Your Adrenal Fix Podcast- Biohack for biohackers

 

Dr. Joel Rosen:  All right. Hello, everyone. And welcome back to another edition of your adrenal fix Podcast, where our mission is to teach exhausted and burnt out adults the truth about adrenal fatigue so they can get their energy back quickly. I’m really excited to introduce my guest and my new friend, Dr. Sam Shay DC. He helps biohackers and entrepreneurs mompreneurs and service professionals increase their energy, resilience, and creativity so that they can create and sustain a great business to create more personal freedom. Dr. Sam, thank you so much for being here today.

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: Thanks, Joe. Really appreciate it.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen:  Yeah, no. So listen, most of the health practitioners that we talk to probably every single one of them have their own personal story, Sam, and I know you have your own health journey starting from six to 18 years of age, why don’t you let the viewers know what you’ve gone through and how you got to where you got to today?

 

Dr. Sam Shay DC.:  Sure. So my story is started really at six when I had my first sentient memories, my family went through a nuclear divorce, as I call it, and my sisters and I run the blast radius of pretty, pretty traumatic divorce. And that began a cycle of 12 years of a sugar addiction of video game addiction on screen addiction.

Severe insomnia where trouble getting to sleep would wake up at 3 am on the dot, and then you woken up as loud blaring alarm to crawl out of bed to go to a school that I didn’t like and was humiliated and assaulted on a regular basis for years. And so it was like a warzone at the house. It was a warzone at school and an emotional Warzone at the house, not a physical one. And, um, I also had an eating disorder of overeating. But fortunately, I had a metabolism of a bumblebee. So it just burned off everything. And was in chronic pain from the injuries from the assaults as well as sitting all day at school or in front of a television to numb out. And severe bowel issues. Like I couldn’t have constipation couldn’t go once every three to five days for 12 years. And I was told that was normal. But my parents were both medical doctors. And the diet, I always had my cholesterol checked at age seven, because they were concerned about my cholesterol as to medical doctor, parents in the 80s are led to believe such things. And my cholesterol is deemed too high for a seven-year-old. And I was put on a high carb low-fat diet, which was probably the worst thing possible for me, given based on I mean, all of these things I say are start there. They’re harrowing, and there are awful and all in the collection and there was but the flip side of it is I came through the other side having to learn all these other fields to pull myself out of this hole. And then genetically, one of those is genetics. And I genetically tested myself for my optimal diet and I am genetically more of a paleo diet with some keto tendencies. I’m not genetically predisposed predisposition towards the Mediterranean or a high car, which some people are. And that was, you know, that’s us. This further detailed discussion we’ll have a little bit later on. But for me personally, the high carb diet was a terrible, terrible, terrible idea for me, constitutionally genetically, on top of literally everything else. So I thought I was going to be a medical doctor, I knew I was going to be a doctor at age six, I just didn’t realize I take a sharp turn into natural medicine. And what happened was that in high school, I basically was at a fork in the road, that I’m either going to fix myself or off myself because this is the depression the anxiety, the ill health, the humiliate, like it was just getting too much and I made the decision to heal myself and with the help of certain mentors and books and just this new vision of learning natural medicine gave me hope and inspiration. So I went I mean started at age 16. It was when I really got I mean I had the problems for at least another two years as I was trying to figure this out. And certain things lasted longer to resolve but the main some of the major things really started to turn around and I went to university and did a pre-med degree but also did a holistic health practitioner degree in the evenings and weekends while all the other students were having you know, dramas and drugs. I was learning meditation going to going to weekend courses, even took some post-grad stuff at the local Acupuncture school while in college, just that things were open. And then went to chiropractic school after an interim travel period. And just really drilled into nutrition and especially neurology. And neurology, I picked as at the time was a master subject because to know neurology, you had to know biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, nutrition, pathology, microbiology, etc, etc, etc.

 

And in chiropractic school, we learned about what was called the triangle of health and the triangle of health was a construct developed in the late 1800s by the founder of chiropractic, dd Palmer, and it was at the, you know, trauma, toxins, and thoughts or stressful thoughts, and at the time, and it’s 95. That’s a brilliant model. Unfortunately, today, it’s, it’s a bit simplistic. The, there’s many more things. If you say to someone, hey, I’m gonna help with your trauma, your toxins, and your thoughts, like that’s, that’s kind of vague, and, and nonspecific. And so what I did is I took that triangle of health, and I updated it, you know, false modesty aside to the 10 pillars of health, so the brain was put right in the middle. And, in fact, I’ll just put on a visual,

wrong. Visual, hold on. I’ll just put on there we go. So the 10 the 10 pillars, or do you see that Joel? On the screen there?

