Nature regulates your brain, your hormones, your nervous system, and your immune system. Learn more about your relationship with nature in Session 51 of the Conscious Forum.
Video Transcript:
Dr. A: It’s 2026, not 2025. Boy, does time fly. Anyway, we’ll get started in a minute. I’ll give a chance for everybody to get settled in here, and then we will go. So, I hope everybody’s having — and by the way, if you notice that the screen is moving a little bit, it’s because I’m on my boat and we’re going to start off talking about that today. So, I’ll give about another 30 seconds for everybody to fully populate before we get going. Hope everybody’s having a great Tuesday. All right. Well, basically, this is the Conscious Forum. It’s done every Tuesday. The first Tuesday in the month. And a conscious forum, in essence, just to remind people, what I do is I take a thought or an idea, and I put it out there and do a little talk on it to kind of create some construct on what this subject’s about, some of the understanding of it, and then the practical application. As a conscious forum, the whole idea is for you guys to interact.
So once you’ve listened to it, take the thought you have, whether there’s a question, ideas, something you want to add, because that’s how everybody learns and we learn in this format. I am a scientist, and I’m based in science, but voiced in logic. Voiced in our natural understanding as fellow humans. So today we start, and the talk is: Your Relationship with Nature, and as you see, I’m Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen, and I put, “as a fellow human.” I think it’s really important that, although I’m a scientist and a professional and a thought leader in the space of consciousness, I’m just like you. I experience life similar to how you do, and I learn from you guys as much as you learn from me. So this is a reciprocal mentorship we’re doing. So, it’s really important if you have any ideas, any thoughts, any concerns, anything you want to talk about about yourself or one of your patients or one of your clients, that’s what it’s for. But let’s get started.
So, good morning. Before we begin, I want you to imagine something with me, right now I’m not in an office. I’m basically sitting on my boat in the Exumas. Out here, there are no buildings, no noise, no constant stimulation, just water, wind, sunlight in space. I wake up in the morning. I don’t reach for my phone. I watch the sun come up over the horizon. This morning, we had a squall come in. It rained hard. Did some things to get the boat prepared for that. And then watch the beauty as the dynamics unfolded as nature, fully surrounded in 360. The water is shifting colors. It’s now light. You can see, you can look behind me and see one of the tropical islands. I’m relatively close, about as close as we get to civilization, because I had to drop one of my crewmates off at the airport, at the small airport. How do we get to the airport here? We take the dinghy, and then we just walk across the dinghy from the dock and they get on the plane and it’s that simple here. There’s no security, no customs, nothing like that.
So basically, during the day we’re moving all day, swimming, snorkeling, navigating as captain of the boat, completely engaged and completely present. At night we watch the sunset. Last two nights we spent over an hour watching a full red moon rise. Not a moment like, “Oh, look at the moon.” But literally spending that much time watching the beauty of something that happens every day, but most of the time in our lives we don’t spend any time completely present at night. We watch basically the stars after the moon came up and it reminds you of something that’s easy to forget, that is what we’re designed for. So basically, I’ve been doing this basically for 40 years. First, when I worked as a critical care physician, when I was working 80 hours a week, and now as a thought leader in health, coming back to nature, not as an escape, but as a return. Every time I do it, something happens. My body resets. My mind clears. My energy comes back online in a way that’s hard to fully describe, but impossible to ignore. And here’s what I’ve come to understand after decades of working with thousands of people, this isn’t just something I do. This is something we all need to do.
So, this is your wakeup call this morning. Something so simple but so deeply important. Your relationship with nature. Not nature as something out there, but nature as something you’re deeply connected to whether you realize it or not. Because the truth is your health, your energy, your emotional state, and all are directly influenced by that relationship. For most of human history, we’ve lived outside. We moved with the sun. We felt the air. We were connected with the rhythms of the earth. But today, as we become an indoor species, we live in a controlled environment, artificial light, constant stimulation. And slowly we’ve disconnected from the very system that created us: life. You can see here we’re in trouble. And here’s what we should wake up to. Children today spend about eight minutes a day outside. Eight minutes. Just think about that. And as adults, well, we’re not much better. We have become an indoor species.
This is not just a lifestyle issue. This is our biology. Nature regulates your brain, your hormones, your nervous system, your immune system. It’s not optional for us. It is foundational. One of the key things you’re going to find as we step into nature is that something shifts. Something’s already shifted. I’ve been here 5 days and something has dramatically shifted. My cortisol level has dropped. My heart rate is stabilized. I use a Y monitor and I can tell you my heart rate variability has gone up, indicating that my heart is operating at a healthier state. My mind clears. I feel differently. It’s not just psychological. It’s the biology that’s aligning, concert between my physiology, my emotional cognitive coherence. All that is moving into rhythm. You were designed for it. You were designed for sunlight in the morning, to wake you up and stimulate your circadian rhythm. Movement across real terrain, connection to the earth, living in rhythm instead of constantly being stimulated. But modern life has replaced all of that with convenience. The hidden cost, we’re disconnected and we are disregulated. And when we disconnect, we don’t just lose something, we become anxious, fatigued, depressed, metabolic dysfunction, and we’re trying to solve it with willpower and medication. Overmedicating, over drinking, it’s all part of the disconnection problem.
You know, one of the most powerful things you could do for your health was not something you add, but something you return to. Nature is medicine. Nature is not a luxury. So, let’s do a little closed eyes exercise. I love these because it’s an opportunity for us to suddenly put down all the things we’re doing, all the distractions, the internet, your phone, TVs, even listening to the radio. I want you to take a moment with me. You can close your eyes and take a slow, deep breath. Imagine yourself in a place in nature that you love. It’s easy for me. I just look outside and see the beautiful aquamarine, the clouds separating now that the front’s passed and there’s grays and blues. And I can just sense when I look at that just a calming effect. So maybe for you it’s not the ocean, maybe it’s mountains or maybe a quiet forest. It doesn’t cost a cent to walk outside. Feel the air, the space, the stillness. Now notice your body. Notice what happens to your breathing. Notice your mind. This is your natural state. And when you can’t get to it physically, you can still get to it mentally simply by meditating and thinking of that or taking music or taking a photograph or basically an online feature that shows, you know, Apple has some incredible things of nature. And just make sure we’re talking about going into nature, but the truth is you are nature.
