Maximized Living Radio with Dr. Greg O'Neill 12.28.25

Generational Health!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, guys, welcome to another week Maximize Living Radio
with your host, doctor Greg O'Neill.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Today.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
I love this topic. It's something I've been really ruminating
and thinking about a lot. It's going to be talking
about generational health. I'm gonna be talking about the four
or five main generations that are alive right now in
the United States and how they look at their health
and how we can kind of encapsulate these generations, you know,
make some comparisons, make some generalities. Of course, just as

(00:29):
a huge disclaimer, you don't as an individual, you do
not fit into a box. I'm not trying to do that.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
We are all individuals. But but but.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
There are generalities, there are patterns that we tend to
see with different generations. So the first generation i'll talk
about is the youngest one. It's like the young kids
right now. So this would be like my kids' ages.
It's called Generation Alpha born too twenty ten to twenty
twenty five. And you know, people, it's very easy to

(01:07):
just look at things and just like, look at generations
before you, and how many times have we done this?
You know, we say, oh, back in my day, and
oh the kids now today are weak and everything like that.
I want to really clarify that because I want to
be positive. I just don't want to throw generations under
the bus, because I can tell you a lot of
things that the younger generations are doing now that are
much better than I did. Like, the stuff my kids

(01:29):
are learning in school is like at least a full
grade level, if not two grade levels ahead of what
I was learning. Like it's it's amazing the comprehension that
they have. But the thing is is, I don't believe
that kids today are weaker. I believe that they're completely
overwhelmed and bombarded with information because this is the first

(01:52):
generation to be fully raised on screens, ultra processed food,
and constant stimulation. What I mean by ultra processed food
is like the dies, the sugars. This stuff has been
around for a while. There was a big swing in
the in the mid to late nineties with these ultra

(02:12):
processed foods, but this generation particular, they're just being born
into it, and even from being babies with the formula
that they've been fed, the baby food that they've been
fed for the most part, the snacks, all the stuff
at school, it is junk, its garbage, and nothing drives
me more crazy as a parent than hearing my own

(02:33):
kids tell me and even other parents tell me, the
stuff that they're being fed at school. The lunches in
general are junk. Their garbage is just the cheapest of
the cheap stuff that schools put in there to save money.
It's not good, it's not quality. There's I look at
the menu for the schools like my kids, so like,
can we get a lunch like they want to, you know,

(02:54):
fit in or do something that's like every once in
a while we'll let them have a pizza day or whatever,
just so that.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
They're you know, they can enjoy that. Like I get that,
but it's a lot of garbage.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
And the thing that bothers me now that tends to
like I don't remember personally growing up and being like
fed all this stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Like I get it.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Parents are way more involved now. So for example, when
it's someone's birthday, like they bring in cupcakes for everybody,
or if it's some they're celebrating something, it's candy canes
for everybody, or Halloween candy for everybody, or it's Easter
candy for everybody. It just seems to me like there's
so much junk that's brought in. And I've been very
firm with my kids, like in a loving way, in

(03:34):
a nice way, also teaching them, but also firm. It's like,
you do not have to eat that stuff. Just because
someone else is doing it does not mean that you
have to do it. And the thing that kids need now,
I believe, is the empowerment to make their own choices,
to the ability to say no and to have discernment
and to have a filter. And we have to have

(03:55):
empathy for these kids nowadays. We can't just say oh,
er this or that. We can't throw them on the us.
It's our job as an older generation to help them,
to teach them and to lead them. Because these kids
are smart. They are smart, smart, smart, much smarter than I.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Was at that age.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Like the stuff that my kids know now, the stuff
that I see the kids talking about when I see
them at the office, other children, they are smart kids.
They are not dumb, They are exposed, they know a
lot of things. We can talk to them like they're
not babies. We don't have to baby talk to these kids.
We don't have to sugarcoat these kids. We can tell
them straight up what is right, what is wrong the

(04:32):
way that they can choose, and these kids get it.
Like even for me being in practice for thirteen years,
like I remember talking to kids who are in grade
school and stuff, and you know they're smart. Don't get
me wrong, I'm not trying to make all these distinctions,
but what I'm trying to say is the kids now,
they're smart. They get it, So you just have to

(04:52):
talk to them. And the biggest thing that parents can do,
and the biggest thing that I've been really trying to
do for myself, is just getting away from the screens.
We can just get this generation away from the screens,
into the books, into reading, into outside play, just the basics.
They're just gonna absolutely thrive because they're already so smart,

(05:13):
they're exposed to so much, they know so much. We
can just get them away from the iPads, away from
the screens. Because here's the thing I get it. Parents
are overwhelmed. They're overstimulated. They need a break, they need
a break. And I'll talk about millennials. Millennials are the
parents of the Generation Alpha are like the most overwhelmed
generation because compared to other generations, both parents are most

(05:38):
likely working and the jobs. And then also working from
home and post COVID and all this stuff. There's a
lot of balls up in the air, and so what
we have to do is just take a breath and
I'll talk about that soon and get these kids off
the screen, because it might help you as the parent
to stick them on the screen during dinner, because they're

(05:58):
going to behave to stick them on the screen while
you go to ford laundry or do something else. But
what you're doing is is you're you're just sending that
child down a rabbit hole towards things like ADHDS, anxiety,
sensory issues, autoimmune conditions, allergies, gut problems. So we need
to have more free play, more risk taking, more outdoor movement.

