Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: You're listening to Selling the Dream. This isn't an interview and we're not journalists, but each week we'll ask our guests to open up and share their secrets to business success. Let's have a conversation and have some fun.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Hey, everybody, and welcome to our latest episode of Selling the Dream. I am Ken Jordan with Princeton Morgan Mortgage. I don't say that often enough. I think I'm gonna start saying that a little more. And, and I am joined as always with by my. My buddy and co host Joe Iredell from California. We're on different coasts, different time zones, but I think we're both on the same page when it comes to one thing.
[00:00:53] Speaker C: See, you always say from. I'm not from California. I am from the home of the world champion World Eagles.
[00:01:01] Speaker D: B.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: World champs. World champs. Did you. Could you possibly have drawn that up any better?
[00:01:12] Speaker C: No, no, other than. Other than maybe if.
When they kicked the field goal, Taylor Swift got hit in the face.
I don't know. That have been nice.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: It was. It was insane. I said to my brother, I had like 50 people in my house, you know, would you rather an ass whooping like that? Would you rather be close or, or. No, I said. I said an epic comeback or an ass whooping. And hands down, everybody chose ass whoop.
[00:01:39] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:01:41] Speaker D: That's right.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: It was, it was something else. We got the parade on Friday. I got. I got a hotel room on Broad Street Thursday night. We are, we're set up, man. We are going to celebrate that super bowl victory.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: That's. That's a beautiful thing, man.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: I wish you were in town. I wish you were in town. You know what?
[00:02:00] Speaker C: I almost, I looked at flights and I almost was going to be able to do it, but I gotta be in Florida next week and then I actually have a trip to Rome, Italy, and then Sao Paulo, Brazil, back to back. So I gotta.
Being an exotic Philadelphia was, was a little bit too much to put on the plate.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: You are, I gotta tell you, man, you are the king of the humble. Brag. The king. I gotta be in Rome. Back to back with Sao Paulo, you know, just, just slide that in there as if it's no big deal.
[00:02:32] Speaker C: You know what, man? It was. I'll brag about this. My nonprofit is having an incredible event on March 15th. We've raised tons of money for military families. And that's, that's what I'll brag about because. Because we're doing great stuff and we're helping out the military and that's what I'll brag about, man.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: No name dropping. No name dropping yet. Not yet.
[00:02:57] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: All right, let's get to it. Today we have an awesome guest. This is a gentleman. I have been looking to try and get on the show for at least a year now. Super busy and justifiably so. A packed schedule, but we are very, very fortunate to be joined by a friend of the show, a friend of a friend. Jay Duran made the introduction. He's been on Culture Matters. He's been on Duffin Media's podcast. He is a pleasure to listen to and knowledgeable and I won't build it up too much, but I'm going to introduce Dr. David Yerkes. He's a distinguished health.
Distinguished expert in health optimization, which we're going to get to. You know, known for empowering high performing individuals through personalized science backed wellness strategies. His mission focuses on enhancing longevity and life by creating, by crafting tailored health plans. Dr. Yerkes, did I nail it? Is that, is that, is that who you are?
[00:04:01] Speaker D: Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. Pretty close.
Yes, that's right. Thank you for.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: Excited to have you here today.
[00:04:09] Speaker D: Thank you for the introduction and thank you for having me.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: My pleasure. All right, so we're going to get. I always forget. I always forget to do this and. And then I awkwardly have to reintroduce it later on in the show because I forget. I'm not going to forget today. We're going to start with. We're going to start with two truths and a lie, which is how we're supposed to do it every episode. I just always screw it up. So Dr. Yerkes is going to give us two truths and a lie. Joe, the human lie detector is going to tell us at the end of the episode which ones he thinks is true and which ones he thinks is the lie and see how it goes. So why don't you give us number one?
[00:04:47] Speaker D: All right, Number one is I. Well, let me see. I wrote these down so I could get them right. Number one is that I played college basketball.
Number two, I almost crashed in a Blackhawk in the desert. And number three, I'm a professional marksman.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: If two out of three of those is true, I'm impressed.
[00:05:22] Speaker C: That's a. Those are humble brags right there.
Getting on a plane, man, this guy's crashing them.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Let's see if we come up in it.
[00:05:34] Speaker D: I wasn't flying. Just to clarify.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Okay, okay, all right, all right. So now we know which one's true. All right, all right.
[00:05:48] Speaker D: So first things first.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Dr. Yerkes, tell me about. We hear the term health care. Health care, healthcare, healthcare, healthcare, healthcare.