Your body, your rhythms, your biology all mirror the natural world. You are part of this. And the good news is, reconnection doesn’t require a massive lifestyle change. It’s a practice. Small intentional movements done consistently. So different ways to reconnect. Start simple. Get sunlight early in the day. Take a walk outside. Sit in the stillness without your phone. Eat real whole foods. Just begin to reconnect in small ways to your body and to nature. And for those of you who have children, this matters even more. They won’t rediscover nature unless we model it. This is about the next generation learning how to be human again because they are clearly in a synthetic world of AI, world of phones, world of electronics. They’re on the electronic leash and they spend so little time, eight minutes a day or less outside with nature. You need to model that for them. So your invitation is: start working on returning to alignment there. It is the best medicine you can have. Encourage or invite yourself and the people around you, your clients, your patients basically not to do more but to return to, step outside to reconnect to remember. So in closing, because when you reconnect to nature, you don’t just feel better, you come back into alignment of who you truly are. And that is where real health begins. All right, Rachel, let’s open this up for questions. What do we got?
Rachel: All right, first up, we have Kevin. Kevin, can you come off mute? I can see you. Oh, you can’t. Hold on one second. Chris might have to do something.
Dr. A: Do something, Chris. [Rachel laughs].
Kevin: Hey, Dr. A. It’s good to see you again.
Chris: It worked. It worked!
Kevin: Yes. The magic of technology.
Dr. A: The magic of technology!
Kevin: Do you know of any established programs that I could take to my day job and advocate for that would help employees get outside during the day?
Dr. A: Wow. That’s not in my bandwidth, as far as programs. But I will tell you, individually, maybe creating a seminar. Maybe what you do is that — what position do you play at your work?
Kevin: I’m an employee development trainer at my job.
Dr. A: Okay. Yeah. So I would take something like, you know, maybe a story, maybe yourself, and just use stories are the most important part to create interest and create some advocacy for that so that people get excited and hopefully… you know, for you guys, I specifically picked this topic because I knew I was going to be on my boat in the islands and having visuals is so important and we’re we’re kind of disconnected from that. But no. I’m sure you could go, I mean chatGPT now has everything. I’m sure there’s some programs out there for it generally. The other thing you could do is take this, the first part of my talk here, it’s on my website and take it and maybe show it or you could take the amazing documentary we did in Galysia or in Copenhagen. They both basically show a lot about the importance of environment, in getting back to the environment and to healthy surroundings. So those would be my first suggestions.
Kevin: Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Dr. A: You’re welcome. You’re quite welcome. Okay. What else we got, Rach?
Rachel: All right. We’re still waiting for some more questions to come in.
Dr. A: Okay. Jennifer, I saw you on there. What questions do you have? I know you always have one.
Chris: Which Jennifer? I’ll bring her up.
Dr. A: Jennifer M. She’s raised her hand. I can see it.
Chris: There she is. There she is. She’s coming on. One second.
Dr. A: And I better have a lot of questions because that tells me if you’re not asking questions, then you’re far removed from nature. And that’s not what we want. Okay. Hey, Jennifer.
Jennifer: Hi, Dr. A. Well, you know that I’m a big lover of the water and it was so much fun for us to just be humans together on that boat and to go snorkeling together and literally, you know, like it was a blast. Like Dr. A and I definitely share the love for the water and to be able to go snorkeling and you know he was like, “Oh, come and see this fish and come and see that.” And he was teaching me things and I thought, “Yep, once a mentor, always a mentor.” But it was really cool because we had people who were wanting to experience nature, but who were very trepidacious because they had never gone snorkeling and we were not in shallow water, and you and I both went into the same mode, which was, I said, “I’ll teach you. I’ll stay with you the whole time. I’ve taught people before.” And you said the same. I heard you saying the same thing. And because of that, we had about three new snorkelers. And it was just great because we got out there you were teaching them about the mask, you were teaching them, and then once they got in there and through that anxious, like you know, the nerves and all of that because that does not feel good, right? Getting out of your comfort zone. But once they did, you could see them just relax and really start to just… really start to connect with a world and a space that they have never been in before.
And I just feel like it was such a good analogy for what we do in this business. And you’ve taught us the same thing at Sundance when we do that hike to Stewart Falls. You know, we take, what? Two hundred people up there and then we stop in the middle and you always point out that the people who have done this before are mentoring the people who’ve never done this before. And in the end we all are successful. Different paces, different skill sets, different levels, but together. That’s the way that we accomplish great things. And you know people, city people, city folks who’ve never seen a waterfall, never been on a hike before, they’re hiking to this incredible, powerful waterfall, and we get up there and you just have— there’s something to be said about those endorphins and what it does to calm you. So I just wanted to say thank you for teaching me that experience over and over and you’re really good at calling out what you see in people. So, thanks for also calling me out like when we were in Dallas, and you also spoke to some other people, and you know, so thanks for that. Thanks for being the ultimate mentor.
