort of try and find
the fountain of youth. And we were kind of interested
in that as a business. And so we started looking at
peptides and obviously during the middle of our research, the
government changed their stance and position on that.
But court has already stuck out to us as a very interesting
hormone and we decided to dive deep into that particular

(12:36):
hormone and how we can support it.
We knew if we were a drug, and we've developed drugs before in
our company's history, it would take too long to come to market.
And with COVID on the rise, everyone was stressing out and
everyone was having a tough timegetting to sleep and there was a
lot of panic and urgency around the world.
And so we really focused on cortisone, how we can improve

(12:56):
people's health, Wellness and sleep.
And really cortisol led me down the path that I had no idea I
was going down. And we decided to figure out a
formulation to support the humanbody and the entire endocrine
system, but based on cortisol. And I wanted to be a supplement.
We know that basically a subcutaneous injection is the

(13:16):
best route, but it's a drug. And the second best that
wouldn't be considered potentially a drug is a nasal
spray or a lozenge. And so we're like, hey, we're
gonna, we'll do a lozenge. Not many people like spraying
things up their nose. It's not comfortable and so
forth. So we'll do that.
And then we really looked at allthe existing herbs and roots
that have been around for centuries in lots of different

(13:38):
cultures. So we looked at Ayurvedic and we
looked at Chinese medicine. And we decided to come up with
kind of a Western delivery method through a logic.
And we put the ingredients together with the support of
lots of doctors. And we use things like the
copper, ashwagandha, Cornishet, mushrooms.
Literally, we've got 21 different ingredients in our

(13:59):
formulations and then we tested it.
And as we were testing it, my wife got diagnosed with high
levels of cortisol to the point where she was diagnosed with
Cushing's. And it got real serious for her.
Within a few months, she was losing a significant amount of
weight, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, had no energy.
And at one point I thought I wasgoing to lose her.

(14:20):
So it became very real for me. And so it's kind of delusional.
I was like, I can save her, I can do this.
I'm already researching this. I understand this, I can figure
this out. And because of that kind of love
and passion for my wife and my kind of already existing
interest in cortisol and going through that path, I just worked

(14:40):
harder and focused, learned moreand was maniacal for not cutting
corners. I didn't compromise quality of
ingredients. I didn't compromise testing.
We tested our product like almost probably no other
supplement company ever has. We treated our supplements like
a pharmaceutical and we did IRB clinical studies, blind,

(15:02):
double-blind, open label, all various different studies to
actually test the final product,not just the ingredients, the
actual final product to see doesit work and what does it do?
And the outcome was fantastic. We've got published in multiple
medical journals, peer reviewed,evaluated and even one of our
studies was invited to present at the North American Menopause

(15:27):
Society because we inadvertentlystumbled upon a solution to
reduce perimenopausal symptoms. And we actually have data and a
clinical study and now a double-blind clinical study
proving that we can reduce perimenopausal hot flashes and
other symptoms by greater than 80%.

(15:49):
Do you realize what you're talking about is not the way
you're supposed to operate as a supplement company?
I know it's an oxymoron, isn't it?
We actually found something thatworks and it's not really
unlogical, you know, illogical when you look at it, right?
If we are all operating at high levels of stress, we're sleep
deprived. If we're sleep deprived, we're
not making the hormones. So if you're going through
perimenopause or you're going through andriopause for men,

(16:11):
right, you are making less of the hormones you need to
function. And so if you're making less
estrogen, progestion and testosterone, well, guess what?
All your symptoms are going to be exacerbated.
It's kind of common sense, right?
And so it's not an alternative to other solutions like HRT,
which I'm a big proponent of. But HRT doesn't address
cortisol. HRT does not address stress,

(16:33):
right? And if you are not getting the
right sleep, you're going to have more symptoms.
And for men, it's the same. And I'm not trying to say, you
know, men have it too and blah, blah, blah.
Yep, women have it. Horrific.
I've actually put myself throughthe equivalent of perimenopause
for about a month just as an experiment by taking my personal

(16:54):
estrogen levels down to 0. And I was having hot flashes
every 20 to 30 minutes. And I lost in about a month.
And I was like, there's no way that I could survive this for 7
to 14 years like women do. And so the empathy and the
acknowledgement of what women are going through is very real
at Rebalance Health. And so men have the same issues,

(17:14):
right? Between mid 30s and 70, men have
a huge decline in testosterone and HGH, just like women, right?
And men, yes, men had estrogen as well.
And when it drops, men gain weight, they lose their hair,
they can't keep muscle mass on, they have a hard time falling
asleep, they get Moody, they're snappy.
But that may be a fraction of 1/2 percent of what women go

(17:35):
through, right? And so if you have ever been in
bed and you've been a little hot, you throw the covers off
yourself, gentlemen, you've had a hot flash.
Simple as that, right? It's like you had a little
moment where your body temperature rose and you need to
calm down, cool down. And so you threw the covers off
and you were able to fall asleep.
Now imagine that you threw the covers off and there was no way
that you could cool down and youcan't get to sleep.

(17:55):
And that's what women are going through as just one example of
literally dozens I could provide.
And so at the end of the day, wefound out by focusing on
cortisol that really we're a cortisol sleep company because
if we can get our cortisol in a regular pattern, which is high
in the morning, slow it lower inthe afternoon, and as low as
possible at night, you can fall asleep and stay asleep.

(18:16):
And guess what? You wake up the next day and you
feel amazing. But if you do the opposite,
which is like you said, up, down, up, down, up, down
throughout the day and you end up up here at the high point,
you can't fall asleep. You have a tough time staying
asleep. You wake up multiple times
during the evening the next day,you don't feel great.
And if you have so many consecutive nights like that,
you're on a hormone downward spiral and yeah, you're gonna

(18:39):
feel really bad. And that's been the path I've
been on. I have not had cortisol tested,
but I'm certain that my cortisollevels are more consistently
higher than they should be just because of the way I'm sleeping
or not sleeping. And I do track like my heart
rate variability and my scores are generally lower.
And especially I've, we started talking a little bit before we

(19:02):
started recording about my sleepapnea and I've been on a CPAP
machine for about 6 weeks now and my sleep is worse and it's
not helping my restorative sleepat all.
And so I got to fix my cortisol.And you know, we talked a lot
about hormone replacement therapy on the podcast and I
talked about my classes and stuff.

