Ep. 4 - How To Heal Yourself | Dr. Jeffrey Rediger

“Whatever is going on in your mind is being directly broadcast to your immune system.” says Dr. Jeffrey Rediger in his book CURED: The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing. The Harvard Medical School professor has spent over 15 years studying cases of people who were given medical “death sentences” yet found ways to heal themselves. In this episode, Dr. Rediger talks about the formula to prevent and heal illness by changing how we think, feel, and live.

Episode Transcript

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This is FCB Radio. We're RealClock Lives. Visit us online at FCB
radio dot com. We mission WeHold Back. Then I'm Andrea Echio.

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You're listening to the bounce Back thepodcast. If we can change one person's
life for the better by sharing ourstory, then it's a story worth telling.
Life is a mixed bag and there'sso much of the good stuff all
around us. But it's the failure, pain and setbacks that can make us
feel stuck. The teachable moments comefrom how we bounce back from our struggles.

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You're about to listen to an incrediblestory and lessons learned from the bounce
Back. Whatever is going on inyour mind is being directly broadcast to your
immune system. That's a quote fromdoctor Jeffrey Rhdeger and his book Cured the
Life Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing.Through years of research, doctor Ruddiger found

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that the cells in our immune systemare in direct communication with our nervous system.
Doctor Ruhdeger is on the faculty atHarvard Medical School. He's the medical
director for the McLean Southeast Adult PsychiatryPrograms and is the chief of Behavioral Medicine
at Good Samaritan Medical Center. DoctorRuhdeger is a board certified psychiatrist and also

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has a Master of Divinity degree fromPrinceton Theological Seminary. I spoke with doctor
Ruddegger earlier this year, before theCOVID nineteen pandemic. But much of what
we talk about in terms of stressand nutrition is especially applicable to how we're
living now. This is a conversationabout preventing illness by changing how we think,

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feel and live. We're going tostart at your beginning. Your background
is an Amish background, which isfascinating. Can you talk a little bit
about where you're from and your foundationin terms of faith, family, food,
now? Yeah, sure, Soborn into a family with an Amish
background, very rural. We movedout of the Amish area when I was

(02:23):
two years old. My parents leftthat world outwardly, but not so much
inwardly, I think, and sogrew up on a farm, which is
a great way to grow up insome ways. I think. We grew
our own wheat and my mom theystone ground the wheat for bread, for

(02:46):
muffins, for pancakes, all ofwhich I ate a lot of. And
it's good eating, cooking absolutely,lots of meat and potatoes, often met
did pretty much every meal, andlots of hard work and work with the
soil, which I think was great. Also, no TV, no radio,

(03:13):
very much a concern that those worldlyinfluences were a problem, and so
it was also a restrictive world insome ways. The world I was raised
in really believe that you regain orkeep your spirituality by leaving the larger culture.

(03:34):
And I think where I've moved overthe years is to believe that this
spiritual world really exists within culture,no matter what that culture is, and
that there's something sacred underneath everything that'sgoing on. It took me a long
time to arrive at that, butstorebox clothes were not a big part of

(03:55):
our life. My mom mostly madeour clothing. I was living in one
culture at home, in a verydifferent culture in public school during the day,
being exposed all kinds of things likescience, and how about like health
and nutrition. I mean, Iknow you're eating a lot of meat and
potatoes and probably like the homemade betterright, right, although everything was real,

(04:18):
right, nothing was processed, right, But what about like the treatment
of your body and how you viewedhealth and taking care of oneself. Yeah,
that's a great question of what wasgreat about our diet growing up was
there wasn't a lot of processed foods. We didn't have the cold cereals or

(04:39):
the chips or sodas of modern life, which I think, honestly was a
very good thing in retrospect, butdefinitely heavy on the meat and the starches
and that sort of thing. Yeah. So, at what point then in
your life did you become interested inmedicine and specifically kountry. Yeah. So

(05:02):
I had a job as an orderlywhen I was in high school, working
in the local medical hospital and reallyfell in love with that then. And
so I was taking people to themorgue, I was helping nurses clean patients,
roll people over, take people tosurgery. That was a great introduction

(05:26):
for me into the world of medicine. The nurses were very good to me,
taught me a lot. I hadspent a lot more time with the
nurses than the doctors at that level, and they said, you know,
you should become a doctor a year, you have a really nice bedside manner.
I didn't really consider that as anoption at the time, but it
stuck in my back of my mind. For a long time. So I
thought it was interesting in your bookCure that you said, I mean,

(05:49):
in medical school, they kept firingat you, all of you as students.
Don't ask questions. Don't ask questions. Don't ask questions, right,
learn the material material, don't askquestions. Your book is all about asking
questions, a lot of questions,right, deep questions. Are you just

(06:11):
curious by nature? Or were youalso someone who is like, you know,
what have you telling me not todo something? I'm going to go
that total opposite way, like,were you a little bit of a rebel?
I'm a little bit of a rebel. Questions drive me and that can
be challenging for a family that's tryingto adhere to a particular religious viewpoint and

(06:32):
that sort of thing. So Ithink I was a tough kid to raise.
Before we deep dive into spontaneous healing, what that is and a lot
of what you write about in thebook. I want to get your thoughts
on traditional medicine just so anybody who'slistening knows what your viewpoint is on that.
Sure well, I think traditional medicineis brilliant and life saving in so

(06:57):
many different ways. There are somany things that we can heal and solve
with acute injury and illness. Ifa person comes in with diabetic keto acidosis
with a blood sugar of nine hundred, they're not going to die. You
can usually save them. You'll movethem quickly to the intensive care unit,
and you'll do all of the lifesaving treatmentsiders brilliant. We can put in

(07:19):
cardiac stents, we can save peoplewho have had massive strokes, all kinds
of things. But we're not sogood with the major killers. Seventy five
of the healthcare dollar goes to thechronic diabetes, the heart disease, the
cancers, the autoimmune illness, thelung disease. These we now are learning

(07:42):
these are lifestyle illnesses, and that'sa very different way of thinking. So
I think of modern mediciness really beinglike a long line of ambulances at the
bottom of a tall cliff and peopleare falling off the cliff. These ambulances
whisk people away to the hospital doamazing life saving things, but we should
have guardrails at the top of thecliffs so people don't need to fall off.