Dr. A: Well, thank you Jennifer. And you’ve gone from the student to being the master yourself, including snorkeling, by the way. Not to be a little bit risky, but sometimes there’s the rule breakers, that on the edge, and clearly you spent a lot of time snorkeling and underwater and particularly for the safety because there’s a lot of people there as you mentioned that had never had a snorkel on and it was kind of a rough day. It was beautiful sunshine, but it was — the waves were up and so snorkeling wasn’t as easy as it can be and for the first time. But yeah, you going down and snorkeling down to the bottom to check things out close hand. I just had a big smile on my face because that’s on the edge. You knew your own safety, you knew you could do it. But yeah, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. And in nature, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the walk or hike up to Stewart Falls, being on the beach— two days ago my best friend and I, who’s on the trip because that’s what I do when I come. I bring people that I want to be with. I have long long-term relationships because as I talked about in the documentary in Galicia, community and friendships are so critical and we covet those and those connect us. And to connect us. His name’s Steve and he’s been snorkeling with me for, I mean, I can’t tell you, 40 plus years. And we were walking — it’s funny because we got off the boat and we swam over to the shore and the tide was going out and so there’s a long, like a sand flat and the sand flat goes up to the edge of what, at high tide. There’s now like the star and a little coral and some underwater vegetation and some sponges and little creatures and crustacea. And it’s funny because we both walked different ways but then we came back and and even in that little space, just the curiosity of going back and fascinated because this is an environment where at one time, one moment they’re under salinity of being underwater and then the next moment you know, within six hours, all the water’s gone and now they have to survive in the bright sunlight, drying and no water at all and just so curious of what creatures can withstand that and you know that kind of title and you know if you use that analogy to nature that’s kind of where we are now in the world.
The world’s chaotic. It’s on fire. People are in the Drama Triangle. People are pointing fingers at each other. The emotional chaos. Political, religious, war, geopolitical… there’s so many things and because we’re so connected now with TV and with satellites and with the internet that we’re being exposed to all the those things and if we let all that come into us and we don’t recenter ourselves in nature we’re going to be a mess and so just understanding that and the ability to come back and refocus, center yourselves and go back to nature, I know that I’m fortunate now, organizing my life what matters most. I live on the ocean and when I’ve had a day where things have been crazy and life gets in the way— life is intrinsically unstable. And to think it could be like, you know, that’s the fallacy when we’re little, we watch Disneyland and Disney World and we watch the cartoons where everybody, from Snow White, and everybody lives happily ever after. And the reality is life is full of ups and downs.
It’s the events and how we respond to them that determine the outcome. And being able to reframe, being able to put ourselves in a position where we can fully feel those emotions all the way through and then move forward. These are skill sets that are going to become— that’s why, you know, I’m spending a lot of time focusing on human transformational technology because AI will continue to develop us. But the point is, we have more than enough information, but we haven’t learned how to adapt. And really nature, and that’s why I brought this up, nature is a great way to instantaneously connect. And everybody knows, you know, you might be in your car going home from being at work and you, let’s say you had a crazy crazy day, but if you all of a sudden coming across the water, across a bridge or see the sunset between the buildings, you take a moment, there’s that moment where all of a sudden you feel reconnected.
Well, we need to now build that into our lives. And that’s the whole thing is what is your relationship with nature? Because nature is who we are. I know growing up in college and medical school, I was a lifeguard on the beach. And I know people would come in the morning, they were frenetic. They’d have the kids and everybody was yelling at each other and kicking sand. And by the end of the day after being there for several hours, it is just the sense of calm. You’d see everybody was quiet, everybody was moving slower. And there was basically the adaptation where nature was infusing back into the souls of these people what the balance is because we are not something— nature is not something that we look at. It is something that we are and if we don’t reconnect to that— that’s one of the the easiest ways, you know, in Japan they have forest bathing and they literally have where they go into forests, coniferous, non-deciduous trees, and they go for walks and basically just the smell of the pine, the calmness that comes from it, and it’s tremendously soothing. So, you know, it’s hard, some people have a hard time meditating. So, a good way to start is get into nature and then all of a sudden you’ll start rebalancing. So, Jennifer, I always appreciate you. You’re not only an amazing student, you’re an amazing teacher yourself.
Jennifer: Thank you. I have one more thing to add that might be helpful for people. So you know, when we live this hectic life that we come from, I started doing this thing called “ordinary magic practice,” where I would seek out the ordinary magic around us and like you said, sometimes it’s a sunset maybe, and it’s you see a beautiful sunset and you just pull the car into the park and just watch it for five minutes. Or maybe when you’re walking, look for shapes in the leaves or you know, take your shoes off and stand in the grass. Things like that I call ordinary magic. It’s just something I made up. But I think that that was kind of early, as I was making this transformation of going from a reactive person to being more in a creative mindset. That was one of the first things that I did and I would take pictures of it and I would post it and I would hashtag “ordinary magic.” So, if that’s something that you’re like, “I don’t even know how to start,” that would be a great way to start. It just takes you into where you are in that moment. So, thanks for having me Dr. A.
Dr. A: Yeah, that’s awesome. You know, I remember as a kid, and it was funny because it just happened on that same walk on the beach, there was water flowing, and it wasn’t flowing very fast, so it was hard to tell. And I knew I could tell the tide was starting to come up. I mean, there was still just sand, but I could see where the water was starting to rise again. The tide, of course, goes up just like everything in life, it’s cyclical. But there was water still coming down. There was actually a pool above. And I reflected back. I remember as a kid and I hadn’t thought about it in years. But I used to love to make dams like when there would be rain and there was water and make dams and enjoy just the creative process of doing that, right? And you bring back those feelings. There’s so many things we have when we’re children. We’re open, curious, and we have childlike wonder, right? It’s this sense of we’re not… we haven’t gotten ourselves to the point where we’re always doing association comparison to everything else, and our brain does that naturally. We do comparative reality so our brain doesn’t have to think every time on everything, but it also has all the things that are wrong with humans, you know, prejudice. These are all things that are, let me think, no that person’s like that and just getting back to being fully aware of the individual and individually knowing what we’re doing and I think the real message here for kids and one of the disturbing things is they’ve become so into their phones and so completely disassociated from nature. Eight minutes a day. That doesn’t bode well psychologically for our future and it also puts us in a position where we can easily be manipulated.