(06:24):
And when we don't have those things, it leads to
nervous system dysregulation. All of these diagnoses that you hear about,
like ADHD, anxiety and stuff, all it means is the
nervous system is overwhelmed, it's overstimulated, and it's trying to
find balance. And the way that we rebalance this with
kids and adults and grandparents and with everyone is getting outside,

(06:47):
getting out for a walk. Like for me personally, I
have to be better this for me personally.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
I got to get outside more.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
I have a job that's inside. I go home, I'm
inside a lot. Even when I play sports like iide,
it's also inside. I just went for a walk. Kind
of knowing I was going to talk about this. I'm like,
I gotta, I gotta, like, you know, do what I'm
saying here. So I went for a walk before doing
this radio show. And it it just you just feel
so much better just going for a walk, not being

(07:16):
on your phone, not being on the screens, just those
little things so that the nervous system isn't being overloaded.
And that's something as parents that I think we can
do better. I know that I can do better and
focus on is helping them develop their nervous system without
overstimulating them. Because when those when children are overstimulated, their body,

(07:39):
their hormones moves moves into survival mode, and that's stress
hormone that decreases human growth hormone. So kids aren't in
growth mode and learn mode. They're in survival mode and
they're stressed out. And that's going to show with behavior issues.
That's going to show with poor reading comprehension, speaking comprehension

(08:00):
in young children not hitting their milestones like crawling and walking.
All of their developmental milestones get held back when we
overstimulate them. So just some like practical things we can
do is focusing for kids consistent sleep schedules, getting them
to bed on time, not having screens before bedtime, daily movement,

(08:22):
outdoor play, less snacking, less snacking kids love snacks. Focusing
on getting them to eat their three main meals to
fill them up and give them great nutrition. And then
more focusing on nervous system based care instead of symptom chasing.
Instead of chasing around all the symptoms like the coughs
and the colds and the behavioral issue, it's really about

(08:46):
getting their nervous system nice and relaxed and calm and
in a good state. And that not only goes for
the young kids, it goes for adults and really every
single generation that I'm going to talk about today, So
stay tuned for the break. All right, guys, Welcome back
to the show, Doctor Greg O'Neal Maximize Living Radio, talking
about health through the generations, talking about all the different

(09:09):
generations that are going on in the United States right now.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
It might not get to all of.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Them, but I'll hit the main ones, the main population. Next,
I'm going to talk about probably the most maligned generation
by the older generations right now, also nicknamed the TikTok generation.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
It's Generation Z. So this this is.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
A generation born between nineteen ninety seven to twenty twelve,
so Generation Z. I would say this is like the
young adults and the reason why they're really like seemingly
loud because every generation was that way at that age
when you're in your teens, in your early twenties, in
those developmental years, that's when a generation really makes a

(09:53):
voice for themselves. And it's funny because when you get older,
you're like, oh, back of my day. It's like no, no, no,
back in your day when you were a boomer, look
at all the hippies and the anti war and the protests.
You know, look at millennials did the whole like, you know,
the me Too movement and all that kind of stuff.
There was big movements that generations push forward, and it's

(10:16):
typically when they're at that age, that coming of age
in their early twenties, when they want to make a
name for themselves, and there's there's a biological aspect to
that of wanting to like fit in and make your mark,
and that's where gen Z is right now, and so
they kind of I feel like they get a lot
of labels. They're labeled as soft or snowflake or all
these different things that I in many ways is not

(10:38):
really fair. And I'm going to talk about that because
I just really want to talk about really building people
up and not going into tribes. I feel like that's
what COVID was trying to do, or like the pandemic
and politics, it was trying to put people in a group.
And if you're not in my group, then you're bad,
Then you're wrong, then you're stupid, then you're all these

(10:59):
different names. And when you label someone, you can't love someone.
So we don't want to label people. We want to
look at people as human beings. Remember yourself when you
were a young child, when you were in grade school,
remember the social pressures and the anxieties. Well, kids have
that times ten times one hundred, because there's social media.
There's Facebook, there's snapchat, there's TikTok. It's just it's constant, constant,