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And the people like study with spontaneouspermission have found a way to climb
back up the ladder to the topin a way that's really miraculous and shocking,
and I think we should be studyingthem. Yes, so your studies
took you to Brazil. Yes,what did you find in Brazil? Let's

(08:24):
talk a little bit about what thatexperience was like and what prompted you to
go there, of all places inthe first place. Yeah, good questions.
So in two thousand and two,an oncology nurse at Mass General in
Boston called me and said that shehad been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, told
that she had a few months tolive. She then went to Brazil.

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She began calling me saying that shewas seeing some amazing healings and believe that
she was receiving a healing herself.She stayed much longer than planned. She
came back from Brazil was just adifferent lady, just so happy and loving,
and took her children down to Braziland really was on a very important
journey. Who I owe a greatdebt too because of what she started.

(09:07):
So I refused to go down toBrazil. I thought there's nothing real going
down there with them. It wasvery skeptical, and so she was stubborn.
She began having people call me fromaround the country and elsewhere, saying
they had medical evidence for their recoveries. Did I want to hear their stories?
I said, no, thank you. Questions, don't ask questions.

(09:31):
I mean, as a new facultymember at Harvard and medical director, and
I was skeptical about anything real goingon. But I also was concerned about
what my colleagues would think. Sure, because here you're at Harvard, right,
I mean, what an institution is, right, it's a great institution.
You had a rap to protect,right, And so you've got a
woman saying, come to Brazil,there are these miracles happening. And wait

(09:54):
a minute, right, Ye,no medical book, Nope, not interested.
But something made you interested? Yeah. So she continued to have people
call me, and they I didbegin to look at the evidence, and
you know, you can't dispute evidence. So it looked like something really was

(10:18):
going on, and I overcame mymisgivings and decided to go down to Brazil.
What was the evidence that made yougo, Okay, there's something more
to this than just somebody saying,oh my gosh, I was sick.
I know I'm not. Yeah,well it must be a miracle, right,
you need as a physician, right, as somebody who looked at numbers

(10:39):
and stats and research, you werelooking for more. Yeah. Yeah,
So I had three criteria for theresearch that I did. I told people
I wouldn't even talk to them abouttheir story unless they had medically indisputable evidence
for accurate diagnosis and clear evidence forrecovery. That was one criteria. The

(11:03):
second criteria was, it had tobe a genuinely incurable illness according to all
that we currently understand. So ithad to be pancreatic ada carcinoma, or
it had to be glioblastoma multiform orillnesses that we really don't in traditional medicine
have a path for recovery or healing. For so it was a personal journey

(11:24):
in a lot of ways too.It had to be something that was convincing
to me. And the third criteriafor the research for me was there had
to be no other possible explanation.Couldn't be an experimental medication that they tried
or anything like that. Okay,And so in looking into Brazil after Nikki

(11:45):
encourage you to check it out,right, you were seeing multiple cases of
stories that fit that criteria. Yeah, Now it's a complicated journey. It
was a lot of winnowing because there'syou know, these are real life stories
with suffering. There are absolutely situationswhere people wanted to believe they were getting

(12:05):
better but the evidence didn't support it. People who wish they were getting better,
or people who probably were getting better, but there were too many contravening
variables such as chemotherapy or radiation orsurgery or something that could potentially be an
explanation, and so I couldn't thatwas not going to be a place I

(12:30):
could deal with my skepticism. SoI had to winner through a lot of
cases and also the teaching in Brazil. They had published in these popular books
that ninety ninety five percent of thepeople who went there were healed, and
I can tell you that it wasn'tanything near that high. And so these
are human stories and they're complicated,and so it took a long time to

(12:52):
begin finding a path through that.It was very interesting to me to be
a part of a culture that understandsthe mind in the body in a very
different way. I think we aresocialized in our culture into thinking about the
mind and body being very separate andwe have unexamined assumptions about what's possible and

(13:13):
what's possible for the mind, andthe mind is very powerful, but we
are a very material culture, andso we view the world that way.
When you're in a different culture,they're assumptions. They grew up assuming very
different things about the mind and thebody. And it's fascinating to sit a
different culture realize, oh, theyuse the same words, but they mean

(13:35):
something really different. So what aboutthat culture and what about the people of
Brazil did you find the most likefascinating and beautiful? And what was it
that they were doing that we werenot adopting in our culture. Well,
they really believe that illness begins inthe soul, for example, and that

(13:58):
if you heal the wound in thesoul, then the body will follow.
And trained as a Western physician,that is a mind blowing thought. So
another way to say that is ifyou healed the wound in your deeper mind,
the body will follow. What doesthat mean, right, except so

(14:24):
you are at Harvard as a trainedphysician, But there's this other piece of
you that went to Princeton, rightand went to study the theology and I
got a degree in theology at theseminary there. So there's this other piece
of you that's open to it.Right, it's great, right, you
weren't totally closed off, not totallyclosed off. I think what's true is

(14:45):
these stories have upended a lot ofmy cherished beliefs that I was trained in,
not only in medical school and residencyin psychiatry, but also in seminary.
And so it's it's been a professionaland personal journey around all of this
to see my cherished police up ended. Well, okay, so you're in

(15:09):
Brazil and we talk about like thebeauty of what you saw there in that
country, and you write a lotabout that too and cured. But then
we think, okay, so whatabout what's going on a little closer to
home. So twenty twelve, Cleveland, Ohio, my hometown of Cleveland,
Ohio. Right, do you comehere. There's a physician, a man
named doctor I saw Mnami who Ihave to say, I mean, full

(15:30):
disclosure, I know, and he'ssomebody who I've seen as a patient.
He's someone I've interviewed, but someonewho I saw as a patient. And
I never had a life ending illness. Right, So you hear a lot
about going to someone who's a healer, right, and that they're very sick,
go to someone who's a healer,right. And so I'm thinking,

(15:52):
well, I just feel broken inside, right. I had gone through major
stresses professionally, personally, which kindof manifested themselves as this lump, this
mass on my back next to myspine, not knowing what it was.
And I believe that all came fromstress. Yeah, which we can get
into because you write a lot aboutstress being a silent killer, which we

(16:17):
know, we know that logically,but we still keep going at the same
pace, right, Right. SoI remember going to doctor Nanny saying like,
my heart hurts and my soul feelsbroken. Wow, what an articulate
statement. Can you do anything forme? So you understood intuitively the connection?

