The secret to true resilience isn’t about pushing harder — it’s about restoring balance from within. Dr. Mark Sherwood shares how high-stress careers like law enforcement often leave bodies and minds in chronic survival mode, revealing the shocking truth: many health issues stem from dysregulation, not failure. Discover how shifting from endurance to genuine recovery can unlock a longer, healthier life—regardless of chaos around you.This episode dives into Dr. Sherwood’s extraordinary journey from police officer to longevity expert. He unpacks the hidden toll of chronic stress, the alarming statistics on police and military lives, and the critical importance of nervous system regulation. You'll learn why traditional medicine often masks symptoms instead of addressing their signals—and how understanding these signals can turn your health around.We break down concrete steps for recognizing stress signals, including a simple test anyone can do today to assess their resilience. Dr. Sherwood reveals practical tools—like silent mindfulness, affirmations, and nutrition—that help you reclaim your calm before burnout takes over. Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed, living in chaos, or just want to optimize your longevity, this episode is your blueprint for building resilient health from the inside out. As Dr. Sherwood emphasizes, recovery isn’t a one-time act; it’s a daily victory. If you’re tired of surviving and ready to thrive — this episode will inspire you to pause, listen to your body, and start your journey toward lasting resilience today. Perfect for anyone wanting to escape the cycle of exhaustion and find genuine peace.Get inspired by a former high-stress professional who exemplifies how addressing the root cause transforms not just bodies, but entire lives. Reach out to Dr. Sherwood’s team for personalized programs and resources designed to help you rebuild health span and longevity.
Your resilience journey starts now — one minute, one step, one breath at a time.
Guest Credibility:
Dr. Mark Sherwood is a former police officer-turned-natural longevity doctor specializing in nervous system health, hormone signaling, and metabolic recovery. He’s the founder of the Functional Medical Institute and author of “Authentic Longevity,” dedicated to helping people regain control of their health naturally.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
When you feel like life has got you a hand of
unfair cards.
Instead of voting, you doubledown, be stuck in the game.
You face battles.
You felt broken.
But hey, do us a favor.
Put your hand on your heart.
You feel that?
You're still here.
Welcome to the Resilience FilesUnlocked, where survival meets
(00:25):
transformation.
SPEAKER_01 (00:29):
Welcome to the Resilience Files Podcast
Unlocked.
I'm your host, Carrie Vernunce,and we're back.
A devastating hit and run on NewYear's Day tried to stop me, but
instead it strengthened my fightto rise again.
And here on the Resilience FoulsUnlocked, we explore what it
really means to rebuild afterlife tries to change you.
Today's conversation isespecially powerful because
(00:52):
sometimes resilience doesn'tlook like surviving one big
moment.
Sometimes it looks like learninghow to come back online after
living in survival mode foryears.
As we do here on the ResilienceStyles Podcast, we always read
our guest essay.
And today I am so excited toshare Dr.
Mark Sherwood's essay.
(01:14):
So without further ado, let metake it away with that essay.
I spent my life in systemsdesigned to respond to crisis.
Before I ever got intofunctional longevity medicine, I
was a police officer.
My job was to run toward danger,make decisions under pressure,
and manage chaos in real time.
I learned early what chronicstress looks like in the body.
(01:37):
Not from textbooks, but fromlived experience.
Shift work, adrenaline, poorsleep, hypervigilance, emotional
suppression.
It was all considered part ofthe job.
You push through, you don'tcomplain, you handle it.
At the time, I didn't think muchabout the long-term costs.
I thought resilience meantendurance.
(01:59):
Eventually I transitioned andbecame a neuropathic doctor.
I believed I was leaving onehigh trans world for one focus
on healing.
But what I discovered was thatmany of the people coming into
my clinic executives, athletes,first responders, parents, high
performers were living in thesame psychological state I had
(02:21):
once lived in myself.
Constant output, constantpressure, nervous systems locked
in survival mode, bodiesadapting the only way they knew
how.
Early in my career, I practicedthe way I was taught.
I followed protocols, I treatedlabs, I managed symptoms, and
yet something left, somethingfelt familiar in a way that
(02:42):
bothered me.
People weren't actually gettingbetter.
They were functioning.
They were compliant, but anxietywas rising.
Fatigue was becoming normalized.
Hormone dysfunction, metabolicdisease, chronic inflammation,
autoimmune patterns, theseweren't rare anymore.
They were common.
(03:03):
And the solutions often soundedeerily eerily similar to what
I'd heard before in lawenforcement.
This is just part of the job.
This is just how it is.
My perspectives began to shift.
I started to recognize that whatI had once called resilience,
both in policing and inmedicine, was just chronic
(03:24):
dysregulation, wearing a badgeof honor.
The body wasn't failing.
It was adapting.
Nervous systems were staying,nervous systems were staying
online too long.
Hormones were respondingintelligently to stress, trauma,
sleep loss, inflammation, anddepletion.
And we were calling thoseadaptation disorders instead of
(03:46):
understanding them as signals.
This wasn't just something I sawin patients.
It was something I had lived.
I knew what it was like tooverride signals, to push
through exhaustion, to ignorerecovery.
And I knew what eventuallyhappens when the body is never
allowed to stand down.
That personal experiencefundamentally changed the way I
(04:08):
practice medicine.
Instead of asking what diagnosisfits this symptom, I began
asking, what is this bodyresponding to?
Instead of chasing isolated labvalues, I started looking at
patterns, stress load, sleep,architecture, nervous system
tone, mitochondrial health,inflammation, and metabolic
(04:30):
flexibility.
Instead of suppressing symptoms,I focus on restoring regulation.
Today, my work centers onlongevity medicine, not just
extending lifespan, butimproving health span.
I help people rebuild resilienceat the cellular level.
I focus on nervous systemregulation, hormone signaling,
metabolic health, and recovery.
(04:53):
Because longevity isn't aboutdoing more, it's about
recovering better.
I still deeply respect modernmedicine.
I just use it differently now.
I've learned that more isn'talways better, stronger isn't
always smarter, and that calmisn't something you sedate your
way into.
It's something you retrain andrestore.
(05:16):
If someone realizes that you'reif someone realizes that their
anxiety makes sense, that theirfatigue isn't a moral failure,
and that their body isn'tbroken, just overwhelmed, then
their interactions have value.
I don't come into theseconversations as someone who has
all the answers.
(05:37):
I come as someone who has livedin high stress systems, study
psychology deeply, and learnedboth personally and
professionally that trueresilience isn't about pushing
harder.
It's about learning how to comeback online.
That's the story I bring withme.
Mark, uh Dr.
(05:57):
Mark, how are you?
How do you feel after hearingthat essay read aloud?
SPEAKER_02 (06:02):
Well, thanks for having me, Carrie.
I appreciate it.
It's a little um I g I gottaadmit, it it strikes a chord.
You know, I still, you know,kind of get a little tears in my
eyes, and uh I feel it, youknow?
SPEAKER_01 (06:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (06:15):
I still feel it.
SPEAKER_01 (06:16):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for beingvulnerable and honest with us
today, and we share space withyou.
And um, before we get startedtoday's episode, as we are
joined by Dr.
Mark Sheerwood, of course, he'sa former police officer, turned
doctor that's going to help, andhe specializes in longevity
medicine and nervous system.
(06:37):
I do want to give a triggerwarning for anybody that's
listening to today's episode.
This episode does includeconversations about chronic
stress, survival mode, burnout,and physical effects of trauma
in the nervous system.
If these topics feel personalfor you right now, I want you to
take care of yourself and dowhat you feel that supports you.
You're always encouraged to movethrough this conversation at
your own pace.
And just as Dr.
(06:58):
Sherwood is being vulnerable andhonest with us, we understand
that that might come up for you.
And as you know, I'm not atherapist.
He is a doctor.
I'm so excited we get to sharethis space with him.
And we're also survivors andstorytellers creating this
space.
So just given a little provisionbefore we get in.
But as I said, Dr.
Sherwood, thank you so much forbeing here and thank you for
(07:18):
being vulnerable.
Before you became a doctorfocused on longevity, you were
working as a police officer, andyou mentioned how this is such a
high stress environment.
And one of the highest stressenvironments, in my opinion, I
could never imagine ever being apolice officer.
So all power to you.
But I want to know like, can youexplain to us what those early
(07:40):
years looked like in your life?
Like, and why did you choosethat route of a career?
SPEAKER_02 (07:47):
Well, before that, I was a professional baseball
player and I had this dream toplay.
SPEAKER_01 (07:52):
Wow, stop playing professional baseball player.
Okay.
I love this.
Keep going, sorry.
SPEAKER_02 (08:00):
Well, so when you have a dream as a kid to do
something, you know, and theneverybody around you kind of
laughs at you when you verbalizethat something, there's
something inside you that caneither break you or make you, I
suppose, carry in.
I just took it as somethinglike, you know, you tell me I
can, I'm gonna show you I can,you know, that kind of attitude.
(08:21):
And so that was my my drive, youknow, and from you know, a
single kid adopted, you know, itwas kind of that internally
wiring that was developed in mein that process.
But when my baseball careerended, um I I always really
seemed to have the the uh makeupto to want to help people and
(08:41):
want to make their life better.
And I had a couple of peoplethat I knew on the police
department, and uh career herewas over with, get into another
one, you know, and and um Ithought about it a long time and
I thought, you know, why not?