(11:24):
constant stimulation. You know, when I was younger, I would
go home from school and I'd be.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Home, I'd be away from everyone.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
If I was being bullied at school, it wouldn't it
wouldn't come home to me like it does with kids today.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
It's constant.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
They're constantly up in each other's business, so to speak.
And so we can have empathy with these kids and
also helping them. And I'll say something really positive. The
positive part about gen Z is they know they're worse.
I tell you one thing, like these young kids because
I see them as young chiropractors because they're coming up,
they're coming through, they're in there, you know, their late twenties,

(12:01):
their early twenties, they're graduating through chiropractic school. I mean,
these kids are they know they're worth they know as
like associates and stuff. Like when I was coming out
of school, it was just like I just need a
job because this when I was coming through school, the
economy was tough. We were just coming out of the
Great Recession, and millennials had so much anxiety about just

(12:21):
getting a job because it was so hard. The job
market was not the same thing. And you know, you
would you would accept anything whatever a chiropractor offered.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
You would say, oh, absolutely, Well the.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Kids now they've changed chiropractic for the better in that
people are getting more benefits, people are getting better pay,
competitive pay rate, off the bat they're getting you know, PTOs,
they're getting, weekends off, they're getting And now you could
look at that two different ways.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
You could. You could be like, well.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
When I was your age, I work Saturdays, I worked
Friday afternoons. I got paid you know, peanuts, I got
this and that. Or I could look at and say, man,
good for them, you know, because I should have been
paid more in my first few years of chiropractic as
an associate because I brought a lot of value. And
if you bring a lot of value and you're doing
a good job, then you should be paid accordingly to that.

(13:13):
So that's one thing positive I'll say about gen Z
is that they know their work. Now here's some of
the negatives or the things that are happening, is that
due to their coming of age moments. So gen Z
kind of came of age during COVID, during those key
development years, so social media was dominating the landscape.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
You had COVID, you.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Had lockdowns, you had shutdowns, you had these kids out
of school wearing masks in those key developmental years. Where
now their learning gets disrupted. You know, there was athletes
like you heard of all these like D one athletes,
or people going in through the Olympics, or people going
into college and they were in their draft eligible years
or just in sports, and those were just absolutely wiped

(14:02):
out from COVID. Like a lot of these kids in
many ways, their dreams were shattered during the pandemic during
those key years. And I said this, like I remember
standing up for them because a lot of the older
generations and stuff, and even millennials are given these kids
a hard time. I'm like, Okay, you go back to
high school during those fun years like eleventh grade, twelfth grades,

(14:23):
I'd like the time of my life, all my friends
and hanging out, and imagine that was just stripped away
from you. And it was just taken from you your
twelfth grade year, your eleventh grade year going into college.
You know, all the fun that we had back then,
and imagine that was just taken away.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
How would you feel.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Would you be a little bitter, would you be upset?
Maybe you'd be depressed, maybe you'd be sad. Right, this
is where we can have empathy for other people other
than just stigmatizing them. And this has led to now
these these these where they were younger kids going in
through the pandemic. You know, five years later this leads
to anxiety, to depression, leap disorders, identity confusion, fatigue, constant comparison,

(15:05):
dopamine burnout. It's the dopamine burnout I'm going to focus on.
Because when you're on social media all the time, or
you're sweeping all the time on YouTube shorts or snapchat
or TikTok or whatever, that affects your brain and it's
powerfully addicting. And social media companies know this. There's been
many documentaries on this, many studies on this. It's kind

(15:27):
of well known now. But all of these pings and
notifications and subscribe now and like this and do this,
and the stimulation the videos do you notice have gotten
shorter and shorter and shorter, And people say, oh no,
because they're shortening people's attention spans. I don't know if
I'd necessarily believe that it's done on purpose to become

(15:47):
more addicting. The more loud, the more obnoxious, the more
out there that something is, and the shorter that it is,
the more people will pay attention to it and they'll
do it again. And again and again, and that's dopamine,
so their dopamine centers become burnt out. Now, dopamine is
supposed to be a hormone that makes you want to
do something again. It's your repeat and satisfaction hormone. So

(16:12):
the positive aspect of this would be like when you
write a like a list for the day or like
a grocery list, and you go through and you start
crossing those off. How good does it feel to cross
off that list? Right when you get something done? You
cut the grass, or you go gardening, or you go golfing,
or you're with the kids, or you do the pickup,
and you cross off that list. And by the end