(19:22):
And, you know, we have men like my age and even a little bit
younger that start thinking about hormone replacement
therapy and, you know, they're elevated trying to get their
testosterone levels up. But if cortisol is up as well,
you can keep raising your testosterone levels.
But it's that cortisol to testosterone, the cortisol ratio

(19:43):
that is most important that we don't talk about.
Yeah, You know, I'm glad you brought that up.
I'm a big proponent of HRT. There's a point in, in, in your
life where you're making less hormones.
And the way that we live our lives today, we want to, we're
selfish. We want to live like we did when
we were our 20s and our 30s. And we're not fifties, 60s and
70s, right. And people are doing it
successfully, but you need to augment your hormones to do that

(20:05):
in order to help your body repair, regenerate and refresh
for the next day. And I'm, I get concerned with
some doctors, you know, the way that they go about testing
hormones or. All doing it and I kind of
equate HRT to the new Botox in the 90s, everyone did it right.
And it doesn't matter what doctor, whether you were
specialist in plastics or dermatology, you know, you could

(20:27):
be AGP and all of a sudden you were doing Botox right.
And people may have special training.
I won't get into that debate, but essentially HRT has become
the new Botox. Everyone's doing it because it's
the trendy thing. Everyone's asking for it and
doctors saying, yeah, you need to be on it, but are they truly
monitoring and doing the correcttests beforehand, like a

(20:48):
complete hormone panel beforehand?
Are we talking about lifestyle choices?
Because let's be honest, you could have as much testosterone
in your body as you as you desire, but if you're eating
badly, not exercises, sitting onthe couch, eating bom bombs, it
ain't going to do anything for it.
OK, so there's lifestyle choicesthat have to go involved.
Sleep hygiene has to be taken into equation.

(21:08):
But to your point, everyone is different.
And so, so a doctor saying you need to be at 600, it's just
fundamentally wrong. It's fundamentally wrong because
your hormone ratios are unique to you.
And there's men that I know thatfunction fabulously at 500 and
men that and operate horrifically at 1200.

(21:28):
It doesn't mean more is better. It's what makes you feel the
best version of you. And so that's why when you go to
good doctors that do HRT, they do full hormone panels.
They ask you a bunch of questions immediately after
because the blood work doesn't say everything, right.
How do you feel? How are you sleeping?
How's your libido? How's your skin?
How's your weight, how's your muscle mass?

(21:49):
How's your mood, right. And if you just reply in a way
where the doctor says, I think we should try you on HRT and I
think you should try at this dosage, great.
But I want you to come back in 90 days and I want you to do it
all over again. So we take another blood draw
and we compare and contrast the information.
Yes, this is higher, this is higher, this is lower.
But tell me, how are you feeling?

(22:10):
How are you sleeping? How's your energy level?
How's your mood? How's your libido?
And with that information, the doctor is able to make an
adjustment. Well, I think we should try a
different relationship with HRT.Try this combination or that
combination until it's dialed in.
And from that experience, which most people that have gone to
good doctors to get HRT have experienced, you begin to
realize that HRT is 1 big giant experiment, one human at a time

(22:34):
time. And there's no
one-size-fits-all. And if you understand that,
you're already winning, right? The next step is lifestyle.
And the older we get, my experience is the more entitled
we are. And we're entitled because we're
like, oh, I've had a hard time. I deserve that glass of wine.
Oh, I'm going to have that cheatmeal.
I'm going to do this right? I've deserved it, right?

(22:56):
You fell entitled because you'reolder, you've accomplished it
and you can do X when the exact opposite should be true.
You're working against your biological clock in regards to
hormone production. The older you get, the less you
make, and so you have to preserve your sleep in your
hormone production in order to optimize your Wellness for the
rest of your life. Which means, yes, we eat

(23:16):
earlier. Because guess what?
I'm 50. If I eat at 8:00 at night and
drink a ton of water, I'm going to wake up in the night to go to
the bathroom. It's nothing that I can.
Why hack myself out of? I'm afraid I can't do anything
to change that. So I eat earlier.
I try and consume my water earlier on in the day.
I work out first thing in the morning.

(23:36):
Why? As soon as you work out, your
cortisol raises. So why would you work out in the
evening and then go to bed 2 hours later?
You won't fall asleep and stay asleep.
And so there's realism around how our bodies work in order to
optimize our Wellness. So there's certain aspects of
our life that we have have to really be maniacal for.

(23:56):
And mine is protecting my sleep.I wake up early in the morning,
I work out, I have my breakfast,I don't have lunch.
I have early dinner around 4430.I don't watch TVI don't pick up
my phone 2 hours before bed, I'min an infrared sauna.
I go for a light walk. I just take it easy and I bring
myself down. So when I go to bed, I pass out

(24:19):
and I stay asleep. But I do it with the support
shameless plug of Rebalance Health supplements as well
because they are designed to help keep my cortisol in normal
ranges and help me throughout the day.
And a good night's sleep starts the moment you wake up.
It doesn't start an hour or two before you go to bed.
And that's one of those challenges, too, that if you
don't get a good night's sleep to get up and be able to

(24:41):
exercise good. I can get up at, you know, 4:30.
I'm up every day, probably 4430.I'm having a harder time kind of
getting up and working out in the morning just because the
sleep scores are not where they should be.
And I end up, I end up working out in the afternoon because I,
I'm, I have to, you know, I got to get it done, but I really
prefer to be in the morning. And so I am actually really

(25:02):
looking forward to, to trying your rebalance health.
I I've already ordered my dream package and that I was hoping
would come before we actually had the conversation but it'll
probably come today but it I think I ordered it last
Wednesday. I'm happy to send you what you'd
like, but I'd recommend Man Mints for you.