(16:37):
Yes, I definitely understood the connection. And so the experience I had
with him was so peaceful and serene, and I felt lighter, like something
had been released, something toxic,Yes, soulfully toxic and physically toxic had
been released from my body. Yes, that was my experience with him.

(17:03):
You how did you first meet doctorand Amy? So we met on the
Doctor Oz Show and I was themedical expert to look at some of the
results with patients who had seen him, and it was a shocking experience to

(17:25):
hear these people who had been raisedin the Western world like I had been,
and still have these experiences, andthey had medical evidence for their experiences.
I wrote in Cured about doctor PatriciaKanyon, a physician who had idiopathic
palmary fabrosis diagnosed by biopsy, andthat's a deadly illness. There's no recovery

(17:48):
from that year. Lungs turn tocardboard, you can't exchange oxygen, and
you die of suffocation, basically.And she was spending at one point eighteen
to twenty hours a day in bedsleeping with oxygen an oxygen support because she
wasn't able to oxygen at her bodymuch any longer because the lungs were just

(18:12):
weren't functional. And she did anumber of things, part of which was
seeing doctor Nami over a period ofmonths. And she tells the story so
well, and I tried to bethe translator for her telling of the story.
And she then was so grateful forthe illness because of the way it

(18:36):
changed her relationship with herself that shethen did house visits for years as a
way of expressing gratitude for what theillness gave her, which is just a
beautiful story. And she also doesthis email list called Doc's Daily Chuckle because
she thinks that humor is such animportant part of healing and not taking herselves

(18:57):
so seriously. Medicine. I mean, yeah, that's soulful medicine for sure.
Yeah. I mean you feel differently, even as simple as like you
walk around and you put a smileon your face and a day you don't
feel good, you do like youstand a little taller, that's right,
right, when you walk around andyou're like crying or feeling sad or have
angst and anger, like you wearthat. Yeah. Right. So,

(19:18):
so you meet doctor an Amy onthe Doctor A Show, and you'd already
been to Brazil at this point,so you'd seen a lot of what was
going on there, so you're you'reopen to it. But when you when
you come to the Doctor A Show, is there still a piece of you
that's a bit skeptical. Yeah.One of the things that gave me some
solaces. This is a medical man. He's a physician trained as I had

(19:41):
been. He's also an engineer bytraining, and so really grounded in the
world of science and understood what thatmeans at a deep level. And that
was helpful to me. And soit's it's it's really a nice contrast also
with the world of Brazil, whichwas important and but there it wasn't.

(20:04):
I needed another path to try tounderstand this from a different side, and
he was a great has been agreat avenue for that. What's interesting about
him too. I mean, herehe is doing a national show, but
he's not show we at all.You know what I mean when I say
that, Like, he's not somebodywho seeks attention, right, it's very
like quiet, peaceful man who's connectedto you. The person in front of

(20:30):
him in the moment, isn't awareof anything else. So when you are
on the show having a conversation withhim or in the book and you talk
about you watch something happen live onthat show, a healing of sorts,
I mean, and I don't isthat what we should call it? Because
I know he doesn't necessarily want tocall himself a healer or a healer,

(20:51):
but that's what Yeah, he doesnot, Yeah, he does not accept
that term at all. And Idon't know the outcome of that story.
This is a woman who had pain, came up from the audience. He
just prayed for a matter of secondsover her. She said her back pain
was gone. I don't have anypreceding lab tests indicating what was the pathology

(21:15):
of the back, and I don'thave any results from down the road saying
if there's any change or I don'teven know if she has pain now,
but certainly she reported a healing there. So you not having all that information
about her, you wanted to learna little bit more about the patients who
are coming to Cleveland, Ohio.Correct, So you come to Cleveland,

(21:36):
Ohio, and you start digging,and you start doing what I'm doing with
you. But you're like probably askingreally you're going for the tough questions,
right and the personal questions. Yeah, that's right. So what did you
find? How many people did youtalk to? Oh? Boy? Over
the years, I mean this hasbeen since two and twelve probably, so
it's been a lot. Issam andKathy Namy have opened up so many files

(21:57):
for me, and so I've lookedat lots of medical evidence cured to tell
the stories that I tell, Itry to tell them well enough. So
there's so many stories I didn't havetime to go into and cured. But
I saw a lot of amazing thingsand people's lives who these people were so

(22:19):
emotional after experiencing a true transformation oftheir minds and bodies. And so it's
been it's been a very helpful laboratoryfor me to gather medical evidence, look
at these stories, interview these people, and try to understand what are the
trans diagnostic factors across illnesses that areassociated with these kinds of healings. The

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tricky thing about faith is right,is exactly what it is. It's faith.
It's that thing that you can't alwaysnecessarily see with your eyes, right,
but that your soul knows to betrue. Right, right? Uh
So, but you you you lookinto the power of faith. There was

(23:06):
an interesting study you wrote about wherethere were like, there was prayer going
on and there was there were multiplecases, right, people were praying from
like across states for each other.Right, what is talk talk about that
all? Yeah, So that wasthe largest study on prayer that's ever been
done. Herbert Benson at Harvard isa is a really important figure in the

(23:32):
history of mind body study in medicine, I think, and has done some
landmark work around the relaxation response andmeditation, and he want a big grant
from Templeton to study prayer, andhe set up the most rigorous study on
prayer that's ever been done, multicenter plus you know, randomized, double