It's a it's a career that I cangrow and learn, and and I don't
know anything about it.
(09:01):
And uh I got into it, and Igotta tell you, at first, you
know, you you go in there andit's like uh wow, this is a
world I know nothing about.
Because you're you're meetingpeople, and I don't want to call
people good and bad.
I think we're all like onemoment away from being an idiot
or a blessing on a daily basis,you know, quite quickly.
So um, but you're seeing allkinds of people on the worst day
(09:23):
of their lives.
And your job is to bring calmand peace in a stormy situation
and try to make life better forthem right then, whatever the
case may be.
And uh that led me a littlefurther down there to when I I
joined the SWAT team about threeyears in, and so I saw a lot and
(09:43):
uh experienced a lot, and and atfirst, quite transparently, it
was I fell into the trap of justdoing, doing, being, being, and
it became a us against them kindof thing, you know, and and it
wasn't right, but it it but itfelt right, but it wasn't right.
You know, it's like you fallinto the trap, it's it's me, my
team against the bad guys orwhatever, the case of bad girls,
(10:06):
whatever, you know.
But something happened, youknow, probably 10 years on my
time on the police department,where I realized one day that,
hey, you know, I'm no betterthan anybody else.
This is not my team, that team,this team, right, team, wrong
thing.
These are people.
I I grew up here, somebody elsemight have grown up here,
somebody else might be adifferent color than them, a
(10:28):
different sex, a differentcountry.
And there's no difference.
It's just circumstances andenvironment.
You know, they set the tone forsometimes the the way people are
right now.
I mean, everybody can change.
Something shifted in me at thatpoint, probably 10 years on, and
I just I realized that Icouldn't change the world.
(10:50):
Can't change people.
I don't have that power, and youcan't do it by force.
It's gotta be done with love,something different.
And so that was really how itshifted for me.
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
Wow, you said so much.
First off, you said single childadopted.
Were you adopted at a young age?
SPEAKER_02 (11:06):
Yeah, um, I was, and uh fascinating story behind that
that I've told just very fewtimes.
Yeah, I have one memory ofpre-adoption, and it was looking
around as a you know, you havethese little glimpses of baby
memories, I suppose, that areingrained in in your inner
(11:28):
brain.
And I remember looking aroundand a bunch of cribs at a bunch
of room, you know, in a bigroom, just a bunch of cribs
there, and a couple of ladieswalking around that I presume
are nurses dressed in white.
So I remember that.
And then uh later on in my life,when I was in my early 40s, I
was able to uh through a reallywild circumstance meet my birth
(11:48):
mother.
SPEAKER_03 (11:49):
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (11:50):
Yeah, and she she was able to uh it was an amazing
reunion kind of concept.
She's she's died since then, butshe was able to give me my baby
blanket, and uh, and I asked herif that was true, and she said,
yes, that was true.
So um you know, I was probablyeight or nine months old, I
suppose, when I was adopted.
(12:11):
So that was kind of a wild uhfreaky confirmation, I suppose,
of memory.
But um, but yeah, um, early ageand uh great parents.
Uh they did the best they could.
It wasn't almost the mostawesome childhood in the world.
We we didn't have much, uh, butI learned great values, working
hard, being honest, don't makeexcuses, you know, show up to
work on time and and and and betreat people the way you're
(12:33):
supposed to be treated, by theway you want to be treated.
SPEAKER_01 (12:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
Wow.
Thank you so much for sharingthat.
And I'm so happy you were ableto meet your birth mom and rest
in peace to her.
And you also mentioned so manyother incredible things, moving
from baseball into then thepolice force and not knowing
much about it and this ideal of,you know, it was the us between
them.
I felt like you shared, youknow, you started to have
(12:58):
empathy of like, why does ithave to be this way?
And then you move into thisother career that is, you know,
very selfless because to me, youknow, doctors are service, like
you're offering a service topeople that are on the verge of
life or death, or even likesustaining health that can lead
to more life or a shorter, youknow, uh exit.
(13:21):
I don't want to say it in themean way, but we get what we're
saying.
And um, it just sounds so muchto get into, but okay, just to
stay focused.
Let's talk about the policeforce for a second.
So, when did you realize howmuch chronic stress your body
was carrying while you wereliving in that environment?
Like you joined the SWAT team,and that sounds like very
stressful.
SPEAKER_03 (13:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (13:42):
Yeah, I was probably six, seven years, maybe eight
years on the police departmenttime and had done four or five
years of service on the SWATteam, and I started to look
around and I saw I saw changesin people, and and this I saw
changes in me.
You know, you go from perhaps atime of your life where you're
in the best shape of your life,physically, emotionally,
(14:02):
spiritually, intellectually, andthen all of a sudden there's a
shift where you're not sleepingas well, you're putting on
weight, you start to see labmarkers change.
I watch people around me gain abunch of weight, have the big
red hypertensive or high bloodpressure faces, and and and
start talking about theirmedical conditions, and and then
(14:24):
you then you start to see peoplethat are older, you know, senior
police officers, that you startto see them die.
And so that's when I realizedthere's something, something is
is is really wrong with this.
And and I saw one statistic thatconfirmed everything I just
shared with you, and it was whenI was put in charge of
developing a wellness programI'd been on probably 13, 14
(14:48):
years, was transferred to thepolice academy, and uh and I
researched, you know, when dopolice officers die or how long
do they live.
And I one statistic that at thattime was I think uh the 1970s
study, and I believe, you know,it's in that time frame, but it
was an FBI study that confirmedthat the average life expectancy
for the 20 years of service malepolice officer in America was 66
(15:13):
years of age.
When I saw that, my heart sankbecause here I was supposed to
develop a bonus program, and Isaw that, and then I ran
statistics from my home state ofOklahoma and my home county of
Tulsa, and I found out that itwas the same thing, Carrie,
except one year less.
And I and then I realized thisthis whole stress thing is a big
(15:34):
deal, and it's it's not a covertkiller, it's a very overt killer
now, and we're not dealing withit right, and we're not able to
bounce back.
We don't have resiliency becauselife's gonna hit you, man.
It's gonna knock you down.
And and do you have theresiliency to withstand that and
get back up again?
And I realized we didn't.
So that was the genesis, if youwill, of getting into the idea
(15:55):
of more natural healing throughnaturopathic studies.
SPEAKER_01 (15:59):
Wow, thank you for sharing that.
Those those statistics is veryalarming and scary.
It makes me wonder what thestatistics is for people that
serve in the military.
And I'm too afraid to Google itbecause of what's going on in
the world right now.
But my prayers are with them.
You're making a sacrifice ofyourself to serve because you're
going into a really high-riskenvironment at all times.
(16:22):
But you mentioning these, youknow, hypertension, high blood
pressure, like all of thesethings are definitely a
correlation to the environmentthat you all are in.
And when I guess was pushingthrough exhaustion just normal
for you all?
Is that was it expected?
You know, I feel like there'sthese hidden, expected things
that every job requires you todo that may not be on paper, you
(16:45):
know, but you start working thejob and you know that if you
don't push through, you may belet go, or you may get
downgraded to, I don't know,running to get the donut duty.
Like, was it an expectedresponsibility to push through
exhaustion, or did you all haveany type of mental health
resources available?
SPEAKER_02 (17:06):
Well, I think that I'll answer the second question
first.
The first question is second.
The first question is I thinkall police departments or uh
military first responders allhave resources available, but
did we take advantage of them?
No, because we're not you're nottaught to go there, man.
I mean, I've learned to cry, andI've learned that that's okay.
(17:27):
You know, but as a little boy, Iwas told don't you do it, don't
you cry because that's weakness.
But a lot of people don't getthis.
And I think if if nothing elsecomes out of this time today, I
hope this does for all citizensout there that have to deal with
police officers or firstresponders, because that's
everybody, you know.
(17:47):
There's there's a bigmisunderstanding here a lot of
times.
And again, I'm not sayingthere's not bad apples in every
situation.
There certainly is, you know, weall can do bad things or wrong
things.
But when police officers aretrained, they're trained that
every single encounter could beyour last, that you could die.
(18:09):
Every single traffic stop, youdon't know if it's little
grandfather, you don't know ifit's an escaped convict.
Every single call you go to,every door you knock on, you
don't know if a person's got agun behind the door is going to
fire a shot through the door.
You have no idea.
You know, and you live likethat.
It took me probably six or sevenyears post-retirement to be able
(18:33):
to sit in a restaurant with myback to the door.
Think about that.
And you live that hyper-vigilantstate, and it's a necessity
because if you make a mistake,you could die, or somebody else
could die.
Every single day, every singlecall you go on, you might not
(18:53):
come home, and you're out therefor hours and hours at night.
I mean, who is it that stops acar at two o'clock in the
morning with nobody around?
And all you got was yourflashlight, your headlight, and
your gun.
SPEAKER_01 (19:07):
Not me, not hard.
SPEAKER_02 (19:09):
And I don't think people understand that.
And I think we need to probablyhave more dialogue, maybe learn
to tell people thank you,because even if you don't like
the police, you know, and I getall that, and understand it from
a unique perspective on bothsides.
But maybe maybe it's likeinstead of looking at them with
scorn, maybe it's buying themthe coffee, you know, it's like
(19:31):
buying them a meal, you know,and just try to understand
better.