(25:22):
It's our Man Mint product. It's a lozenge.
I'm sucking on them now. And the reason why it's better
off as a system is simply because you are controlling your
calls all throughout the day. So something can happen today.
The podcast could forget to record.
You know, your wife could cause something could happen, the kids
have done something silly and your cortisol spikes and it

(25:43):
might take longer for it to comedown, but then it's throughout
the day, it's always happening. So the lozenges throughout the
day help keep your cortisol in kind of a regular but healthy
pattern, right? And at night, it just keeps
going so that while you're actually fall asleep, the
ingredients in the dream help you continue to support your
cortisol and help you sleep and support your other hormones with

(26:06):
Alpheanine and all these other wonderful ingredients that we
put inside of product. And so the idea is that it is a
24/7 supporting platform becauseyour cortisol isn't A1 pill a
day. There's something that most
supplement companies forget and which is your metabolism.
You have breakfast, lunch and dinner, and most people do

(26:26):
because you burn off whatever you put inside of it every four
to six hours. So how can you possibly take one
lozenge in the morning for cortisol and have it expect to
work for you at 3:00 in the afternoon?
It's been 7 hours. You don't have any of those
ingredients left in your body. And so the whole premise behind
the rebound systems are that youtake them throughout the day.
So I'm taking the man mints right now and I'll take one or

(26:48):
two this morning. I'll take one or two this
afternoon and maybe another lateafternoon.
And then I will take the drain before I go to bed.
And then it helped me keep my mycortisol in the normal ranges
versus being elevated or dropping and then elevated and
dropping. It's very important to stay
consistent so that I'm able to fall asleep quickly and stay
asleep. Otherwise, you know, I got to

(27:10):
turn this off. This thing's going all the time.
I have to turn that off. And so there's a process
associated with it. And Rebalance has probably one
of the only supplement companies.
It's now got 4 clinical studies,IRB studies and published
proving the science. It's not just a, we think it
works or we're going to say the right thing.

(27:30):
It's like we actually can make claims because we've done the
clinicals, we've actually done the work, and we're talking
hundreds of subjects in the clinicals, not just one or two,
OK? So we've got real studies, real
information. And to be invited to present at
the largest organization for menopause, for example, is a
huge honor, right? Huge honor because they felt the
science was that valid. So let's talk a little bit more

(27:51):
about how quarter of all imbalance is affecting women in
midlife. We talked a little bit about
men. You did talk about menopause and
paramenopause briefly there, butwhy is this demographic so often
left out of the conversation? It's a really good point and
give you an idea. There's 49 million women
entering perimenopause this year.

(28:13):
It's a very large demographic and it has been dramatically
underserved over the years. And I think it just came from a
lack of truly understanding what's happening in the body.
And let's be honest, I didn't start off to solve this problem.
This is something that we came to through understanding
cortisol and then having women reach out to us and go.
My hot flashes are gone. I'm down 3 pant sizes.

(28:37):
I like myself again, my family likes me again.
I'm not having the mood swings that I used to or we were blown
away. I mean, we knew cortisol
reduction would support endocrinology and help optimize
sleep and so forth, but the actual effects on the human body
was completely unexpected. Think about the pressures that
women go through today that theyhaven't ever gone before.

(29:01):
They're penetrating glass ceilings.
They're having top powerful jobs.
They're bringing in income to the family.
They're still being the caretakers.
You know, there's just so many pressures on women and men.
I mean, I, I don't have an argument one way or the other,
but there's just so much going on today, more so than they ever

(29:21):
have been. And the social media aspect and
the e-mail and the constant communications and, you know, we
used to live in bubbles. We used to only understand what
was going on premise primarily in our towns and our cities,
right? But now the world is completely
available to us. So we didn't really know what
was going on in the Middle East 40 years ago.

(29:43):
We didn't have that technology to get the information over to
us with newspaper. And typically it was what
happened in our local areas. But now we're so much more
global, much more aware of what's going on in the world,
and it weighs on everyone, right?
Everyone is just so vested in making the world a better place.
Excuse me, global warming, you know, the, the, the natural

(30:05):
disasters happening everywhere. It's just there's so much more
pressure and stress, I think on the human race than ever before.
And it's very concerning. We're going to have enough water
for our grandkids. Are we going to, are we going to
be, you know, having to live inside because of the ozone
layer? I mean, there's so many issues
that pop up. And I think that weighs on
everybody in such a big way. On top of financial pressures,

(30:29):
right? You know, just think about the
cost of food, the different political environments we live
in the United States today and around the world.
It weighs on everyone. And that stress is building up
and building up. And hence our cortisol levels go
higher and higher and higher. And I think, I think because of
the lack of sleep, it is exacerbating these symptoms for
men and women around the world. And I'm not saying I am a

(30:50):
solution for everyone and everything, but I can guarantee
you HRT does not address cortisol.
The only thing that addresses cortisol is being mindful and
understanding the effect on the body and trying to have
lifestyle habits that support itin combination with
supplementation. And I believe that we are the

(31:11):
best supplementation on the market with proven science and
efficacy to support that mission.
But at the end of the day, cortisol is so far removed from
sleep historically. That's why I wrote the book
Stress Nation is trying to bridge that gap, to help people
understand that even though it'stwo or three derivatives removed
from sleep, it is the cause and effect.

(31:31):
It is the underlying reason why the human race is suffering
right now. But yet we're all thinking, I
got to lose weight or I've got to do this.
No, right. And the last thing is people
talk about exercise and nutrition and absolutely it's
100% big part of all of this. And then people always ask me

(31:54):
what's the best nutrition plan, what's the best exercise plan?
And my response is the same. It's really straightforward.
Farm to table organic food is the best.
Consume less calories than you burn and get your heart rate up.
In terms of anything else, lift weights.
It's the only thing that's goingto improve the quality of your
life for the longevity. Lift weights, put yourself under

(32:16):
load. Now you don't have to lift
massive weights, but you want tofight osteoporosis.
You have to put your bones underunder load.
You want to increase your musclemass.
Most importantly, you have to lift weights.
But don't forget to stretch and look after yourself.
But it's that simple. There is no best nutrition plan.
There's been the Atkins diet, the keto diet, the South Beach

(32:36):
Diet, the Paleo diet. I mean, everyone wants to do a
new diet because guess what? It's a business.
It's, it's got monetary value tothe author, right?
What's best is what works for you.
And as you get older, you will have allergies and you some
things won't agree with you and you may have an injury and you
have to adapt. But it's that simple.
But if there's 11 big piece of advice that the book focuses on,

(32:59):
Rebalance focuses on this. Control your cortisol, control
your stress and be maniacal for sleep.
Clinically speaking, if you wakeup once at night, it's a bad
night's sleep. And so on the sleep apnea, you
can appreciate how severe it canget.
Yeah, for me, if if I wake up twice a night, it's a good
night's sleep. So really trying to work on
that. And, you know, I think a lot of

(33:20):
us older gentlemen with our prostates and things like that,
we think that we are waking up because our bladder is waking us
up. And I know for myself, it's,
yeah, when I get up, I have to pee, but it's I'm not getting up
because I have to pee. Otherwise there would be this
huge stream of urine coming out of me when I peed.
It's my sleep is getting disrupted.
And it has been a challenge to try and get that all in order.