So you know, being present, being aware, getting out in nature, these are things that can help you be healthier. Not just the movement part, but also the psychological and the biological reconnecting, almost like getting back in concert. You know, we talk about metabolic dysfunction where the body’s out of rhythm. Well, that rhythm goes all the way back to nature, if you look in nature. And that’s the beauty of going out and, you know, we’ve seen all kinds of cool things. We saw a beautiful blacktip reef shark circling around our boat just meandering and watching how natural. We went to a little place last night and they have big nurse sharks like 12-14ft nurse sharks that just kind of sit on the bottom and hang out and there’s just so much awe when we’re kids, right? That wonder. You know, and wonder is something we need. Open. Curious. I always like to say that being open, curious, and wanting to learn and grow is what keeps us young and keeps us connected. So anyway Jennifer, thank you so much for all you do.
Jennifer: Thank you. Thank you for what you do.
Dr. A: Okay, awesome. So, Rachel.
Rachel: All right, next up we have Mary. Hi, Mary.
Mary: Hello.
Dr. A: Hi, Mary.
Mary: Oh, there I am. Okay. Yes, I’ve got the background in because I just got back from a week in Mexico and in two weeks I’m taking my daughter, her husband, and six children to Hawaii. So, learning, helping those kids learn to snorkel and that kind of thing.
Dr. A: It’s so good.
Mary: So it’s wonderful to hear about and I really appreciate what Jennifer was saying about teaching people and in fact, I taught my daughter how to snorkel in Hawaii in 1991.
Dr. A: So much fun, isn’t it?
Mary: It is so wonderful. I just love being in the water and around and outside. I put in the chat earlier when people were talking about kids getting outside that my grandchildren came by on Sunday and spent four hours outside because it was a nice day here. We’re in the Pacific Northwest and like today it’s overcast and gloomy but it was wonderful then. What I wanted to ask was you’d mentioned your heart rate variability.
Dr. A: Yeah.
Mary: And I’ve just been seeing on trackers that I have, you know, changes in that, but I don’t really understand what it means. So you’re saying a higher heart rate variability is good.
Dr. A: Yes. Yes. Yes.Because your heart is demonstrating its adaptation. So your heart — so if you think about your cardiovascular system, it literally, its most important function is to carry oxygen to the cells, right? I mean obviously it carries nutrients too. You know energy, glucose, electrolytes, but the thing that’s the most critical is oxygen. That’s why if someone has a cardiac arrest, they have— you’ve got about four minutes, and if you haven’t resuscitated and got blood back to the brain it’s too late. So it absolutely has this adaptive mechanism and so the way it does that is through either changing your heart rate going up or down, it can go a little more forceful and the other is adapting your vessels and nitric oxide is the key element that vasodilates. When we get insulin resistance, our nitric oxide doesn’t work as well and that’s why all kinds of problems happen. But your heart rate ability, because it can do it instantaneously, being able to adapt like that and become, beat faster in order to make sure we’re maintaining the blood supply in time. So for instance, one of the key adaptive mechanisms is when, if you stand up too fast because your blood volume isn’t that your blood pressure goes down, you’ll immediately your heart rate goes up in response to that so that you can actually keep the blood going to the tissue. So yeah, so if it’s really constant, it doesn’t move, then you probably don’t— so there’s a balance in our— it’s called our autonomic nervous system and we have our parasympathetic and sympathetic and one parasympathetic slows down. It’s the vagal tone. It’s the natural resting state that we’re in. We have slower heart rate controlled non-anxious very calm state.
Actually our facial nerve comes from that. When we’re smiling we’re basically calm. When we’re stressed, we emit that the mirror neurons of people around us are stimulated. They get anxious and our heart rate goes up. Basically, our blood pressure goes up. And so these are all adaptive mechanisms. You want to be in a high sympathetic state where your heart rate’s low. When we get anxious— or traditionally 100,000 years ago, if a saber-tooth tiger was on the trail, you want to run and run fast, right? And it’s interesting. Someone said to me, they said, “Well, between the adaptive reflexes, which one’s the most important? Being able to fight, you know, be strong and fight or be able to run?” Well, the bottom line is, if you think about it, if you have your family there, I heard this like two weeks ago by a metabolic physiologist, but he was saying, “Well, the most important thing in my life is my family, right? So fight would be the way to go, not flee because it doesn’t help my family if I can run fast.” And I just thought that was interesting because you know today that is probably even more important because of, you know, obviously if you’re on the street or somewhere being able to be strong and take care of your family is important. The whole point is your heart rate’s ability to rapidly change its pace is really important and it indicates heart health.
Mary: So a higher number is better in that regard. I mean my heart rate is normally like 48.
Dr. A: It’s not a high heart rate. It’s not a high heart rate. It’s the ability to adapt rapidly. That’s, in other words, the variability. That’s why it’s called heart rate variability. It’s the variability. It’s not… no, a rapid heart rate is not a good state to be in. In fact, that’s not the state you want. Traditionally you want to have a sympathetic, I mean, parasympathetic, a lower heart rate. Calm and deep, slow breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing. That’s why I use breathing in almost every one of these conscious forums, because breathing is normally autonomic and you normally aren’t thinking about your breathing, but your breathing, first of all, is a sentinel that can tell you what your emotional state is. What is the level sympathetic outflow? And if you’re slow breathing, slow deep breathing, and you put your hands on your chest and your belly, and it’s coming from your belly, that’s ideal. That means you’re in a calm state. If you are breathing faster, and it’s coming more from your neck muscles in your upper chest, and it’s more rapid, that’s shallow breathing and that means you’re probably in a high sympathetic state. The beauty of you can take control. It’s normally involuntary. You can take control and take over your breathing. And as soon as you take three or four slow deep breaths, recentered breaths where you’re breathing from your belly again and reentering that, you will feel the release.
