Donnie Yance: Why Microdosing is More Effective Than Macrodosing

Episode Transcript
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Abel James (00:00):
Hey, folks. This is Abel James, and thanks so much for joining us on the show. Is microdosing
even more effective than macrodosing?
Well, heavy handed megadoses
of synthetic pharmaceuticals
attempt to dominate a single biochemical pathway.
Micro doses of synergistic
botanicals
can stimulate the body to normalize, balance, and heal itself.

(00:22):
Meanwhile, much of modern medicine has devolved into a game of simply manipulating numbers on blood tests rather than actually healing us. Because they're not so easily patented and monetized, many of the most effective, affordable, and simple substances and practices
in health and longevity are dismissed,
ignored, or at the very least taken for granted. For instance,

(00:44):
the simple act of prayer has been shown to not only improve our mental health, but also improve the literal physical health of our heart. But even knowing that, how many of us are actually doing it every day?
Deep breathing, gratitude, meditation, and prayer
steady the vagus nerve and allow our bodies to remain flexible and adaptable,

(01:05):
down regulating our nervous system from fight or flight into a relaxed parasympathetic
state. The truth is we don't need to wait for the next miracle pill or potion or procedure
to save us. We already know more than enough to put life saving practices into action
right now. And we're here with a perfect guest today. Donnie Yance is a clinical master herbalist and certified nutritionist

(01:29):
known internationally for his pioneering work in botanical and nutritional medicine,
particularly in the field of integrative cancer.
Also, an accomplished
jazz bassist and former monk, Donnie is affectionately known as the funk monk. Before we get to the interview with Donnie, please just take a quick moment to make sure that you're subscribed to the Abel James Show wherever you get your podcast.

(01:50):
And, also, we have some very exciting stuff coming up soon. We're going to be launching a new in person and online membership club called Club Wild with in person events here in Austin, Texas. Some retreats that were, in the planning stages right now. I'm working on my new book, and a lot of the ideas are already fleshed out. So I'm really looking forward to, doing more in person events. If you'd like to be a part of all the things that we're building, and I highly encourage you to do so, please sign up for my newsletter at abeljames.com,

(02:18):
abeljames.com,
and shoot me a note reply to my newsletter. I read everyone. You can also sign up for my Substack. That's at abel james.substack.com.
You can shoot me a DM there. Leave comments on the post. Lots more to announce soon, but I wanna get to this interview with Donnie. So thanks thanks to all of you who have followed us along for the ride and and been patient as we're building things behind the scenes. A lot more exciting stuff is coming soon. Can't wait. Alright. In this episode with Donnie, you're about to discover

(02:47):
how to train for greater adaptive capacity, hardiness, and resilience.
Why many of the secrets to a long life lie in humble living, how Donnie earned the nickname of the funk monk, how improvisation in music mirrors the intellectual and playful flexibility we need in health as well, and much, much more. Let's go meet Donnie the Funk Monk.

(07:51):
Welcome back, folks. Donnie Yance is a clinical master herbalist and certified nutritionist
and author of two definitive books
on botanical and herbal medicine, including Herbal Medicine Healing and Cancer and Adaptogens
in Medical Herbalism.
Also an accomplished jazz musician with a passion for Franciscan theology, Donnie is known by his bandmates as the funk monk. My kind of dude. Thanks so much for being here with us, Donnie.

(08:17):
Thank you so much for having me, Abel. My pleasure. So if I may, I'm actually gonna start with a quote from one of your books, which says,
aging is not an illness. It is a pilgrimage
filled with adventure.
Let's riff on that a little bit.

Donnie Yance (08:33):
Yeah. Yeah. That sounds great.
Well,
first of all, when we look at health, I like to to start with the paradox of what health means because you mentioned
being Franciscan. I'm I'm I'm a third order Franciscan.
I spent three years living in an eastern right Franciscan monastery. And so
being
raised Catholic and

(08:55):
looking at saints,
all my idols turned out to be martyrs. And so how can I be focused on, you know, living forever, you know, while people want to when the people I most admire were selfless and concerned for others and not themselves? And so
I like to think this as a challenge, but a beautiful challenge to live in the paradox of what health really means because

(09:18):
in the system of medicine I've developed and continue to develop called Madiri Care, which is a unitive model,
it starts with spirit, mind, body, not mind, body, spirit.
Because when we're looking at
aging and we're looking at thing terms like end of life, we're we're not
acknowledging

(09:38):
the mystery
of the continuation of life
because we don't completely understand it. So we're we're a little bit afraid of that. But if you can embrace that
and see that
although we don't fully understand that, but we can at least live in a way that reflects
that in our lives by bringing love and goodness to the world because that's really the message is how do we, to the best in our authentic way, bring as much love and goodness to the world, which is a selfless act, which is always

(10:11):
inclusive and always starts with the word we. And if you know the word wellness, what does the word wellness start with w e? What does the word illness start with I?
So there so if we we can't be too self focused is what I'm trying to say, but we can't
ignore self either.
So I kind of justify that paradox

(10:32):
of you should take care of yourself. You should embrace
all of the beauty around us that's been given to us to serve us and to help us live in as healthy of manner as possible,
but mostly for the gold
to be selfless and to give to others. Because if I tell my patients and I tell myself, actually,

(10:54):
if I fall apart, I'm no good to anyone.
So if I don't do any self care,
then my health will diminish and go down, and
I won't be able to continue
to do all of the things that I'm doing in the world with great energy
and great enthusiasm, great passion, and really have not
really felt any signs of, quote, unquote, aging,

(11:17):
per se. So I'm trying to live in that paradox myself. So
I take that on in a and share that with others, the people that I work with as well.

Abel James (11:29):
It does seem like while there's been
an incredible upswell in interest around longevity or anti aging, so to speak. Much of it is driven by kind of the
elite
in a desperate
attempt to preserve wealth against loss of life later and not quite believing or knowing what what happens after that. I'm curious your take. Yeah. That's absolutely accurate a 100%. And I'm saying, well, what is this about? Like like, you mean,

when you're really wealthy, that means you can afford to do certain things that are now believed to be associated with people living longer? Well,
perhaps. But is that really the end game just to focus on that? I don't believe so. And when we look at
at who what people around the world that are living the best and the longest,
the quote unquote blue zone areas, those aren't wealthy people. They're simple people living in villages, living off the land,

(12:24):
having wonderful relationships and connections with everything,
connections with their food, connection with their loved ones.
So
they are living simple lives to a degree
and living incredibly healthy lives,
very happy and joyful lives. I'd say the number one
contributor to why people are unhealthy and why

(12:47):
we probably are seeing people die prematurely
more than all the obvious reasons that would be things like depression,
isolation,
loneliness,
anger,
feeling incredibly pessimistic.
When you look, I mean, people that have are hopeful and optimistic
live a healthier and longer life in spite of smoking and being fat. You know? It's like so so we're not really getting to the crust of it. So I'd rather focus on those things

(13:16):
and and find out how people can find joy again in connection and
intimate connection.
Not connection, you know, where where we're a false sense of connection. We're we're we're spending time together. We're having meals together with people. So I always tell people,
when you talk to a patient, say, or a person about
diet for health, what does everyone start with? Well, I don't eat this. I don't eat that. I said, well, hold on. Stop. I don't wanna know what you don't eat. I wanna know what you eat.