(33:44):
And so much so that, you know, we, as we talk about our
pillars, and you've listened to some of our podcasts, you know,
we have our six pillars. That sleep is really starting to
elevate to me to being one of, well-being the most important
pillar of good health. Because if we don't get good
sleep, doesn't matter if our diets are zeroed in the way they
should be, doesn't matter for exercising because we're not

(34:07):
going to exercise as well because we're not recovering and
we're not going to have the energy to exercise to get enough
stimulus for growth and adaptation.
And, you know, smoking, you know, we have that as one of our
pillars, but it's like people aren't smoking as much lately.
And yeah. And if you are, yeah, that's
going to end up disrupting you, your sleep, that's going to have
an impact. And you know, of course, social

(34:29):
connections are important as well, but that sleep is so
critical. And just the more we interview
people like yourself and people about brain health, it's like,
you know, sleep should be our number one concern is we're, you
know, trying to age well. And So what is cortisol's role?
And we've kind of alluded this alittle bit, but just to under

(34:51):
score, what is cortisol's role in regulating our body circadian
rhythm and how does it reset it naturally?
How does it reset it naturally? Well, let me put it this way.
We are designed to wake up when the sun rises, and we are
designed to go to sleep when thesun goes.
And the best thing you can do when you wake up in the morning

(35:12):
is not reach for the fun, not check who's texted you or who's
liked you, but to go outside andto get as much sunlight as you
can and help elevate your cortisol levels.
Now, when you go to sleep and you wake up in your last few
cycles, you start to develop cortisol naturally so that your
body can wake up. But it is based on that rhythm.

(35:33):
The hardest thing you can possibly do is have a night
shift or be a working emergency services professional doctor
because you're fighting that natural rhythm.
And even the doctors have been begun to not require those long
shifts because they appreciate how disruptive it is to your
health and your well-being. But cortisol is designed to get

(35:55):
you up, get you going, get you energized, get your mental
clarity going in its normal levels, right?
So I'm talking high in the morning, right?
Until you want that, that sunshine, that that exercise,
everything to help get that cortisol up to where it needs to
be. So you're on your top of your
game. But if you're not careful, you
can go past the peak and get into that fight or flight step.
Now you're in trouble, and we want to get you back down into

(36:19):
that normal range, which is to get high in the morning, low in
the afternoon, and as low as possible for before bed.
That is the natural circadian rhythm.
And our cortisol helps us in that cycle.
But everything that happens in our day, everything that you
have no control over literally affects your cortisol, right?
But if you're mindful about whatyou should be in and you fail

(36:42):
yourself in that stress state, you know what?
Calm down. And one of the best things you
can do to bring cortisol down iseither a go for a walk outside,
do some breathing, like some special breathing techniques.
There's hundreds of them. Box breathing would be one.
That would be great, right? Just focus on your breath and
bring your cortisol levels down.It's amazing how quickly that

(37:02):
can happen. And then just control your life
in a way that you feel like you're in control.
If you ever feel like you're outof control, that's a good sign
to stop and pause because you want to keep that actual
circadian rhythm going so that you can have a effective and
enjoyable day and you can show up as your best self.

(37:23):
And when cortisol takes over, wedon't always show up as our best
selves. So what do you say the the
person who says, well, I'm having trouble sleeping, so I'm
just going to take melatonin. I'm just going to take a big
dose of melatonin. Well, does melatonin address
your cortisol levels? Not at all.
Not at all. Melatonin is something that your
body will always make. You actually don't need any
support with melatonin. We actually have in the dream

(37:46):
formulation A melatonin version and a melatonin free version.
Unlike testosterone, estrogen and progesterone, if you take
melatonin, your body will alwaysmake it.
If you're a young guy in your 30s taking testosterone because
you want to look jacked and ghetto, you know, looking like
the superstars, right, you standa very big risk.
And that risk is after 12 to 14 months, the data suggests that

(38:10):
you'll have an 80% chance of never making testosterone
naturally again ever again, evenif you come off of it.
And so you're on TRT for the rest of your life.
Some would argue, I don't care, that's fine.
If you're in your 60s and 70s and you're beginning to go on
TRT because you want to get morebecause your body simply isn't
making any, that's a whole different equation and makes

(38:31):
total sense, right? Same for women.
Melatonin is different. You can take melatonin and your
body will always continue to make kit.
However, you become your tolerance levels become less and
less, right? And so that's right, greater and
greater. So basically at the end of the
day, you need to take more and more melatonin to get the same
effect. And what does melatonin do?

(38:52):
It doesn't put you to sleep. Everyone thinks it puts you to
sleep and stay keeps you asleep.Melatonin prepares you for
sleep. It puts you in that kind of
turning off my brain a little bit.
I'm beginning to get into that twilight zone and I can fall
asleep doesn't keep you asleep. And in fact, I actually have a
clinical study on that. I can prove that melatonin for
the majority of supplements go into your body and it takes

(39:13):
about an hour to an hour and a half before it kicks in.
It heats, hits a peak and then comes right out.
And so your body metabolizes it.So it doesn't stay in, it goes
in and comes out. When I did a study on ours, it
goes in quicker and it stays at the higher level for a longer
period of time. And yes, it still it comes out,
it goes away. And So what happens is your body

(39:34):
just becomes less and less responsive to the natural
amounts that you make. So you augment it.
You take some melatonin, you geta bigger dose and it works
better for you. And after a week or two, that
doesn't work. So you take another and you take
another, and now you're taking 10 melatonin gummies.
And you're messing up your body's natural circadian rhythm
and your body's ability to put itself into a relaxed state to

(39:58):
be able to go to sleep and fall asleep.
So melatonin is a wonderful tool.
It should be cycled, meaning on and off every 30 days.
Or every few days, depending on how you use it.
But it certainly shouldn't be abused.
And I'll go out on a limb here on a soapbox.
Any company that's selling you melatonin gummies for your kids
should be shot hung in port because you're now suggesting