You’ll feel the tension release. You’ll feel the stress relief. Your jaw, if it’s clenching, may be in a state of your posture and all those things will slowly calm down. So you can actually, that’s why I talk about reconnecting with nature is a great way to let nature be the underlying structure that helps you with it. Because yeah, if you’re in the middle of a kindergarten room with 20 kids that are all going bananas off the walls, it’s pretty hard to calm down, right? If you’re in a loud facility and your hearing is not that great or you have hearing aids or something, it’s very hard and you become in an anxious state and so you want to leave that state. So it’s important to really be present and sense our body and how we’re responding. So yeah, your heart rate variability is and you can over time, your heart rate variability is like anything else, by exercising, by doing cardiovascular, by doing zone two, you know, slower. Zone two is where you’re able to do something where you can still talk. It’s a little difficult. And then using high intensity interval training where we’re actually going to almost failure, you know, rapid and then recovery is a great way to help. All those things help your heart rate variability. But of course, before you do any of those, you know, always check with your physician if it’s something you — or someone that’s listening — hasn’t done before. Does that make sense?
Mary: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I remember a time I went down to San Francisco and did a tour in the Mure Woods and just being able to stand there. It was just so calming, wonderful.
Dr. A: Yeah. Just gorgeous. I love it’s one of my favorite things. That’s where my best friend lives actually, right there and right near it. And just walking in that canopy of the redwoods and just the sound and the feeling. You can just sense this vegetation that’s been there for hundreds of years, you know? It’s really cool. So, sounds like you get around, girl.
Mary: I do. I do. Yep.
Dr. A: Well, have fun. Enjoy.
Mary: Okay. Thank you.
Chris: And we have a special, we have a special setup. I want to thank Jennifer Morris for sending this over to me. Jennifer, thank you for finding this picture of Dr. A during his college years. I know he said he was a lifeguard, so we found footage. Ladies and gentlemen, be sure to screenshot this. And I’ll probably be looking for a new job tomorrow. And there we go.
Dr. A: That is so bad Jennifer. That is so bad. I love it. God love it. Okay.
Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Britney. Hi, Britney.
Dr. A: Hi, Britney.
Britney: Hi. I’m losing my voice a little bit, but I did have a question and it was kind of more pertaining to— I guess I really struggle with finding peace in sitting in nature. I was looking for tips. I love Jennifer Morris’s tip about ordinary magic. I enjoy going outside now. Like I like to go out and I like to go and run, but I was just curious, is there a big difference? Would that still be something that would be okay or is it more about relaxing and like just taking it in and slowing down?
Dr. A: Well, they’re both okay. They’re both important. You know, obviously running is very good for your body. It’s great for your cardiovascular, improves your v.02. But we’re talking about something, and by the way, running because you do get endorphins released and you get rid of — you know, remember, traditionally, why we get in the sympathetic outflow was we would see a saber-tooth tiger and your body would immediately release epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol so you could run quick and fast and not get eaten. So when you go out, if you’re tense and you’re stressed, to go out and run is a good thing because you’re actually burning up the stuff that otherwise… most of the time now most threats are not real. They’re perceived threats. Some were mad at somebody because we thought they didn’t say, “Hi,” to us. And so we got all these chemicals inside of us. This chronic stress, which is very bad for us. And going out and running, yeah, eats up those chemicals and relaxes you. Releases endorphins. As I said, all those are good.
What we’re talking about in nature is the other side… so that’s fine. The other side of connection is more the slow side of it. So when you say you have difficulty, a nice way of thinking about it is go into— go from the far out zoom of being out there in the forest or in a park and go into the closeup zoom. In other words, zoom in. That’s what I was doing. That’s what we were talking about when we were looking at the vegetation in the sand where the shallows were, right? And there and the water was out because of the tide and getting into that macro that micro world, right? Actually, looking we saw a couple small conchs, you know, turned them over, looked and you know, one of them had, one of them was dead, and actually ended up having a hermit crab in it and the other one was a live, really small little conch, and you can see the operculum and look at it and putting it back where it was. I actually helped a sponge that was basically in such low water it had more of a chance of desiccating and so I carved out where there was a little more water and because it was easy to move, moved it over. I mean that that’s not necessarily what you should do or not do, but I’m just saying, is get down into the micro world, right? Because that micro world is fascinating and it kind of slows you down.
We have a tendency, especially if you’re a high energy person, one thing that is a really important thing to think about is that we are so overstimulated. Our dopaminergic clicks are now so intense whether we’re going to a concert, an EDM concert, or watching Avatar, I mean things are so overstimulating now that it’s kind of attenuated our brain where we’re always looking for that adrenaline rush, right? And that’s why people are so much in the Drama Triangle. That’s why the different news stations are all blaming others. They’re trying, actually, to get us in a charged up state. Why people like that is because they actually feel alive, but it’s not really them feeling alive. It’s them being so overstimulated. They have a high sympathetic outflow and stress level, and it’s really unhealthy. So pick, you know, running’s a good one to start with, especially, you know, you’re obviously looking like you’re in great shape. So that’s a great one to start with, but you can be in great shape and have a high autonomic output, sympathetic outflow, and still have insulin resistance and be on your way to poor health. So that slowing down, getting time for your autonomic nervous system to rebalance and get into that vagal state, that parasympathetic state is really important.
So just find easy ways. The best way is to totally disconnect from the electrical world. It’s so important because it becomes so addictive and by the way, getting a good night’s sleep is also really important. Serotonin, we think of serotonin as being a mood enhancer, but more important today, is it actually helps disrupt the interruption cycle so in other words, it helps slow down the distraction action, you can actually much more easily stay focused when your serotonin level is high. When it’s lower, you’re very easily distracted. And obviously, every technologically advanced AI program as well as programs for promoting any kind of product, they’re all doing clickbait, right? They’re all doing high intensity clickbait to get your mind to go to them and be attracted and get stimulated to get into their world so they can sell you something. So, it requires that ability to disrupt and be able to resist those stimuli. Does that make sense?