But that's how that is, andthat's how you're trained, and
it's by design, because if youdon't do that, persons you're
protecting and serving could dieas well.
You know, so you have to live ina hyper-vigilant state where it
is a catastrophe towards yourown health, and it really is a
(19:54):
sacrifice that you you doexhibit towards a service to
mankind like that.
SPEAKER_01 (20:00):
100%.
Wow.
I am so happy we're doing thisepisode, and the transparency is
so needed and so respected, andit is hard, you know, in certain
communities for us to trust thepolice officers and to
understand.
It's like I think the problem isthat there's so much history on
both sides, right?
We have neighborhoods andcommunities that absolutely love
(20:21):
the officers, but the officershave made themselves not uh us
against them.
They made us like us against us.
Let's figure out a way weprotect the community together.
Yes, you know, and then wethere's been situations with us
against them, and that has madeit very difficult for that
transparency or the respect thatthe police officers do deserve,
(20:43):
because it's no way I would everapproach a car at two in the
morning being alone.
It's no way I would I have Ihave all the courage in the
world and all the confidence inthe world, but I also have
logical sense in the world thatthat's just not me.
So I'll give it to you for doingthat and so much respect to
every officer.
You know, it also is interestingbecause because you all are, and
(21:04):
I'm not because police officersoperate on such a high amount of
stress and exhaustion andunknown, going into that field
makes it that if you have all ofthose circumstances and don't
know if it's a gun on the otherside of the door, I can see why
unfortunate things do happensometimes.
(21:26):
Not that I agree with them, butI can I can understand it a bit
more.
But um let's move on tosomething powerful that you said
in your story that you realizethat people weren't getting
better, they were justfunctioning as you decided to
navigate from the police force.
(21:46):
You mentioned retirement.
So how many years did youactually end up doing before you
retired and transitioned tobecoming a doctor?
SPEAKER_02 (21:54):
Twenty four years.
SPEAKER_01 (21:56):
Twenty four.
Oh my god.
I bet you're you Operated reallywell in that stress capacity for
24 years.
And then you got in like youmentioned, you moved on to what
you felt was an environmentthat's gonna be completely
different, and then youencountered so many different
lives of people that wereactually operating in this same
(22:19):
stressful environment, but theythey were able to operate in
chaos and find it to be a normalthing.
But then you were able to pointout that there's not it should
not be normalcy and chaos.
Let's figure out a transitionthat so take me on the
transition of you went back toschool, sir, like after 24
years.
SPEAKER_02 (22:40):
Yeah, it's like when I was put in charge of that
wellness program, Carrie.
Um I wanted to find out why, youknow, police officers were dying
so young, in my opinion.
And uh kind of like the movieForrest Gump, where Forrest Gump
kept on running, you know, Ijust kept on studying.
I I never stopped.
For me, it wasn't really an uhunusual transition.
(23:04):
I kind of went from service andprotecting to service and
protecting, just a differentmode, I suppose, or different
delivery on the other side ofthe of the desk, so to speak.
And as as time went on in thatstudying and learning
perspective, you know, goingback to learn more things
through academics to achievecertifications, degrees, et
(23:27):
cetera, you know, I learned thateverybody was going through
that, that that was society,that the pace, the social media,
the um um lack of conversations,and I saw all that technology
come, which is a blessing, but Isaw people moving away more
towards um poor lifestyle habitsand things like that.
That were exactly what I saw onthe police department at that
(23:50):
time.
And quality of life, I noticedthat was going down.
And you look at the state ofeven our own nation right now,
it's in the most unhealthy stateit's ever been in the history of
mankind's existence.
And communities and familiesright now are suffering
needlessly.
And I saw that happening and Iwanted to do something about it.
And so, you know, conventionallabs weren't cutting it.
(24:13):
I realized you'd have to gothrough that all day and tell
people they were normal.
But you realize that normalbecame and it's become much like
the participation trophyconcept.
You know, we're acceptingaverage as normal, and that's as
good as we can do.
And because of that, you know,no one goes higher than the
(24:36):
leader.
The leader sets the bar, and theleadership has been lowered, and
we've accepted average.
We've become we've becomedependent upon medicine,
dependent upon the government,dependent upon this pastor, that
pastor to pray for us, help us,and yet we've become helpless.
And in reality, we need to get ahold of this because unless we
(25:00):
decide as the person staring usback in the mirror to make those
changes, and that's what I do,and that's what my wife and I
do, we'll bring it home becauseit's like that's where the
change is gonna occur, man.
If you can't learn to love andcare for self, how are you gonna
learn and love to care for otherpeople?
I mean, that's beyond questionright there.
SPEAKER_01 (25:21):
Yeah, and I think we are also becoming desensitized
to everything because chaos isexisting so much around us and
in the world and our leadershipand all of that over and over,
it's becoming a lot less likescary to look at a dead body in
a street or to see something onsocial media that brings raises
(25:44):
an alarm, or just like, oh,another, another war, another
dead person, another schoolshooting.
And I'm not trying todesensitize or bring less
seriousness to these thingsbecause they are serious, but it
is becoming that I am afraidsometimes for my son in the
future he's going to have ofwhat he considers normal because
(26:09):
of that, you know?
And so I think you raise so manygood flags.
And I want to transition intoyou being a doctor, and when you
realize that people weren'tactually getting better, they
were just functioning.
What made you start noticingthat pattern?
SPEAKER_02 (26:24):
I was noticing that that people would be all happy
about getting a call from somenon-doctor person that says your
labs are normal.
And and I would like, no,they're not.
And I started asking, you know,from the lab standpoint, when I
say asking questions, I juststarted, we started changing the
information we're trying toderive from the blood.
(26:45):
You know, we're asking differentquestions.
People for years thought thatcholesterol was bad.
It turns out that's not true.
We have to have it for thebrain, for some membrane repair
and for hormone information.
So why are we lowering it?
You know, why are we lowering itbecause it's high?
And who set those numbers?
And so I began to questioneverything about that.
And uh because people were notgetting well.
(27:07):
They were staying sick and theythought they were well.
And that was the paradox therethat just frankly blew my mind.
And you mentioneddesensitization.
I think you're right on pointwith that, because that spans
all aspects of life.
And the more we getindoctrinated, um uh embedded,
(27:31):
run, and maybe even uh deceivedwith believing that this is the
way it's supposed to be.
The more generations that go by,the worse we get away from where
we're supposed to be.
So it really is a fascinatingthing.
But that was my moment in time,and and along with the same time
that I'm seeing this, my wifegot fired from mainstream
(27:53):
medicine.
She's an osteopathic doctor or aDO because too many people were
getting too well because she wasteaching them how to eat well.
And they weren't coming back forreturn visits, and you know, she
wasn't making the system anymoney on needless procedures.
So, you know, our worldscollided, hence the birth of the
functional medical medicalinstitute, which was a
(28:14):
different, a different way, youknow, it was a different idea.
It was just we were the originalbiohackers, the original
longevity doctors, I suppose,before that stuff was even
coined and the term was even,you know, probably trademarked
at this point, you know.
SPEAKER_03 (28:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:28):
We were doing that before, and uh, and it was it
was challenging because peoplewere we were looking at things
differently.
SPEAKER_01 (28:36):
Yeah, I love that.
Wow.
I love the perspective shifts inso many facets.
And even just imagining exactlywhat you're saying with what
happened with your wife.
I mean, it was a blessing and aloss on their end, you know.
The unfortunate thing is that itwas a blessing and it was great
for the people that got healed,but also that's it just shows
(28:57):
you how messed up like medicinecan be.
I'm not saying that medicine isbad, but I'm also saying like
there's obviously so many holesin our system, and that can be
an entire differentconversation.
SPEAKER_02 (29:13):
Indeed, that really is, isn't it?
Yeah, but but you're right.
It's just it's there's there'sholes and there's gaps, and I
think we all realize those.
But the benefit of that is thatnow we have the ability to
dialogue about it and learn fromit.
SPEAKER_01 (29:26):
Exactly.
And that you all are togetherand you've created something
amazing and powerful that peoplecan take advantage of and
actually witness more healing.
So I think that that's even morepowerful.
Something I'm hearing a lot inyour story already is that there
were many, many of us weretaught to um, how can I say
(29:47):
there was many of us that wastaught to like call things
strength, like you were strongbecause you were able to hold
this all together, or or you'redoing your normal because like,
yeah, you're living in chaos andthis, but you're still
surviving, you're still going towork, you're still eating.
But the reality is that they'rein survival mode and they're not
realizing this.
And I think a lot of listenersare gonna recognize this and
(30:10):
like understand like me existingand existing in this chaotic
circumstance is not healthy,it's not great.
So I want to talk about shiftingthat survival mode and going
into what we consider trueresilience.
And I feel like you've touchedon that a little bit, but you
could probably help myself andas well as some of the listeners
(30:31):
listening today on identifyingthe symptoms being signals that
they need to like take action onright now.
If someone's listening, whatwould you say?
Like, if you are experiencingthis, this isn't normal.
You know, like I'm not tellingyou to stop it, but I'm telling
you to slow down or or whatwould you say?
SPEAKER_02 (30:54):
There's one test that everybody can do right now,
and it costs you zero dollars todetermine if you're in what I
call and what Dr.
Hans Cellier coined, generaladaptation syndrome.