(16:33):
of the day you cross off the last thing that
you get a big dopamine hitt in your brain. It
feels good, makes you want to wake up and you
want to do it again, and then it becomes a
positive thing. Or another positive would be like going to
the gym and getting that rush, starting to lose weight,
seeing the scale going down, it becomes addicting.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
Addicting.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
I'm using air quotes, but in a positive way. Unfortunately,
there's not a lot of that on your phone, so
people are on their phone in this generation, especially on
the phone, on the phone, on the phone, and it
wears out those dopamine centers, and that leads to chronic stress,
which then leads to poor sleep, poor posture, screen addiction,

(17:13):
which eventually leads to neurological exhaustion. People are just an
especially younger generations. They're burnt out because they're on the screen.
So what do we have to do. It's the same thing,
and this is the same for everyone. We have to reduce.
Start out with reducing because it's easy to say, oh,
just get rid of the screen. It's like, it's not

(17:34):
practical if people use them for work, people use them
to get in touch with one another, all this kind
of stuff. I get that, But we can reduce it
by an hour, or start out with half an hour,
or start out with ten minutes. I'm going to instead
of scrolling before bed, I'm gonna put my phone down.
I'm going to turn off an hour before bed. It
might be hard the first couple of times you do it,
but by doing that, you're gonna start gaining territory back

(17:58):
in your mind, and little by little you can start
to break that addiction and start to build a new
habit and replace it with something else like reading or exercising.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
And that's one of the big one.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
And I tell this pretty much to everyone, but especially
the young kids. Kids, you're young, you're in your twenties.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
Your body is meant to move. Now, your body's meant.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
To move at any age, but especially at the young age.
The hormones and all that stuff. You've got to get
your body moving, lifting weights, exercising, cardiovascar, whatever you gotta do,
you've got to do it and get your body moving
so that you can burn off that pent up energy.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
In a way, kids.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
Are kind of like dogs. Is that when you have
a dog who you don't take outside, you don't take
for a walk, especially if they're a working dog, what are.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
They gonna do.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
They're gonna have all that pent up energy. And where
does that energy go? Usually goes into destructive behavior. Well,
now the dog's gonna be scratching up the floor, they're
gonna be chewing the couch, They're gonna be pooping on
the floor. They're gonna be running around like crazy, chasing
the kids, being annoying, yipping in the app and barking. Well, humans,
we aren't that different when we have pent up energy.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
What do we do with it?

Speaker 1 (19:05):
Well, it gets spent somewhere else on things that are bad,
on vices that are bad or sinful. It can be
on you know, getting online and getting after people and
angry or these emotional outbursts or hormone swings. So one
of the best things, easiest things, most practical things is exercise.
Exercise is just so essential. It's one of the five

(19:26):
essentials that we talk about to just regulating your energy,
regulating your hormones, regulating your emotional output and input, and
then really just getting your mindset in the right place.
Like I said before coming on the radio show, I
know who's going to talk about this. I'm like, I
got to practice what I preach. I went for a
walk for about thirty five minutes. You'll tell you one thing.

(19:47):
It just clears your mind. You feel good, not ruminating
on different thoughts. You're focused on what you're doing moving forward,
and that's what exercise helps to do. So really, what
I'm trying to say about gen Z is gen Z
they don't need more labels. They need more stability, They
need more you know, taking time to set out their day,

(20:08):
putting out what we're gonna do how we're gonna do it.
Basically making what I call a schedule or a war plan.
I call it a war plan because it's like a
lot of times you're going to war with yourself, with
the flesh, with the spirit, and you got to just
youve got to be ready. You got to be ready
with a schedule and know what to do, because if
you don't have your day filled up and you don't

(20:28):
know what you're doing, then that's where the phone starts
to creep in, the screen time creeps in, you start scrolling,
and if you make those commitments to exercise, to do
these positive things, you actually.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
Have to do it.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
So for the young kids out there, making a schedule
and sticking to it, and that goes for everybody. So
stay tuned, all right, Welcome back to the show, Doctor
Greg O'Neal. Talking about generational health. Walking through each of
the generations and what's going on with each generation is
like a snapshot where they're at in the human development cycle,

(21:02):
and just reminding people that when you talk about the
younger generations, you were once there. You were once annoying
to your parents, to your grandparents, to the neighbors in
the street, like, we have to have empathy. We don't
want to label people. We want to empathize with one another.
We want to see where people are at, and we
want to build each other up. What I was saying
about the young kids today, my kids like my own