(40:21):
that your child needs hormone replacement therapy.
Because that's exactly what you're doing by giving the
melatonin. Because melatonin is a.
So my understanding of melatoninis that it really just tells our
bodies it's time to go to sleep.And the only time you really did
take it would be if we're, you know, when you're going back and
forth between London and LA, youmight need to take a little bit
extra melatonin just to kind of trigger the pineal gland to put

(40:46):
out some so that your body say, OK, it's time to go to sleep.
But a very short term kind of fix, if at all.
For me, I personally use the dream melatonin free and if I've
had a particular stressful day and I'm a little bit more high
strung than I should be at six, 7:00 in the afternoon, I'll take
the dream with melatonin becauseI felt like it'll give that

(41:06):
extra kick to help get me to where I need to go so I can fall
asleep and stay asleep. I don't use melatonin on a daily
basis, but maybe a couple times in a month I'll use it.
Otherwise, I'm very, very conscious of my day when to wind
down and to turn off. And they think there's a big
movement or have has been a goodmovement that we have to work

(41:29):
harder longer than anybody else.And Americans are known for
that, right? We have unbelievable work hours
in contrast to say, Europeans. And I think working harder isn't
working smarter. And so it's not who has the most
hours wins. And that's the mentality that we
have. And the analogy that I always
compare it to is would you driveyour family and your loved ones

(41:52):
on a long distance trip with four hours sleeps?
No, you wouldn't. So why would you win your
company? Your decision making skills are
equally as poor whether you're driving a car or running a
company or running your life. So learn to prioritize, be more
efficient, and appreciate the fact that you need to treat body
kindly and not keep up with thiscrazy rat race that I get up at

(42:14):
4:00, I go to bed at midnight, Ihave 4 hours sleep.
I read 16 books I've done. It's nonsense.
Absolute nonsense in my opinion.Opinion of 1.
And what about those who will say, well, you know better,
rough day, I'm just going to have a nice cocktail to help me
unwind? What is that doing to their
cortisol levels? Well, figure what's doing like
cortisol levels. Everyone thinks alcohol is a

(42:34):
relaxant, but it's actually it is.
It's a relaxant for the first hour and then it becomes a
stimulant when it converts to sugar and now you're wired.
It's why most people have a glass of wine with dinner.
That's my treat. It's like that entitlement I was
talking about, right? I've earned this, right?
It's only one glass a night. Well, guess what?
Did you wake up? Guess why you woke up?

(42:56):
Could you give your body a big ZAP of sugar?
And so alcohol is, I'm not a, I'm not a St. right?
I had a glass of whiskey last night with my kids for Father's
Day, right? I celebrate it.
But I have what drink maybe onceevery three or four months, but
I know what it's going to do to me.
Did I wake up last night? Actually, I didn't.

(43:16):
Why? Because I had it early on, like
4:00 in, 4:00 in the afternoon when we had dinner with the
family. And so it's understanding what
the nutrient or food or liquid that you put in your body does,
how your body is going to react to it, and what you can
anticipate being the fallout from.
And so having a consistent glassof wine is simply at seven. 8:00

(43:37):
at night is not the best idea. I drink the majority of my water
content before 2:00 in the afternoon.
I work out early in the morning and deliberately to get my day
going. It works for me, gets my
cortisol levels up and gets me energized and sharp, ready to
go. And they use the late afternoons
and early evenings to unwind andenjoy my family, my life,

(43:58):
whatever it might be. But deliberately trying to
unwind, to bring those cortisol levels down as fast as I can and
get prepared for that. Have a nice long hot baths,
shower, whatever your routine is, meditate, get yourself into
that space so that when you're ready for bed, you will fall
asleep and you will stay asleep.And it's not easy because again,

(44:20):
this is in the way. And doom scrolling is horrific.
I mean the average American scrolls the entire length of the
Eiffel Tower every day on their phone.
So you've been talking about howaddicted we are to this input,
and you just had your iPhone up there.
What are some of the signs that someone's nervous system and
cortisol levels are being hijacked by this
overstimulation? And even if they think they're

(44:41):
managing stress, you know somebody, I do box breathing
regularly. I do yoga, you know, I, you
know, I'm limiting my alcohol, but they're still over
stimulated. How, how do we express to our
listeners and our viewers that maybe they're not managing their
stress as well as they should be?
Simple sleep quality as always goes out.

(45:02):
Everyone says oh should I test my testosterone?
Should I test my cortisol? No, you can have anxiety about
getting your blood drawn, that'sgoing to raise it.
Your cortisol is so sensitive, it goes up and down every moment
to me. Save your money and just track
your sleep. Simple as that.
What was the quality of my sleep?
How much ram? How much deep?
How much light do I make? Definitely deep sleep is the

(45:25):
most beneficial in my opinion, along with R.E.M. and light is
the least beneficial. Still together very important,
but I prioritize my I look at myR.E.M. and my deep sleep.
Those are the ones I really wantto monitor and look at.
They're looking for at least 60 to 90 minutes of deep sleep
every night. And if you haven't, that's your
goal, simple as that. That is your goal, consistently

(45:46):
60 to 90 minutes and monitor howmany times you wake up.
So whether it's a sleep device that you wear, whether it's an
aura ring, Fitbit or Whoop or what have you, to me, monitoring
your sleep is the way to the to create a function and be alert
as to whether I'm a victim of high cortisone or not.

