HealthCast Now - The Intersection of Health, Wellness & Circadian Optimization

Unbeatable Mind - Lessons from the Navy SEALs with Commander Mark Divine

Mark Divine served 20 years in the Navy SEALs, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and founder of NavySeals.com, SEALFIT.com, and UnbeatableMind.com. He practices yoga, meditation, and martial arts. He’s also a CPA and an MBA in finance from New York University Stern School of Business.
Today, he’ll talk about just how important it is to have mental toughness to pair with physical fitness as well as a few tips on how to achieve the kind of mentality that gets you closer to being the best version of yourself.
“You're successful but you can be more successful if you can just pull it all together and focus on the right things at the right time for the right reasons.” - Commander Mark Divine

In this episode, you’ll learn:

The difference between working in and working out.
Why mental training leads to superior physical performance
What are Mark’s 3Ps
How to learn what to focus on and how to maintain that focus for long term
How to prepare for mentally tough challenges
What is “Daily Discipline Practice”
Mark’s Big 4 Skills
How real Yoga helps train the mind
The importance of having a positive outlook in life

Key Takeaways:

Stop everything, sit down and assess what's important to you. Now ask yourself: What is your ideal version? What do you envision your ideal self to be like in the next few days, months, or even years?
How to train mental toughness: Go out and do tough things.

Connect with Mark Divine:

Unbeatable Mind
Navy SEALs
SEALFIT
Unbeatable Mind Podcasts
SEALFIT Podcasts
Unbeatable Mind Book
Way of the SEAL book
SEALFIT Kokoro – April 28-30, 2017 & October 20-22,2017
Twitter
Facebook

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Dr. Greg Wells is a scientist, author, health coach, and grew up as an athlete that spent most of his time in competitive swimming. Soon after he got his degree, he started a consulting company that helped big companies implement health and wellness in their system. He then went back to school to get his masters and PhD and learned much about exercise science.

He started working at a hospital doing both research and helping children with chronic diseases. He helped build what he calls an Exercise Medicine Research Program that aims to prevent, diagnose, and treat chronic diseases through exercise. He currently runs a lab that looks in high performance sport and is continuously searching for ways ordinary people can apply what athletes do in their everyday lives.

Today, gives us his insights on what makes training for a medal similar to “training” to survive cancer. He also shares with us why he thinks sleep is the foundation of health and wellness, his thoughts about millennials, and why he says there’s no such thing as “game day” nutrition.

"It's amazing, even if you end up looking at the completely opposite ends of the spectrum, how similar patterns are and what you can learn from them.” Dr. Greg Wells

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Same mindset of success is the same with athletes and a child with cancer. The success factors for winning a gold medal is not that different from the success factors of a child who gets through chemo.
• Sleep is the foundation. You wouldn't be able to do anything right if you're not sleeping well.
• Every single disease has a sleep component. Unless you sleep well you can't make good decisions about food and your body won't respond well to exercise.
• Sleeping according to the light-dark cycle optimizes our body's biochemical processes while doing the opposite confuses our body, makes it inefficient, and messes up our chemistry.
• When it comes to working out, it's about finding that balance in your energy levels.
• Don't add more stress to an already stressful situation.
• There's no such thing as a "game day nutrition" What matters is what you've done and eaten the six months before. Consistency is everything in sports.
• Health equals nutrients over calories or H = N/C. Eat the food with the most nutrients per calories. Superfoods are some of the foods people should eat more of.
• Millennials are a pretty good generation when it came to healthy choices, but they're too addicted to technology and instant information.

Key Takeaways:

• You can make hard decisions that make a huge upside in your life. Simply cutting your cable subscription will help prevent you from getting tempted to watch midnight shows and let you get to sleep better.
• Hospitals don't serve healthy food; they serve food that technically makes you sick.
• Don't try to win, just try to be better. Take your time, don't rush health.