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, I can see it.

 

Okay. So the 10 pillars it’s a circle, and the center is the brain. And the reason why put the brain in the middle is because, the hypothalamus is arguably the center of the brain because it interprets not only location-wise but also it interprets the inputs from biochemical input, physical input, and mental-emotional input. And it’s the boardroom it makes a decision about are under stress or not? Are we under threat or not? Will we go through an adrenal sympathetic stress response? Because are we in survival or not? So the brain was in the middle, and then the physical corner of the triangle, I split into three parts. bowel, body, and burst bowel is digestion and absorption. So how will you chew? How will you poo? It’s also my sense of humor that its bowel is pillar number two, as in going number two. So a little bit of nerd humor chucked in there for fun. And, you know, a lot of people spend a lot of money on good supplements and organic food and other things, but how well you’re absorbing it, how are you digesting it? Or are you eliminating the residues that need to be excluded? So the rhetorical question I ask is, like, how long would you live in a house with a toilet that couldn’t flush? Not very long. And it’s the same thing if you don’t inject waste properly, and it’s an utter lie, that otter complete lies as Oh, if you just poop once every two to three days, you’re fine. It’s a lie. total lie. Our Paleolithic ancestors proved once per large meal, you know, to make room for whatever else is coming through, you have to go every day and eliminate and it’s if you don’t, you get backed up and you create what’s called autotoxicity, where stuff leeches back into your bloodstream and chewing you know, digestion starts up at the top, you know, chewing that the cheapest supplement on the planet is simply to chew more that way you absorb what you have. And there’s lots of those neurological benefits is all sorts of things and I know some people listening is like oh wow, this is real you know, magic stuff. Dr. Shay while you’re telling us to chew and poop Wow. It’s of course there are many layers deep into the bowel pillar. I mean, there’s gut testing, running advanced profiles like checking for hidden you know, infections, actual digestion markers, are you actually digesting proteins, fats, and carbs, etc. But this is just a big picture overview. The third pillar the, that’s bow the third pillar is the body. Now body includes several things. It includes untreated injuries. It includes poor posture from people like sitting all day, it includes bad dental work, you know, people who have really bad done or that can ruin your life. And it also includes genetics. Now, why is genetics in the body? Well, look at twins. The reason why they’re twins is because they have identical genes so that the genes determine the shape of your body. And genetics is a huge and burgeoning field.

People are being I feel misled in terms of the efficacy of jeans today, and people are chasing after individual jeans. Like people chase after an individual, but it’s an allopathic Western mindset. There’s One cause one cure. So if I’m lucky people chase after an individual gene here and an individual gene there. That’s not. That’s, that’s allopathic genetics, what, what I do is called functional genetics, where I don’t look at an individual inflammatory gene like interleukin six or TNF alpha, I look at 15 genes, and I look at major inflammatory genes that are upstream controllers of all the downstream ones. And I look, is there a pattern? Is there a problem with the inflammation pathway as such? Like, is it not just one gene? Is it like 10, or 12 of those genes that are of negative variants on it? And that way, I know this person has an inflammation issue, not a specific gene we’re chasing after so it’s looking at it from a much bigger lens, and then finding out and figuring out based on the research, what are the fewest number of lifestyle interventions that beneficially affect all or most of those rogue genes, as opposed to giving, you know, 15 separate things to do you find the couple that actually influences all the genes. So it’s an 8020 principle. Basically, when it comes to genetics, what’s the fewest number of genes that require the most amount of attention, and what’s the fewest number of interventions that can help those fewest number of important genes. So that’s the third pillar, body fourth pillar is burst, which stands for burst exercise its movement. So those three pillars bow body and burst exercise, that’s, that’s the physical section. So it’s all movement, it’s all the body in different ways. The first exercise is looking at movement. How too much too little wrong type, not enough variety. I don’t use the word exercise, because that’s a real trigger word for certain people. That exercise is littered with guilt, or there’s not enough time, and so on. So I call it like movement, all my posts being able to be so that’s why I pick bursts because it was a variant of the term burst high-intensity interval training was Burst Training. So I have an article on my blog, which I’ve diplomatically entitled why marathoners look like cancer patients. And there’s, you know, from a few talk about adrenals, um, people who marathon they have a really high consistent load of cortisol, but they don’t get a concomitant release of growth hormone, and testosterone to regenerate the damaged from cortisol, you know, breaking down tissue. And that’s why when you marathon a lot, and you train for marathons, that you have a really high chronic cortisol load, which erodes all your muscles equally. That’s why you look gaunt. When you are a marathoner, as opposed to high-intensity interval training. Um, they look amazing, like you just look at any Olympic sprinter, and they look 1000 times healthier than any marathoner. And so I’m a fan of a mixture of movement and high-intensity interval training. But there are some genetic variants, some people are genetically more suited for some more moderate movement patterns. Um, so that’s the move, that’s the physical corner and then the biochemical corner of the triangle is split into three parts biotoxins, bio-nutrients, and breakfast. So biotoxins is self-explanatory. It’s things that are harmful to your system, whether it’s off-gassing, insecticides, pesticides, pollutants in water, air food, on things that you absorb through your skin, toxic, makeups, toxic things that come off of dyes and whatnot, and clothing. Some the some of the easiest and least expensive things that people can do to improve their health like it’s rarely Is there any one single toxin that affects people today, it’s just this collection and coalescing of hundreds and thousands of different toxins that synergistically wear down the body over time. That’s the real issue going on today. I mean, sure, people can have a major exposure, but usually, it’s like just this collection of all these toxins that just add about about about about up so one of the best things people can do is to go is to look at all the personal and house cleaning products from dishwashing, washing machine, soaps, surface cleaners, floor cleaners, toothbrush, toothpaste, rather.