And that's just determined bytoo much cortisol for too long
or too much stress hormone fortoo long, your body's just got
(31:16):
adapted to it.
That's just who you are.
You're that you just do that.
You you run at that level, andand here's how you know
initially if you're in thegeneral adaptation syndrome, and
notice G, A, S.
If you're in the generaladaptation syndrome, you're
running out of gas.
Just kind of use that analacronym there.
(31:38):
Can you sit down and be quietfor 10 minutes, no cell phone,
no noise, no pets, no spouse,just be quiet in the middle of
the day.
Can you do that?
Or does the thought of thatstress you out?
And you know, if the verythought of doing that, and if
(32:01):
the very first thing that cameto your mind and heart was, I
would never have time to dothat.
You're there.
You're already there.
And that's one little way totell.
And what happens is when you yourealize that's you, or and and
this is not a negative, I wantthis moment to be super
empowering for people maybelistening, you know.
(32:21):
If that's you, don't lose heart,gain hope.
Because what's happening rightnow to you is your sleep is
being interfered with, you'reputting all a little extra
weight around the middle becauseof too much cortisol, your
brain's getting slow, you'rehaving trouble remembering,
you're running to therefrigerator for something sweet
(32:43):
to give you a little comfortright now.
Maybe caffeinated beverages allday long, maybe even coping with
alcohol or drugs or evenbehaviors that are like not
cool.
You know, that's not life, man.
That's that's survival, andthat's not being tough, man.
That's not overcoming, that'sallowing yourself to decay over
time.
(33:04):
The hope is this is that thatcan change.
So I talked about 10 minutes.
Here's how you can begin thechange with one minute.
So one tenth of that.
Here's a challenge for everyonelistening and do this today.
You know, just pick out sixtyseconds of time and and practice
it, get quiet, and look at yoursecond hand watch.
(33:25):
And just once that 60 secondsstarts, just look at it and
watch it go around and saynothing.
Just listen.
No words, no nothing, no noise.
And after that minute's past, ifyou get used to that, you're
gonna realize there's peace inthat silence.
And you're gonna hear yourselfagain, you're gonna know where
you are, you're gonna know whoyou are.
(33:45):
It it's magic how that happens,and you're probably gonna want
more of it.
So there's a way out, and thenobviously you you want to get
with you know, someone's family,clinicians, community that will
help um ease that motor backwhere it can become more normal
and you can find that balancethere, and you can create again
(34:08):
a lot of res resilience withyour life as opposed to the
decay that's happening at arapid manner.
SPEAKER_01 (34:15):
Wow.
Well, you all heard that first,okay?
Well, maybe not first.
He's probably said this before,but not on the resilience style
podcast, okay?
If you are feeling like you maybe existing in chaos, then do
the minute test today.
And if you feel like a friendmay be living in this chaos and
they don't know it themselves,just say, hey, I think this
(34:36):
episode would be great for you.
Just go send it off to them.
So not only do they take thetest, but they have a solution
that they can actually applyright after the test.
And like you said, maybe even ifyou can't do 10 minutes, maybe
you can do one minute and youstart with one minute and you
feel that piece, then you startwith two minutes and you build
on from there.
But as we start wrapping thisup, I do want to share like
(35:00):
something personal with Dr.
Sherwood.
As someone who has had torebuild physically after trauma
myself with getting hit by adrunk driver, still having some
PTSD from it, I've learned thatrecovery changes the way that
your body understands.
Like, well, you understand yourbody, your body understands
things.
And also how you react to stuff,like similar to how your story
(35:23):
said for the longest, you cannever sit with your back towards
the door.
That was something with me.
Like for the longest, I didn'twant to sit on a sidewalk or be
outside for too long thinkingthat a car could run up the
sidewalk and I could get hitagain and that I would relive
the accident.
From your perspective, what roledoes recovery play in the
(35:44):
resilience journey on processingthose thoughts and emotions and
learning how to not just survivewith the ideal that the accident
because sometimes I'm like,sometimes I do still have PTSD.
I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta becareful.
I hear a car crash or somethingthat gets me in, but I can
survive in it.
I've survived in it for so long,but that's not normal.
(36:08):
How do I make it not normal?
I know it takes time, but Iwanted to get your thoughts on
that.
SPEAKER_02 (36:13):
Everybody's recovering from something.
Always.
Everyone does have traumas,dramas, and they're different,
but they all matter.
And I think just I would saythis to you, I I do say this to
you, and I say it to anybodylistening, that the awareness
that you're on a road torecovery is a victory knowing
you're on a road to recovery.
(36:34):
And it's it's real simple likethat because what is recovery?
Recovery is being able to getback or recover, or reconnect,
or re-stand from where you gotknocked down or got, you know,
traumatic injuries and thingslike that, or traumatic
emotional scars.
It's getting back up, it'sgetting out of bed, it's getting
(36:55):
out of the ditch, it's gettingout of the house.
Right?
Every time you do that, it's avictory.
And instead of looking at it asa negative, I'm still
recovering, shift it around andgo, you know what?
This is another day I'verecovered.
And every day you stack a day ofrecovery on there, it's a
victory, man, because you didrecover.
(37:15):
You you reconnected, you restoodup again, you got back up.
And I think if you remember thatlife's like that, you know, and
you take it one day at a time,that's good.
But if you ever think you've gotit figured out, that's probably
not so good.
Because ultimately, I think thatto think we've got it figured
out is realizing we're reallygonna set ourselves up for
(37:38):
probably a fall because you noone's got it figured out.
I won't have the answers, Idon't think, until I permanently
change addresses, I suppose.
I don't know, you know?
SPEAKER_03 (37:49):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (37:50):
I'm gonna keep learning and trying to learn
about myself.
And and to your point, the morethat I learn and the more I know
I don't know.
So I'm probably still getting upevery day and recovering even
though I'm speaking here, youknow, and sometimes talking
through it, walking through witha friend, and even yourself, or
even then quiet.
Those are victories now.
Let's say, you know, youyourself, you're a victor.
(38:13):
You're not a victor, you're avictor because you got back up
again and you're doing apodcast, which is really cool.
SPEAKER_01 (38:18):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
That's some really, really greatadvice.
For someone that's listeningright now who may feel
exhausted, overwhelmed, or stuckin survival mode.
What are three things that theycan do right now today to
support their nervous system?
SPEAKER_02 (38:36):
Number one, as I talked about, starting that one
minute of silence.
Do that.
Lost nothing.
Number two, I want you to createmaybe a one-paragraph
affirmation statement that talksabout who you are.
You know?
SPEAKER_00 (38:48):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (38:49):
Mine goes like this, and I don't mind saying it real
quickly.
It's it's fast.
Thank you, God, that you made meinto a great man, husband,
father, son, and um, andhusband.
You made me a great healer,influencer.
You've made me a great humbleman with uh excellence and honor
and discipline.
I'm in great health, and Ifollow your directions every
(39:10):
single day.
You know, something like thatcan be real simple.
Verbal affirmation that ispositive about who you are, what
you believe, what you what youwill become, what you are.
And that's number two.
And then number three, believeit or not, you know, and this is
going to be a two-prong, whatyou do with your body and what
you put in your body are veryimportant.
(39:31):
That your mouth, your eyes, yourears, your your heart, your mind
are all gates.
So keep the gates closed ofnonsense and put in things that
bring life.
So, you know, get outside everyday and eat a good meal every
day and start with that one dayat a time.
Just one meal, one day, onefoot, one tennis shoe, I
(39:52):
suppose, every day.
And that and that's that's agreat way to start.
SPEAKER_01 (39:56):
I feel like one of the biggest takeaways from the
conversation today has beenresiliency isn't about pushing
harder.
It's about recognizing likewhere your body is.
It's about learning how tolisten when your body asks you
to recover and that evenexisting in chaos and feeling
normal is not normal.
Dr.
Sherwood, before we close outtoday's session, I would love
(40:18):
for our listeners to get to knowyou more and to figure out if
you have services or if theywant to hire you as a doctor and
bring you on their healingjourney.
How do they get in contact withyou, you and your wife, like
what you all are offering?
Do you have a book?
Any of those wonderful things?
SPEAKER_02 (40:37):
Yeah, they can go to my personal website is
drmarksherwood.com,D-R-M-A-R-K-S-H-E-R-W-O-O-D.com.
My wife is the same, Dr.
Michelle Sherwood, and it'sMichelle with one L.
A good way to remember that oneis there's no hell in my
Michelle, so there's a good wayto remember that.
But we do have a lot of bookswe've written.
(41:00):
We've made eight or nine movies,inspirational things, just stuff
like that.
And uh, our newest book iscoming out this summer at some
point, summer 2026.
It's called Authentic Longevity.
And if people want to get thatone and get on board with that,
authentic longevity.com, therewill be a course that comes out
with that, a certified authenticlongevity educator course.
(41:21):
So we're excited about those twothings.
But we're just here to servepeople, Carrie.
And if people want to work withus, we can.
We've got clients all over theworld.
And uh, you know, if we can be ablessing, we will be.
But even if we don't work withyou, there's stuff on there for
free you can get.
So we're happy to serve.
SPEAKER_01 (41:37):
You're amazing.
You're amazing, Dr.
Sherva.
Thank you so much for being herewith us today and helping us
understand what real resiliencelooks like and longevity from
the inside out.
And like you've said over andover again, everybody listen, it
just starts with one day, oneday at a time, one foot at a
time.