(46:07):
And I would imagine that probably 99% of the population
is if you have to put pick up your phone and check out that
beat you're on that you're on the spectrum of somewhere, some
point. It really is that simple.
I think it was a game at one point, wasn't it, where everyone
puts their phone in a restauranton the table and they stack it
up and is they're all beeping and buzzing throughout dinner
and whoever picks up their phonefirst has to pay the bill type

(46:30):
of thing, right? Because that's just an example
of like, Oh my God, I'm waiting for this call or my kids need to
contact me. I mean, everyone became
helicopter parents, right? At what age do you give your
kids a smartphone? Ohh.
But I need to communicate with little Johnny after, you know,
soccer practice to make sure he's safe.
And it's like, was that a thing for you and me when, I mean, I
grew up in the 70s? Is that is that no get home

(46:50):
before the sun goes down. Literally, that's all you need
to do, be safe. And so that kind of awareness of
the world isn't a safe place anymore.
And my kids are going to be, youknow, taken or something bad is
going to happen to them. All this bullying, it's driving
everyone crazy. So it sounds like the assumption
should probably be that we are all over stimulated and we're

(47:11):
all not getting enough sleep. I would agree with that 100%.
So most of the doctors I think in the world.
How do you track your sleep? I have a nap that's on the bed.
I have a like a tempurpedic bed and it has a sleep sensors on it
and every day I get a sleep score and I often post my sleep

(47:32):
scores on my social channel. So you can see I'm typically in
the 90% range, 90% or above. And funny enough, when I take
the melatonin normally it's the higher ranges because it knocks
me out because I don't abuse it.And so I use it when I know I
really need it. Otherwise, I'm quite happy with
my, you know, 7 1/2 to 8 hours of sleep that I get

(47:53):
consistently. I typically wake up maybe once
in the night and that is not very often.
Typically I sleep sleep through.But if I do, it's, it's, it's
once. And you know, I'm just, I'm very
careful. And it's simply because having
my wife go through cushings and be it both of us being super,
super sensitive to our sleep andour stress levels in order to

(48:16):
make sure that she doesn't have a kind of a set back and get
diagnosed again and have high, high, high levels.
And so we definitely try and keep our lives calm from roughly
5:00 in the afternoon onwards. But we are both up at 4:00 AM,
you know, we go to the gym, we're at the gym by 5.
We work out, we're back, we liveour lives and you know, we're in

(48:38):
bed by, you know, 8:30 at the Laters.
Kind of. Everyone would say you're
boring, but I would live in lifeto the fullest.
Yeah, I, I think boring is fuller.
You know, I think we, we, we think that we have to cram more
and more into our lives. And, you know, we, we become
this population that is perpetually tired, foggy, you

(48:59):
know, wired, but exhausted. And it's, you know, rather than
caffeine in the morning and you know, alcohol in the evening to
try and unwind. What are some, a few practical
first steps that we can take nowto begin to restore that
hormonal balance? And and again, this is probably
a good place to under score the Rebalance health and for you to

(49:24):
kind of tell us again kind of what is Rebalance and how do the
products help restore this hormonal balance?
OK. So Full disclosure, taking
rebalance by itself isn't going to work.
I don't think many companies will ever disclose it like that,
right? It's not going to work by
itself. But we're not here to, you know,
blow smoke up your rear end, right?
We're here to tell you the truth.

(49:44):
Rebalance helps mitigate the crazy pace in which we operate
in today's world. It helps keep us even.
To be fair, a lot of people takeit apart and say it's life
changing because it literally did change their lives in terms
of their mood, their energy levels, their hot flashes, their
testosterone levels, their energy levels, their mental

(50:05):
focus because they didn't realize how intertwined cortisol
is with their daily kind of quality of life.
And so in the morning, my recommendations are always
exercise in the morning. If you can have a healthy
breakfast and drink, start drinking the water for the day.
You know, whatever you think is the right amount for you.

(50:26):
I'm not going to have a, a dog in that fight.
OK, and then enjoy your day. Take rebounds throughout the day
to help take the edge off. You've seen me pop 2 lozenges
already on this podcast and it'snot staged.
They're on my desk. I take them all the time.
I swear by them. They work, they keep me, even
keep me sharp and they keep me functioning.

(50:47):
Get up, literally get up and getoutside.
Go for a walk if it's 5 minutes,it's 10 minutes.
The sun, the fresh air, the movement in your muscles.
It's amazing. You talk about people talk about
weight loss, but I agree with you it's not it's body fat loss,
right? You want to change the the kind
of the dynamic and the ratios inyour body weight loss.

(51:08):
Muscle weighs more than fat. I'm not a fan of intermittent
fasting or any of that simply because glucose in your body
expires after 30 minutes it goesto the next available food
source that'll be your muscles, not your fat because it takes 5
hours to breakdown fat in the body.
So if you don't give your body some food and nutrients in the
morning, it's going to break down yesterday's gains.
So there's lots of different methodologies to open.

(51:31):
For me, it's wake up, have a little something to eat, not
much banana, you know, literallysome protein powder with some
water. Go exercise, go lift some heavy
weights and enjoy. Don't go crazy with cardio.
Why? You can eat more calories in 2
minutes than you can burn off inan hour.
You know, fat loss is literally done in the kitchen.

(51:51):
It's not done at the gym. Mass is built in legit.
And then you see your steps. I try to hit for 8000 plus steps
a day. That means going for a couple of
15 minute walks throughout the day, which gets me up from this
chair and away from these screens.
And I leave that phone behind, right?
Take my dog. The best thing for cortisol is
to hug an animal, hug a loved 1,you know, be with personal touch

(52:14):
with somebody else, shake someone's hand, welcome someone
with a hug. That emotional personal
connection is also been scientifically proven to bring
down cortisol. So be overly friendly, be overly
friendly and go about your world, your life in with this
kind of new mindset of being balanced in everything.
Don't sit at your desk for sevenhours.

(52:35):
In fact, don't sit at your desk for more than an hour and a
half. Get up, go for a walk, get some
fresh air, end your day, have anearly dinner, try and have it
not be too heavy. And I aim for, I try and aim for
four hours before I go to bed inorder to make sure that my body
has metabolized. I'm going to bed on an empty
stomach and I'm not going to be woken up in the night to use the
bathroom. So I try and optimize because I

(52:57):
know I'm 50, I'll be 51 this year.
I'm getting old. You have prostate problems, you
have digestive problems, you have stomach problems.
Why do we fight it? And we think, ah, we're going to
go for a 9:00 dinner. You're going to set yourself up
for a really poor night. And so that's kind of my tips is
how I live my life is how I would suggest other people take
some pointers. It's may not be for everybody,

(53:21):
but you cannot fight your biology.
We're human beings. We're all the same, and we're
all designed to work with that same circadian rhythm with the
sun and the moon. And in order to do that at our
very best, we have to kind of respect Mother Nature to some
degree. And that ego and entitlement
that we all feel at some point because we've earned it, we've
had it, doesn't work in our favor when it comes to Wellness