Skin products, soaps, shampoos, conditioners, and just pay the extra two bucks a bottle for the organic and natural versions of them and also replace all your spices. With organic clean, fresh spices and spices are next to Oregon meat and insects the highest concentration of nutrients on the planet. pound for pound. So and the reason why is because they absorb all the minerals and nutrients from the soil in a concentrated form, so if you have inorganic, unhealthy, or spoiled spices you’re taking in a concentrated toxin load. So, once again, one of the cheap and frankly most delicious things you can do is just simply replace all your spices with really organic fresh, you can just go to any natural food store. And in fact, most normal food stores have an entire organic spice section and it’s the cheapest supplement, you’re going to get extra chewing more. So that’s biotoxins. And of course, there’s advanced labs in biotoxins. With the checking for heavy metals, if people are running an advanced mitochondria test, there are six liver pathways checking for the amino acids that are involved in say, the urea cycle or the liver detox cycle checking for heavy metals, there are all sorts of tests functional tests that can be done. On top of just sheer logic, lifestyle interventions, the six pillars bio-nutrients, which is the inverse, and that’s everything you need, you know, fatty acids, amino acids, minerals, vitamins, it also includes oxygen and sunlight, which you metabolize, just like these other things. And so what we put this is about what we metabolize for our benefit, oxygen, and the sunlight is two of those. So this is our diet lives in bio-nutrients. And a lot of people get really hung up on the perfect diet, to the exclusion of the other pillars. And you’ll notice that all the pillars are roughly equal and soluble. All the outer edges the night first time, the pillows two through 10 are all equal size. And the reason I did that is that I’ve met so many health fanatics that are just so fixated on Oh, it’s all about meditation, it’s all about diet. It’s all about exercise, it’s all about this that