(13:45):
So I'm always about that. Don't tell me what's wrong. Tell me what's how tell me give me solutions to how how we get things better. So I would say that all of these fancy and expensive ways that people are
making attempts, we don't have a lot of long term data on this stuff, and it's still
we're still unsure of what's right and what's wrong to do. So I'd rather focus on the things that are connecting us

(14:12):
to each other,
to nature, and to ultimately our creator at the same time. So so that's where I focus. I'm not opposed to anything. And, you know, I I feel like health is like putting a big puzzle together. There's lots of pieces. And as Ben Franklin says, I'll throw you another quote here, Abel.
Best quote in the world. A place for everything, everything in its place.

(14:36):
So when someone says, oh, Donnie, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? Place for everything, everything in its place. And that means even things that we think are unhealthy
because the concept of hormesis is very important too.
Hormesis
is that that too much and too little of the same thing have equal consequences, that everything has a place.
Even things that are toxic, we should be exposed to in small amounts of. Why? Because then we are able to strengthen ourselves by adapting to those things. So if we don't challenge ourself in any way, then we don't adapt. And you mentioned my book on adaptogens. Well, those are

(15:12):
certain plants
that improve the capacity
to adapt,
that improve
how energy transfers in the body, that help protect us from
adversary,
substances, whether it be stress or whether it be environmental
factors, whatever it might be, they're protective as well. So those are the key life requirements,

(15:35):
protection,
adaptation, and energy. And maybe adaptation is the most important,
you know, when when you look at at it really, really closely. So
these are all really important parts. And so I
work with six primary toolboxes. And so when you're looking at, well, how do how do we live in a more healthy way? How do we look at embracing this concept of maybe adding a few more years to our life? Because we wanna add both years to our life and life to our years. That's that's, you know, not just one and not the other. So some people are living a long time, but they're not living in a good state of health. So we have this condition called frailty sin syndrome.

(16:12):
So the six toolboxes are
herbal or botanical medicine, whatever you wanna call it, whatever suits you. That's kind of the soul of the medicine. And anybody I work with, I bathe them with multiple herbal formulas.
The second is food as medicine.
The third is nutritional
supplemental medicine

(16:33):
that would be things that we supplement our diet with. Some of those things are specific things like overt deficiencies
we see like vitamin d, zinc, magnesium,
selenium. You know, we would work better if we just normalize those. They're not acting
in a pharmacological
way where they just help our bodies work a lot better when they're optimized in our system.

(16:57):
The fourth toolbox is lifestyle.
Whatever we can do in our lifestyle,
forest bathing, for example, physical activity,
connecting with others, connecting with nature.
The fifth
is
modern medicine.
So modern medicine, whether it be pharmaceutical medicine or any other interventions,

(17:18):
that needs to fit into a holistic model and be unified with everything else.
And the sixth toolbox is spiritual care, which has two sides of the coin. One is nourishing the spiritual nature of a patient because everyone has that,
and
helping to train people that are practitioners

(17:39):
to
work through
their heart and spirit
as the primary driver. Because in ancient medical models, wisdom
is the guiding force, or phronesis,
which is a term a Greek term, which means practical wisdom.
And that that's really where the heart is driving, and the heart is connected to more that

(18:02):
cosmic sense of the divine.
And so it's the the pursuit of truth, you know, deep deep pursuit of truth. And if you look and study traditional medical models, traditional Chinese medicine,
Ayurvedic medicine,
eclectic medicine. Take traditional Chinese medicine. It it stems out of Taoism.

(18:23):
So there's a spiritual connection there to nature and to the divine.
And so that creates this concept around wisdom.
And wisdom is always the most important thing. So in the Madiri method,
knowledge
serves wisdom. So when you look at scientific knowledge, I'm reading this on the Internet. Sometimes there's accurate information.

(18:46):
Most of the time, it's inaccurate information.
But whatever it is, it needs to serve the wisdom. So Einstein says the intuitive mind is the sacred gift. The rational mind is the humble servant.
We now live in a world that's forgotten the gift and is honoring the servant instead. So that's a a good way to start to see

(19:09):
how a beautiful
synergistic model
can work. And so it's like a I'm trying to create a paradigm shift because you can't expect
natural medicine to just work by the sidelines
with conventional medicine because the model is broken. It's not to say the tools are all bad tools. They're not. They're just used inappropriately,

(19:31):
and then they're not used
in a way that's complimentary or unified with all of the other things. And so it's rare for me to see a patient that's not on
average of about eight or 10 medications,
average,
from various different doctors,
all prescribing without talking to the other doctor. No testing of pharmacokinetics.

(19:53):
No understanding of drug to drug interaction. There's this obsession of herb to drug interaction where 99%
of the time, there's a drug to drug interaction. And so and then overprescribing
many medications that might be good for a patient
are often given at dosages that are too high. Either the dosage

(20:13):
is causing
too many adverse effects
or it's just too high of a dosage to do what you wanted to do. It's overcompensating
for something.
So
I'm trying to create a paradigm shift. I'm trying to, like like,
by making a new model that makes that old model obsolete, because I can't see people get well the way I want to

(20:35):
working alongside.
And so I'm constantly every day interacting
with doctors trying to help them,
I would say, see the light, but just see
the possibility
of
maybe doing things a little bit differently.
And because I'm a big researcher,
everything I say, I provide

(20:57):
as much data as humanly possible.
You know, for example, I had a patient this week, great response to immunotherapy,
elderly women, but she almost died from it. So the treatment almost killed her, but her disease greatly responded.
Before she does another round, I'm trying to get the
oncologist
to lower the dosage.

(21:18):
The oncologist won't lower it. I wrote a whole paper
on PDL one inhibitors that lowering the dosage
shows no drop off in efficacy. Works just as well as the higher dosage and way better tolerated.
Sent it off to the oncologist.
Still, this this guy won't lower it. But many will, but he won't. So I'm just saying and and it's gonna work at that lower dosage, and she's not gonna have nearly adverse effects from it. So this is part of the world that, at least, that I live in.

Abel James (21:49):
Yeah. I would love for you to also just talk about the idea of microdosing and why in many ways it's superior to the heavy handed macrodosing
approach
of everything where you're targeting a single pathway and through domineering force of nature, you're trying to affect outcomes.
Recently, there's been a big hubbub around melatonin, which many people have been taking in doses of three, five, ten milligrams

(22:13):
at a time every night, we're finding that at least through some of the research, it's saying it's associated with heart problems later on. Like, and some of it that I've seen is pretty convincing.
At the same time, there's some research coming out saying that dosing at three hundred micrograms,
a tiny, tiny fraction of the three milligrams that most people are taking, is actually more effective for sleep and doesn't come with those same sort of risks that the more megadoses do. So maybe you could just talk about why microdosing is so important for the human body and how it stimulates it to actually heal and recover as opposed to just

(22:47):
adapt to giant doses of whatever.