(23:53):
blind, the gold standard in medicinefor studying something and consistent with what we
find in prayer studies in general.The findings were complicated and not what we
would have wished in terms of prayerbeing a benefit, and so it's complicated.
It didn't really find significant benefit withprayer. I think ultimately what that

(24:18):
does raise is if you review allof the studies on prayer that have been
done, it's a bigger discussion.But we have to really understand the deeper
qualities of prayer because there's something aboutprayer there's not quantitative you can't easily capture

(24:41):
in a randomized, police about controlledtrial. There's no attention typically in prayer
studies to the quality of the prayers. Just did the person say the phrase?
Who is the prayer? Did theperson who's doing the praying say the
correct phase phrase? That's a verydifferent thing than trying to understand the quality

(25:03):
of that we're learning in meditation studies, for example, that the brain scans
of advanced meditators are very different thannew meditators. They have very different functional
MRIs. The ones who've been doingit for a long time and it really
practice it. And that's the thingabout meditation. And I love that you
write about meditation and mindfulness because Ido believe in it. But meditation is,

(25:27):
like I always say to people,when you first start doing it,
it's like saying you want a sixpack, right, and you start doing
sit ups, You've got to dothem for a long time, and there
are lots of other factors at playwhere you get your abs the way you
want them to be. It's thesame thing with meditation, right the first
time you do it, like,we can be distracted. But you had

(25:48):
a group of people who practice TMtranscendental meditation, right who came to you
and said, study us, lookat our brain. Came to Benson said
study us. That's correct. Andhe initially resisted as well, and finally
they were persistent, and so helet them in the back door of his
lab late at night after everybody hadgone home, and he started studying them,

(26:11):
and I think was blown away bywhat he found. And began to
publish and write about this and hascontributed to the field in a massive way
because of that work. So you'vefound then through your studies and the cases
that you talked to, incorporating mindfulnessand the practice of meditation and quieting the

(26:33):
brain. Yes, but then alsokind of the power of the brain,
right we say they only use asmall percentage of it, but that it
has a healing power. Yes,Yeah, I think we do have to
heal our stress response. That's oneof the four pillars that I try to
talk about, and cured stress canbe a good thing. We all need

(26:55):
challenge stress in order to grow andlearn. Running a marathon can be challenged
stress because it helps you reach yourhigher self and expand your understanding of what
you're capable of. But I thinkany of us, if we're in a
toxic relationship or a work environment thatleaves us depleted at the end of every
day, questioning our value and worth, then that's toxic stress, and you

(27:17):
then will be in chronic fight flightor freeze, and you won't be able
to heal properly. And I thinka lot of healings are prevented or delayed
because of that. Well, especiallyyour field of psychiatry. I mean that
the stress aspect of it has tobe of great interest to you, and

(27:38):
it does things to our insides thatmaybe we can't always see like we feel
them in the moment. Can youtalk a little bit more about what stress
is really physically doing to our bodies, to harm us. Yes, we
don't properly take care of it,because I do love that you talk about
the fact that stress is going tohappen, right, Like, I think,

(27:59):
no matter matter how much yoga orhow much meditation, or how many
times you go to church, rightor like how great your environment is,
that how how the relationships are,stress is just going to happen at some
point, absolutely so. But it'sabout how to deal with it the right
way. That's right, I thinklearning. I mean, I have seen
so many stories. Jan Show,who I tell her story in the book.

(28:22):
She goes to Brazil, has instage lupus. Within her doctor's believe
she's within a couple weeks of death. She has lupus in her brain,
in her heart, and her kidneysbarely confunction at that point and had been
declining for years. She goes toBrazil. It's a long story, but
she gets better. She goes backto Idaho to a toxic environment, a

(28:48):
marriage and a work situation, becomesill again, goes back to Brazil,
gets better, begins to realize,oh, maybe I need to change some
things in my life. So shehad to leave a toxic environment to stay
better. I think all of ushave different kinds of toxic situations, and
we have to know ourselves well enoughto recognize what's going on and then leave

(29:14):
the toxic environment or change our relationshipwith a toxic environment. I mean,
there are something stressful if you havea child that's getting up all night or
an elderly parent who's failing. Thoseare stresses that we don't want to take
away. So we need to eitherturn those situations into challenge stress and we
need to leave the toxic elements ofthose stresses behind, whether it's changing the

(29:38):
environment or changing our regionship of theenvironment. Your question is also very good
about what does the toxic stress dueto our bodies. If we are in
chronic fight, flight or freeze muchof the time, then that means cortisol
and the stress hormones nor pinephren andadrenaline are flooding our bodies and are brilliant

(30:00):
immune cells and cell subtypes that wantto do their job crispally and efficiently,
but they can't if they're constantly beingflooded with these stress hormones. They these
brilliant cells become numb after a while, and they don't do their job cryspallly
and efficiently. They become sluggish.Stress does that, or toxic stress does.

(30:21):
And so if those cells become sluggish, they in essence turn offs.
Yeah, so then that means thatyour body, those brilliant cells cannot defend
your body from infections, from cancer, from all of the different invaders that
can come in. I mean,we're surrounded by billions of bacteria every day

(30:44):
inside and outside of our bodies.Those only become invaders when something in our
system breaks down. And so Italk and cured about how we have been
taught that antibiotics are the silver bulletfor exam ample, and that what we
need to do is to nuke thegerm. Yeah, and that's a partial

(31:07):
understanding, but we now know fromresearch around the microbiome that's rapidly taking off,
that knowing how to heal your immunesystem is a much bigger deal.
People don't see. As doctors,we're trained in body parts. I was
trained to study the brain, Acardiologist is trained to study the heart,
a rheumatologist is trained to study thejoints, a gastrointrologist studies the abdominal area.