(21:24):
children and that age group.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
They're really smart. They get it.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
They're exposed to a lot. We need to guard them.
We need to help them to choose healthy activities and
avoiding screen time. With the coming of age adults with
gen Z, they need to be encouraged to have more
of a schedule to get off the screens to focus
on they're building their identity and what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
And we've all been there where.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
You're feeling kind of lost when you're at that coming
of age, and a lot was lost for them because
of COVID and the shutdown years really affected those key
developmental years and honestly a lot of fun. Like I remember,
I talked to a lot of kids at that time
that we're in college or just graduating.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
In high school.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
I felt bad for them, I really did. I was like, man,
that sucks. Like I remember eleventh grade, twelfth grade, going
in undergrad it was just so much fun. You had
the whole world. It's like the world was your oyster.
You were looking forward to things, you're moving away, or
you're being with friends. It's just such a fun time.
And that was just taken from them from the lockdowns.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
And the masking and the.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
Mandates and all that garbage that happened. You know, we
can empathize with these kids and understand why they might
be feeling a little stressed or anxious and things like that.
And then I'm going to talk about my own generation.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
And I'm a part of.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
The millennials born nineteen eighty one to nineteen ninety six,
and I'm kind of smackedab in the middle of that.
And this is the generation it's called the Sandwich generation.
And if you're an older generation this, you've been here too.
It's where you're raising kids, it's where you're having a
job or running a business. You're also caring for aging parents,

(23:05):
so you're kind of you're in that middle ground. And
I saw a comedian, really funny comedian recently. His name's
Nate Bargetsi, and he's like, I'm at that age where
I feel like I'm the most important person. He's like,
I'm at the age where if we're all in the car,
the family's all in the car, I'm the one driving.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
He goes.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
I'm at that age now, he goes, because you got
the kids in the back, and then you also have
your parents in the back or beside you, and everyone's
telling you how you should be driving. And I thought
that's so funny because as Millennials or even like Gen X,
they're kind of driving the car of society right now,
so to speak.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Is that we're the.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Ones sitting on the steering wheel, and it feels like
everyone else is yelling at us, telling us where to go. No,
don't do that, don't do this, don't do that. So
it can feel like a lot of pressure. And if
you're older than me, you kind of know what that
felt like, because you have the young kids and you're
running them to school and the events and the sports,

(24:01):
and then you also have obligations at your work and
with your spouse and maybe with your church and with
your groups and your and your hobbies, and you're trying
to balance everything, and it can feel like you're trying
to hold everything together. And that's personally for me, like
that's what I feel like sometimes I'm like trying to
hold everything together, but that comes at a cost.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
So some of the chronic issues.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
That millennials tend to deal with brain fog, gut problems,
or monal imbalance, autoimmune conditions, basically the body being exhausted.
So I talked about gen Z being like overwhelmed, overstimulated,
the youngest generation overwhelmed, overstimulated.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
This is now you get to the millennial.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
It's like, this is a generation in general that's exhausted.
And I talk to parents all the time, people my
age in their thirties and their forties, and people are tired,
people are spread sin So this is where the margin
in your life is the lowest. It's also I was
looking this up for this radio call. One of the
biggest misnomers I had with financial and I'm sure some

(25:10):
of the other financial guys on the radio could pay
this better than me, but I was looking up. One
of the misnomers I had was that you would spend
the most money in retirement. I don't know why I
had this. It's like, Okay, you're saving for retirement and
all of a sudden that you know, the tap turns off.
You don't have an income, and now you're going to
be spending a lot of money. Well, what I've learned
is that you actually spend in your life the least

(25:32):
amount of money in retirement because a lot of your
obligations go down. As far as saving. One of them
miss saving for retirement, you don't have to do that anymore.
Another one would be like paying for college and saving
for kids' health plans and things like that, health insurance,
because the kids are out of the house, there can
be still some expenses there. But what I learned is
the time in your life when you spend the most

(25:53):
amount of money is from the.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Age of about thirty five to fifty five.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is I'm like
looking because sometimes you look at your expenditures and everything
like that. The money, although it still comes in, man,
it's coming out right. It's like you have the one
hose coming in and then it's like there's three hoses
coming out because you're spending money, and whether it's saving
for college, saving for retirements, you know, spending like my
kids go to private school, or spending for sports, or

(26:20):
paying for braces, paying for all these different things, health
insurance for more children, going on trips.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
You're not just.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Paying for one or two people, you're paying for multiple more.
The money goes out really quick, and also the energy
goes out really quick. It's kind of the same thing,
the money and the energy. So when someone's in constant stress,
when they're constantly trying to care, Okay, who needs what?
This person needs this, My parents needs to be called,

(26:47):
my kids need this, my kid, you know all this
stuff's happening. Constant stress shuts down healing in your body. Okay,
so it just shuts it down. Now, millennials compare to
their parents, are more i would say, health conscious, and
that just could be a sign of the times. I
find that people are over supplementing and they're under sleeping.