(53:43):
and optimum being. It's amazing how simple it is.
Yeah, but we fight it. I mean, even I, we all fight it
all the time. The amazing thing is that we, we
fight it, but we, we then want to have these amazing biohack
fixes for the problems that we cause for ourselves.
And it's like, you realize just a small amount of work in the

(54:06):
right direction is going to do alot more for you than continuing
to live this downward spiral andtrying to fix it with drugs and,
you know, mega supplements that really don't do anything.
Yeah, I mean, you don't need to buy that infrared, swallow those
special glasses, right? You need the blue light glasses

(54:27):
if you're going to watch TV and screens tell, you know, early,
you know, in the evening and then you want to go to bed.
Yeah, of course you want to protect it.
You know the light bulbs had blue light in them, right?
There's so many things that are bad for you, right?
But at the end of the day, you can't stress it.
Take the big things, take the things you can manage, take them
in baby steps and enjoy a world.But you'd be amazed how

(54:48):
wonderful it is to reconnect with other human beings and to
disconnect from devices. You know, we grew up in a, in a
time where you had a silver tongue, right?
You had to learn how to flirt. You had to learn how to talk to
people, how to schmooze people, right?
Right Now you swipe left and youswipe right.
Right Hymns was a multi billion dollar company based of selling

(55:10):
Ed medication to 20 year olds because of the anxiety that they
had to perform without having connection.
And I say this in the book intimacy into me.
You see intimacy, it isn't happening based on quick one
night, my hookups doesn't work right.
You want to actually look someone in the eye, understand

(55:30):
them, and then intimacy blooms, something that the new
generation is beginning to get back to.
I think my kids are telling me that that's becoming more of a
thing as opposed to swiping left, swiping right, That was
all the craze during what, about10 years ago?
Eight years ago. And so yeah, actually learning
to talk to someone, speak to them, listen to them and

(55:53):
empathize and laugh and smile and just be a human being,
that's what we need more of, I think.
I think the world would be a much, much calmer place if we
understood that this was a wonderful tool.
The computer, the technology, the iPhones, everything is a
wonderful tool, but it isn't life.
I give my students a hard time every time we kind of take a

(56:13):
break in the middle of a class because I teach classes that are
about an hour and 50 minutes. And so it's a long time.
I mean, I'm not the best at giving them breaks when I
should, but I'll give them a break and they'll plot their
phones or it's the beginning of class.
They're all on their phones. And it's like, yeah, you got
people all around you. Why aren't you interacting?
Why is it so quiet in this room?I should have to come in and

(56:33):
say, OK, breaks over, let's comesettle down now let's get back
to studying. And they're all on their phones.
And the phones are great. And if a question pops up,
somebody can Google it and get an answer really quick.
But there's just no communication.
So like how, how did I manage asan undergrad student when if I
wanted to call somebody, I had to go out in the hallway, find a

(56:56):
phone that was available, pull out a quarter or a dime when I
was in high school and put that in there and, and make the call.
Now it's like. And they constant the phone to
get that call. Right.
Well. How many phone numbers did you
remember when you were in high school?
I must have had like 30-40 fiftyphone numbers in there, right?
I still. It's like, you know, when we

(57:18):
were kids, right? Did we need to take every single
photo album with us that we evertook, Right?
Did we have to take every singlemusic album that we ever had?
You know, our entire Rolodex? I mean, that's what we're
carrying around in our pockets and it's wonderful.
I have, I'm very privileged. I have a wonderful board of
directors, people that have worked with Howard Schultz at
Starbucks from the early days inone of the founding employees

(57:40):
likewise at Apple with Steve Jobs.
And they would, they've, they'requoted in the book and you know,
Steve Jobs have been told that Steve Jobs would be horrified if
he knew what the iPhone has doneto the planet, because that
wasn't who what he was about. He was, he wasn't about this
like, I'm obsessed with this onedevice.
I look at it all the time. He wouldn't be happy with it.

(58:02):
Likewise, Howard Schultz, he developed Starbucks as a place
to connect and talk to one another and be at a community.
And what today, everyone's on their, their laptops.
They're not talking to one another.
They're, they're disconnecting. And it's, it's a shame.
It's a shame. And I think we can get back to
where we should be. We just need to, we need some
type of wake up call, I guess, and awareness that, you know,

(58:26):
life is this beautiful planet and the people that are in it
and not necessarily this fake stuff that we have here.
And let's be honest, social media isn't real.
It's, it's a facade. It's what you want people to
know about you, not what actually you are experiencing
and feeling and witnessing. It's this facade, this image

(58:46):
that you're trying to portray. It's not.
Imagine if we were like just honest on our Instagram and our
social media, no filters, just yeah, this is the day I'm having
rather than a picture of the food that you're eating or.
A picture of the food that you think that you want people to
think that you're eating didn't involve the the Snickers and the

(59:08):
candy bars and everything else that you had.
I don't touch that stuff right? So we've kind of come to that
point in the episode where I asked the question I asked of
everybody and you've kind of alluded to it throughout, but
I'm going to have you just kind of channel in on what are you
doing personally to age well. Love, simple as that.
I'm loving life, I'm loving my family, my pets, I love my

(59:31):
friends and even people I haven't met.
I try and exude love and authenticity and I think that's
what's going to help people age well.
Yes, I've got a company called Rebounds Health that supports
cortisol, optimizes you sleep soyou can live your best version
of you. Yes, I have a book coming out,
Stress Nation, to be able to help people understand how we've

(59:53):
gone slightly sideways in the past 30 years and affected how
we function, the why behind it. But honestly, to live happy and
to live well, I think comes downto love, comes down to
connection, and comes down to laughter and smiling and putting
out into the universe what you want to get back.
Yeah, it's amazing. You know, your company's pretty

(01:00:13):
young, so it's still kind of more or less in that startup
phase and yet you are able to get up habitually.
Would you say 4 in the morning, 5:00 in the morning, workout,
get through your day, have dinner, like relative, I mean
early by American standards and get to bed by 8:30?

(01:00:34):
How is that possible for somebody running a company other
than you're running a company that is training the body to be
able to do that and be productive and be able to manage
your life and do all the things you have to do without the added
stress and burdens that come with being kind of a.
Lot of stress involved in startups.