and become totally imbalanced and one-sided. And I’ve seen clinically that not everyone’s priority is everyone else’s priority. There’s a balancing act going on and people’s. Some people’s pillars are higher priorities than others. Seven Pillars breakfast, which is not only eating a good solid starting meal, but it’s also about routines both morning and evening, and I found that some of the sickest, almost unwell people I’ve ever worked with, as a profession has been night shift nurses because their routines are so thrown off by all this shiftwork as just as a profession they are there as a general the most unhealthy group of people I’ve ever worked with. Because they get all 10 pillars of all 10 pillars are crumbling in spades, but the real magic ingredient to screw it all up and exponentiated everything else is that their routines are totally messed up from the shiftwork. The eighth pillar is bothering which is we’re now in the mental-emotional realm bothers bugs and bedtime. This bothers is a B-word for stress. Whether it’s marital stress, relationship stress, financial stress, cultural stress, watching the news, clutter, it’s one reason why Marie Kondo has gotten so famous in the life-changing Magic of Tidying Up on electromagnetic fields. For certain people, they’re very sensitive to that’s a stressor to them. I’m one of them, but not everybody. So for those that are affected, it’s, it’s really troublesome. And it’s and it’s like this invisible thing that you can’t explain to people who can’t feel it. The ninth color bugs, which are hidden infections and mold. So I developed these 10 pillars back in 2000. Like, like they fully formalized in like 2010 2011 when I was in New Zealand, and mold central over there, it’s tiny islands surrounded by ocean on all four sides and really shoddy building buildings. I mean, just terrible. mold is a killer for up to 25% of the population just devastating. But it’s also internal infections, whether they’re in the gut or blood or elsewhere. So if you’re, if, if you have hijackers in your system, it’s gonna affect you. And don’t think for a second that infections only gut infections only happen in third world countries. That’s completely untrue. I’ve run I don’t know how many hundreds and hundreds of stool tests, people who have like never left the borders of their western country, and they’ve, they have hidden infections, you know. And some things can be done naturally to help remove the infections and you can see them removed on post-testing, and that they’re not there anymore. Then the last pillar number 10 is bedtime, which is sleep, you know, consistency, duration, depth, quality, and I was in severe insomnia for 12 years. In fact, my next ebook, just finished working on finishing up my at the time of this recording my genetics ebook, the next book, which will be a Kindle book will be on sleep. And so I’ve had Having learned everything I’ve had to learn to come out of severe insomnia, as well as working with clients is going to be in that ebook. And I can say that, um, Sleep Sleep is probably in modern times the one color that is the most chronically sacrificed and least valued because and sabotage frankly with all whether it’s blue light, or deadlines or whatever it is. That’s the pillar that’s chronically sacrificed not four of these pillars can be sledgehammers, meanings and massive singular events are one the physical body one can be sledge hammered with either a little sledgehammer and taken to the body or it’s a car accident, violence, sports injury or a fall that can crumble the whole edifice. biotoxin can be a sledgehammer, where you get massive exposure to a singular toxin that you’re uniquely vulnerable to bothers pillar number eight, you can have a major stressful event whether it’s a death of a family member, an illness of a child, mass a move, a friend of mines, Father’s house just burned down this week from the fires,

a,

 

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: whatever it may be, that can be a sledgehammer, and then the pillar nine bugs that can be a sledgehammer, a major infection, as we know, during pandemic times that that can be a sledgehammer to certain people. So those are the 10 pillars there, they were developed working with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, autoimmune, and severe adrenal fatigue patients in New Zealand. And what I found is that people who are chronically unwell had a minimum of seven out of 10 pillars that were crumbling. And the reason why they were chronically unwell is because when you Seven Pillars crumbling, and then you try to jump from one protocol, product, or personality to the next. Usually, most practitioners are really, really good at 123 pillars, okay, and another two or three, and then kind of not really well versed in the other four. But if you’ve got seven-plus pillars that are crumbling, and you’re only addressing 123 really well and kind of met on the other two to three to two or three, then your problem, you’re not going to get fully well. And it’s like you sit on seven tacks and you remove three of them, you’re technically healthier, but you don’t feel any better. Because other things have to be dealt with. So those are the 10 pillars. And, again, they came out of the triangle of health, and they just been modernized to include everything else, that if you went beyond 10, it gets a bit unruly, I met someone who has 37 pillars or 37, whatever of health is like good luck teaching that. You know. So those are the 10 pillars again arrive that not just theoretically but clinically, because they were vetted on some the sickest of the sick clients that were there, then in the town I was in New Zealand.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: That’s quite an intro.

 

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: Yeah.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen:  Yeah. So all right. So it all started with me asking you about your background. And I’m glad we delved into the 10 pillars, but I wanted to go back, I’m from a traditional family as well. And, and so as far as when you decided, you said at six years of age, after going through the nuclear fallout with the divorce and the shrapnel and everything else in between. and then thanks for sharing that, that as well. I know, that’s a big thing to have to go through. And then, of course, you said, abuse. When you went through school, I’m sorry to hear that Sam. But at the same time, it’s the armor, and the battle scars that we take with us that that define us and make us stronger, and ultimately has given you the path and the mission to help other people. And I’m really impressed with how well you’ve organized your 10 pillars. But what I wanted to get into is being from the traditional family of allopathic doctors, like I was as well. How did your parents embrace it or not? Your career choice of being natural, and looking at the whole 10 pillar approach versus as you and I talked about when we first discussed doing this talk, the even the functional medicine doctors or alternative doctors still do the very reductionistic take this for that. I’ll be it it’s a supplement. So the question really is Sam, how did your parents embrace or not the career choice that you made given that they were from an allopathic point of view?