(31:34):
But it turns out that you don'thave a heart problem, a blood
pressure problem, a diabetes problem,a cancer problem, or an autoimmune problem.
You have more fundamentally an inflammation problem. And that means to see that,
you have to stand back and lookat the big picture. And if
inflammation is building up in your mindand your body for years and then some

(31:56):
major stress comes along, you willthen have a life changing event, whether
it's a heart attack or the onsetof diabetes or cancer. And so that's
why I believe one of the pillarsof healing is really about healing the immune
system. And that's a big topic. That is a big topic, and
I do want to get into that. One of the things that I want
to ask you about stress is ifwe have these everyday stresses, yeah,

(32:21):
and we can feel it, itdoesn't feel good inside, right, how
long deserve how quickly can the stresshave a major negative effect? And if
we've had stress over a long periodof time. Can we do something to
reverse the negative effects that it's caused. Great question, So let me see
if I'm getting your question correctly.Okay, Yeah, I really do believe

(32:44):
that there's a lot that can bereversed. But it does mean getting out
of fight flight or freeze, andthat is a big change innal lives.
If you have to leave a toxicmarriage or leave a toxic work environment,
that's going to upgrade your life ina lot of ways. And you have
to die to some really difficult waysof living, but some ways of living

(33:04):
that are very much a big partof your life. And that's hard for
any of us. That is ahuman challenge because it could cause more stress,
right, financial stress or just emotionalstress. Absolutely true. And so
recognizing what's going on and then makingthe changes in your life that need to
occur, whether it's leaving that environmentor changing a relationship with your environment,

(33:28):
that will change your life. Andso you know these are real world things,
right, Well, you had thereare other pillars, and I jumped
ahead distress because I'm just so interestedin like the mind, and also that
before I get to the other pillars, you talk about something that I have
such a passion for it because Ijust incorporated into a TED talk I did,
and that's human connection and the powerof human connection and how that can

(33:52):
be very healing. Yes, becauseyou also talk about like being people who
are isolated and alone, but there'sa difference between alone and being lonely,
right, absolutely, So to talka little bit about that the human connection
element and how that can be veryhealing for people who are experiencing major illness

(34:15):
in their life. Yeah, it'sa fascinating topic. There's so many different
ways to talk about it. Toget out a fight flight or freeze and
into a parasympathetic state where your bodycan heal and where your mind can heal
is a really big deal. Italk and cured about the Vegas nerve,
which is the super highway for theVegas nerve and is the parasympathetic way of

(34:38):
being in the world. It's notfight fighter freeze. You can't be in
a parasympathetic healing state and still bein the sympathetic fight fighter freeze. Those
are two different states, and healinghappens when you're in a parasympathetic state.
That is the Vegas nerve. TheVegas nerve is what lights up your eyes

(34:59):
when you reach out out to shakesomebody's hand and smile at them. It's
what makes you smile. It's thevaguest nerve is what lights up your nerves
to help the smile, to helpyour eyes crinkle when you make contact with
somebody, eye contact, and sothey this vegas nerve is an amazing part

(35:21):
of our bodies that we can activate. And Barbara Frederickson at the University of
Carolina Chapel Hill has done some amazingresearch on the parasympathetic pathway and how that
is really in some ways the highwayof love. That connection that you make
with somebody and love is not justsomething we have we have with our loved
ones or our small family. It'ssomeone that we pass on the street who's

(35:46):
pushing a stroller, you know,and we have maybe just a little ten
second chat with them. But it'sa genuine connection, that's what it is.
It can be connections, connection,connection not necessarily in love and passionate
exactly, but that micro connection lightsup our physiology. It gets us out
of fight or flight. It helpsus feel connected to others in ourselves in

(36:09):
a way that's real, and ithas profound physiological effects that it helps shut
off the stress formones. And themore we do it, the better we
get at that, and the betterit is for our physiology. I think
a lot of often, like theelderly write with their isolated have a ninety
four year old grandfather. Just theother day for Valentine's Day, my boyfriend

(36:30):
and I were like, let's takefood to him, sit down with him,
have some wine, right, andhave conversation with him. That's all
he talked about because he's by himselfmost of the time, so it was
just about having that shared connection.Yeah, right, that. I think
that that is a different it's anotherkind of love, right, So then
it can just like that last fora long time from somebody who's entertainment is

(36:55):
watching. You know, probably wonthe Cleveland sports teams. No, right,
that's what he knows. He's right. Oh, don't even tell me
that. You guys win so much. I don't. I can't even feel
bad for you. Well we feltbad this year, but oh my goodness.
Okay, so I did jump aheadwith your four pillars and the first

(37:19):
one being um nutrition, right,nutrition. I mean, gosh, we
live in a culture. It's sofood obsessed and diet obsessed. It's like
eat this, don't eat this.Eggs are good for you, eggs are
bad for you. Be on keto. No, don't do that. It's
going to be bad for cholesterol.It's like it's overwhelming, right, It's
almost like if you we went backto what our grandparents were doing, except

(37:40):
food has changed. Yes it has, right, since my grandparents were eating
and you were, you like,making their own bread. It's just different
today. Yes, it is soum when you studied and talk to all
of the people who had defied theodds, because that's what you talk a
lot. You talked to a lota lot of people incured about people who
were given a diagnosis of an essencedeath. That's right, you've got we're

(38:06):
going to give you a time yep, and then that we can't do anything
else for you. So you talkto these people, you study their cases
were what was the commonality when itcame to nutrition. So it's a big
topic. I think that doctors andnutritionists we get a lot of misinformation in
our training about nutrition and there are, like you said, all these fad

(38:30):
diets out there, and it's veryconfusing. What's really clarifying for me is
studying these people who are going todie, and there's just not a lot
of room for wiggle around that.And so I purposely tell the story of
the range of different kinds of dietsthat people did adopt. People most of
the time made massive changes in theirnutrition. But they also taught me that

(38:52):
you can make all these great changesin nutrition, but if you're doing it
from a place of fear, it'snot going to work. And so you're
still going to be bathing your bodyin stress hormones, and that's going to
inhibit the kinds of changes that betternutrition can bring about. So how you

(39:13):
approach the changes is also important.It has to be an opportunity, not
a restriction from something. So Ithink that's a big deal. So I
tell people, and I tell aboutketo diets because some people got better with
keto diets, some people got betterwith vegetarian or vegan diets, and some
people made no changes at all.But the common factors tended to be the