Well, here's where let's start with the with the research. So you'll see, like you said,
the the research paper that came out that suggested that possibly
melatonin
prolonged usage of melatonin
might be associated with an increased risk of heart disease, particularly heart failure in high risk populations.

(23:10):
That was a very weak study, and it's called an association study. So in the pyramid of studies, when you look at research,
that's considered the weakest research.
When actually,
within the same week,
a meta analysis
study was published looking at
peer reviewed journals, massive amount of journals

(23:33):
demonstrating that melatonin was associated with reduced heart disease.
And so what you're gonna believe is a study that reviewed
twenty, thirty
scientific papers pulled together
an umbrella study, pulled all this research together, and found melatonin was beneficial for people with heart disease or a weak association study.

(23:55):
In that study, obviously, the weak association study gets publicity,
but the great really robust study gets no attention. This is the world we live in. They're trying to make people because melatonin is not a pharmaceutical drug. It's an over the counter supplement, but it is a hormone.
And so let's go back to the way I use it. I I

(24:15):
use very low dosages of melatonin
always. I don't use three hundred micrograms because I don't even know how to get that low of a dosage, but I do use
five hundred micrograms
up to one thousand micrograms, which would be one milligram. So most of the people I work with and I don't use it in every one. Five hundred to one milligram, basically. Five hundred to a thousand micrograms has been my traditional dosage of that. Why? That emulates what our natural production

(24:45):
should be.
So if we're low in melatonin,
and we know melatonin's,
connected to the pineal gland and is very important to the circadian clock to start with. But when it's
optimized, it does many other things in our body besides regulating
our sleep and daytime shift.
We're

(25:05):
mimicking
what we naturally should be producing.
When we start going up to two, three milligrams,
five, ten milligrams,
no longer is this something natural anymore. You wanna take it? You're taking it you're taking it at pharmacological
dosages.
Now even though it's not considered a drug, you're using it as a drug. You're not doing something that emulates nature in any way.

(25:30):
So I like to always start with how do we emulate nature
and how because because
the best medicine in the world, which I know you'll agree,
does only two to three things for us.
It helps us be more robust,
and it helps us be more efficient. There's nothing better you could do for the body. How do you make the body more robust? How do you make it more efficient?

(25:52):
And how do you work with the innate healing capacity,
the living life force within us in a supportive role,
not in a dictative role where you're telling trying to override what the body does. Because in the and I always say I'm starting with the root system of health. I said, I wanna first make your roots as strong as possible. Because in the final analysis,

(26:13):
that humble medicine, as I call it, because it's not doing anything,
you know, heroic in the moment, but it's strengthening you from the the hub of your being, like a root system of a tree.
It goes very much unnoticed.
But in the end, like for me, working with people for forty years,
seeing stage three and stage four cancer patients not just living

(26:36):
decades later, but living beautiful and healthy lives
because the the root system of their health is my focus.
Everything else I do, topical,
comes into play as well. And so I always say,
humble medicine is the in the long run, the best medicine.
We're all fascinated by heroic things, whether it be herbs or taking herbal isolates and

(27:01):
pharmaceuticals.
Oh my gosh. The tumor reduced 50%. This and that. We're all excited.
That doesn't necessarily
lead to the only two outcomes we're really looking at. How do we help people live longer? How do we help them live better?
And so we're very much oh, my blood pressure is very, very high. I go to the doctor. He gives me a drug. Now it's normal in two days. Well, that's not normal.

(27:22):
It took you decades for your blood pressure to get abnormal. Why is it abnormal?
And I like to see slow,
gentle change, not big change, unless it's an acute disease. You get a kidney infection, we need to get rid of that right away.
You have osteoarthritis,
why should that why should you be pain free in one day? That's not normal.
I I think we need a new philosophy and a new understanding

(27:47):
and
get back to the concept of
everything about life and health is about
relationship
and making good relationships.
Plants
know how to relate to us.
We talk the same language. We communicate at multiple levels at
all kinds of biological levels. Matter of fact, the the in the last few years,

(28:11):
to understand how plants
help us
is taking science and bringing it into theology because it's so
complex
and so profoundly beautiful.
It's almost beyond beyond kinda thing because now we're seeing what's called network medicine.
Network medicine is this understanding

(28:31):
of how plants affect hundreds and thousands of molecular pathways in the body,
cellular pathways, organ system pathways.
And when we ingest food or we ingest plants, the medicine isn't even in the plant. So this whole concept, oh, I'm taking my turmeric. I'm taking the best turmeric because the company

(28:51):
has found that the blood levels of curcumin are higher in there as well.
Not only does that not justify a good product,
but it's actually probably a bad product because you shouldn't really have curcumin in your blood. There are metabolites
of that form.
Up to 12 different metabolites
form from curcumin,

(29:12):
And they the plants bathe in our microbiome. They swim together. They talk, and they say, hey. Let's make some new compounds,
smaller compounds,
molecularly
smaller.
Because whenever you manipulate things against nature, you've gotta question, are you doing something good or something bad?
I remember when I first came into the field working with cancer,

(29:34):
fat was the the devil.
So all the breast cancer patients, don't eat any fat. Everything on the shelf in the stores was nonfat. Nonfat, nonfat. We hardly see anything called nonfat anymore.
So it's like, what happened? We thought we were doing something good to food.
You know? We eat grains. We take grains that, you know, like, my favorite food. So

(29:55):
you take out all of the nutrition out of the grain,
all the germ,
all of the bran. You bleach the flour. It's rancid. It's from GMO
grown grain,
And you blame the grain for the poor health. You know? You know? It's like you've got it all wrong. Oh, then by the way, I'm constipated now. So now I'm gonna take the brand that I took out of the grain and sell that as something for you to take.

(30:18):
It's like it's like when you start to think of it, it's like, oh my gosh. Where is the common sense and logic here? You know? It's like like heart disease was blamed on cholesterol in the sixties, so everybody was told to stop eating eggs.
There was no research.
There was no not one scientific paper that showed eggs cause heart disease. Right. Everybody was told not to eat eggs, you know, with no

(30:42):
research.
And as Sherlock Holmes says, another great quote for you, it's a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
And sensibly, one twists facts to suit theories rather than build theories upon fact finding.
Really, really important
quote.
Medicine makes that mistake
constantly.

Abel James (31:04):
Now one of the magical things about
plant medicine and and plants herbs adaptogens in particular is that research supports that they go into the body and selectively
can turn
things up or down to normalize it
as opposed to kinda going to these single pathways and just overloading it with some sort of stimulus or blocker or whatever. Maybe you can talk about that. Angiogenesis

(31:29):
ginseng is is kinda what I'm referencing from your book.