 

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: Well, it’s an interesting question because over time the positions have flipped from one the original was originally sharing my intent. So originally when I shared my intent with my mother on an I was going to be a chiropractor. I mean, really, I was a naturopath disguised as a chiropractor. That’s really that had to do with licensing laws back in the early to mid-2000s. There wasn’t a huge number of states that were licensed in naturopathy. But everyone was licensed in chiropractic. And then at the time, you know, for the most part, every state that had naturopathic licensing, the chiropractors have basically the same scope anyway, so why limit myself and when I told my mother, she screamed at me, because it when she went to medical school, the only people that went to chiropractic school were those that either failed out of medical school or couldn’t get in. And, um, my father at the time thought it was a great idea, even though he’s an MD, Ph.D., and published two books on moral injury and trauma. And, he discouraged me from going to medical school because he thought that the trajectory of medical graduates was just to be a dispensary for drugs and less and less time with actual meaningful interactions with patients. And he, has criteria for any procedure, is it whether it’s natural or medical? Is it safe? And is it effective? Those two criteria which is a very fair filter, like is this safe is this effective and he put he’s had wonderful experiences long term with good chiropractors and there are like with any profession bad ones out there. He said chiropractic falls under safe and effective now. Uh, what’s happens as the years have gone by my mother has now turned around and is way more open to the functional side of things that I do. And my father who has since developed dementia, has become extremely resistant and to the point of belligerent overdoing anything nutritionally or lifestyle-wise to help him because he is very much set in his ways and is preferring his small comforts and pleasures over long term care, even though he’s a famous medical doctor and all the rest of it. It’s um, and he’s, it’s the ironies are many layers thick. And it’s, it’s tragic on multiple levels. And I have in the reason my father’s become belligerent is because my, you know, at times belligerent, because I’m coming to him with a 10 pillars model, about the things that he can do to help preserve his brain. And he’s totally fine supporting me adjust, you know, in the chiropractic vision of me as a chiropractor, but as soon as what I do conflicts with his small pleasures, and his personal preferences and comfort, then suddenly, it’s fronting, and he gets all he gets adamant and obstinate. And it’s, it’s a form of conditional accept conditional acceptance that I will accept your career as long as it’s nonthreatening, to my way of being. And that’s, it’s, it’s, it’s probably one of the saddest days of one’s life when you realize that if you and your parents, you and your parent are in the same room, that you the child or the adult in the room now, that is truly one of the saddest days of a child’s life is realizing you’re the adult in the room. And, and again, my father has helped hundreds of thousands of people through his writings and all that, and it’s just, it’s complicated. One can be a hero worldwide, and a hypocrite at home. Many things can be true at once. And it’s taken me quite a long road to be able to talk about this. So kind of calmly, and so, just this is what is it is as opposed to me getting pretty upset as you can imagine, you know, being rebuffed. Um, and

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: Because I, I went out of my way to study all the things to do to preserve brains. I mean, I had a degree in Functional Neurology for Pete’s sake, you know, as an all these other things, and, and to be proactively sabotaged and rebutted against is, it was quite a learning experience. You know, it’s, it’s, I have a subspecialty in addiction. I overcome both my addictions and this is we don’t have this is not a discussion talking about addiction. There’s this whole other podcast or 10, honestly, but one of the keys when people come to my parents, reach out to me because I have a specialty in video games. Addiction and sugar addiction. But parents usually reach out to me for video games, oh, my son or daughter is addicted to video games, and social media usually respectively. And my first question is, do they want help? Or do they just need help? And then it’s usually followed by very awkward silence and nervous laughter on their part. And they say, they need the help but don’t want the help. And I said, Okay, I’m, then I can’t help you, I’m sorry. And it’s the same thing with my father, he needs the help that is for sure. And he’s been literally handed everything he needs on a silver platter. But he doesn’t want the help. So it’s just it’s a lesson in acceptance, and, and introspection, and coming to terms with someone’s life choices, as painful it is to watch and also to watch the knock-on effects of how it’s affecting the family, how his brain decaying affects literally everyone else in terms of his loss of faculties and everything. It’s, it’s one of the, I mean, a lot of people want to run to the homologies and meditate their way to enlightenment and become accepting of all things. I’m like, why do you need to do that? Why don’t you just sit in the room with your parents for five minutes to enlighten you are? You know, that’s the ultimate training? Um, so? Yeah, I think that I chose my career also partly out of solidarity against my medical parents, because I was, it was what the tools at the time were so counterproductive. For my state of health, that, part of me choosing natural medicine was out of defiance. To what, that the health trajectory that they put me on, was at the best motive part was that the, I mean, it was part love of nationally also part, you know, giving maybe in the middle finger of my parents, um, it was at the best motivator, no, but did it work kinda, I mean, it’s got to be where I am today. And now I’ve resolved you know, things with my mother and we’re super close. Now. It’s taken several decades, lots of therapy and, and real, a lot of hard conversations. And, you know, my father we’re still working on things is his ability is a bit decreased with dementia. But, um, it’s a lot more internal work for me now, because he can’t, he can’t, he can’t stay present with dementia. And it’s tried again, tragic on multiple money layers. And in for those listening, like, I know, for some of you may be talking about these trials and tribulations with my parents may or may not land but my what I encourage people to do, we’re listening to this.