(39:36):
people eliminated process foods. They eliminatedsugars, they eliminated the refined flowers.
I had no idea that sugar isso inflammatory in the body that it causes
these little microvascular cuts in the endotheliumof our cardiovascular system, and the immune

(39:58):
system has to spend all this you'retrying to constantly repair those things, and
it builds up, you know,you start to build up hardened areas because
of all repair over the years that'sbeen done, So you get up with
a hardening of arteries and things.So sugar turned out to be a big
problem. You know, how wediagnose cancer a lot of times is we
inject radio labeled glucose into a person'sbody, and then if there's a place

(40:24):
in the body that's sucking up thatsugar, then we have to be concerned
that that could be cancer because cancer'sfavorite food is sugar. And so as
I began to realize that sugar isa big problem in terms of causing inflamation
in the body, I had todeal with my own habits because I was
always picking up brownies and pizza andcookies in the nurse the station, and

(40:44):
I didn't realize how addicted I wasto sugar. That was shocking. It's
so addicting. Yeah, if yougo through a period of time where you
cut it out and then you goback yeah, oh yeah, And you're
like, why do I need alemonade? Right? Why do I need
it now all the time? Exactly? I mean a little over one hundred
years ago, the average American atefour pounds of sugar a year, no

(41:05):
big deal. And now the averageAmerican consumes one hundred and fifty four pounds
of sugar a year. And sowe're so off normal in terms of what
our bodies are able to tolerate.Well, it sneaks in in areas where
you don't realize sugar even exists.That's right, And that's a big story
in terms of how we got tothis point. But it's it is in

(41:27):
a lot of the foods that webuy, not some of these foods are
labeled health foods and they're not right. So in these cases, they eliminated
process foods, eliminate sugar. Althoughyou know you did. It's worth mentioning,
like if it made someone happy tohave their mother's chocolate chip cookie.

(41:50):
It goes back to that happiness factor, right, So it was I suppose
some of the cases people were verystrict, but there were some yes,
And I think I thought it wasmaybe Claire who had pancreatic answer it was
like, if I really want toindulge, and I think it was her,
but somebody was like, if Ireally want to indulge in something like,
I'll have it then, And that'sright because it makes me happy.
Yeah, because that's that whole happinessfactor is so important, and so she

(42:14):
did. She illuminated a lot ofsugar, and you're right, it was
clear was one of those stories.But she said, you know, I
really like my pizza and I likea glass of wine, and so she
kept those and she had pancreatic andcarcinoma diagnosed by biopsy. That was two
thousand and eight. I got anemail from her just the other day,
and you know, she's got anamazing story. She's been such an important

(42:35):
teacher for me, as have allof these people that I've studied. But
the happiness factor is really important,and so it has to integrate into your
own lived life. Food is aboutcommunity, and so how do you make
these changes in the context of thedifferent family cultures and cultures were in.
Every person has to make those decisionsthemselves. But it is true. I

(42:58):
mean, eighty eight percent of peoplewith these spontaneous emissions did become vegetarian.
But still they're like I said,I tell the story of people who didn't
make these changes and they still gotbetter. So it's not the only factor
that's important, So you know,and a lot of the when you talk
about the nutrition factor in so manyof these cases and what people eliminated,

(43:24):
its strengthened strengthened their immune system.Why do you feel like we have so
many autoimmune diseases today? I feellike I'm hearing about it more than ever.
It's really true. I think therates of autoimmune disease are skyrocketing and
have been for the last fifteen ortwenty years. The research is growing on

(43:49):
that. It's hard to pinpoint withcertainty the defined causes for that because these
are deeply embedded in our lifestyles.Certainly, there is research that points towards
the toxins in our foods, theprocessed foods, and the chemicals in them,
and there's good reason to believe thatthat isn't playing a factor. I

(44:10):
think that's it gets into the wholebig topic of what it means to actually
heal our immune systems, because autoimmunedisease is really our brilliant cells and sell
subtypes attacking the body and it's likeit's attacking the body it was sworn to
protect. So something has gotten outof kilter and all the messaging around these

(44:32):
cells, And is it the toxinsthat we put into our bodies? There's
a good reason to think that.Is it the stress that we live with
that we don't manage correctly, There'sa good reason to think that's playing a
role as well. It's hard toget a cause effect to think from the
research, but there's lots of correlativedata that's important to look at. Yeah,
I loved all the cases that youtalked about with nutrition. I think

(44:55):
that part's going to be really interestingto people who end up reading the book,
just because there's so much talk aboutfood today. You go into a
bookstore, right, I mean thatsection is huge, not only from cookbooks,
but to like people telling us whatwe should and shouldn't eat in so
many diet books, it just getsto be a little bit overwhelming, And

(45:16):
I like, does it have tobe that difficult? Like is there a
way that we can sort of skinnyit back and make it really simple,
like eat the rainbow? Basically?Well, I'm so glad you asked that
question, because what I learned fromthese incredible survival stories and recovery stories is
that it's not about counting calories,it's not about the food groups, it's

(45:38):
not about all of these different complicatedthings, and it's not about fad diets.
It's about just simply making sure thatmost of the food you eat is
very nutritionally dense, that it hasa lot of nutrition pact in it that
takes care of most of it.If you just make sure you're getting those
foods. Yeah, it just becomesso simple. Now it's still a big

(46:00):
style change. It was hard forme to realize how addicted I watched the
sugar. But once you kind ofget past that, he was, Oh,
this is really simple, and it'sand then you never want to go
back to that old way, whichyou just don't feel as good. Your
taste buds come alive, you startto feel healthy, and you have energy
and so in ways that you maybeyou never thought. You probably thought,

(46:21):
there's no way I'm going to giveup those brownies and that pizza that I
love. But then as you mostlywas, you eliminated it for the most
part. Right, Sure, yougo back to it, and you I
don't feel right when I eat itright, so you realize that your body
almost has an allergy to it.That's right? Yeah, I remember years
ago. It's so funny. Iwalked into a hospital and I had a
green drink and someone kind of wellI was cracked about it, gave me