Yeah. So they call it the three n's.
So to even get the term adaptogens,
to get that kingly name,
you have to start with
validating it through extensive research
that
applies the three n's. It has to be nontoxic,
it has to be nonspecific,

(31:54):
and it has to be normalizing.
When you study a plant that
fits that criteria and it's been studied extensively,
not just a little bit, you take something like Panax ginseng or Eleutroococcus,
we're looking at
ancient historical
text,
hundreds to thousands of years on the plant as a medicine, as a tonic herb, then we're validating it through

(32:19):
not just in vitro studies, not just in vivo studies, but human clinical data, and often hundreds of of human clinical studies.
And then through those studies, you can ascertain,
yes, this is normalizing. Yes, it's nontoxic.
And, yes, it's nonspecific.
So when it meets those that criteria,

(32:39):
it's coined an adaptogen.
Now there's a couple of other little
components
that make something a primary adaptogen.
And one is it has to enhance anabolic processes in the body and particularly
and second, support
the HPA
access. So the hypothalamic

(32:59):
pituitary
adrenal access, which is like the the hub of the end it's called the neuroendocrine system, but it's the hub of the endocrine system.
And every other endocrine
gland is peripheral to that hub. So that hub provides all the information
and and dictates
how energy should transfer. Now everything's interleague communicating.

(33:21):
That's the other thing about life and about health and about how our bodies are. Everything is in flux.
There's nothing stagnant
at all.
So if we were machines,
which we're not, probably pharmaceuticals
would be the perfect thing for us, but we're not. Everything's in flux. So something that can understand

(33:41):
that because plant intelligence is probably,
by the latest research,
greater than human intelligence in many ways. Not in every way, but in many ways. Yes. Because if you and I were plants,
we can't go and forage for food or water.
And we can't run from adversary
environmental

(34:02):
toxins,
viruses, bacteria,
COVID nineteen.
So and and harsh environments,
wind,
drought.
So a plant has to figure this out. I mean, and it's so
it's so beautiful
how intelligent a plant is and how it keeps doing. So you bring up adaptogens.

(34:25):
One of
the truths
that we're learning about adaptogens,
but even about many plants in general,
is this concept of xenohormesis.
And so xenohormesis
is that these plants are living out in these harsh environments. You take rhodiola
and adaptogen. Well, what is that? That blooms in ice.

(34:48):
It flowers in ice. It's beautiful rose like flower that has, like, a scent that's similar to to rose, actually.
That blooms in ice. So what kind of compounds, the the solidricides
and the rosavin that were created in this plant, Why did the plant make all these specific what's called secondary
metabolites
as part of its makeup? Well, it did it to adapt.

(35:12):
The plant adapts. That's what it does. They're great at adapting.
And in adapting,
it's created these metabolites. And what we're learning is that when we ingest the plant, it's the metabolites that the plant created through the stress it took on that we're benefiting from.
And, again, it's it's just so beautiful, you know. And many of the plants that we call weeds

(35:35):
are also reflect that as well. You know? So,
because weeds you know, some of the weeds and say, well, you know, I can't afford good food. It's well, you can go out and harvest some nettles, can't you?
It doesn't cost anything.
You know, you can eat beans and rice. Right? You know? It doesn't cost anything. And I say, well, look at the blue zones. They you know?

(35:57):
Okinawa, half their diet is a sweet potato. You know, 50% of their diet is a sweet potato.
So I said, they're not expensive to eat. So, you know, I I think that,
humble food, that's what's beautiful.
Humble food is is actually the best food. We keep thinking all these sophisticated
foods and but, you know, bread is probably the most

(36:18):
admired food
historically
for culture
and for religious purposes.
There's nothing more revered than bread. And so and bread is made by the simplest of foods,
grains,
and I tell people a poor person can make bread just as good as a rich person.

Abel James (36:38):
And I love that. And also something
that we might be missing is that no longer are we eating kind of the local wild yeast that would be from our environment, wherever we might live, that would help us adapt on our microbiome,
adapt to that region.
Same thing with those.
You look at the blue zones, and it's like this is the secret longevity food, but they're all eating something that's a little bit different. Right? 50% potatoes or pasta or or something else. But what they are eating is that humble food that's programming their body and their hollow biome

(37:11):
to tune into wherever they are. And that's one thing that
when we're chasing these wild,
crazy superfoods
all across
the world, kind of randomly without intention and purpose. It's kind of just a smattering, and that's not going to have the same effect as intentionally
eating something
that's going through your body. Maybe you can talk to that too. When you take an herb or when you're eating

(37:36):
the advantage to your nervous system and your heart specifically
of prayer
before you do it, as you do it, that that sort of thing.

I think that
it's very good,
not just from the standpoint
of
what
connecting you to the divine,
but think of that moment
and think of how we digest.
What's the first most important thing to digestion? The vagus nerve.

(38:05):
The vagus nerve's nickname is rest and digest.
That's what you call it. And it's also called the wandering nerve, so it's everywhere in the body.
So if I was to say the first and foremost
aspect of helping people
with their health is to activate their vagus nerve, that would I would say that's number one. And if I was to rewrite the book on adaptogens,

(38:27):
I'd stress that a lot more because I've evolved
in ten years to really see the vagus nerve and that the endocrine system and the central nervous system and the gut, which is the entera brain,
again, they're in constant conversation with each other.
And
although adaptogens are phenomenal
stress protectors and phenomenal

(38:49):
at
strengthening that neuroendocrine
system,
many people,
their nervous systems are so shot or so overamped
that I need to also give them what's called nervines.
So nervines are not adaptogens, but they're herbs that more nourish the nervous system.
And so some people a couple kinda crossover a little bit. One might be avena cetava, which is the milky seed of the oat.

(39:16):
That has these anabolic
steroidal
compounds in it, but it's historically known to strengthen the nervous system, not just calm it, but make it stronger.
So I use a lot of plants now to help people's nervous system.
Passion flower, I love
lemon balm and chamomile. So when you go to digestion,

(39:37):
what
does lemon balm and chamomile, probably the two two of the most famous
western herbs to help people with digestion,
also correlate
to the nervous system and helping calm people?
So, again, when you stop and you pray,
yes, it's great to pray and be thankful and have gratitude in your heart,

(39:58):
but you're also
now saying,
oh, shut everything else off, turn the vagus nerve on. So now
the energy that might be going outward goes inward because everything's a facilitation
of energy, and now the energy can go to your stomach. And the first thing your stomach does is heat up like a combustion,
and it needs energy to do that. It's like think of your stomach like a little fireplace.