(27:12):
I'm gonna repeat that people are over supplementing and they're
under sleeping. And I've been guilty of this myself. You
feel tired, you feel exhausted. People run, they do the
supplement joy. They're taking all these different creatine or cookie
ten or you know, ginkle bean or decaffeinated green bean
extract ash Wa Ganda. People are having the symptom of

(27:35):
being stressed out, burned out, exhausted, and they take the
supplement that's going to correct that. Meanwhile, you're treating that
supplement like a medication. So you might be doing better
and you're like, well, I don't take sleeping pills, yeah,
but you're taking melatonin okay, I don't take anti anxiety

(27:55):
medication yeah. Or you're taking ashal Ganda. I don't take
I don't know. I don't drink a lot of caffeine. Yeah,
but you're taking coke ten thinking that's going to bring
you over the top or crea team. Now those decisions.
Here's a public service announcement here. Those are all good
things to do. I'm not saying those are bad. I'm

(28:15):
not saying it's bad to take supplements. It's a much
better choice, obviously than taking medications.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
The problem is when.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
You're relying on the supplement. Because supplements are supplements, what
do they supplement.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
To your nutrition, your lifestyle?

Speaker 1 (28:32):
And for millennials, what do millennials need? Good nutrition, not
the food on the go, not the garbage, and good
food meals three meals a day, and sleep. Millennials need sleep.
They need to find that time, that margin to rest,
to have that time to just allow their body just
to to breathe. I know that's what I need it's like,

(28:57):
if you're my you know that, thirty to forty four
forty five, it's like you feel like you're just constantly
on the in heal. You're breathing in and you're not
letting it out. And people's shoulders are tight, their neck
is tight, their backs are tight. And this is where
chiropractic can really help people of any age. But what
I tend to see in my clinical experience, I want
you guys to pay really close attention to this. Where

(29:20):
people tend in their life to really blow up their
health for the bad is during those critical ages, those
child bearing ages, because life is so busy and you've
got so much going on, and the easiest thing to
do is to not take care of yourself. The easiest
thing to do is to put yourself last. And you

(29:40):
might have watched like me, and you saw your parents
do that or your grandparents do that, and you see
the consequences that happens to that person when they get
in their fifties, sixties and seventies. If you're anything like me,
you don't want that. You don't want to be twenty thirty,
forty fifty sixty, seventy eighty pounds overweight at fifty years old,
and you've got to fight tooth and nail. You don't

(30:02):
want to be on four five sixty seven eight different
prescriptions at fifty sixty seven years old. Those things didn't
just happen because that person all of a sudden overnight
got old, got older. It happened from twenty years of neglect.
Typically during those critical years when your life is so
busy and you're spread so f man, and the money's

(30:23):
going out faster than that it's coming in, and the
energy's going out faster than that's coming in, and the
kids need you, and the grandparents need you, and your
patients or your clients are or customers of everybody needs you.
But you have to have to have to have to
take care of yourself. You have to find that time.
You have to carve it out. Just like you would
set an appointment for a customer or a patient or

(30:46):
a client, you have to set that appointment to yourself
to rest, to take job downtime, to you know, go
on at date night, whatever it is. You have to
find that time. And one of the best of vice
that I heard in the last couple of years is
I heard someone say have fun on Wednesday. This is

(31:06):
the tip I'll give and I say this to parents
all the time. Plan something fun for Wednesday night. Maybe
if it's something as simple as a movie night with
your spouse or your kids. Maybe it's going out and
doing some kind of fun activity with your kids or
your spouse. But do something fun on a Wednesday, I heard,

(31:27):
because what it does is this helps to break up
your week so that you're not putting all the pressure
on Friday night or Saturday because and you become the
weekend warrior where the weekend's just completely filled up when
you're trying to have fun. Because millennials, it's like, it
seems like millennials.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Want to have it all.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
They want to have the job, they want to have
the success, but they also want to be with their
kids more than other generations, no offense, Mom and dad,
grandma and grandpa.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
They want to.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Also be with their kids a lot too and enjoy
that time. And that can easily spread you thin. So
one of the best things you can do plan something
fun on Wednesday. You'll find it. It'll brighten up your
week because it's just like a good mid week reset
and it just puts a smile on your face. I
try to do something. I have Wednesday afternoons off, you know,
and it's nice to pick the kids up from school

(32:13):
and we almost always do something fun together.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
So stay tuned.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
All right, guys, welcome back to the show, Doctor Greg O'Neil,
Maximize Living Radio, Save the best for last, my favorite.
I'm talking about generational health and I was going to
start with the boomers, and of course gen X, right,
isn't it just classic that Gen X gets forgotten?