 

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: Do the work now, to try to resolve your relationship with your parents, I cannot tell you how tragic it is. To have not started real work with my father five years ago. It is so tragic because he now wants to but his brain can’t do it. He can’t do it. And that is even more painful on some levels than him not wanting to work on the relationship with me at all. I mean, that and I hope, I hope does that make sense? Like just how painful like this, it’s like what could have been like it was there, you know, and but it’s not. So. And I do understand truly that some people have fraught, perhaps irreparable relationships with what parents but for your sake, for the as an as a child of parents, it’s worth doing the work around it, even if they’re gone or they’re on in, not communicable with or whatever. You can do the work on yourself because your parents are the two biggest filters by which you filter the world mother and father. And we can get all young in about this and you know, archetypes and everything. And there’s major truth to it. Resolving one’s relationship with one’s parents is probably one of the most meaningful and helpful things one can do and to bring it back to the 10 pillars. That’s under pillar number eight bothers. And you know, some parents are sledgehammers in one’s life when it comes to that pillar. Others are not. So, yeah, long a long answer to a short question. Yeah.

Dr. Joel Rosen: Well, no thanks for sharing and you can definitely see the hero’s journey. One thing that I can see that’s evident and a lot of things that you talk about, I want to touch upon, is that you got to practice what you preach and that’s integrity, right? That’s having integrity. It’s hard for me to have someone give me advice that doesn’t walk the walk. And, and with the parents, I’ve had the same thing when my father is going through dialysis. My sister his daughter is a real doctor. I mean, Sorry, a family, you know, Doctor, whereas the chiropractic physician is not the real doctor in his eyes, unfortunately,

 

Dr. Sam Shay DC.:  our quotes, right, exactly,

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: yeah. And so I will I went to visit him a year and a half ago. And he was in the dialysis place. And they were serving bread with like Wonder Bread, with margarine. So anyway, um, I give my advice, which unfortunately goes in one ear and out the other. And I think that’s probably the frustration to Sam is not only that, he doesn’t want to do the hard thing. Right and do the thing, because it’s really the hard thing. And but at the same time, it’s, it’s not listening to you and you having the ability to help him when you know you can, because I’ll give him suggestions in terms of exercise with oxygen, and getting some support for at the cellular level, being able to get those cells to aspire better. And then I’m only met with which I know it deep down. He’s not gonna do anything about it. But he needs to ask his doctor if that’s okay. Yeah. And that gets, you know, gets super frustrating. And I think the lesson in that is really, another thing you mentioned is which I think is key. And I’ve told this to a lot of the patients I work with, I will care as much as you will, in fact, probably you won’t meet another doctor, unless you’re talking to Sam, that’s going to care as much as you’re going to care what I’m not going to care more you have no I’m not going to care more. I’m not going to drag you in kicking and screaming when you’re in sinking you know the ocean, and I’m sending you the life preserver and you’re kicking and screaming coming in, you know, I’m not gonna care more than you. And I love that question, Sam in terms of does he want to change or you know, I think that’s

Dr. Sam Shay DC.  what was needed. Yeah,

 

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah. So I think that’s pretty key. As far as switching it up on you a little bit here. Your ebook is called biohacking your biohacking or bio-hack your biohacking? Yeah, so I see you have the aura ring on I have the aura ring on. Let’s talk a little bit about that. So I know you have that in your ebook. What exactly is your definition of biohacking? And then let’s talk a little bit on maybe swing into a little bit of the genetics because I have my ideas and you have your ideas and I’d love to have a meeting of the minds on that. So first, let’s start with biohacking. Sure,

Dr. Sam Shay DC.:
I can literally share the screen and show you my written it’s in the E book. What is biohacking is literally right there.