(01:00:55):
I'm definitely suffering from stress.
My product helps me, my knowledge helps me, my family
helps me. I believe it or not, I started
getting off at 4430 in the morning when my kids were very
young because I used to be the exact opposite.
Through my teenage years and my 20s, I went to work, I'd work

(01:01:16):
out after work and then go out with my friends, go on dates,
etcetera. And then once I got married and
I had kids, I if I kept the sameschedule, excluding going out on
dates, by the way, if I kept thesame schedule, right, I wouldn't
see my kids. I started to think, what kind of
dad am I going to be? I want to be the dad that's

(01:01:37):
there and shows up and is reliable account.
And so I spoke to my wife. I said, you mind if I shift my
schedule? It'll take me a while to get
this adjustment. But if I work out in the
morning, work and then come home, I can help with the kids,
I can help with homework, I can help with whatever needs to
happen. And I'll be there.
And that's stuck. And as I become older and I
understand the biology behind that actual regimen is actually

(01:02:00):
better for me. It's just kind of built into my
DNA. So like I said, I'm, I'm 50, mid
50s. And yeah, sorry, midway through
being 50. I'll be 51 later on in the year.
I've been doing that for 25 plusyears.
And so it's just built in. Like there's no such thing as
sleeping in on the weekend. My body's up at 4430, I'm up.

(01:02:22):
I just do what I do. And yeah, we go out sometimes on
the weekends and we have a late night.
Sunday is no different. I wake up at 4430.
I just had less sleep and I'm groggy.
I'm not quite as good as I am. But come Monday, I'm back 4:30.
I went to bed the night before, the right time for me and I'm
back to it. So no one's perfect and but you.

(01:02:42):
You adapt and you adjust. In terms of how can I do it all?
I'm not a proponent of working 20 hours in a day.
I don't function very well at 20hours a day.
I know how my body, my mind works.
And so I'll work on Saturday andSunday.
I don't take those days, but I love what I did.

(01:03:05):
And so it's not work. I don't have any.
I got to work today. I got to do this podcast with
this guy that I've never met before.
Now it's like, cool, I get to educate.
I get to learn something from you and I.
It's a vibrancy, a love, a passion that is addictive.
So I don't know, I've just operated that way my whole life
and through the different educational schools I've gone

(01:03:25):
to, they've always taught me be efficient, work smart, not
necessarily hard. Harder isn't better.
Harder isn't a guarantee for more success.
It's work smart, intelligent, have right people around you,
have good mentors. That's what I'm blessed with,
having surrounded myself with people far smarter than myself
to help guide me and educate me through this journey.

(01:03:46):
So if there's one my mind, my mindset shift that you would
hope for our listeners and our viewers to take away from Stress
Nation, especially those of a center midlife or later, what
would that be? Sleep is and I think people in
intuitively know that, but how to get it is elusive and the
book is designed to help. It's not just like explaining

(01:04:09):
what the problem is. The book actually gives you real
examples of how you can different strategies you can
implement to help you. And it's not a shameless plug
from the supplements. Yes, there's one chapter on
rebalance health and how the supplement line helps.
And there's no question it helps.
And it's again, scientifically efficacy has been proven time
and time again. It by by itself isn't the

(01:04:30):
solution. It's in combination with
lifestyle habits is the solutionand it's on A1 size fits all.
So there's lots of different examples and different
strategies that can help different people.
The one thing I would ask peopleto take away is do not
underestimate critical importance.
And I think we have. We've taken it for granted.
So probably three key takeaways from this episode is love, live

(01:04:55):
and sleep. I wouldn't align with that.
So anything we missed today, I think we covered a lot.
How have you enjoyed this? Is there anything here that you
didn't already know? Honestly, yeah, there wasn't a
lot that I didn't know. It just really underscores, I
think the purpose, the intent, the the goal of the the Aging

(01:05:17):
Well podcast. And it's I really appreciate
when I can have guests on here that are kind of living the
basic principles that we are. Approaches to fixing the

(01:05:39):
problems that we create in our lives.
It's, it's not about fixing the problems.
I mean, we just did an episode of, you know, aging is not a
problem to be solved, you know, and, and you're not your
supplement, which again, I'm excited to, to give a try
because I think it's going to benefit me.
And I will do a follow up with our listeners and viewers as I

(01:06:01):
use it and give a good, honest review of it.
But I think, you know, it's, it's about just doing the right
things and having the tools thatcan help us to kind of keep
ourselves aligned. You know, when the body gets
this like disruptions, fixing, you know, that alignment, But in
the end, it's fixing the problem, not just putting a

(01:06:24):
Band-Aid solution on it. And I really appreciate that
because I'm not a huge proponentof certainly pharma cut from the
pharmaceutical companies and their attempts to just put band
aids on on things. And you know, we tend to be a
little bit critical of the, you know, Western medicine that it
again, it's always trying to fixa problem, rather not fixing the

(01:06:46):
problem, but kind of covering a problem, covering the symptoms
and not really going to the source of the problem.
And I appreciate just the whole discussion today that it's not
about taken a supplement to fix your problems.
It's about fix the problems and use the supplement to help you
to get on that path and to stay on that path.

(01:07:06):
Absolutely. And you know, I am a proponent
for pharmaceuticals. Yes, there's some naughty ones
out there that that don't do theright thing, but the majority of
them do. They want to make the world a
better place. They want to rid the world of
disease, and they find a pathwaythat might help.
It's not always the underlying cause of, admittedly, but I do

(01:07:28):
believe that people are inherently good, and I don't
think that people are trying to deceive many people.
They're trying to spread out information to help everyone
live a better quality of life. Are some of those devices and
products and advice misguided? But not, I don't think,
malicely, right? People aren't trying to

(01:07:49):
deliberately deceive people. And I think with that mindset, I
can sleep at night. And you're sleeping well.
So, but I really appreciate the time today.
I think we've covered a lot and just wish all the best with the
book and the company and just keep doing what you're doing and
keep aging well. Thanks man, appreciate being on

(01:08:10):
here. Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening. Hope you benefited from today's
podcast and until next time, keep aging well.

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The Hidden Stress Crisis: How Cortisol Shapes Your Aging Process | Ep. 276

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Hidden Stress Crisis: How Cortisol Shapes Your Aging Process | Ep. 276