Speaker 2 (32:36):
That's sorry, gen X.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
You guys are cool, tough generation late forties and fifties.
But I want to I want to focus on boomers here. Boomers,
baby Boomers, the largest generation the United States has ever seen.
Millennials just recently took over baby boomers because you know,
some of them are starting to die off the older ones.
Millennials took over Baby boomers as the largest generation in

(33:00):
the United States. But believe it's about seventy eight million.
At one point, seventy eight million baby boomers. And this
was in the sixties and seventies when the population was
a lot lower than and so they made up a
huge part of the country. And in many ways, because
there's such a huge part of the country. Is they
really much of what's going on now, and people say

(33:21):
it's their fault or is there doing for the good
and for the bad? Because they were a hugely influential generation,
like just a massively influential generation. So baby Boomers came
of age during a time when America was really on the.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Rise, whether it was through the space.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Race and the moon landing, and then you saw all
the different things they've seen over the years. But baby
Boomers tend to look at the world like there was
progress happening because look at all the progress scientific and
technological that happened from nineteen fifty all the way till now.
It's like astounding how much change that they've seen. Now.
Baby Boomers, more than other generations, really put a lot

(34:02):
of emphasis on retirement. Retirement was seen as like the
end goal. It was like the main end goal. Now
again I'm being generalizing here, but this is just what
I see anecdotally and then also societally as well. I
was doing some research on this. Is like you look
at retirement savings and four one k's and simple iras

(34:24):
and focusing on retirement, and I see a lot of
baby Boomers some that I know personally, and then other
patients of mine, it's all about getting your retirement. I
can't wait to retire, retire, retire, and then I'm if
I heard this. I see a lot of baby boomers,
as you can imagine, they're probably my biggest population. Blog
people like, once I retire, once the kids get out

(34:46):
of the house. Baby boomers love to say that once this,
once that wants this. Their very future focused. Everything's off
in the future. And oh my goodness, do they love
to travel. Baby boomers love to travel. Travel. Once I retire,
I'm taking my money, my nest egg, I'm gone, boom,
I'm traveling. They love to travel, they love the move,

(35:07):
They love to be active. They want to be active
on the go. Grandparents, you know, more of the silent generation,
which was the baby boomer's parents, kind of my grandparents.
They were just kind of the sit you know, silent
generation kind of sums it up. They were the kind
of the sit there, the very physically present grandparents. Like
I remember my grandparents. I'd go over to this house,

(35:27):
they go over to their house.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
We would watch The Young and the Restless.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
I knew every character name The Young and the Restless
from Victor Newman who having a crush on Sharon. It's
just they would just sit watch TV, just relax, play games.
They were just happy and content just to sit still.
And I think baby boomers looked at their parents, because
every generation looks at their parents and says, well, I'm

(35:52):
not going to do that. I want to travel.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
So baby boomers travel and they're very active.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Look at pickleball, how much that is floated. You never
heard of that ten twelve years ago. Pick a ball
is huge. Golf, I mean, just wanting to be out
in the garden, moving, the constant, wanting to have activity.
So baby boomers are the one praise I'll give them
is they're great at getting outside, being active, wanting to exercise,

(36:18):
wanting to move, but then also being frustrated if their
body isn't keeping up to the aspirations that they have.
And this is again from putting all your eggs in
that retirement basket to putting everything future focused. Many baby
boomers listening to this didn't focus on their health in
their twenties, their thirties, their forties, or fifties at all.

(36:39):
I can't tell you the number of people that come
to see me at fifty five to sixty to sixty
five years old, having never been adjusted before, never, not once,
not one time, never really exercising before, never doing a
lot of physical activity on a regular basis when they
were younger. It's so common now seen the younger generations

(37:01):
like going to the gym, exercising, not just going for
a brisk walk, but like weightlifting. These people never did it,
never really getting into nutrition and healthy living until later on.
Why because when baby boomers were in that those critical
development periods and raising kids and stuff, what was at
the forefront of society the medical system, the medical world,

(37:24):
I would say, pretty much up to the pandemic, dominated
dominated the healthcare culture in the United States.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
It was like a monopoly.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
It was basically like their gangsters, the AMA, the big Pharma.
I mean, they pushed people out. They pushed chiropractical to
the side for many years, they pushed away osteopathy for
many years. Homeopathy. You never really heard of that stuff.
It was there, but you never heard of it because
Big Pharma dominated the airwaves, they dominated TV, they dominated everything.