Connect with Dr. Greg Wells:

• Greg Wells Official
• Twitter

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Ripple Effect book by Dr. Greg Wells

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Dr. Lindsay Henderson is a clinical psychologist and currently the assistant director of Psychological Services at American Well. Before her position as assistant director, Lindsay worked as Staff Psychologist in the Child and Adolescent Division at McLean Hospital and also has experience in Harvard Medical School as Clinical Instructor. Her work revolves around adolescents and helping them cope with distress and emotional difficulty.

Today, Lindsay talks about how today’s kids and young adolescents suffer stress primarily due to lack of sleep brought on by excessive use of smart phones and tablets. She also gives tips to parents regarding how to properly handle their kids’ relationship with technology.

“Our technology progresses much more than parenting can keep up with.” Dr. Lindsay Henderson

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• There is a dysfunction in parenting in today’s society particularly on sleep issues with children.
• Advances and changes in society make it difficult for kids and adolescents to learn how to get to sleep and stay asleep for a good amount of time.
• Integrating technology in children's lives safely and healthily is not as fast as advancements in technology.
• We should not have phones and tablets before bedtime.
• Constant access to technology provides a constant stimulation which results to a child never truly learning to tolerate their own thoughts or emotions by themselves, especially because social media is addictive.
• Kids constantly have tablets or phones that turn their attention away from the task at hand. They never learn how to focus on one thing.
• Families should implement tech-free time in the household.
• Tech-free time in the morning before school is important as it sets the tone of the day in our brains to go forth engaging mindfully with one task at a time.
• Emotional skillset may not develop and cultivate when kids turn their attention towards technology use.
• Sleep is a challenging task emotionally. Sleep is the ultimate separation from reality as we are vulnerable when we close our eyes for hours at a time. When people are unable to develop skills to tolerate separation it can be difficult to get yourself ready to sleep.
• Poor quantity of sleep correlates (not causes) trying drugs and alcohol at an earlier age.

Key Takeaways:

• Sleep is something that needs to be worked on constantly. It's a habit that needs to be practiced and developed.

Mentioned in this episode:

• American Well
• Limiting Kids Screen Time article on the Amwell blog

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Darryl Edwards is the founder of Primal Play, a program that aims to rediscover the joy of movement through activities society usually identifies with kids. Before this, he was a working in the world of investment banking, and was extremely lucrative due to him working close to 18 hours a day every day.

It wasn’t until he was in his early 30’s when his blood tests made him realize something was wrong with what he was doing. Doctors said his issues were hereditary and they have prescription medicine for them. He didn’t like the idea of taking medicine for the rest of his life so he decided to retrace his steps and see where he went wrong. Throughout his journey, he was able to read a book by Lauren Cordain, called the Paleo Diet, which helped him get his health back and more.

Today, Darryl tells us all about his Primal Play program, the importance of movement for the human body, the benefits of going outside, and why he thinks being playful is an important part of growing up.

"Society is becoming more relaxed about living sedentary lifestyles.” Darryl Edwards

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Kids no longer play outside anymore due to fear of the outside world especially its dangers. This results to lack of physical activity as they age.
• Our environment is engineered around convenience and we’re now more inclined to get around with as little movement as possible.
• Conformity tells us to drop our playful side as we grow up. Animals don't stop being playful even after they're past the “kid” stage.
• Kids today have fun in their smartphones; they have fun through isolation.
• We have to incorporate some sort of playful activity in our lives regardless of age.
• Age-related disease is no longer exclusive to older adults.
• As adults, we should focus on the experience of movement. Be aware of how your body feels while you relearn the basics without getting injured.
• Just being outside boosts your immune system, strengthens your cardiovascular health, and may boost vitamin D if the sun's out.
• Run, run and look at the environment around you. Make use of the environment as your gym.
• If you got kids, when they go playing next time, join them. You’ll have wonderful memories while also reaping the benefits of fun exercise.

Key Takeaways:

• Play isn't just about the physical manifestation. It's also about life itself.
• The body is meant to adapt to certain ranges which makes outdoor activity healthier.