(40:23):
If it doesn't have the energy and it doesn't warm up, you throw a bunch of food in there, even good food. It's just smolders.
And then people say, oh, I'm bloated, and I can't digest things. I said, well, your your stomach is is cold.
And it starts with first,
getting that vagus nerve. And, you know, there's other herbs, warming aromatic herbs that people traditionally have used,

(40:44):
ginger.
You know, these are cardamom is amazing too, as well. But, you know, think of first aspect of digestion
is thinking of your stomach as this little fireplace. It has to heat up a little bit, and it needs the energy to do that. It can't be
preoccupied.
So when when people have stomach problems, oh, I need to take enzymes. I this. I've been to this doctor. I have SIBO. I've that. No. I said, you're a nervous wreck. I said, you're never gonna digest food in the state of your being. So I said, I'm gonna make some rules. Besides we talk about what you eat,

(41:16):
and,
I'm gonna talk about how you eat, why you eat, and when you eat because that's more important maybe.
Do you slow down? Do you sit down?
Do you actually make meals? How long do you take to eat? Are you doing other things while you're eating? You know? Are you chewing well?
Are are you taking your time? Are you eating too fast?

(41:36):
These things are equally, if not more important, to what you eat. And then now I'm gonna add some herbal formulas that help your digestion. That could be some carminative herbs. That could be like a little, aperitif even. You know? Like, traditionally, you look at all over Europe, you know, there's these, you know, bitter aperitifs that people drink to help their digestion.

(41:57):
And then you have the herbs like chamomile and lemon balm and soothing herbs like marshmallow
that also act as demulsants.
And then I also bring in alkalizers,
things like,
potassium bicarbonate
and and sodium alginate to kinda create a little bit of a buffering effect,
not to diminish acid production,

(42:18):
but if the lining is inflamed and and irritated,
just to give a little bit what they call it a raft effect. And so that just creates a a buffer so that the the acid
is no longer inflaming the tissue.
And that's how people used to. Just taking baking soda can do that even after a meal because,
I'll tell you, you you know, I I think one of the worst class of drugs

(42:43):
that thirty eight million Americans take with not understanding the danger that they pose
is proton pump inhibitors.
They just pass them out like they're like nothing, and they're so damaging in so many ways to the body.
Not just digestive wise, not just the gut, not just the microbiome,
but they they increase risk of obesity,

(43:06):
of several forms of cancer,
heart disease,
osteoporosis.

Abel James (43:11):
I mean, the list goes on and on.
And so much of medicine has has really become

a game of just trying to manipulate blood tests, I think, as you you bring up in your work too. Yes. But also, you know, they are also they relieve symptoms very well. Sure. Yeah. Because once people are on them, they're like the hardest drugs to get off of. Because you're taking forty milligrams of, you know, Nexium,
Prilosec,
and you go, oh, I wanna get off this. You stop it. And two days later, the pain is unbearable.

(43:42):
So I have to give people specific herbs, certain formulas,
wean them very slowly
down to twenty, down to ten, down to five, or taking it every other day. Slowly but surely, I get people off of them. But it's not like, oh, just stop them and I'm fine.

Abel James (43:58):
What about the recent interest and kinda cavalier order from the Internet methods of the peptides in the space, like TB five hundred, BPC one five seven,
some of these other ones that that you're seeing? I'm curious what you've seen or or what your experience has been in in that space.

Yeah. I mean, peptides are formed in the body by the food we eat and and possibly by
some
amino acids that we might wanna take. So I don't really go beyond giving people precursors
and allow their bodies to form their own peptides than get so specific
with giving people things that I think, you know, often precursors are better

(44:39):
in many situations.
You know, you look at n acetylcysteine
as a precursor to glutathione
that does a much better job of building glutathione than glutathione itself does.
And, tryptophan does a much better job at building serotonin
than other
forms of tryptophan that are available that are much more expensive.

(45:00):
So I think that I just stay with mostly,
very specific
amino acids,
often.
Some that I love and supplement quite a bit, are citrulline
and or arginine, but I tend to use more citrulline.
There's one called HMB

(45:20):
that I really like. That's a a metabolite of leucine,
the branch chain amino acids,
maybe the most effective single anabolic,
compound,
but its benefits go way beyond that.
Creatine, which has a bad rap because it's people think of it as a taking massive dosages it for bodybuilders. And

(45:41):
at massive dosages, it's a little hard on the kidneys, but
actually in lower dosages with other amino acids, it's a phenomenal
nutrient to aiding in anabolic
processes in the body too. Particularly, the form I use is a chelated form where it has magnesium
and glycine chelated with the creatine.

(46:03):
And so those are examples
of great amino acids that
form peptides in the body, you know, that that,
have all kinds of, health benefits.
Without side effects for the most part. Yeah. I mean, we don't wanna we we wanna do as much as we can
to make the body more efficient, make it more robust, and try to stay as close to nature as possible. You know, try to stay as and so I don't I don't get too caught up in, like, isolated things like a reductionistic

(46:34):
concept. That's a very, I think, egotistical
way of seeing health. And and I use the word egotistical,
and I think western
mind,
as well. When you look at theology and you look at medicine,
the further you go West,
the more the ego enters the picture and the more reductionistic
everything is. When you go to the East, the more they're willing to embrace the mystery,

(46:57):
and they're more out to
see again that intuitive mind,
that
practical wisdom, that phronesis
is central,
and the rational mind, the intellect
is serving that. And so
I try to live by that philosophy, but, again, a place for everything, everything in its place. If someone

(47:19):
I will figure out if someone needs something small, that is a reductionistic
substance, whether it be an isolated,
compound from a plant or even a pharmaceutical
compound, because my only interest is what I think is in in the best interest of the patient.
However, I would never do that without doing everything else right,

(47:40):
making that person as healthy as possible
in the most holistic
way possible.

Abel James (47:46):
Maybe you could also talk about the idea of adaptive capacity or or hardiness, kind of that reserve that people have or don't have. Because once I I read your book and started looking around at people, I'm just like, okay. That guy has some extra gas in the tank. And you look at other people and it's like, no. They are just running on fumes.
Can you explain that and also how to build that capacity

as well? Well, we would start probably with an understanding
of the
core, which in every ancient medical system, we would refer to as the life force, you know, the life force.
And then in Chinese medicine,
you could see it broken down in a few different ways. And I use Chinese medicine because I've built some of the foundation of the Madiri care model based on on similar thinking.

(48:33):
Because I think it's the most poetic and the most beautiful system of medicine,
but I am not practicing it in its traditional
strict way. I'm adapting some of the concepts
and bringing it into the philosophy of a modern medical model. So so we'll start with the life force we could see in
a triphasic

(48:54):
way,
which one would be the essence,
one would be
the force,
and then one would be the spirit.
In Chinese medicine, it would be the shen. So the spear, we might connect that to the nervous system.
So we're looking at even when you're looking at
many of the biological

(49:14):
assessments of aging, one would be looking at the beta adrenergic receptor
and its overactivity
contributing to the aging process. So we might take that reductionistic
concept and bringing that into the Shen or the spirit of that person.
And then that would go to the vagus nerve,
and that would be measured through heart rate variability. So you can see how ancient models can be thought of in a modern way as well. So then you look at the essence. Well, that's the endocrine energy.