Look, thank you all so much forjoining us here at the Resilient
(41:57):
Styles Podcast Unlock.
If today's conversation helpedyou out and helped you rethink
what resilience means in yourown life, help you realize like
maybe you're living in a chaoticenvironment and you need to step
outside of that to see what truepeace really feels like.
I want you to not only re-listento this episode, but share this
episode with someone who youthink might need it.
(42:19):
And don't forget to subscribe,follow, stay connected with us
as we continue sharing storiesthat remind us all that healing
is possible, growth is possible,and resilience inside is very
possible for every single one ofus.
Today's show notes are below, soplease follow up with Dr.
Sherwood.
There's some free resources, payresources, a book coming soon
(42:40):
this summer that will be on hiswebsite that you can find out
more details on how to continueyour longevity killing.
This is Carrie Bernance, andthis has been the Resilient
Scholars podcast unlocked.
Thank you.
When you feel like life has got you a hand of
unfair cards.
Instead of voting, you doubledown, be stuck in the game.
You face battles.
You felt broken.
But hey, do us a favor.
Put your hand on your heart.
You feel that?
You're still here.
Welcome to the Resilience FilesUnlocked, where survival meets
(00:25):
transformation.
SPEAKER_01 (00:29):
Welcome to the Resilience Files Podcast
Unlocked.
I'm your host, Carrie Vernunce,and we're back.
A devastating hit and run on NewYear's Day tried to stop me, but
instead it strengthened my fightto rise again.
And here on the Resilience FoulsUnlocked, we explore what it
really means to rebuild afterlife tries to change you.
Today's conversation isespecially powerful because
(00:52):
sometimes resilience doesn'tlook like surviving one big
moment.
Sometimes it looks like learninghow to come back online after
living in survival mode foryears.
As we do here on the ResilienceStyles Podcast, we always read
our guest essay.
And today I am so excited toshare Dr.
Mark Sherwood's essay.
(01:14):
So without further ado, let metake it away with that essay.
I spent my life in systemsdesigned to respond to crisis.
Before I ever got intofunctional longevity medicine, I
was a police officer.
My job was to run toward danger,make decisions under pressure,
and manage chaos in real time.
I learned early what chronicstress looks like in the body.
(01:37):
Not from textbooks, but fromlived experience.
Shift work, adrenaline, poorsleep, hypervigilance, emotional
suppression.
It was all considered part ofthe job.
You push through, you don'tcomplain, you handle it.
At the time, I didn't think muchabout the long-term costs.
I thought resilience meantendurance.
(01:59):
Eventually I transitioned andbecame a neuropathic doctor.
I believed I was leaving onehigh trans world for one focus
on healing.
But what I discovered was thatmany of the people coming into
my clinic executives, athletes,first responders, parents, high
performers were living in thesame psychological state I had
(02:21):
once lived in myself.
Constant output, constantpressure, nervous systems locked
in survival mode, bodiesadapting the only way they knew
how.
Early in my career, I practicedthe way I was taught.
I followed protocols, I treatedlabs, I managed symptoms, and
yet something left, somethingfelt familiar in a way that
(02:42):
bothered me.
People weren't actually gettingbetter.
They were functioning.
They were compliant, but anxietywas rising.
Fatigue was becoming normalized.
Hormone dysfunction, metabolicdisease, chronic inflammation,
autoimmune patterns, theseweren't rare anymore.
They were common.
(03:03):
And the solutions often soundedeerily eerily similar to what
I'd heard before in lawenforcement.
This is just part of the job.
This is just how it is.
My perspectives began to shift.
I started to recognize that whatI had once called resilience,
both in policing and inmedicine, was just chronic
(03:24):
dysregulation, wearing a badgeof honor.
The body wasn't failing.
It was adapting.
Nervous systems were staying,nervous systems were staying
online too long.
Hormones were respondingintelligently to stress, trauma,
sleep loss, inflammation, anddepletion.
And we were calling thoseadaptation disorders instead of
(03:46):
understanding them as signals.
This wasn't just something I sawin patients.
It was something I had lived.
I knew what it was like tooverride signals, to push
through exhaustion, to ignorerecovery.
And I knew what eventuallyhappens when the body is never
allowed to stand down.
That personal experiencefundamentally changed the way I
(04:08):
practice medicine.
Instead of asking what diagnosisfits this symptom, I began
asking, what is this bodyresponding to?
Instead of chasing isolated labvalues, I started looking at
patterns, stress load, sleep,architecture, nervous system
tone, mitochondrial health,inflammation, and metabolic
(04:30):
flexibility.
Instead of suppressing symptoms,I focus on restoring regulation.
Today, my work centers onlongevity medicine, not just
extending lifespan, butimproving health span.
I help people rebuild resilienceat the cellular level.
I focus on nervous systemregulation, hormone signaling,
metabolic health, and recovery.
(04:53):
Because longevity isn't aboutdoing more, it's about
recovering better.
I still deeply respect modernmedicine.
I just use it differently now.
I've learned that more isn'talways better, stronger isn't
always smarter, and that calmisn't something you sedate your
way into.
It's something you retrain andrestore.
(05:16):
If someone realizes that you'reif someone realizes that their
anxiety makes sense, that theirfatigue isn't a moral failure,
and that their body isn'tbroken, just overwhelmed, then
their interactions have value.
I don't come into theseconversations as someone who has
all the answers.
(05:37):
I come as someone who has livedin high stress systems, study
psychology deeply, and learnedboth personally and
professionally that trueresilience isn't about pushing
harder.
It's about learning how to comeback online.
That's the story I bring withme.
Mark, uh Dr.
(05:57):
Mark, how are you?
How do you feel after hearingthat essay read aloud?
SPEAKER_02 (06:02):
Well, thanks for having me, Carrie.
I appreciate it.
It's a little um I g I gottaadmit, it it strikes a chord.
You know, I still, you know,kind of get a little tears in my
eyes, and uh I feel it, youknow?
SPEAKER_01 (06:14):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (06:15):
I still feel it.
SPEAKER_01 (06:16):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for beingvulnerable and honest with us
today, and we share space withyou.
And um, before we get startedtoday's episode, as we are
joined by Dr.
Mark Sheerwood, of course, he'sa former police officer, turned
doctor that's going to help, andhe specializes in longevity
medicine and nervous system.
(06:37):
I do want to give a triggerwarning for anybody that's
listening to today's episode.
This episode does includeconversations about chronic
stress, survival mode, burnout,and physical effects of trauma
in the nervous system.
If these topics feel personalfor you right now, I want you to
take care of yourself and dowhat you feel that supports you.
You're always encouraged to movethrough this conversation at
your own pace.
And just as Dr.
(06:58):
Sherwood is being vulnerable andhonest with us, we understand
that that might come up for you.
And as you know, I'm not atherapist.
He is a doctor.
I'm so excited we get to sharethis space with him.
And we're also survivors andstorytellers creating this
space.
So just given a little provisionbefore we get in.
But as I said, Dr.
Sherwood, thank you so much forbeing here and thank you for
(07:18):
being vulnerable.
Before you became a doctorfocused on longevity, you were
working as a police officer, andyou mentioned how this is such a
high stress environment.
And one of the highest stressenvironments, in my opinion, I
could never imagine ever being apolice officer.
So all power to you.
But I want to know like, can youexplain to us what those early
(07:40):
years looked like in your life?
Like, and why did you choosethat route of a career?
SPEAKER_02 (07:47):
Well, before that, I was a professional baseball
player and I had this dream toplay.
SPEAKER_01 (07:52):
Wow, stop playing professional baseball player.
Okay.
I love this.
Keep going, sorry.
SPEAKER_02 (08:00):
Well, so when you have a dream as a kid to do
something, you know, and theneverybody around you kind of
laughs at you when you verbalizethat something, there's
something inside you that caneither break you or make you, I
suppose, carry in.
I just took it as somethinglike, you know, you tell me I
can, I'm gonna show you I can,you know, that kind of attitude.
(08:21):
And so that was my my drive, youknow, and from you know, a
single kid adopted, you know, itwas kind of that internally
wiring that was developed in mein that process.
But when my baseball careerended, um I I always really
seemed to have the the uh makeupto to want to help people and
(08:41):
want to make their life better.
And I had a couple of peoplethat I knew on the police
department, and uh career herewas over with, get into another
one, you know, and and um Ithought about it a long time and
I thought, you know, why not?
It's a it's a career that I cangrow and learn, and and I don't
know anything about it.
(09:01):
And uh I got into it, and Igotta tell you, at first, you
know, you you go in there andit's like uh wow, this is a
world I know nothing about.
Because you're you're meetingpeople, and I don't want to call
people good and bad.
I think we're all like onemoment away from being an idiot
or a blessing on a daily basis,you know, quite quickly.
So um, but you're seeing allkinds of people on the worst day
(09:23):
of their lives.
And your job is to bring calmand peace in a stormy situation
and try to make life better forthem right then, whatever the
case may be.
And uh that led me a littlefurther down there to when I I
joined the SWAT team about threeyears in, and so I saw a lot and
(09:43):
uh experienced a lot, and and atfirst, quite transparently, it
was I fell into the trap of justdoing, doing, being, being, and
it became a us against them kindof thing, you know, and and it
wasn't right, but it it but itfelt right, but it wasn't right.