Connect with Darryl Edwards:

• Primal Play
• Facebook
• Twitter

Mentioned in this episode

• Paleo Fitness book by Darryl Edwards
• The Paleo Diet book by Dr. Loren Cordain

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Dr. John Berardi is one of Precision Nutrition’s health practitioners whose goal in life is to ensure any person, regardless of social or cultural background, have access to an opportunity to be healthy and fit. He has helped Precision Nutrition coach over 70,000 people - most of them are popular athletes and sports teams we’ve all heard of or watched on TV.

In Part 2 of our interview, John puts emphasis on the importance of training an individual to eat well and not just tell them what to eat and what not to eat. He is an advocate of teaching people the tools they need to maintain a healthy lifestyle first over simply giving them a how-to approach.

“The more aggressive you are in the beginning, the more likely you are to fail in the long term.” Dr. John Berardi

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Intermittent fasting, while effective and has lots of benefits, is rarely introduced to new clients. It’s a big shift in lifestyle and new clients have yet to build the right foundation of skills to succeed in this type of diet.
• John says the exercise world is way better at coaching than the nutrition world simply because the exercise world encourages people to learn new exercises slowly and progressively whereas most of the nutrition world is geared to a do this, do that approach to teaching.
• Predetermined protocols are necessary to notice deficiencies or the skills they lack to progress.
• Physiological and skill and experiential differences between people affect the type of diet they can apply to their lives.
• Intermittent fasting is good for experts and long term practitioners but lifestyle conditions change and it can degrade their health.
• The very things you had success with in the beginning of your radical weight loss experience are the things that set you up for failure after that.

Key Takeaways:

• When following a diet program, you have to ask yourself whether the practices you follow right now be able to survive my worst days or worst years of your life. Your health and nutrition needs to be proofed against your worst days and years.

Connect with Dr. John Berardi:

• Precision Nutrition
• Facebook

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Dr John Berardi -Paleo vs. Vegan vs. LCHF vs. Ketogenic - Is there a perfect Diet for Optimal Wellness and Healthy - Part 1

Dr. John Berardi has devoted his entire career to making sure everyone has an opportunity to become healthy and fit, regardless of their personal background. He has had a Master’s degree in Exercise Science since he original thought of becoming a strength coach. He then decided to get a PhD in Exercise and Nutritional Biochemistry because he realized nutrition was a limiting factor for a lot of people. When he was working in the lab, he credited his advisor for helping shape his career by encouraging him to get real world experience. This paved the way to working with sports teams and pro athletes, much like what he does today.
Today we’re going to talk about the many types of diets that have become popular in the last decade and whether one of them is the perfect diet. In between, John also shares his experience working with all sorts of people under Precision Nutrition and tell us how he handled not so typical clients and what diet worked for them in the end.

“I think it's people’s birthright to be healthy, fit, and live well.” Dr. John Berardi

In this episode, you’ll learn:

John says he can’t just declare one diet is perfect just because it’s the diet that worked either for him or most of his clients. It’s because there’s a chance the diet “may not be feasible, reasonable, psychologically palatable” for everyone.
What's important is they find something that works for them despite the bumps in the road they encounter along the way for a good period of time. The downside is this can make them more biased towards what worked for them and strongly advocate it.
A great diet is the kind of diet that can work with a location’s certain culture. Dietary preferences can be thru palate but most are cultural.
Just paying attention to what you are eating helps you make better choices. If you don't pay attention to what you eat, no good technique will matter.
All great diets promote higher quality food and not processed and junk food.
The part of the brain that does the change is not involved in higher learning. So reading and sharing won't always make people change. What people need aren’t educational materials but solid practices they can apply in a sensible manner.

Key Takeaways:

Don’t tell people that what works for you is the only thing other people should do; it doesn't encourage healthy change.

Connect with Dr. John Berardi:

Precision Nutrition
Facebook

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Dr. Olli Sovijarvi - BioHacking Male Hormones / Testosterone - Part 2

Olli Savijarvi is what you call a biohacker - a type of person who actively seeks to improve their body’s natural processes for efficiency and health. In the last episode, Olli talked about the importance of testosterone for both men and women and how stress and chronic sleep deprivation contributes to impaired testosterone production.