Dr. Joel Rosen:  That yes that up I just that was Yeah,

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: that wasn’t set up. I’m so I’m smiling. I was like, well, funny story. Here we go. A systematic way of thinking to identify the highest priority pillars of health, and implement the smallest and easiest lifestyle changes that will give the greatest results in a meaningful, sustainable way. That’s my definition. Right?

Dr. Joel Rosen: Okay.

 

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: Why the book is called biohacker biohacking, which to biohackers is a cute play on words, but and I let them chuckled and I look at them very seriously. Like No, really, this is what this is about. Because the problem with biohackers a lot is that it’s magic bullet therapy to them, that they’re just trying to find the latest, you know, coconut oil extract or the latest blue blocker thing or whatever goji berry juice, extract the squared up their nose or whatever. It’s they’re applying a western medicine philosophy to a natural intervention. Western medicine philosophy is one cause one cure it is a symptom-based approach this is let’s find the one thing that’s going to cure this thing. And Western medicine was born legitimately out of military medicine, where the symptom was the problem if you’re on the battlefield, you know, you don’t diagnose someone as a field medic with bleeding eye syndrome or missing arm disease. Those are emergency care, stabilizing issues that require stabilization. And so Western medicine is born out of the symptom is the problem that requires emergency urgent stimulus stabilization. And that is utterly legit in real emergency scenarios. The problem is that when we extern is we what’s the word when we globalize this philosophy to non-emergency situations. And everything either becomes it’s got to be one thing that fixed this one thing and it’s we got to deal with it now and it’s only one it’s it’s let’s find the supplement the surgery or the radiation to cut it, burn it, poison it. And that’s it. Don’t pay attention to Anything else that may have caused it to contribute to it synergized with it, whatever and this idea of biohacking and just trying to find the best frequency for your laser is it can careen into western medicine, magic, magic bullet magical thinking. And now, all these bio hacks, whether it’s the coconut oil, the laser, the lights, the angling your bed to help with drainage, whatever it is. Those are all legit tactics. They’re tactics, not strategies, and people are confusing the strategy for the tactic. You can use all of those things. But what I’m saying with biohacker biohacking is take the 30,000-foot view First, look at the 10 pillars and figure out what pillar you need to focus on, or pillars. So the amount of energy it takes to if a pillar is at 80%. of integrity, the amount of energy it takes to go from 80 to 90 is the same amount of energy focus and resources it takes to take a pillar at 20% to bring it up to 80. That’s what I mean by biohack, your bio hacking, it doesn’t exclude all these tactics, it just tells you let’s focus on the right pillar to then pick what tactics are most appropriate to build up that pillar in question. That’s, that’s really what biohacking is about.

Dr. Joel Rosen: Yeah, for sure. And I agree, I like the term data tracking better. And, and I like the idea that you’ve put it into different buckets. In fact, when I talk to the people at aura, as you know, they have the readiness bucket, they have the activity bucket, they have the sleep bucket. So basically you look at it as you have 10 buckets. And really if you’re really the the the worn and torn bio hacker that you say you are, then you really are into numbers and quantification of self. So why not put it in a framework? And I like the idea of 10 pillars, and here’s how you quantify it. Certainly, you can have subjective 30,000 view foot symptoms or things that aren’t working like fatigue and brain fog and stress and anxiety. But if we quantify these 10 pillars, and be able to data track, and come up with the study of one if you will have these are some of the parameters that you need to look at to and here are some of the strategies that you need to be aware of.

Dr. Sam Shay DC.:  Yeah, you

Dr. Joel Rosen:  know, yeah, so, I love that as far as just for yourself just as a nerd to another in a nice and loving way

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: sounds I wish you the secret hand signal, you know, just

Dr. Joel Rosen: Have you really dug into your own or a number and are you.