You know, it's like you fallinto the trap, it's it's me, my
team against the bad guys orwhatever, the case of bad girls,
(10:06):
whatever, you know.
But something happened, youknow, probably 10 years on my
time on the police department,where I realized one day that,
hey, you know, I'm no betterthan anybody else.
This is not my team, that team,this team, right, team, wrong
thing.
These are people.
I I grew up here, somebody elsemight have grown up here,
somebody else might be adifferent color than them, a
(10:28):
different sex, a differentcountry.
And there's no difference.
It's just circumstances andenvironment.
You know, they set the tone forsometimes the the way people are
right now.
I mean, everybody can change.
Something shifted in me at thatpoint, probably 10 years on, and
I just I realized that Icouldn't change the world.
(10:50):
Can't change people.
I don't have that power, and youcan't do it by force.
It's gotta be done with love,something different.
And so that was really how itshifted for me.
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
Wow, you said so much.
First off, you said single childadopted.
Were you adopted at a young age?
SPEAKER_02 (11:06):
Yeah, um, I was, and uh fascinating story behind that
that I've told just very fewtimes.
Yeah, I have one memory ofpre-adoption, and it was looking
around as a you know, you havethese little glimpses of baby
memories, I suppose, that areingrained in in your inner
(11:28):
brain.
And I remember looking aroundand a bunch of cribs at a bunch
of room, you know, in a bigroom, just a bunch of cribs
there, and a couple of ladieswalking around that I presume
are nurses dressed in white.
So I remember that.
And then uh later on in my life,when I was in my early 40s, I
was able to uh through a reallywild circumstance meet my birth
(11:48):
mother.
SPEAKER_03 (11:49):
Wow.
SPEAKER_02 (11:50):
Yeah, and she she was able to uh it was an amazing
reunion kind of concept.
She's she's died since then, butshe was able to give me my baby
blanket, and uh, and I asked herif that was true, and she said,
yes, that was true.
So um you know, I was probablyeight or nine months old, I
suppose, when I was adopted.
(12:11):
So that was kind of a wild uhfreaky confirmation, I suppose,
of memory.
But um, but yeah, um, early ageand uh great parents.
Uh they did the best they could.
It wasn't almost the mostawesome childhood in the world.
We we didn't have much, uh, butI learned great values, working
hard, being honest, don't makeexcuses, you know, show up to
work on time and and and and betreat people the way you're
(12:33):
supposed to be treated, by theway you want to be treated.
SPEAKER_01 (12:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
Wow.
Thank you so much for sharingthat.
And I'm so happy you were ableto meet your birth mom and rest
in peace to her.
And you also mentioned so manyother incredible things, moving
from baseball into then thepolice force and not knowing
much about it and this ideal of,you know, it was the us between
them.
I felt like you shared, youknow, you started to have
(12:58):
empathy of like, why does ithave to be this way?
And then you move into thisother career that is, you know,
very selfless because to me, youknow, doctors are service, like
you're offering a service topeople that are on the verge of
life or death, or even likesustaining health that can lead
to more life or a shorter, youknow, uh exit.
(13:21):
I don't want to say it in themean way, but we get what we're
saying.
And um, it just sounds so muchto get into, but okay, just to
stay focused.
Let's talk about the policeforce for a second.
So, when did you realize howmuch chronic stress your body
was carrying while you wereliving in that environment?
Like you joined the SWAT team,and that sounds like very
stressful.
SPEAKER_03 (13:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (13:42):
Yeah, I was probably six, seven years, maybe eight
years on the police departmenttime and had done four or five
years of service on the SWATteam, and I started to look
around and I saw I saw changesin people, and and this I saw
changes in me.
You know, you go from perhaps atime of your life where you're
in the best shape of your life,physically, emotionally,
(14:02):
spiritually, intellectually, andthen all of a sudden there's a
shift where you're not sleepingas well, you're putting on
weight, you start to see labmarkers change.
I watch people around me gain abunch of weight, have the big
red hypertensive or high bloodpressure faces, and and and
start talking about theirmedical conditions, and and then
(14:24):
you then you start to see peoplethat are older, you know, senior
police officers, that you startto see them die.
And so that's when I realizedthere's something, something is
is is really wrong with this.
And and I saw one statistic thatconfirmed everything I just
shared with you, and it was whenI was put in charge of
developing a wellness programI'd been on probably 13, 14
(14:48):
years, was transferred to thepolice academy, and uh and I
researched, you know, when dopolice officers die or how long
do they live.
And I one statistic that at thattime was I think uh the 1970s
study, and I believe, you know,it's in that time frame, but it
was an FBI study that confirmedthat the average life expectancy
for the 20 years of service malepolice officer in America was 66
(15:13):
years of age.
When I saw that, my heart sankbecause here I was supposed to
develop a bonus program, and Isaw that, and then I ran
statistics from my home state ofOklahoma and my home county of
Tulsa, and I found out that itwas the same thing, Carrie,
except one year less.
And I and then I realized thisthis whole stress thing is a big
(15:34):
deal, and it's it's not a covertkiller, it's a very overt killer
now, and we're not dealing withit right, and we're not able to
bounce back.
We don't have resiliency becauselife's gonna hit you, man.
It's gonna knock you down.
And and do you have theresiliency to withstand that and
get back up again?
And I realized we didn't.
So that was the genesis, if youwill, of getting into the idea
(15:55):
of more natural healing throughnaturopathic studies.
SPEAKER_01 (15:59):
Wow, thank you for sharing that.
Those those statistics is veryalarming and scary.
It makes me wonder what thestatistics is for people that
serve in the military.
And I'm too afraid to Google itbecause of what's going on in
the world right now.
But my prayers are with them.
You're making a sacrifice ofyourself to serve because you're
going into a really high-riskenvironment at all times.
(16:22):
But you mentioning these, youknow, hypertension, high blood
pressure, like all of thesethings are definitely a
correlation to the environmentthat you all are in.
And when I guess was pushingthrough exhaustion just normal
for you all?
Is that was it expected?
You know, I feel like there'sthese hidden, expected things
that every job requires you todo that may not be on paper, you
(16:45):
know, but you start working thejob and you know that if you
don't push through, you may belet go, or you may get
downgraded to, I don't know,running to get the donut duty.
Like, was it an expectedresponsibility to push through
exhaustion, or did you all haveany type of mental health
resources available?
SPEAKER_02 (17:06):
Well, I think that I'll answer the second question
first.
The first question is second.
The first question is I thinkall police departments or uh
military first responders allhave resources available, but
did we take advantage of them?
No, because we're not you're nottaught to go there, man.
I mean, I've learned to cry, andI've learned that that's okay.
(17:27):
You know, but as a little boy, Iwas told don't you do it, don't
you cry because that's weakness.
But a lot of people don't getthis.
And I think if if nothing elsecomes out of this time today, I
hope this does for all citizensout there that have to deal with
police officers or firstresponders, because that's
everybody, you know.
(17:47):
There's there's a bigmisunderstanding here a lot of
times.
And again, I'm not sayingthere's not bad apples in every
situation.
There certainly is, you know, weall can do bad things or wrong
things.
But when police officers aretrained, they're trained that
every single encounter could beyour last, that you could die.
(18:09):
Every single traffic stop, youdon't know if it's little
grandfather, you don't know ifit's an escaped convict.
Every single call you go to,every door you knock on, you
don't know if a person's got agun behind the door is going to
fire a shot through the door.
You have no idea.
You know, and you live likethat.
It took me probably six or sevenyears post-retirement to be able
(18:33):
to sit in a restaurant with myback to the door.
Think about that.
And you live that hyper-vigilantstate, and it's a necessity
because if you make a mistake,you could die, or somebody else
could die.
Every single day, every singlecall you go on, you might not
(18:53):
come home, and you're out therefor hours and hours at night.
I mean, who is it that stops acar at two o'clock in the
morning with nobody around?
And all you got was yourflashlight, your headlight, and
your gun.
SPEAKER_01 (19:07):
Not me, not hard.
SPEAKER_02 (19:09):
And I don't think people understand that.
And I think we need to probablyhave more dialogue, maybe learn
to tell people thank you,because even if you don't like
the police, you know, and I getall that, and understand it from
a unique perspective on bothsides.
But maybe maybe it's likeinstead of looking at them with
scorn, maybe it's buying themthe coffee, you know, it's like
(19:31):
buying them a meal, you know,and just try to understand
better.
But that's how that is, andthat's how you're trained, and
it's by design, because if youdon't do that, persons you're
protecting and serving could dieas well.
You know, so you have to live ina hyper-vigilant state where it
is a catastrophe towards yourown health, and it really is a
(19:54):
sacrifice that you you doexhibit towards a service to
mankind like that.
SPEAKER_01 (20:00):
100%.
Wow.
I am so happy we're doing thisepisode, and the transparency is
so needed and so respected, andit is hard, you know, in certain
communities for us to trust thepolice officers and to
understand.
It's like I think the problem isthat there's so much history on
both sides, right?
We have neighborhoods andcommunities that absolutely love
(20:21):
the officers, but the officershave made themselves not uh us
against them.
They made us like us against us.
Let's figure out a way weprotect the community together.
Yes, you know, and then wethere's been situations with us
against them, and that has madeit very difficult for that
transparency or the respect thatthe police officers do deserve,
(20:43):
because it's no way I would everapproach a car at two in the
morning being alone.