Britney: Yeah, it does. Yeah. And I appreciate that. Yeah. So, I’m going to find the balance, I think, of finding the peace.
Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a balance. It’s a balance, but understand if you’re already… you look like you’re in great shape. If you’re already really active, moving all the time, then probably getting and using that. So, let’s say you go out and run and then you come back and do something, read a book or you know, stop at the end of your run and look at nature or look at a creek and look at the birds, watch the sun, just something and start working on on meditation because meditation is a beautiful way. And even if you’re using, you know, it’s okay to have thoughts. It’s not about getting rid of thoughts. It’s about recognizing you’re having thoughts and knowing that your thoughts aren’t you. You are separate from your thoughts. You’re separate from your emotions. And once you start to understand that… and I just got a little birdie, just told me you’re down over 200 lb.
Britney: Yeah.
Dr. A: How much do you weigh now?
Britney: That was weird [a celebration effect occurred on screen]. I weigh…
Dr. A: That was Chris. The guy that made me in Baywatch. He’s absolutely… he’s really good at technical stuff, but he’s a twisted sister.
Britney: Okay. I love that. I weigh about 172. I started at about 375 on our program and lost the weight and yeah and now I run marathons.
Dr. A: You run marathons!
Britney: So I wasn’t previously in nature a lot. I just didn’t move around a lot. I didn’t enjoy going outside. I was… I have a fear of falling and so I like to run and it really does help, like you said. It releases the endorphins. It gets those things in my brain and gets me going. But I just… I still struggle to find the peace and so I’m working on it and I’m slowing down, and I’m enjoying the process and I love to go to new cities. Like I was just, you know, in Dallas and did a run there and was in Sundance and went on a hike with you guys and so I love enjoying it. I just still struggle, I guess, to find the peace in it. I’m like okay this is awesome. And I take my phone, of course, and I am taking pictures. And so I love… I think I need to do some naked runs where I just don’t take any technology and I just go.
Dr. A: Or it’s okay to take pictures, but just turn it off, put it in airplane mode, you know? And that is one of the problems. We’ve developed a device that does everything so well and we forget that we can use it for one thing and not for the other. So, you know, it’s okay if you’re going to nature, but it’s really important and you’re working on all these skill sets— and what’s happening, by the way, your identity is shifting. Okay? You’re down two thirds of your total body weight. And so, when you basically, now look at yourself, you’re adapting to things. And before you use, as excuses, your overweight and how overweight you were so that you didn’t do stuff. And as you become smaller, part of that is readapting your psychology, right? So that you can now relax and be content and be happy in your own skin. And by the way, there’s a, in My Prescription for Life, there’s a great section in the healthy mind part, in part five, on basically all that, that I just talked about, that you should read through and there’s some great exercises in there that can help you with that.
Britney: Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you.
Dr. A: Yep. All right. Okay, Rach.
Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Emily. Hey, Emily.
Dr. A: Hi, Emily.
Emily: Hey, Dr. A. Great to see you.
Dr. A: Great to see you.
Emily: Congratulations, Britney, by the way.
Dr. A: It’s amazing, isn’t it?
Emily: I know. I’m trying to find the button to do the, you know, the celebrate button on the technology and I couldn’t find it. So, anyway…
Dr. A: No, please. We don’t need any more Chris’s. Chris took care of that for us.
Emily: There we go. Anyway, it’s great to see you. I’m sitting here and I’m watching your boat in the background and watching how you’re floating like this and I’m taking myself there, you know, just the relaxing on the water.
Dr. A: It is. It is. In fact, my crew is asleep.
Emily: Oh, I would be sleeping too.
Dr. A: Yeah. It rocks you. Yeah. Well, that’s what you know, if you want to just look at the parallels before we get so much stuff up in our brain, what do you do? What do you do with an infant? Now, I’m a granddad now. So, what do you do with an infant that can’t sleep? Some people found that they take them for a ride in the car, a ride in the carriage, or just sit there and rock them, you know, all those things. That motion, that gentle motion is an important part of us. So, basically, give someone just said, “give them back to their parents.” [Dr. A laughs]. I love it.
Emily: Wow. Yeah. What you… as everyone was sharing and as you were sharing it was reminding me of the last time I got a chance to talk with you was about the full body yes. And it was like when I get myself in nature and sometimes that looks like I just have to open my windows. You know, I had to shut my windows because they’re cutting the grass right now. They just started. So, the noise, but I get to smell the fresh grass.
Dr. A: Exactly. I was just gonna say that. Yep.
Emily: Yeah. Or when it rains, there’s a different aroma in the air, a different texture, moisture. So, but it was reminding me about the last time we talked about the full body yes, and how much that impacted me the last time we spoke. And then about building my life around what matters most and I feel like that becomes more clear when I let myself, when I allow myself to detach and go out in nature. My question was about grounding. I watched a documentary not too long ago about grounding mats. It was called, Down to Earth, and about grounding mats. And what was fascinating was there, they had case studies and there was actually a woman there that she couldn’t get her child to eat or to have a bottle or to stop crying unless she was outside standing barefoot and then the minute she went inside the child would, the infant would start crying. And there was another case study about these children who were like autistic and they would call them runners. They were in the classroom and they would just run outside and they couldn’t figure out why they would run and they would all run to the same place and it was this little bitty patch of grass by a tree and they would just sit there calmly like they couldn’t find them and then finally they found them.
Dr. A: Wow.
Emily: So, anyway, they had different case studies, but it was about grounding and gettin— So, I bought a couple grounding mats and how that helps with inflammation and different things, but I didn’t quite understand the science behind it, like when you plug it into the wall, how all of that works. So, I was just curious what you know about it.