Today, Olli gives us a few tips on how to not just improve our body’s ability to produce testosterone, but also a few helpful bio hacks we can apply right away.

"We like to work, but we have to sleep also and get enough free time and relaxation.” Dr. Olli Sovijarvi

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Coming back from Intermittent fasting makes us more receptive to testosterone and leads to higher testosterone than before.
• We have higher testosterone production when you eat enough food. When you fast, androgen receptor activity is high. Fasting is dangerous to your testosterone levels if you're too stressed. Do a fast when you're hormonally balanced.
• Excess protein is a problem. It's toxic for your cells especially if it’s bad quality red meat.
• Plastics like in plastic bottles and cosmetics can have hormone disrupting effects in the long term.
• Creatine is considered to be the perfect supplement.
• Taking multivitamins is only if you can't get it from natural sources like food sources.
• Red light is the perfect wavelength to improve mitochondrial health.
• Temperature affects testosterone production, especially in men. Olli suggests not wearing restrictive underwear or going commando as much as possible. Cold baths and showers are good for testosterone production too.
• Radiation and EMF from smart phones and tablets may cause hormone disruption.

Key Takeaways:

• Something as simple as stress management can improve hormonal production and increase testosterone levels.

Connect with Dr. Olli Sovijarvi:

• BioHacker’s Handbook
• Facebook

Mentioned in this episode:

• Biohacker Summit
• Dutch Test
• Optimized Health & Wellness for the Athlete with Ben Greenfield podcast episode

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Dr. Olli Sovijarvi - BioHacking Male Hormones / Testosterone - Part 1

Olli Savijarvi is a proud biohacker who has always had a fondness for how the body works and how to improve its performance. He promotes the kind of lifestyle geared towards longevity through healthy living and safe supplementation and he’s always looking for a way to share his ideas out into the world.

Today, Olli tells us how to boost testosterone effectively and naturally as well as a few lifestyle tips on how to tinker with your body’s natural processes without using any form of exogenous supplementation.

"Everybody would agree sleep is the most important thing in our health especially homone-wise.” Dr. Olli Sovijarvi

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Testosterone is an important hormone for both men and women. It’s responsible for hair growth, growth of sex organs, and even the tone of our voice.
• Being sleep deprived leads to lower testosterone production.
• Testosterone is an anti-aging hormone so a high testosterone is something to be considered for people past their 50’s or 70’s.
• Stress reduces testosterone production and leads to excess estrogen in the body.
• Men who are chronically stressed have "man-boobs" due to high estrogen.
• It's much more complicated for women to regulate hormonal balance.
• Chronic cardio is bad for testosterone production and strength training is much, much better.
• Carbs are good for testosterone production.

Key Takeaways:

• A dietary template, regardless of what diet it is, won’t work for everyone.
• Whole foods or foods that are nutrient dense are the basics. Even without a diet template, these foods make you hormonally optimal.

Connect with Dr. Olli Sovijarvi:

• BioHacker’s Handbook
• Facebook

Mentioned in this episode:

• Biohacker Summit
• Dutch Test

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Stay updated on new episodes, guest interviews, and health, wellness, and fitness information and resources by subscribing to the HealthCastNow Podcast Show on iTunes. Every day we bring you actionable insight, demystified truth, and simple steps to help you navigate the complex, often confusing health, wellness, and fitness information and answer the questions you’ve been asking.

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Our guest on today’s episode is UK podcaster Jamie Ward. Jamie shares the story of the significant health struggles he combatted during his early 20s. After many visits to his doctors regarding various health concerns, Jamie learned he was experiencing low testosterone problems, which he later learned were primarily due to the lifestyle he was living.

He explains how he went from drinking alcohol on a regular basis, eating unhealthily, working out frequently and suffering from low testosterone symptoms to finding solutions to his health concerns, eating better, getting adequate, restful sleep, and improving his overall health, diet, fitness, and lifestyle.