It's no way I would I have Ihave all the courage in the
world and all the confidence inthe world, but I also have
logical sense in the world thatthat's just not me.
So I'll give it to you for doingthat and so much respect to
every officer.
You know, it also is interestingbecause because you all are, and
(21:04):
I'm not because police officersoperate on such a high amount of
stress and exhaustion andunknown, going into that field
makes it that if you have all ofthose circumstances and don't
know if it's a gun on the otherside of the door, I can see why
unfortunate things do happensometimes.
(21:26):
Not that I agree with them, butI can I can understand it a bit
more.
But um let's move on tosomething powerful that you said
in your story that you realizethat people weren't getting
better, they were justfunctioning as you decided to
navigate from the police force.
(21:46):
You mentioned retirement.
So how many years did youactually end up doing before you
retired and transitioned tobecoming a doctor?
SPEAKER_02 (21:54):
Twenty four years.
SPEAKER_01 (21:56):
Twenty four.
Oh my god.
I bet you're you Operated reallywell in that stress capacity for
24 years.
And then you got in like youmentioned, you moved on to what
you felt was an environmentthat's gonna be completely
different, and then youencountered so many different
lives of people that wereactually operating in this same
(22:19):
stressful environment, but theythey were able to operate in
chaos and find it to be a normalthing.
But then you were able to pointout that there's not it should
not be normalcy and chaos.
Let's figure out a transitionthat so take me on the
transition of you went back toschool, sir, like after 24
years.
SPEAKER_02 (22:40):
Yeah, it's like when I was put in charge of that
wellness program, Carrie.
Um I wanted to find out why, youknow, police officers were dying
so young, in my opinion.
And uh kind of like the movieForrest Gump, where Forrest Gump
kept on running, you know, Ijust kept on studying.
I I never stopped.
For me, it wasn't really an uhunusual transition.
(23:04):
I kind of went from service andprotecting to service and
protecting, just a differentmode, I suppose, or different
delivery on the other side ofthe of the desk, so to speak.
And as as time went on in thatstudying and learning
perspective, you know, goingback to learn more things
through academics to achievecertifications, degrees, et
(23:27):
cetera, you know, I learned thateverybody was going through
that, that that was society,that the pace, the social media,
the um um lack of conversations,and I saw all that technology
come, which is a blessing, but Isaw people moving away more
towards um poor lifestyle habitsand things like that.
That were exactly what I saw onthe police department at that
(23:50):
time.
And quality of life, I noticedthat was going down.
And you look at the state ofeven our own nation right now,
it's in the most unhealthy stateit's ever been in the history of
mankind's existence.
And communities and familiesright now are suffering
needlessly.
And I saw that happening and Iwanted to do something about it.
And so, you know, conventionallabs weren't cutting it.
(24:13):
I realized you'd have to gothrough that all day and tell
people they were normal.
But you realize that normalbecame and it's become much like
the participation trophyconcept.
You know, we're acceptingaverage as normal, and that's as
good as we can do.
And because of that, you know,no one goes higher than the
(24:36):
leader.
The leader sets the bar, and theleadership has been lowered, and
we've accepted average.
We've become we've becomedependent upon medicine,
dependent upon the government,dependent upon this pastor, that
pastor to pray for us, help us,and yet we've become helpless.
And in reality, we need to get ahold of this because unless we
(25:00):
decide as the person staring usback in the mirror to make those
changes, and that's what I do,and that's what my wife and I
do, we'll bring it home becauseit's like that's where the
change is gonna occur, man.
If you can't learn to love andcare for self, how are you gonna
learn and love to care for otherpeople?
I mean, that's beyond questionright there.
SPEAKER_01 (25:21):
Yeah, and I think we are also becoming desensitized
to everything because chaos isexisting so much around us and
in the world and our leadershipand all of that over and over,
it's becoming a lot less likescary to look at a dead body in
a street or to see something onsocial media that brings raises
(25:44):
an alarm, or just like, oh,another, another war, another
dead person, another schoolshooting.
And I'm not trying todesensitize or bring less
seriousness to these thingsbecause they are serious, but it
is becoming that I am afraidsometimes for my son in the
future he's going to have ofwhat he considers normal because
(26:09):
of that, you know?
And so I think you raise so manygood flags.
And I want to transition intoyou being a doctor, and when you
realize that people weren'tactually getting better, they
were just functioning.
What made you start noticingthat pattern?
SPEAKER_02 (26:24):
I was noticing that that people would be all happy
about getting a call from somenon-doctor person that says your
labs are normal.
And and I would like, no,they're not.
And I started asking, you know,from the lab standpoint, when I
say asking questions, I juststarted, we started changing the
information we're trying toderive from the blood.
(26:45):
You know, we're asking differentquestions.
People for years thought thatcholesterol was bad.
It turns out that's not true.
We have to have it for thebrain, for some membrane repair
and for hormone information.
So why are we lowering it?
You know, why are we lowering itbecause it's high?
And who set those numbers?
And so I began to questioneverything about that.
And uh because people were notgetting well.
(27:07):
They were staying sick and theythought they were well.
And that was the paradox therethat just frankly blew my mind.
And you mentioneddesensitization.
I think you're right on pointwith that, because that spans
all aspects of life.
And the more we getindoctrinated, um uh embedded,
(27:31):
run, and maybe even uh deceivedwith believing that this is the
way it's supposed to be.
The more generations that go by,the worse we get away from where
we're supposed to be.
So it really is a fascinatingthing.
But that was my moment in time,and and along with the same time
that I'm seeing this, my wifegot fired from mainstream
(27:53):
medicine.
She's an osteopathic doctor or aDO because too many people were
getting too well because she wasteaching them how to eat well.
And they weren't coming back forreturn visits, and you know, she
wasn't making the system anymoney on needless procedures.
So, you know, our worldscollided, hence the birth of the
functional medical medicalinstitute, which was a
(28:14):
different, a different way, youknow, it was a different idea.
It was just we were the originalbiohackers, the original
longevity doctors, I suppose,before that stuff was even
coined and the term was even,you know, probably trademarked
at this point, you know.
SPEAKER_03 (28:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:28):
We were doing that before, and uh, and it was it
was challenging because peoplewere we were looking at things
differently.
SPEAKER_01 (28:36):
Yeah, I love that.
Wow.
I love the perspective shifts inso many facets.
And even just imagining exactlywhat you're saying with what
happened with your wife.
I mean, it was a blessing and aloss on their end, you know.
The unfortunate thing is that itwas a blessing and it was great
for the people that got healed,but also that's it just shows
(28:57):
you how messed up like medicinecan be.
I'm not saying that medicine isbad, but I'm also saying like
there's obviously so many holesin our system, and that can be
an entire differentconversation.
SPEAKER_02 (29:13):
Indeed, that really is, isn't it?
Yeah, but but you're right.
It's just it's there's there'sholes and there's gaps, and I
think we all realize those.
But the benefit of that is thatnow we have the ability to
dialogue about it and learn fromit.
SPEAKER_01 (29:26):
Exactly.
And that you all are togetherand you've created something
amazing and powerful that peoplecan take advantage of and
actually witness more healing.
So I think that that's even morepowerful.
Something I'm hearing a lot inyour story already is that there
were many, many of us weretaught to um, how can I say
(29:47):
there was many of us that wastaught to like call things
strength, like you were strongbecause you were able to hold
this all together, or or you'redoing your normal because like,
yeah, you're living in chaos andthis, but you're still
surviving, you're still going towork, you're still eating.
But the reality is that they'rein survival mode and they're not
realizing this.
And I think a lot of listenersare gonna recognize this and
(30:10):
like understand like me existingand existing in this chaotic
circumstance is not healthy,it's not great.
So I want to talk about shiftingthat survival mode and going
into what we consider trueresilience.
And I feel like you've touchedon that a little bit, but you
could probably help myself andas well as some of the listeners
(30:31):
listening today on identifyingthe symptoms being signals that
they need to like take action onright now.
If someone's listening, whatwould you say?
Like, if you are experiencingthis, this isn't normal.
You know, like I'm not tellingyou to stop it, but I'm telling
you to slow down or or whatwould you say?
SPEAKER_02 (30:54):
There's one test that everybody can do right now,
and it costs you zero dollars todetermine if you're in what I
call and what Dr.
Hans Cellier coined, generaladaptation syndrome.
And that's just determined bytoo much cortisol for too long
or too much stress hormone fortoo long, your body's just got
(31:16):
adapted to it.
That's just who you are.
You're that you just do that.
You you run at that level, andand here's how you know
initially if you're in thegeneral adaptation syndrome, and
notice G, A, S.
If you're in the generaladaptation syndrome, you're
running out of gas.
Just kind of use that analacronym there.
(31:38):
Can you sit down and be quietfor 10 minutes, no cell phone,
no noise, no pets, no spouse,just be quiet in the middle of
the day.
Can you do that?
Or does the thought of thatstress you out?
And you know, if the verythought of doing that, and if
(32:01):
the very first thing that cameto your mind and heart was, I
would never have time to dothat.
You're there.
You're already there.
And that's one little way totell.
And what happens is when you yourealize that's you, or and and
this is not a negative, I wantthis moment to be super
empowering for people maybelistening, you know.
(32:21):
If that's you, don't lose heart,gain hope.