(49:45):
That's, like, not just the HPA energy, but everything. Thyroid hormone,
how your testosterone is,
how your estrogen is, not just production,
but the efficiency
of it. Because I think, you know, we all know the term insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome,
but every hormone gets resistant as we get older. Not just not just insulin,

(50:06):
all of these things. Why does prostate cancer and breast cancer increase as women and men get older? They're not making more estrogen and testosterone.
It's just becoming inefficient and resistance just like in diabetes. So so we have the essence. And the third is the force, and the force is a look at the
ability

(50:26):
for us to take
food
and air and efficiently make energy.
So that's that's that life force, cellular energy,
energy transfer.
Then we add to that the polarity
of the masculine and the feminine, the inward and the outward.
What it means to be healthy

(50:48):
in a masculine or yang way,
that relates to being strong.
What means to be healthy in a feminine way
or in a yin way
means to be flexible,
moist,
pliable.
So when you get older, you just can't be strong. You've got to still have that pliability and that moisture content. You know? Diseases like hardening of the arteries, you can be strong as an ox, but your arteries are stiff.

(51:18):
You know? Your heart's gonna your heart locks down. I'm strong. I'm strong. You know? I'm great. You know? Look at how good everything is. But your heart has to be supple. It has to go like this.
If it hardens and it locks, you get a heart attack. Oh, what happened to that guy? And that's why women live longer than men because that yin energy, that feminine energy is actually more important than being strong.

(51:40):
They're both important
and trying to balance these and enhance them as we get older. So we're trying to enhance our vital force,
our vital spirit, our vital essence. We're trying to enhance our masculine
yang energy
and our feminine
yin energy.
And that's kind of the building blocks. That's the starting point whatever I do. And what you throw in the middle of that is adaptogens.

(52:06):
So you start with adaptogens because they're gonna be helpful to all of that. Then you say, well, do I need more,
masculine tonics? Do I need things that help the life force a little bit more? Or is there something specific that the patient presents that there's some specific thing
we should be doing more to help the constitution of this patient.

(52:29):
Now as people get older, everything could use help. You know, you're 70, 80, 90 years old and you're trying to still be healthy,
you know, then
you wanna be enhancing all of these things at that point. But if you're younger,
you have deficiencies and you have excesses.
You know, some people are hot, some people are cold.
You know, when you talk about energy, it's a two way street too. Just because someone said it looks like they have great energy,

(52:55):
that means they have great outward energy. Doesn't mean their inward energy is great.
Because energy is a two way street. I always tell my patients when it's going out, it's not going in.
And it has to go in just as much as it goes out or you're in trouble.
So and, again, you can use the perfect example. You know, somebody like you know, my father died of a massive heart attack at 66, but he would tell you, nothing wrong with me. You know? But you can't push yourself too far

(53:21):
and think that because your own assessment of yourself is I feel good and I'm healthy, that that's the single criteria.
It's not. It's a getting a person's narrative of their health is essential to knowing what to do, but it's not the only criteria.
So we wanna use multiple lenses when we assess somebody
from every vantage point,

(53:42):
microscopes and telescopes
alike.

Abel James (53:46):
So the understanding or the story that we're sold of being low energy in Western culture, I guess in Eastern too from some of the times that I've been over there,
is that you need an energy drink or you need to load up on stimulants. So a lot of people are just running around on all sorts of
uppers. But if your energy reserves are already used up, you're just overstimulating

(54:07):
an already exhausted
system that's bound to fail. So maybe you could talk about what you've seen go wrong in that regard, or also how people who are, who can tell that if they take a step back
that they're in that mode, what they can do to reverse it and and actually restore and replenish that energy.

Yeah. It's it's living on fumes, and a lot of people do live on fumes. And stimulants are stimulants,
and they're
not good for you
in any way except for getting you through something very short term.
They're not really good things to use otherwise. And
unless you're using

(54:44):
them in concert with many other things and using traditional things as stimulants. In other words, if you wanna take adaptogens as your mainstay, even though adaptogens
make you stronger
and give you more energy, they don't stimulate you like a stimulant would do. But say you want that, why don't you just have a little cup of organic coffee

(55:06):
and sip on that? Because that is giving you hundreds of phytonutrients
that are really good for your health, associated with great, great health, Longevity.
I mean, there there's hardly anything that has the research that coffee has on it for longevity,
and it has a little bit of caffeine.
But the energy drinks have none of those benefits,
and they they have extremely high amounts of not a whole

(55:30):
food, but isolated
extracted caffeine thrown into them.
Often with sugar
and even ones that throw in nutrients, they're refined
synthetic nutrients, not even good for you. So they're horrible for you. So
I will say
take your adaptogens and then take a little espresso if you need it, when you need it, little piece of chocolate if you want that. That's fine. Those are good traditional foods to eat. But don't go to anything artificial

(55:58):
and particularly,
you know, the quote, unquote energy drinks because they're in the end, you know, always see your health through different
vantage points.
What does your health look like now? What are you doing? And what impact it's gonna have months and years? And then what are you doing that's having an impact decades from now? So an energy drink, you know, even at the best helps you for a couple of days or a couple of weeks.

(56:23):
In the end, it's gonna shorten your life and hurt your system
tremendously.
So you're doing way more harm. You know, look at everything, risk to benefit ratio.
What's the benefit? Is there another way I can do this, a healthier way?
That's how I would approach it, but I would not want anyone drinking
any commercial artificial
energy drinks

(56:44):
at all.

Abel James (56:46):
What about some of the herbs that have been used,
obviously, for religious purposes that are also useful from a health standpoint,
especially around the holidays or or the seasons?
I think of frankincense,
myrrh,
clove, and some of those others, which
can be taken externally
or internally to actually fight,

(57:06):
infection or strengthen the immune system, that sort of thing. Maybe you could talk about the nexus of those two worlds and and some other useful plants in that regard. Well, frankincense and myrrh definitely are revered in pretty much

all the major religions, I believe, but certainly
me being Franciscan
and
knowing a bit more about the Christian faith, certainly,
the baby Jesus has brought three gifts. Frankincense and myrrhs are two of them, so they're very revered.
All of the incense
in
monasteries
around the world are made from the Boswellia

(57:43):
sacra, which is the sacred frankincense, which comes from Somalia.
So there is something very deep and rooted
in the resin and essence of that plant.
And, oh, by the way, frankincense and myrrh are the oldest medicines in Chinese medicine.
They date back in the oldest textbooks,
and I use them in a formula of mine called Willow Relief. It's got frankincense and myrrh in it because they use a lot for inflammation

(58:09):
and pain to evade that. Now we see them as great herbs for longevity, hitting all these longevity genes. And so really, really interesting. And if you've ever seen
that they're both very arid plants and they grow in very harsh environments, very resinous
plants. And then I also make,
use a lot of essential oils. And so we have one essential oil blend that we make, which is called the oil of anointment,

(58:36):
which features that sacred frankincense
and myrrh, but has several other essential oils in it.
Things like rose, things like lavender,
things like nutmeg are in there.
And spikenard is another one, which is the Mary Magdalene anointed Jesus feet with spikenard.
So we call that the oil of anointment, and I use that as an anointing oil for the sick or for anyone that wants healing for animals

(59:01):
when you say prayers.
And then I also use it for when people are transitioning
into the next life.
Then we have one that I created during COVID called Renew, which also has the frankincense and myrrh in it, but it has different essential oils in it that were all essential oils known
to combat coronaviruses.