I don't think it's the first time I've heard it, but it jumps off the page when I look at your stuff where you talk about health optimization. What's the difference between health optimization and health care beyond what. What most people would think is obvious?
[00:06:12] Speaker D: Yeah, that's a. That's. I'd love to talk about that. So the way I describe it, and I learned this from one of my mentors, Dr. Ted Achicoso, who kind of spearheaded health optimization medicine, is the difference is really between trying to promote health and treating illness. So there's illness medicine and then there's health optimization medicine. And conventional medicine really focuses a lot on illness, and rightfully so. We have a lot of illness in. In the past, most of our diseases were not preventable illnesses. They were results of infections, infectious diseases, genetic illnesses, and those kinds of things. And all of that plays a huge role in our healthcare and is still very necessary. But also, over the last several decades, we've developed basically poor nutrition, poor lifestyle habits, and then also just our environment is not conducive toward living an optimal life. In addition to that, we have new science available to us that we didn't have years ago. So now we can actually look at the health of the cell. Instead of waiting decades down the road for some of these things to turn into disease, we can look at ahead and kind of predict or even just manage the health of the cell. And we do that by things like metabolomics. We're looking at the metabolome level of what's going on in the cell, all these different processes from the Krebs cycle and everything like that. And that is really what we consider health optimization is basically in optimizing the health of the cell and so essentially optimizing the health of us, the organism.
And of course, that takes on a lot of different. There's. There's a lot of different ways to do that. And the way I approach it is I look at.
We do a lot of testing initially up front, we do a lot of testing, and then we talk about, okay, what does that testing mean? And how do we, how do we deal with that? And then we look at implementing changes and whether that be pharmaceuticals, nutritional interventions, supplements, lifestyle interventions, and things like that. So it's really kind of a holistic approach to optimizing our health from the cell and onward.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Interesting. You said holistic.
And we're going to take this conversation just from a guide standpoint we're going to take this into like, entrepreneurship, leadership. Some of the things that the audience that we, I guess, are our target audience, for lack of a better word, entrepreneurs, Salespeople lead people in a high leadership role and how their health is impacted and things they could do to operate at a high level. But I want to start with where the industry, the medical industry is headed versus where it's been. Do you think that there, that there's becoming more acceptance of supplements, nutrition, you know, where it was like, I felt like in the past, the doctors and the holistic practitioners were at odds with each other. They were both pointing to figure like, oh, that's the problem, or you don't, you can't trust what's in that supplement. What do you, you gotta, you're gonna put down your body, you have no idea what it is. Right. Like the FDA said, It's okay. The FDA's bought and paid for by the petroleum industry. Like, from a conspiracy theory standpoint, where do you see the convergence of those two industries right now versus where it's been in years past?
[00:10:05] Speaker D: Yeah, I think there's definitely a lot of interest, especially from conventional physicians and people like that, for preventive medicine and for lifestyle medicine. It's a growing, you know, we notice it. So I, I still practice conventional medicine. A lot of my colleagues do. And even, you know, there's a lot of us kind of with a foot in both, both fields.
I think that there's still some, there's still some hesitancy with that because there's a lot of people out there that, you know, the conventional medicine field is very evidence based. So the, the threshold for recommending something is very high. And you're looking for the highest level of evidence in order, and not just evidence that it works, but evidence that it's safe, so safe and effective, basically. And we're looking for human randomized control trials that have placebo controls if possible and things like that. So that's why when you have a say, the easiest thing to do that on, the easiest thing to test that on is a, say, a pharmaceutical intervention. Right. You can do that with supplements too. But the, you know, there's other barriers to that and one of the barriers is just to do a study, it costs money, so somebody has to fund it. Right. Um, and so I think there's, you know, from a, from a traditional medical standpoint that the barrier to making a recommendation on something or how we view what we recommend to people and what we use to treat people is there's A very high standard for that.
In the, on the, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there's a whole host of people out there just recommending complete nonsense that is at best ineffective, at worst harmful. Right. So you have. And a lot of them are making a lot of money off of it. Whether. Yes. And there's no science whatsoever. Right. It's theory, it's whatever. So there's this huge void in between those two extremes. And like I said, the conventional medicine approach is good and right for a lot of things.
Where it lacks a little bit is in the area where you have an opportunity to do some good and the risk is low, say lifestyle interventions and those kind of things, or like what I do, I do a lot more testing than maybe the conventional approach. And the reason I do that is because conventionally we're looking for an illness. If I order a test, I know what I'm looking for when I order that test, say in the conventional medicine approach, I know what I'm looking for and I know what I'm going to do about it when I get the result.