(46:45):
a hard time about it as they'reeating a brownie. I said, Oh
really, so now, which ofus is doing something really unnatural here?
I know? Right? Or likethe people who say they're gluten for you
and then they were ordering the beerat the restaurants. Friends who tell me
that happens, they're like, okay, so okay. So we've gone through

(47:07):
three of the four pillars that youdiscuss. So we've got nutrition strengthened,
like better your nutrition, your immunity, stress level. And then you talk
about identity. Yes, and thisis a lot about self healing. How
do you heal your identity? Thatis a big question? Doctor, Ready

(47:27):
go where, oh, Harvard MedicalDirector, psychiatrists healing our identity? Let's
I don't have a couch here.If I did, we could lay it
out and really get into it.Every one of us, I know,
right, everyone psychiatrists, every oneof us? Where do we even it's
a little question where do we evenbegin to get our identity? So it's

(47:51):
a big one. I think thatwe are all. We all grow up
taking in at a deep level,both consciously and unconsciously, the beliefs of
those around us and beliefs about us. Some of those beliefs are true and
empowering, and some of those beliefsare false. And if they come from
our parents, they come from ourbrothers and sisters, from kids on the

(48:13):
playground, from employers, and soI think we become what we're told.
And some of those beliefs are true. If you're told that you bring something
important and special into the world,that's can be very empowering. But if

(48:35):
something different than that is implied ortold to you directly, or you begin
to interpret the experiences that you haveas that must be mean there's something bad
or not good enough about who Iam as a human being. And whether
that occurs consciously or unconsciously, Ithink what that does is it sets up
this inner conflict within you. Andif you're giving your mind and your body

(48:58):
mixed messages, then you're gonna havemixed messages in your health and in your
life. I think that's what itcomes down to I think that's so true.
You know, on on a simplelevel, this isn't a disease oriented
thing. But I was talking toa friend the other day who is going
through a breakdown of a relationship.Right, probably reacted in a way that
she didn't feel great about. Right, And then in my conversation with her,

(49:20):
she kept saying, I ruin this. I'm crazy. I know I'm
crazy, I'm crazy, I'm crazycrazy. I said, you have to
stop using that word to describe yourself, because if you put that label on
yourself, others are going to startputting that label on you, and then
you will become that in your ownmind. Right. Right's absolutely true.
So then on a deeper level,when it comes to one's health and what

(49:42):
you're talking about in this book,when someone says we're sick, right,
You're going to die? Right,Then that's right. The brain hears that
as I'm sick, and they acceptthat then accept that as our truth.
Yes, I think you know aboutthe traumas that we often have in our
lives and in our childhoods, andhow that sets us up for a lifetime

(50:07):
with this stress reaction going on inour bodies kind of chronically and in that
kind of lays the groundwork for theinflammation that then becomes the disease at some
point. And so what it meansto heal that is a really big deal.
And it means changing our experience ofourselves in the world in a way

(50:28):
that we really get it that thingshappen for us, not against us,
that there's something friendly about the universe, that each one of us brings something
of such deep value and worth intothe world. And to set up your
life so that you honor that andyou don't question your value, and that's

(50:49):
such a big deal. And todo that for your conscious mind and your
subconscious mind so that your subconscious minddoesn't kind of undercut you or sabotage your
life. These are the kinds ofthings that these people have been teaching me.
And this is such a big partof what healing is about that.

(51:14):
I think these people, some ofthem, they could have eaten catfood and
still gotten better if they dealt withthat area. If they because when you
heal your identity and you heal yourbeliefs at a deep level, it doesn't
you'd then see it's really not aboutthe food. It's not about these other
things. What I love about yourapproach to everyone you spoke to was that
they were an example of someone whodefied their odds. How could we not

(51:38):
look at the cases of what they'vedone? How can we not how can
we ignore their patterns? If someonetold you you have pancreatic cancer, right,
which you then basically okay, that'syou don't want that one, right,
that's a death sentence. You wantto talk to the person who survived
it. Absolutely, you do,right, So that's what you're doing.

(51:58):
You're talking to people who have whowe're using what did you do? Right?
Because if someone else did it,then it's possible. Yep, if
one person could do it, whatyou see over and over in our culture
is if they can do it,then I can figure out. I know
you've talked to so many people,so it's it's like asking you to probably
pick a favorite child. But isthere someone's story in particular that just amazed

(52:23):
you so much in the most profoundway that you'd like to share. Yeah,
there's so many stories that have affectedme so deeply. They're emotional stories,
and they're real life stories, andso the emotions are very raw for
me sometimes around these one story couldtell right now is the story of Murray

(52:44):
Banell. You know, she's avery successful executive, one of or the
biggest data firm in the country orthe world, and really good at what
she does. But she's a hardcoredata geek, and so it's it's a
good story for me because she's thatkind of person. And also she was

(53:07):
seeing one of the world's leading melanomaexperts when she was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma,
told that she had a matter ofmonths to live. And so the
evidence is hardcore, it's perfect,it's so clear, and her story is
also just an amazing story of Imean, she made the nutritional changes.

(53:27):
Absolutely, she was one of thosewho helped me learn that it's not what
you eat, it's also how youeat it, that you're grateful for the
food you're putting in your body,that you do eliminate toxins, and don't
that you honor your body by notputting toxins into your body and all that.
But she also had these these dreamsthat were happening. The same dream

(53:51):
was happening for her over and overagain, and she began to pay attention
to that, and then she beganto journal when she woke up from these
dreams, and just to kind oflet the flow of consciousness go through her
as she tried to think about whatthese dreams might mean. And she began
to realize in the context of theseexperiences, that she wasn't who she thought

(54:16):
she was, That she wasn't thebad one, she wasn't the one who
always made life hard for other people. That she actually played a perfect role
in her life and in her family, and even though she had gotten pregnant
age fifteen, and she had beena single mom and all these things,
that this was actually a beautiful storyand she was perfectly imperfect as she is.