(59:23):
And so I would have patients diffuse it in the room, put a little bit you know, if they were traveling, put a little bit on their wrist, put a little bit around their neck. It smells heavenly.
And so we would use because just the the aroma
in the environment
has the capacity
to, eliminate,
the COVID nineteen.
That's kind of my love affair with, frankincense

(59:45):
and myrrh, which I, you know, I write monographs on every single plant that I work with. And so I have extensive monographs,
usually anywhere from 50 to 500 citations in all of my monographs. And so Frankincense has also got tremendous research on it for cancer,
and it's also featured in a formula of mine called Inflam Away, which,

(01:00:06):
the Philadelphia
Super Bowl Eagles all take, by the way. Really?
Yeah. See, I work with the Eagles, and they take a few of my supplements. Yeah. So Amazing.
That one features frankincense, but not myrrh, but frankincense,
a,
magnolia bark extract rich in chanichiol,
a feverfew extract rich in parthenoloid,

(01:00:27):
a andrographis
extract rich in andrographyloid,
and a Chinese skullcap, Scutellaria bacalensis
extract
that's assayed for bacolin
and wagolin content as well. So,
that's what's in that formula.
Incredible.

Abel James (01:00:44):
You know, one of the things that came to mind reading your book or or actually a couple of them is just how how much we know about certain plants,
certainly enough to know that they heal us. But in addition to that, how many other plants there are that are also known about thousands and thousands across the world from different cultures
and been used for many, many years. And then all of those that are yet to be discovered.

(01:01:07):
At the same time, you know, if if you ever go on the Internet, then you're bound to think that we're just, you know, the next magic
bullet away
from curing aging for good. You know, it's a completely different way of thinking about all of this. Maybe you could just offer a couple of words saying that, like, we, we know enough already

(01:01:28):
to do the healing. We don't have to wait for the next

Donnie Yance (01:01:31):
big thing, whatever that's supposed to be. Well, absolutely. Especially when we really gain that concept
of,
network pharmacology
because that's that's a really
new way of really seeing health.
And that also seeing that small, gentle changes
in people can have huge
beneficial effects in the long run. Now we're not all the same. We don't need to look all the same. You know, somebody that's, you know, morbidly obese doesn't need to end up being somebody that's super, super skinny. If they made, you know, a 20% improvement, that can be usually beneficial to their body. And so we have to work with what we have, and we have to not even blood work. When you look at someone's blood work, we're not all supposed to have the same blood

(01:02:16):
work. What your blood work might be perfect might be different than mine. There are some parameters,
but we all have a baseline that we work off of.
So we have to stop thinking
again of us as machines. And I would say going back and looking since the beginning of time,
every culture has embraced
the plant world for food and medicine. Every single culture. There's a one culture that that doesn't have some kind of history of using nature

(01:02:45):
for healing.
And I'd say also,
there's one substance
that every culture, no matter where you go in the world,
used as medicine. There's only one thing that every culture used, and that's
products from the bees.
So when you look at at honey, the healing properties of honey,
you look at the healing properties of propolis,

(01:03:07):
and propolis
for me is the number one healer in the whole world.
In my forty years of clinical practice, I've never seen anything
as miraculous as propolis.
I mean, it heals anything and everything. The biggest, you know, infections, staph resistant infections,
diabetic
ulcers.
I love

(01:03:27):
propolis. And,
and then also from the beehive is royal jelly, the queen bee food,
bee pollen,
bee wax
to make candles.
So there's you can go to the Alaska.
They have bees. You can go to the
Equator. They have bees. And so when you talked earlier about, you know, setting up a diet, I think one of the many

(01:03:53):
nine, ten
ways of how you make a good diet for yourself, one, is looking at geographical
location. Not just look understanding what foods maybe
grow around you, but know that there's different needs
based on that geographical location
that are provided by some of those foods to help you adapt to that environment.

(01:04:15):
How somebody on the Equator eats a little bit more starch and has a lot more of these tropical fruits and things that don't grow in the North is that the sun, if those foods protect us from the sun because they get a lot more sun exposure,
and having more starch in your diet helps you hold fluid in the body,
which then helps you adapt to the heat of the Equator as well. So you can drink all the water you want. If you don't have starch, you don't hold water. That's one of the purposes of starch is it helps your body hold and hydrate. If you get too much starch, then you retain fluid. So a lot of people will say,

(01:04:54):
oh, I stopped eating wheat,
and now my stomach feels really good. Well, I said, well, you know what that was? Is that your stomach had three pounds of fluid in it, and now it's gone. Because that's what that was. It wasn't fat. It was fluid because you're, you know, you're eating. And so
go on a balanced
diet, introduce
heirloom,

(01:05:15):
you know, grains,
eat it in balance with everything else, not excessively,
not deficiently,
and you're gonna be perfect then. You don't have to go to extremes. That's a you know, we're we're a society of extremes. You know? It's like it's not the way things should be.
Everything needs to be imbalanced. You know? The right amount of everything is what what works. And I I tell all my patients, I don't even want you to try to be perfect. That's not the goal.

(01:05:39):
But try to be 90% perfect.
I said, I'm gonna give you 10% room for your whatever it is that you wanna do,
and try to do that still as healthy as possible. But I don't want you to obsess over
trying to be perfect because you'll you'll fall down. You won't be able to.
Then you'll

(01:05:59):
fall too far down because you'll be hard on yourself for whatever reason it is. I said, no. You can strive to be 90%, and that's something you can live with for the rest of your life. You know, trying to eat on some crazy strict diet, you go over a friend's house, your mother cooks for you, your you know, somebody, you can't eat the food. It's, like, ridiculous. You know? I'm pesky vegetarian, so I don't eat meat, but I am eat a variety of foods, mostly vegetarian,

(01:06:25):
but inclusive of fish. And and I'm
a OVO. I eat eggs. I eat dairy products. I eat fish.
And and I eat a lot of
80%
vegan, but not a 100%.
So for me, that
starting point works best for most people.
And then you have to adapt your diet.
So we'll go through that quickly. Geographical location is one thing to think about.

(01:06:50):
The time of year is another thing. How you eat in the winter should be different in the summer and spring and fall. We introduce certain falls that adapt your energetic type.
Say
your inward feminine yin deficient, which a lot of people are,
very dry skin, frequent urination, low blood pressure,
gone through menopause,

(01:07:12):
then we want yin naturally salty foods, olives,
miso,
seaweed,
things that are naturally salty that nourish you, and their sweet potatoes are really good. So we set up our diet
for your constitution.
So now we have constitution.
Now we have time of year. We have geographical location.