It's a little bit different than screening and looking for optimal health. So I'm not looking for disease, I'm looking for health. And so my testing approach in health optimization is a little bit different than it is in illness medicine.
So you ask the question, is that void kind of getting closer and closer? And I think it is. I think there's always going to be a place for the conventional medicine approach and there's always going to be a place for the alternative approach.
I think what I would like to see is, I'd like to see the conventional medicine approach get a little bit better at looking at preventive health and health optimization. And I'd like to see the alternative approach be a little bit more science based and a little bit more evidence based than they currently are. And I don't think that's, that's probably never going to happen because there's always going to be grifters out there doing things. The way I try to operate is with a reasonable science like based approach. And then there should be a threshold or not a threshold, that's not the right word. There should be kind of a balance of risk and benefit. And we, we do this in conventional medicine as well. Right. But so when I'm looking at something, if I'm making say a lifestyle intervention recommendation or a supplement recommendation, you know, what are the risks and what is the benefit? What's the potential benefit? There might not be a ton of data on there, there might not be great human outcomes data, maybe we only have animal data, but the risk is extremely low and the benefit if it works is really high. So in that case, I'm going to be more likely to at least present that to a patient or a client to where that can help them.
So, so that's kind of the approach that I take. And then of course, the testing approach is, is different.
You mentioned supplementation. Traditionally, supplementation has been very, just kind of guesswork. Right. So we just kind of say, oh, I heard zinc is good. I'm going to take a bunch of zinc. Well, that can lead to copper deficiency and that's not good either. Or, you know, you, you might hear, well, I need, I'm going to take a bunch of B vitamins. Well, that's not good either because you have feedback loops and you have other deficient there. Your body is very intricate, intricately designed to have all these different. If we get, we can actually have too much. So what I'm testing for isn't just deficiencies. I'm looking for balance.
And that to me is health optimization medicine.
I don't know if I answered your question or not. If I didn't, feel free to.
[00:15:38] Speaker C: Can we talk a little bit about your methodology with that? So you had mentioned, you know, the baseline, the test, is that like a mitochondria test? And then is your, are you.
The lifestyle changes and everything like that. Are you a believer that you had mentioned the Krebs cycle and things like that? Is that more generated from like say metabolic disorders and inflammation? Is that something that people need to be aware of or like what, what is, what is your approach when you have a new patient that comes in? What are we looking for first? And then how are you making the recommend, the improvements?
[00:16:15] Speaker D: Right, yeah. So the approach is, yes, we look at metabolic health, mitochondrial health, we look at epigenetics, we look at toxic influences on the body, and we test for as much as we possibly can for all of those things. There's about 125 standard biomarkers that we look at that most people don't look at. The other thing we do is we do something called metabolomics, which is looking at the metabolite level. Instead of just doing like a serum test of, we'll just use vitamin D for. Well, we'll use magnesium, for example, instead of just looking at a magnesium level in the serum. What happens is your body is going to kind of equilibrate the level in the blood with the level in the cells and kind of make, kind of like make a homeostasis. Even if you don't have enough to really be functioning optimally to be using that in, in the full. It's like, think of like a business or a factory. If you're low on supply of something, you're not going to shut the entire factory down. You're just going to try to utilize it where you need it the most and that, and then you're going to, you know, ration it and that kind of thing. Your body does a very similar thing.