Dr. A: Okay. So basically all heavenly bodies have magnetic fields and the magnetic— so it’s interesting, by the way, because Artemis, if you follow the… our space that we just went around the moon, when they’re out of gravity they don’t have that and so they’re weightless and so everything they do they have to be attached putting on their clothes, you know, using the bathroom, everything. So they don’t have the gravitational pull that brings them to the earth and connects them. Right? We know this. We know that electromagnetic energy is 5,000 more powerful. The impulses coming out of your heart are 5,000, basically, more powerful than the electrical activity in your brain. So when we look at coherence, coherence is when your physiology, your physiological activities in your body, your emotional activities, your emotional coherence, and your cognitive coherence, which is your prefrontal cortex, are all in symphony.
And we’ve all had times like that, you know, when we’re in, kind of the zone, where all three of those are in resonance. When they’re not in resonance, like, you know, a good example of that would be someone that, you know, they say, “I get seasick.” Well, seasick is totally psychological. There’s no— the physiologic response comes from the psychological response. What happens is we have three ways that we sense balance. One is our eyes. Second is our semicircular canals in our middle ear. And then the other is the proprioception, the gamma receptors in our muscles. And normally when you’re on land like that, everything is balanced.
When you go into the water or even people will say, “Oh, I get… if I look down at my phone while I’m driving,” or hopefully not you’re driving, you’re the passenger, you start feeling that feeling. So that feeling is now the brain is sensing two different signals coming in that are not coherent with each other and so it feels a little— you feel a little bit of dysfunction. You feel a weird feeling, and then what ends up happening is then the person starts getting anxious about it and then when they get anxious then it activates the whole mechanism that creates nausea and then eventually vomiting. So what I know is this. I know when I go across the ocean I know that my crew is, if they’re out there, they’re not going out there for two hours and they can come back. They’re going to be out there for when we go to Tortol, like seven or eight days. So I actually use Meclizine, which is an anxiolytic, which means it decreases worry as well an antiemetic and so as long as you put that on first, even if they see this, start feeling that sensation, it’s ablated and they don’t get that reflex and so they’re fine. Does that make sense? So grounding, basically you’re putting yourself back in the electromagnetic energy. You’re touching the earth or touching some reflection of the earth and it allows you to now come back into balance and it’s a very soothing feeling. It’s like going to the water, you know, just the lapping of the ocean or on the beach listening to the waves or watching the waves and just feeling all of a sudden kind of that rhythm of nature which is so important.
Emily: Nice. Okay. Thanks, Dr. A.
Dr. A: Cool. Yep. You’re welcome.
Emily: You’re quite welcome. Awesome. All right, Rachel, we got anybody else?
Chris: Real quick, Dr. A. Actually Jennifer Morris sent me this photo of Britney who was on earlier who lost 203 pounds.
Dr. A: Wow.
Chris: Simply incredible.
Dr. A: Amazing. Just amazing. Gosh, congratulations.
Chris: And up next, we have Betsy.
Dr. A: Hi, Betsy. I see you’re out in nature. You’re muted.
Betsy: Yeah. There we are. Actually, I was just walking through the arboretum that is right next to my house and getting a little time in the forest and the trees. I live in the Northwest and so we have access to the mountains and the trees and the water. So it’s all great. I don’t know if I’m… hopefully I’m not cutting out, but I was wondering if you could just review for us the importance of that early morning side and what it does to our hormones and how that balances it out.
Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah. No, great. Yeah. So, we have circadian rhythm. We know this. We know adenosine is released in our brain and we know during the day the adaptation is that bright sunlight stimulates. It’s really important. So, if you think of the circadian rhythm, it’s not just the melatonin release at night. It’s actually, equally, the bright sunlight. And you want to get— you don’t have to be outside. It’s better if you’re outside, but as long as you’re in bright sunlight without filtered windows and glass, you want to get woken up in a relatively quick fashion. So, another, I don’t mean startled. I mean, you could take five minutes, 10 minutes, but then go outside or be outside, put the blinds up. And if you’re in an environment like this, you know, the Northwest, like Seattle, and you don’t have a lot of bright sunlight, then you can use— there’s specific lights you can buy that emulate sunlight. And so, you can get one of those to have in your, I’d say put it in your bathroom. It’s a nice way to wake up in the morning.
They actually have alarm clocks that are actually a light and they do that for you. But yeah, by starting that you actually start the cycle of sleep when you wake up in the morning and then when you wake up it shuts these receptors down and then you wake up your reticular activating system activates and then you stay awake. And the other thing is you don’t want to take naps. You want to create, we call it sleep deficit, or the latency. So by the time you get ready for sleep, your melatonin starts being released. That’s why normally kids, if you notice, kids can go all day. Like little kids, and then the next thing you know, you see the parents carrying, the dad usually, carrying them and they’re out cold, right? That’s because they have the normal cycle and they can release melatonin. We, unfortunately, as grown-ups, have a bunch of rituals and things that we don’t do that are important for the sleep cycle. So I call it the model morning. In the morning, getting in bright sunlight, making sure you now spend time for yourself to decide what is most important so you’re organizing your life what’s most important and then the opposite in the evening is to basically take a hot bath you know, cool off, make sure you have an hour before you go to bed that you’re eliminating anything that can keep you from releasing melatonin. So, cooling off to 68° or lower, 65° your bedroom, making sure it’s fully dark, that it’s fully quiet, taking a hot bath, so you raise your core temperature because melatonin, as your core temperature drops, melatonin’s released. So, that’s the end point of the cycle. But sleep, sleep power is designed by getting up in the morning, being active, minimizing the need for a nap, and then allowing your body to then go back in.
So the sooner you can get up and use sunlight— like today, when I got up this morning there was a storm coming through, a front coming through. So it wasn’t very— I came outside specifically, I had to make sure everything was put away as far as they could get wet. But just coming outside and standing and it took a little longer. I could feel the difference. Takes a little longer to fully wake up. But making sure you get to a state where you’re not groggy, you’re feeling well, that’s the start of how to get a great night’s sleep, actually.