“Start with one thing. That’s all you need to begin feeling better.” Jamie Ward

In This Episode You Will Learn:

• Jamie’s transformation story.
• What motivated him to make a change to his health and well-being.
• How poor lifestyle changes affected his testosterone levels
• Why cleaning up as many small stressors in your diet and lifestyle can make a significant change in your overall health.
• What diet and workout changes did Jamie make to improve his overall health?
• His stance on blue and green light blocking and circadian biology.
• How he is getting proper alignment of his circadian cycles and proper sunlight in the UK
• What type of foods he chooses to eat for breakfast and why he believes nutrition today has become overcomplicated “to the max.”
• Why he believes that every part of our lives needs to be thoroughly analyzed.

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Factor 75

Connect with Jamie Ward:

• The Better Me Podcast

The Takeaway:

• Be nice to people. Have compassion and empathy. Try to understand what is making someone do what they are doing.
• At the end of the day, we need to think about whether things are adding to our lives or taking away from it. If something is making you stress, it is taking away from your life.
• Keep it simple. Test things. Take a leap of faith. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s okay, but continue to test things to find what does work for you. We are all different.

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Stay updated on new episodes, guest interviews, and health, wellness, and fitness information and resources by subscribing to the HealthCastNow Podcast Show on iTunes. Every day we bring you actionable insight, demystified truth, and simple steps to help you navigate the complex, often confusing health, wellness, and fitness information and answer the questions you’ve been asking.

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Brad is a world famous triathlete. He’s one of the most well-known persons in the world of endurance sports having garnered multiple awards and victories on top of being ranked 3rd best in the world in 1991. He’s also an author of many books catering to a primal way of life.

Today Brad will talk with us about his take on what people associate endurance sports with, the importance of sleep and recovery for endurance athletes, the type of nutrition that works, and why he likes the idea of resistance training for endurance.

"We get deluded these days into thinking succeeding in endurance sports is all about enduring in a negative context rather than being good to your body as you pursue ambitious fitness goals.” Brad Kearns

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Sleep habits are more important than whatever endurance books will tell you. Brad said he slept half his life throughout his best career to get the best out of his body.
• Most athletes should add more hours of sleep even if it means sacrificing physical activity or training.
• Getting up before sunrise will disrupt the way your body functions, especially when it comes to your circadian cycle and hormone production.
• If you're running yourself down, back up so you don't just keep wearing the system down. Dictate your training decisions according to your mood.
• You want to have a nutrient-dense diet compared to getting fuel with little to no nutritional content such as sugar-based sports food.
• Just because you're not getting morbidly obese when you eat more sugar than the average person doesn't mean it's not hurting you.
• Fixing your sleeping habits especially after sundown will do wonders to your body's metabolic processes, especially when it comes to controlling your appetite and burning fat.
• When it comes to training for endurance sports, balance is important; not just miles but also mobility, functional strength, and other activities that translate to better endurance performance.
• Resistance training will simulate what happens to your body when it’s under extreme fatigue or stress during endurance competitions. With that said, nothing can substitute with actual cardio training when it comes to building a solid aerobic base.
• You can't go in and perform at your best level when you're working out almost every day of the week. It's better be varied in your training and focusing on intensity for a short period of time and rest for a short period of time, rather than going at it 100% all the time.

Key Takeaways:

• Everyone knows stress and recovery is important but not everyone can get it balanced.
• The intuitive element is everything; the difference between coming in first or last place. Having the discipline to realize the state of your body and mind are at each day and taking what your body gives you and nothing more is what will bring out the best in you.

Connect with Brad Kearns:

• Brad Kearns Official
• Twitter

Mentioned in this episode:

• Primal Endurance book by Mark Sisson with Brad Kearns

Primal Endurance podcast

Stay updated on new episodes, guest interviews, and health, wellness, and fitness information and resources by subscribing to the HealthCastNow Podcast Show on iTunes. Every day we bring you actionable insight, demystified truth, and simple steps to help you navigate the complex, often confusing health, wellness, and fitness information and answer the questions you’ve been asking.

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