Dr. Sam Shay DC.:  Absolutely so the tracking. So the way that I totally agree with you on tracking and so the way that I implement tracking it because the 10 pillars are you know, extremely useful practical construct to be able to organize one’s thinking when it comes to one’s health or it’s biohacking or otherwise, tracking is crucial. I mean, the way that I track is I run functional tests. So I let the third party lab so if we’re looking at say the brain pillar which is brain and hormones so I do like adrenal testing, where it’s a cortisol awakening response, you know, the or the Dutch test or whatever or you’re doing advanced thyroid panels Um, so I track with that lab and they’re the bowel at Bell Labs you run you know, and most of these major they all have everyone claims that their poop test smells better you know and that tracks pillar number two and pillar number nine for bugs because of the stool test check for infections. the physical body is the entire swath of genetics testing burst that’s the in terms of testing for tracking for a burst that’s things like what’s on the aura ring, whether it’s, you know, how many steps or levels of intensity and frequency and rest periods and all that also on the functional labs I really check the genetics because some people are genetically over and flamers and if they exercise too much, they begin to put on weight because their body in flames and then it retains all this water to dilute all the inflammation if I presented at a genetics conference on this very subject on case studies of people who over-exercised and put on more weight and it turned out there it was specific genetic combinations that let in vastly over inflaming It was fascinating. Yeah, bio toxins. There’s plenty of ways to check for numbers, you know, lab tests, you know, whether it’s liver pathways or toxins and metals themselves. I know, you know, genetic You can do genetic testing to see what your ideal diet constitution is.

 

There’s, you know, the advanced mitochondrial lab I run through Genova is is basically a micronutrient test anyway fatty acids amino acids, it’s mitochondrial support blah blah blah, breakfast, and routines that are aura ring I mean the aura ring you can track Okay, you say you went to bed at 930 but the data says it was actually 1145 How do you square that? You know and I find what I found is that on average people report it this is just me subjectively going through files and you know, just making notes people’s reported bedtime versus their actual bedtime is off by about 45 minutes. Like like yeah, some of the most valuable data I ever got off an aura ring or sleep cycle I mean, I’ve been using the sleep cycle app for over three years. The most some of the most valuable thing I ever got with a patient or a client on sleep cycle was just showing them when they actually went to sleep over the past month and completely off completely different from what they reported to me, not in a guilty shaming way was like look, here’s the data you really want to deal with your fatigue let’s look at the data and like it’s arguable like they can’t deny that I’m with bothers and stress me adrenal testing that’s a great way to measure for stress is also on mitochondria panels you can check the dopamine and serotonin pathways and measure you know how what your rest periods are with the aura ring and there are other apps out there to track how much time you meditate or track things like I don’t know, I use well world’s you know, as one of the main apps clinically people to track you know, water consumption, do they meditate, etc, etc. You can track intermittent fasting, but it’s

Dr. Joel Rosen: easier and easier to which is great, you know?

 

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: I like I love the ring. Because one it’s unintrusive. Like I don’t like wearing watches. And a ring-like it’s, it’s, you know, it’s a nice looking ring. And it’s not, it’s not you rock climb or do construction, you can risk injuring your finger like what happened, I think to Jimmy Kimmel, he had that sleeve pull thing. So the ring is an unintrusive data tracker. And yeah, I love that it.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen:
Yeah, it’s great. I, you know, as like, you work with people that are exhausted and burnt out, and I find that and they are they have that perfect storm of epigenetic factors overlapping with those genetic susceptibilities that create just the train wrecks of the world, right?

 

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: Yep, you got it.

 

Dr. Joel Rosen:
you get them doing so much data tracking, even if it’s automatic, that in itself becomes very stressful for having to do like chronometer and, and then tracking all these things, and then being overstressed. But a couple of things I was going to mention to you and I want to get into the genetics and get your, you know, competitive out sort of, on the burst, I think about nitric oxide, in that in that area. I had a really great interview with Nathan Bryan, he is one of the foremost researchers in nitric oxide. And you talk about any, you know, first of all, a compound that is just very new in the world of research that isn’t on a lot of doctor’s radars is nitric oxide. But it really has its hand in every cookie jar of health, in terms of oxygenation, mitochondrial health, you know, he kind of basically broke it down, Sam, in terms of, you know, in basic, simple terms, health is having too much of something you shouldn’t have and not enough for something you should have.

Dr. Sam Shay DC.: Exactly,

 

Dr. Joel Rosen:
right. And at the end of the day, oxygenation and blood flow are really behind every chronic illness and nitric oxide. So one of the things I could say is, there are nitric oxide strips, you could do that under the burst section in terms of measuring nitric oxide, but let’s get into genetics. So I use another software different than what you use. And I’m sure we’re very similar in the way of thinking in terms of if you have some of these genetic susceptibilities, then these are the rocks that you want to look under, under in your case, the 10 pillars because these are going to have the bigger Domino effects or they’re going to have the bigger hinges that swing doors downstream if you will. And so what have you found like in terms of you’ve mentioned, the over and flamers or the under, under firefighters, I don’t know what you have for that. What do you have is that the same as the over in flamers? Um,