Betsy: I had heard that the sunlight activates cells on the back of your retina that kind of helps your body release some of the cortisol hormones like the blue light of the wavelength and then that kind of starts that hormone cycle.
Dr. A: Well, it actually starts the cortisol. Yeah. No, the cortisol cycle… if you wear, and I can tell you because I wear… when I was writing My Prescription for Life, and I still use a glucometer, a glucose monitoring device, and it usually happens, your glucose starts going up which means your cortisol is going up usually a couple hours before you get up. So your cortisol is already going up. Yeah, the sunlight helps activate acetylcholine and all the other things and it helps amplify cortisol. But if you think about it, you want to make sure, because if you’re in the proper state, it’s called the fed state and the fasting state, right? That’s why you don’t want to eat anything big after dinner, right? After 6:00, 7:00, you don’t want to really, because you want to get in what we call the fasting state where your insulin level drops, your glucose, as a result, stabilizes and drops and stays low throughout the night. And then around four, it depends on what time you get up, but around… I usually get up on average around eight or so. So when you’re about two hours before, you’ll actually see the glucometer, your glucose will start going up because the natural circadian rhythm is for cortisol. Cortisol is not a bad thing. It’s actually a critical hormone for balance, for stability, for us making sure all our systems, and also for regulating our blood sugar so that our blood sugar in the morning rises before you get up and have to go to work.
So it’s the natural response. And when you eat a high glucose meal before you go to bed, you totally trash your insulin and your glucose and you look and you start getting abnormalities. And that’s probably one of the main reasons we don’t sleep well. Along with stress and you know rumination because we’re not creating proper latency when we lay down and go to sleep and so we have higher levels of thought. And you know here’s the deal. If you’re having trouble sleeping at night, the best thing to do is not sit there. Your bed is for just a couple things and one of them is sleep. The other’s for kissing. Other than that, you shouldn’t be doing anything else in your bed, right? And if you’re in there and you’re ruminating and have this thought process, you should get up. Don’t turn on the lights. Obviously, make sure it’s safe, but then go get out of the bed, go sit somewhere in the dark for a little while and then go back and restart the cycle because once you’re ruminating and in that cycle, it becomes very hard for your brain to shut down. And once you get emotionally in the cycle, then you, basically, your prefrontal cortex isn’t even working properly. So, it’s really really important. Does that make sense? I see you’re kissing your dog. So, you’re walking, you got your dog, you got all the basic things that help improve our overall emotional and our brain health. So, congratulations.
Betsy: Thank you, Dr. A.
Dr. A: You’re welcome. Okay, we’re out of time. Is there anybody that had anything they really needed, that was urgent before we close? Rach?
Rachel: We did just have one quick question from Kayla. Kayla?
Dr. A: Hey, Kayla.
Kayla? Hey, how’s it going?
Dr. A: Great.
Kayla: I just have a quick question. And so with your CGM, I know you’ve worn it for a while and that’s how you know the beautiful book you wrote, but I’m curious, the tie in of nature before bed in regulation of your glucose, like pre-glucose, overnight stability and or fasting. Have you found any correlation of being in nature two hours prior to sleep in correlation with glucose levels?
Dr. A: I have not studied that, but I can tell you, almost for sure, if you go into nature and you’re more relaxed, you’re going to sleep better. I know this. I know when I’m out on the boat, I usually go to bed earlier. I sleep better. So there’s a direct correlate from that. And the opposite is true. If you’re stressed out, if something happens, you know, like things happening, like with my girls or something, my glucose would go up. The other thing which is really interesting and I really don’t get sick very often but I’ve heard a lot of people, if all of a sudden they’re having more trouble keeping their glucose down, a lot of times that’s a cogenitor that they’re getting ready to have a cold or a flu or something because inflammation raises your glucose as well. So really really really important. So yeah, the more things you can do, Kayla, to relax and get yourself ready, you know, an hour, you should always give yourself an hour before you go to bed to downregulate. You know, be by yourself. Have time. Put away either the chaos on your phone, because you’re bringing in new stimulus or worrying about work or whatever, or the blue light part. Both of them probably are something you want to remove. But yeah, the more you can get out in nature, I know that when you’re outside, like on the beach and stuff, obviously I always sleep better when I’m in nature, more than when I’m in it less. Yeah. So, great question.
Kayla: Thank you.
Dr. A: All right. All right, guys. Well, thank you. Great questions. Thanks for all the interaction and I hope you all have a great week. Take a moment and ask yourself, during today, how much were you out in nature and really kind of dialogue with yourself and say where can I go out? If I’m at the office, can I go out now that it’s getting to be spring? Can I go outside for a walk? You know, all these things can help us, and by the way, just doing even as little as 15 to 20 minutes outside, if you can go out for a walk in the park, obviously take your lunch. Make a—rather than eating prefix lunch, fix something for yourself and take it out in the park, you know, but get outside more. Enjoy it. Obviously, you know, if your environment isn’t as conducive, if you live in the middle of a city, then find other ways, you know, other ways to get outside. Like, you know, one of the beautiful things about some of the largest cities in the world, I was in Madrid when we were in Galacia, they have a beautiful park, a gorgeous park in Central Park in New York City. I mean, if the forefathers, the founders of New York hadn’t been so insightful, that Central Park would be skyscrapers. And so, they had the foresight to know that for the people of New York to have this incredible park to walk through. And if you’ve ever walked through it, it’s incredible. And so even in places where it’s harder, take the time to make sure you get out in nature and do that this week and add it and incorporate it into your life and it’ll be another step toward the Habits of Health that’ll move you to Optimal Health and Wellbeing. So God bless you guys. Have a great week.