(37:56):
And baby boomers went through a time where there was
all all these quote unquote miracle drugs being developed, Whether
they were the statin drugs or the blood pressure drugs,
or the antibiotics, the vaccines. All these things just exploded
into the forefront, and the marketing pushed baby boomers towards Hey,
all you need to do is take this pill.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
You're gonna be fine.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Your blood pressure's high, you're stressed out. Take this pill.
Take this blood pressure medication, Take this cholesterol medication, take
this headache medication, take this low back pain medication. And
baby boomers were absolutely hooked line and sinker on medications,
on medications, and not just like and I can say
this is my personal experience, and not just like some

(38:39):
of the younger people are like, oh, I'm on this
and I'm trying to get off it. No, it's like
they were like gleefully on medication. It's like a it's
like a scorecard of like, hey, here's all the prescriptions.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
I'm on.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
This was me early on in practice, back in like
twenty twelve ply twenty fourteen, and the world started to
change a little bit. Supplements become and the skepticism as
a medicine started to grow. But oh my goodness, my
older boomer patients at that time, it was just look
at all these pills I'm on. My doctor says I'm
doing great. The number of times that people say my
medical doctor said, whatever you're doing, you're doing great, and

(39:14):
I'm like, and I'm the one, I'm the chiropractor saying no,
you're not. You're not. If you're sitting there on nine
different prescriptions, you're twenty pounds overweight, you haven't worked out
in years, you've never been adjusted in your life. I'm
telling you right now, you're not doing great, okay, just
because And I'm going to be hard on the boomers

(39:34):
because they're the ones you drive me the most nuts.
And I'm saying this in a nice and a loving way.
And things have changed, Don't get me wrong, a lot
of people have turned away from the medical field. But
just because your blood work scores are normal, because you've
pumped a bunch of toxic chemicals in your body and
you've artificially lowered your blood pressure and you've artificially decreased

(39:58):
your cholesterol, or you're a one see and you're on
these diabetic medications, that does not make you healthy. It doesn't.
What makes you healthy is taking care of yourself, not
relying on doctors, not relying on shots, not relying on pills,
and yes, I'll even say not even relying on supplementation.
You want to focus on the core elements of health.

(40:22):
And this is where we talk a lot about the
five essentrals. So your five essentrals of health is your
nervous system, taking care of your nervous system. And you're
going to see in the next like chiropractic when it
first started was at least one hundred and fifty years
ahead of its time in eighteen ninety five, chiropractic is
still about end to twenty years ahead of culture. It's

(40:43):
still ahead of its time, but it's getting very close
to coming into the forefront. And you're going to see
this in the next few years. It's going to be
the talk is going to be all about nervous system regulation.
You're already starting. It's starting to creep up, and I'm
telling you it's going to be the golden era for chiropractic.
I'm predicting that right now. Good things are coming because

(41:04):
all the talk now in the mainstream is talking about
nervous system regulation, getting your nervous system calmed down, vegas nerve.
Everyone's like, have you heard of the Vegas nerve Before
doctor Greg, I'm like, oh my gosh, that's like walking
into McDonald's and saying, have you.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Heard of a hamburger?

Speaker 1 (41:18):
You heard of this new cheeseburger things.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
And McDonald's was like.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yes, We've been doing it for fifty some years. Chiropractice's
been handling and taking care of the nervous system. Sentence
has started in eighteen ninety five. When your nervous system
is disregulated, stressed out, and it's not functioning well, that's
going to lead to symptoms. Typical symptoms of nervous system
dysregulation for the younger generations, like I said, anxiety, depression,

(41:43):
feelings of being overwhelmed, exhausted, leaked deprivation, insomnia, and then
in the older cohorts things like high blood pressure, thyroid disorder,
bleak disorders, metabolic syndromes. Quarters all this regulation, I mean
it's all from It's from the nervous system. And that's

(42:03):
the number one essential. So essential number one is your
nervous system. Essential number two proper nutrition, eating the right
types of foods, number three, exercise, number four, minimizing toxins.
Number five is mindset, the way that you think about that,
and for boomers, I'm going to hit you guys hard
on the mindset. The mindset has to change from I'm

(42:24):
just going to go to the doctor, or I'm going
to go to the specialist, or I'm going to take
this pill to I need to figure out what's causing
this problem. That's the big one. You have to figure
out what's causing the issue that you're dealing with. Now
a lot of this is going on, maybe death bears
or closed ears, or or it's just not thinking through.

(42:46):
So I'm going to repeat it again. Bj Palmer, the
founder of Chiropractic, said, it takes about a second to
get a message around the world, but it takes twenty
years to get a message through a quarter inch of skull.
And so I'm going to repeat it again. You have
to get to the cause of the problem. If you're
dealing with neuropathy, diiatica, lower back pain, headaches, neck pain,

(43:07):
blood pressure issues, thyroid issues, acid reflux, obesity.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Chronic disease, diabetes, there is a cause.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
You must find the cause of that problem, remove that
cause through your lifestyle by taking care of yourself. And
the good news is, here's the powerful messages God put
a power in your body to heal. It's designed to
heal itself, so long as you take the steps to
take care of yourself, give the body what it needs,
remove what it doesn't need, and the answer is already

(43:36):
inside you.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Guys, have a blessed week. Signing off doctor Greg