(01:07:34):
Maybe you have something acute that needs attention. Maybe I have kidney stones. Maybe I have gallstones. Maybe I'm anemic. So now your diet has to feed into that.
Maybe I have
certain qualities based on nutrigenetics
or nutrigenomics,
two sides of the coin, basically. One would be that certain genotypes

(01:07:56):
do better on certain foods. The other is that food has a impact on our our GM. So food changes the behavior
both favorably
and negatively depending on what we eat. So now we can study
those foods. Say, I have a BRCA mutation. I'm prone to breast cancer.
We know eating certain foods are are protective against that. So we can even go molecularly and look at how how food can work for us.

(01:08:23):
Then we have, well, what emotionally do you love? You know, we what taste buds do you have?
What culture are you from? You know, I'm primarily Italian.
80% Italian, so I like Mediterranean
food. So that's my favorite taste buds. And so I'm not gonna, you know, deny myself something I love. So we can go on further down the list, but this just gives you a little bit of a thought about, wow, there's a lot that could go into how you adapt a diet to a person, and all of it's important and all of it's relative.

In the few minutes that we have left, I would love for you to also talk about the relationship between all of this and living in herbs and music. You know, just whatever
comes to mind because obviously that's a big part of your life too. I was jamming out to some of your tunes just before this, and and I was having a great time. As a musician myself, it's hard to explain to people how actually a lot of this other work stems from that, not the other way around.

Yeah. I,
music's been a part of my life
forever. And,
I mean, I do play a lot of music. I record. I play in several bands. So I do do music, but I had a turning point in my life, and I probably had three things that I had passion about. One is medicine
and healing and plants.
The other was music,

(01:09:40):
and the other was theology. And so I've, you know, many crossroads. I I I lived a religious life for three years, and
and then,
somehow I decided that medicine was what I was called to do first and foremost. But in a selfish way, I would probably have picked music because music is so important to me,
and I love music. I think it's

(01:10:03):
amazing
both to listen and to play music,
and it lends itself beautifully to medicine.
So the musical
mind
is very similar to it to the medicine mind because, again, you're combining your heart and your mind together.
You need to practice. You need to study. You need to practice technique.

(01:10:24):
You need to work on it
from your mind. But when you go to play your instrument or you go to compose,
you don't think anymore. It's all coming from the heart. And so medicine, I think, is the same way. And you're listening to yourself. You're listening to the other musicians
you're playing with,
and it's all happening like this. You know? It's got this beautiful

(01:10:46):
spontaneousness
to it. And and, again, music, if it's beautiful music, and I strive, even though I'm a jazz musician, I play the bass, you know, like you said, they call me funk monk because I, you know, I play a lot of funky music and I'm I'm you know, can be funky on the bass. So and I lived in a monastery, so they started calling me the funk muck. And I am professed as a Franciscan,

(01:11:07):
so,
that's how I got that name
anyway. And and I'm still I'm actually going in the studio later today, which I haven't been in a long time because I've been gigging so much because I'm working on my third album,
which is called The Pilgrim. So I have the first called Heaven Awaits.
The second is Cosmic Force,

(01:11:28):
and now I'm working on the third one called The Pilgrim, which is about halfway done. And so I play I play the bass. I'm a blaze bass player, and I compose on the bass and on and on piano as well.
But if you ever study with me, you'll see you'll see slides like,
Bach,
of, Stravinsky,
of Coltrane

(01:11:48):
and jazz. You know, so I'm I'm saying, you know, Coltrane's explore his exploration,
his creativity.
I feel very drawn to doing that medicine to just keep going and trying to figure out a better and better way to do medicine. And so
Coltrane my son's name is Coltrane. I named him after John Coltrane, the jazz musician.

That's amazing.
Quickly, what about in an age when we can really generate anything or anyone can generate anything? They can put out albums, right? They can come up with the idea without, without learning how to play the bass or starting music, that sort of thing. But why do you put out music
and what does it mean to you? And and also,
not to judge that in any way, but, like, what what do you think of that and and where it's all going?

You know,
I don't get too caught up. One thing I tell my patients and I live by, I said, you know, really
just focus on being the best version of yourself, being authentic to yourself,
praying
to guide you to figure out
what you could do to bring more loving goodness to the world.

(01:12:56):
And I could get into the fear and around, you know, AI and and technology. And, you know, if you push me against the wall, I would actually call it the antichrist
even though there's no way of getting around it at this point. If you wanna
function in the world as we know it, if you wanna go live in a monastery, you don't need it, and it's great. And there's a part of me that would love to do that, but I I don't feel right now that's my calling. And so I I have to figure out how to navigate that.

(01:13:25):
I'll give you an example. I didn't even have a smartphone until a couple years ago when my flip phone finally broke because I had my own motto that I live on my computer a lot.
So I wanted to when my computer shuts, I turn that whole technology world off, and I use my phone to talk to people. I even if people text, I would say, please call me. I wanna talk to you. I don't wanna text. So and my family doesn't talk anymore on the phone. They just text, and it's like, I'm just you can only control yourself, and you can only be the best example

(01:13:57):
as you can be.
And so I get out in nature. I do music. I talk to people. I cook. I I am a kind of
a
a esoteric kinda thinker. I'm like a little bit cosmic myself. You know? I'm I'm I'm always in a very deep space within me. So
I cook. I play basketball.

(01:14:19):
You know, I I need things that ground me. I like coffee. I can't do, like, like, any kind of mind altering things because I don't need to do that stuff. I need things that work, getting in nature, being on the ground. And so, you know, I try to just be, again, the best version of myself because you can't control those things, you know. And so we live in the world we live in, and we have to navigate them to the best of our ability.

(01:14:44):
But
I try to
continue
to
pray
and live in accordance with
how I'm guided through that prayer.

Beautiful, beautiful words.
Donnie, what's the best way for everyone to find you? Donnieyance.com

and and all of your books? Yes. So that's my website, and that's where I do weekly
blogs that go out. And so it's a great place because it's my one place that I I provide a lot of this information
through my blogs. And so that's just my name, d o n n I e. And my professional name is Donald, but I go by Donnie. My father's name, I'm a junior, so I always went by Donnie. But my, you know, my signature name is Donald.

(01:15:30):
But it's Donnie, d o n n I e I e y a n c e dot com.
The clinic and the foundation, we're a nonprofit
foundation. We have an academy in the Madiri Academy. We have an research wing, and we have a clinic here with practitioners.
That's just, madiricenter.org.
And then my product line is naturahealthproducts.com.

(01:15:54):
And so that's those are the three three of the best ways. The music, you can just put my name into Spotify or to
iTunes, and you'll find me musically as well.

Amazing. Donnie, thank you so much for your time today.

You're so welcome, Abel. Wonderful to be with you.

Hey. Abel here one more time. And if you believe in our mission to create a world where health is the norm, not sickness, here are a few things you can do to help keep this show coming your way. Click like, subscribe, and leave a quick review wherever you listen to or watch your podcasts.
You can also subscribe to my new Substack channel for an ad free version of this show in video and audio. That's at ablejames.substack.com.

(01:17:29):
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