Because what's happening rightnow to you is your sleep is
being interfered with, you'reputting all a little extra
weight around the middle becauseof too much cortisol, your
brain's getting slow, you'rehaving trouble remembering,
you're running to therefrigerator for something sweet
(32:43):
to give you a little comfortright now.
Maybe caffeinated beverages allday long, maybe even coping with
alcohol or drugs or evenbehaviors that are like not
cool.
You know, that's not life, man.
That's that's survival, andthat's not being tough, man.
That's not overcoming, that'sallowing yourself to decay over
time.
(33:04):
The hope is this is that thatcan change.
So I talked about 10 minutes.
Here's how you can begin thechange with one minute.
So one tenth of that.
Here's a challenge for everyonelistening and do this today.
You know, just pick out sixtyseconds of time and and practice
it, get quiet, and look at yoursecond hand watch.
(33:25):
And just once that 60 secondsstarts, just look at it and
watch it go around and saynothing.
Just listen.
No words, no nothing, no noise.
And after that minute's past, ifyou get used to that, you're
gonna realize there's peace inthat silence.
And you're gonna hear yourselfagain, you're gonna know where
you are, you're gonna know whoyou are.
(33:45):
It it's magic how that happens,and you're probably gonna want
more of it.
So there's a way out, and thenobviously you you want to get
with you know, someone's family,clinicians, community that will
help um ease that motor backwhere it can become more normal
and you can find that balancethere, and you can create again
(34:08):
a lot of res resilience withyour life as opposed to the
decay that's happening at arapid manner.
SPEAKER_01 (34:15):
Wow.
Well, you all heard that first,okay?
Well, maybe not first.
He's probably said this before,but not on the resilience style
podcast, okay?
If you are feeling like you maybe existing in chaos, then do
the minute test today.
And if you feel like a friendmay be living in this chaos and
they don't know it themselves,just say, hey, I think this
(34:36):
episode would be great for you.
Just go send it off to them.
So not only do they take thetest, but they have a solution
that they can actually applyright after the test.
And like you said, maybe even ifyou can't do 10 minutes, maybe
you can do one minute and youstart with one minute and you
feel that piece, then you startwith two minutes and you build
on from there.
But as we start wrapping thisup, I do want to share like
(35:00):
something personal with Dr.
Sherwood.
As someone who has had torebuild physically after trauma
myself with getting hit by adrunk driver, still having some
PTSD from it, I've learned thatrecovery changes the way that
your body understands.
Like, well, you understand yourbody, your body understands
things.
And also how you react to stuff,like similar to how your story
(35:23):
said for the longest, you cannever sit with your back towards
the door.
That was something with me.
Like for the longest, I didn'twant to sit on a sidewalk or be
outside for too long thinkingthat a car could run up the
sidewalk and I could get hitagain and that I would relive
the accident.
From your perspective, what roledoes recovery play in the
(35:44):
resilience journey on processingthose thoughts and emotions and
learning how to not just survivewith the ideal that the accident
because sometimes I'm like,sometimes I do still have PTSD.
I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta becareful.
I hear a car crash or somethingthat gets me in, but I can
survive in it.
I've survived in it for so long,but that's not normal.
(36:08):
How do I make it not normal?
I know it takes time, but Iwanted to get your thoughts on
that.
SPEAKER_02 (36:13):
Everybody's recovering from something.
Always.
Everyone does have traumas,dramas, and they're different,
but they all matter.
And I think just I would saythis to you, I I do say this to
you, and I say it to anybodylistening, that the awareness
that you're on a road torecovery is a victory knowing
you're on a road to recovery.
(36:34):
And it's it's real simple likethat because what is recovery?
Recovery is being able to getback or recover, or reconnect,
or re-stand from where you gotknocked down or got, you know,
traumatic injuries and thingslike that, or traumatic
emotional scars.
It's getting back up, it'sgetting out of bed, it's getting
(36:55):
out of the ditch, it's gettingout of the house.
Right?
Every time you do that, it's avictory.
And instead of looking at it asa negative, I'm still
recovering, shift it around andgo, you know what?
This is another day I'verecovered.
And every day you stack a day ofrecovery on there, it's a
victory, man, because you didrecover.
(37:15):
You you reconnected, you restoodup again, you got back up.
And I think if you remember thatlife's like that, you know, and
you take it one day at a time,that's good.
But if you ever think you've gotit figured out, that's probably
not so good.
Because ultimately, I think thatto think we've got it figured
out is realizing we're reallygonna set ourselves up for
(37:38):
probably a fall because you noone's got it figured out.
I won't have the answers, Idon't think, until I permanently
change addresses, I suppose.
I don't know, you know?
SPEAKER_03 (37:49):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (37:50):
I'm gonna keep learning and trying to learn
about myself.
And and to your point, the morethat I learn and the more I know
I don't know.
So I'm probably still getting upevery day and recovering even
though I'm speaking here, youknow, and sometimes talking
through it, walking through witha friend, and even yourself, or
even then quiet.
Those are victories now.
Let's say, you know, youyourself, you're a victor.
(38:13):
You're not a victor, you're avictor because you got back up
again and you're doing apodcast, which is really cool.
SPEAKER_01 (38:18):
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
That's some really, really greatadvice.
For someone that's listeningright now who may feel
exhausted, overwhelmed, or stuckin survival mode.
What are three things that theycan do right now today to
support their nervous system?
SPEAKER_02 (38:36):
Number one, as I talked about, starting that one
minute of silence.
Do that.
Lost nothing.
Number two, I want you to createmaybe a one-paragraph
affirmation statement that talksabout who you are.
You know?
SPEAKER_00 (38:48):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (38:49):
Mine goes like this, and I don't mind saying it real
quickly.
It's it's fast.
Thank you, God, that you made meinto a great man, husband,
father, son, and um, andhusband.
You made me a great healer,influencer.
You've made me a great humbleman with uh excellence and honor
and discipline.
I'm in great health, and Ifollow your directions every
(39:10):
single day.
You know, something like thatcan be real simple.
Verbal affirmation that ispositive about who you are, what
you believe, what you what youwill become, what you are.
And that's number two.
And then number three, believeit or not, you know, and this is
going to be a two-prong, whatyou do with your body and what
you put in your body are veryimportant.
(39:31):
That your mouth, your eyes, yourears, your your heart, your mind
are all gates.
So keep the gates closed ofnonsense and put in things that
bring life.
So, you know, get outside everyday and eat a good meal every
day and start with that one dayat a time.
Just one meal, one day, onefoot, one tennis shoe, I
(39:52):
suppose, every day.
And that and that's that's agreat way to start.
SPEAKER_01 (39:56):
I feel like one of the biggest takeaways from the
conversation today has beenresiliency isn't about pushing
harder.
It's about recognizing likewhere your body is.
It's about learning how tolisten when your body asks you
to recover and that evenexisting in chaos and feeling
normal is not normal.
Dr.
Sherwood, before we close outtoday's session, I would love
(40:18):
for our listeners to get to knowyou more and to figure out if
you have services or if theywant to hire you as a doctor and
bring you on their healingjourney.
How do they get in contact withyou, you and your wife, like
what you all are offering?
Do you have a book?
Any of those wonderful things?
SPEAKER_02 (40:37):
Yeah, they can go to my personal website is
drmarksherwood.com,D-R-M-A-R-K-S-H-E-R-W-O-O-D.com.
My wife is the same, Dr.
Michelle Sherwood, and it'sMichelle with one L.
A good way to remember that oneis there's no hell in my
Michelle, so there's a good wayto remember that.
But we do have a lot of bookswe've written.
(41:00):
We've made eight or nine movies,inspirational things, just stuff
like that.
And uh, our newest book iscoming out this summer at some
point, summer 2026.
It's called Authentic Longevity.
And if people want to get thatone and get on board with that,
authentic longevity.com, therewill be a course that comes out
with that, a certified authenticlongevity educator course.
(41:21):
So we're excited about those twothings.
But we're just here to servepeople, Carrie.
And if people want to work withus, we can.
We've got clients all over theworld.
And uh, you know, if we can be ablessing, we will be.
But even if we don't work withyou, there's stuff on there for
free you can get.
So we're happy to serve.
SPEAKER_01 (41:37):
You're amazing.
You're amazing, Dr.
Sherva.
Thank you so much for being herewith us today and helping us
understand what real resiliencelooks like and longevity from
the inside out.
And like you've said over andover again, everybody listen, it
just starts with one day, oneday at a time, one foot at a
time.
Look, thank you all so much forjoining us here at the Resilient
(41:57):
Styles Podcast Unlock.
If today's conversation helpedyou out and helped you rethink
what resilience means in yourown life, help you realize like
maybe you're living in a chaoticenvironment and you need to step
outside of that to see what truepeace really feels like.
I want you to not only re-listento this episode, but share this
episode with someone who youthink might need it.
(42:19):
And don't forget to subscribe,follow, stay connected with us
as we continue sharing storiesthat remind us all that healing
is possible, growth is possible,and resilience inside is very
possible for every single one ofus.
Today's show notes are below, soplease follow up with Dr.
Sherwood.
There's some free resources, payresources, a book coming soon
(42:40):
this summer that will be on hiswebsite that you can find out
more details on how to continueyour longevity killing.
This is Carrie Bernance, andthis has been the Resilient
Scholars podcast unlocked.
Thank you.
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