(54:39):
Someone emailed me the other day,a dear friend said the word flossom.
You know that we are all flossomlyperfect in her own way. And
I think that's so true. Andshe began to see and experience her story
who she is so differently, thatshe saw herself with compassion and with love

(55:00):
and not with this quiet conscious orunconscious judgment or condemnation. And around that
time, you know, she hasthis great research doctor yet Washington University of
Medical School in Saint Louis measuring thishuge tumor on the side of her neck

(55:22):
and it's shrinking at the rate ofa half inch a week, wow,
half inch a week until finally,And this is something they couldn't do surgery
on because there are so many vitalstructures that go through the neck. You
have your esophagus, you have yourwindpipe, you have all the nerves and
all the blood supply coming to andfrom your brain, and so you can't
easily take a tumor out of thatwithout disrupting all of these vital structures.

(55:46):
So they couldn't do surgery for along time. And it's it's a great
story, and I'm just touching onthe basics of it. But you know,
I think our identity, so thatwe see the truth and the dignity
and the value of who we areand not questioning that. It's such a

(56:07):
massive deal. It's hard to putinto words. It sounds like with everyone
that you spoke to, it wasall encompassing, right, mind, body,
spirit, right, They touched onall of them, not just one
thing. That's right. And Ithink that's such an important point because if
you have a medical problem, wesend the medical problem to the doctor,
the psychological problem to the psychotherapist,and the spiritual problem to the priest,

(56:30):
rabbi, a mom or minister,and to the degree that everyone follows their
training and just looks through that windowof their discipline, then we're leaving out
the interconnection and the reciprocity among allof these and all of us live these
lives, and so the experts needhelp standing back to see the whole picture.

(56:51):
So they give advice that sees thewhole picture. But all of us,
as human beings living our lives,need to understand how to take all
of these actors into our lived lifeand activate all of these things together,
because the solution comes from all ofthis tied up together. It's all one
big wonderful ball that we need tosee differently. So aside from then,

(57:15):
for you going through this, I'msure this was a bit of a like
a spiritual experience for you, andit's a labor of love writing a book.
There's a lot of work. Butso aside from giving up the brownies
and the cookies at the nearest thestation and the pizza after you talk to
all these people, what else,what other changes did you make in your
own life saying you know what they'reonto something I'm going to do this too.

(57:37):
Yeah. So I've been doing thisfor seventeen years, so I've had
a lot of opportunity to face myown resistance and to learn slowly and all
that. But yeah, once Ibegan to really change my own nutritional approach,
I lost almost forty pounds thirty sevenor thirty eight pounds just by that
simple change alone, I think gettingrid of I mean, I didn't of

(58:00):
all the sugar and the salt andthat sort of thing, but I got
rid of a lot and just thatalone, And honestly, I feel so
different now. And now I'm arunner now. I just don't I really
don't believe I'm going to have todeal with a lot of the diseases that
people typically think is about aging.But it's not aging. It's inflammation catching

(58:22):
up to you. That's what peopleare dying from. And I think,
you know, I take care ofpeople in the medical hospital every day,
and I see what happens to themind and the body from years of not
knowing how to create health and vitality. Do you think you're you're healthiest now
at this age and the stage ofyour life. Oh yeah, I'm much
healthier now than I was when Iwas in my twenties, and every industry

(58:44):
seems to support that. Well.I love the book. I I consumed
it. I love the stories.I love the I feel like you give
information that's apt, lifestyle changes thatare absolutely doable and not overwhelming. And
there's no like, you're not shootinganybody in this book, right like you
should you have to do this.You're just giving examples and stories of what

(59:07):
has worked for people. But therethere's repetition in that, right, So
it's like success leaves clues, andso you are giving us a roadmap to
success to live our best lives.What was your before we go? What
was your why in doing this?What was your goal when you first set

(59:29):
out? And did that change overthe process of writing this book. Yeah,
I mean that's probably a multilayered sortof answer. Ultimately, I mean
it's a very personal and professional journey. So I think at one level I
had a lot of questions trying tounderstand what's true. If something's true enough
to heal a physical body, thenthere's not a lot of wiggle room around

(59:52):
that. And I'd had a lotof schooling, you know, a Master
of Divinity from Princeton seminary medical schoolresidency, and I was a reader and
a studier and a question asker,and there's lots there's thousands of theories out
there. You can get lost foryears, and all the different theories and
books and libraries of books. Ineeded something that was clear, that was

(01:00:13):
going to help illuminate and provide apathway for answering my questions. And so
those you know, that's certainly avery personal journey. But what's good about
a personal journey is it gives youpassion to get to the bottom of it.
It's not just a professional thing.And so my life has changed at

(01:00:34):
every level. I see patients differently, I see myself differently, I see
health differently. I realized that isdoctors were trained to diagnosed disease and start
medications, but we don't typically studyhow people heal. And we are in
the early signs in this culture ofbeginning to recognize that and create a whole
new era where we study how peopleheal. I'm just privileged to get to

(01:00:58):
study the people who are real,Lady, the flagships of health and healing.
Yeah, it's beautiful, it's wonderful. Thank you so much for talking
us there's so many bounce back storiesthroughout this book. I mean, really
the ultimate ones. I can't thinkof anything better than just saying, you
know what, I Am not goingto accept that full diagnosis. I'm going
to take things into my own hand, and I'm going to save my own

(01:01:20):
life. Yes. Yeah, becauseif you let someone else be in charge
of your mind and your body,you might not be happy with the results.
Wow. The book is called Cured, a Life Changing Science of Spontaneous
Healing. Doctor Jeffrey Rodger, thankyou so much. Thank you. It
was a pleasure to talk to you. Appreciate it. Coming back to Cleveland.
I will absolutely thank you for listeningto this episode of The bounce Back.

(01:01:44):
It would mean so much to meif you would subscribe to my podcast
and read it on iTunes, fivestars would be amazing. You can find
it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Search The bounce Back and click subscribe.
The FCB Radio Network first class broadcastingworldwide. I'm doctor Amy Actin and I'm

(01:02:09):
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