So what we're looking at, what we can test is by the metabolomics, by looking at the metabolites, we can see what, what processes are actually functioning at full level and those kinds of things. So we can actually see what is the need here for magnesium versus just oh, if your serum magnesium is actually low then you are very depleted. Like it's, it's gone too far. And so that's, that's kind of how we approach. And there's other things we look at, we do look at inflammation. Some of the testing we do is to kind of give people an idea of kind of where they're at. So maybe if I do a DEXA scan for body composition, is that looking for a disease state or is it just telling, hey, here's where you are, you need, you're, you have sarcopenia, which is a lot, a lack of muscle mass and you also have a high body fat concentration. And we can look at all that with a DEXA scan. Um, if we're doing metabolomics, we can look at specific nutritional values, we can look at the health of the mitochondria, we can look at your omega 3 index, which again, omega threes, you might be supplementing omega 3s which might be good. And it's been shown to be associated with good out health outcomes in many ways. In fact, I just saw an article about, I can't even remember which health outcome it was, but omega 3, there's plenty of data on omega 3s and positive health outcomes. There's also data on omega 3s and increase in atrial fibrillation. A correlation doesn't mean causation. And that's another thing you have to, you have to know is, you know, being able to read the data and interpret the data in a way that you don't have an agenda. You're not looking to, to prove a certain ideology, you're just looking at the data. And if you don't know how to look at data right, you end up Thinking playing basketball makes you tall, right? Well, maybe. Maybe. Maybe that's not quite right. So. So anyways, I'm. I digressed a little bit, but that's kind of what we do. There's several different. There's a whole panel of tests we do. And some of those tests are kind of broad and things that we do, we recommend for almost everybody. And then some of those tests are based on your personal goals and your risk factors and all of those types of things. And so some of it is. Is kind of a broad approach to everybody, and then some of it's a very tailored approach and personalized approach. So it depends on what we're looking at and what your goals are. But, yes, we look at mitochondrial health, inflammation, toxic infl. Influences and all those things.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: I think it's. It's so important. And one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation is because I feel that there is a. There's a lack of knowledge in the population, but also there's, like, some credibility. There's trust issues going on right now. Big pharma this and health care that. Like, they're almost bad words. The reality is people like us, we need people like you, people who are not, you know, and I love what you're doing with your business. And I want to. I want to. I want to kind of transition over to that conversation here for a few moments. You're taking what you know about medicine, but you're. You're catering it to high performers. And when we say high performers, we mean. We all know what I mean. The people that are out there grinding every single day, they're. They're giving it everything they got into their business. Entrepreneurs, salespeople. I know that men typically don't go to the doctor at the same rate that women do, you know, but. But all, you know, all folks that are. That are operating at a high level tend to neglect their health.
And. And that. And that's where you come in. In your. In your business. Can you tell me a little bit about that? The evolution of that idea and, and the passion you have for health optimization in the space of. Of high performance?
[00:21:30] Speaker D: So, like, you know, how did I. Why. How did I get started doing this in my business versus just practicing conventional medicine?
So it's. It's a little bit of a story. It's a little bit of a nuanced story, but the. The. I would say the place I've always been interested in health, I. When I. That's one of the reasons I became a doctor when I Was eight years old, I was reading health and fitness literature. I was making makeshift weights in the garage with my brother to exercise and work out when I was, I would ask my mom to go to Weight Watchers with her because I was interested, just because it was interesting to me. So I've always had an interest in health in general. And then you go through the traditional medical school and medical model and you end up just treating illness and just kind of putting fires out all the time. And the amount of time that you have, because this is so insurance. You want to talk about the bad guys, you know, big pharma and all that insurance, health insurance, so called health insurance is the bad guy.
[00:22:34] Speaker C: So you're on record to say 100% correct?
[00:22:41] Speaker D: Yeah, I want to be careful how I want to put a target on my back.
[00:22:48] Speaker C: Pardon me, your cash pay for what you do or are you through?
[00:22:52] Speaker D: Yes, my business is cash pay because insurance doesn't cover it. First of all what I do and also it removes that barrier between me and the patient and we can do, I can do what's best for the patient. I don't have to, you know, spend time and add staff just to negotiate with the health insurance company. So. Which is going to end up failing anyways because they don't value this.
So yes, my business side of what I do for health optimization is cash pay.
But so anyways that all those frustrations that you're seeing come out of me. You know, we're building up and I love practicing hospital medicine. I love taking care of sick people in the hospital. We get the sickest of the sick and we get to help them get better at the worst time in their life. And I truly value that. It's a, it's, it's a blessing to be able to do that. But also on the other hand, after about a decade of that, I started just kind of feeling frustrated. And there was a specific instance where I was, I was on night call. There was a, there was a stroke, overhead stroke page made, you know, we're having a stroke, somebody's having a stroke on this unit. I was responded to it. And this was a man who was in his 40s and had come in with a heart related issue afib and ended up throwing a clot from the afib and having a massive stroke. And I just remember seeing him, his fear in his eyes. He couldn't speak, he couldn't move half of his body and knowing what the rest of his life was going to be like. And you know, I tell I, you Know, I dealt with the situation, and I just remember hearing his wife screaming at the nurse's station. Not yelling at people, but just like crying, you know, in. Just in distress. And, And I. I'm looking back at his chart and it's like, you know, overweight, you know, high blood pressure, diabetes. And I'm thinking all of these are preventable problems that led him to have this afib. And, And I just felt the. I just felt compelled to do something about it and to try to help other people not get there even in. Outside of what we were already doing.
So that was 2018.
Now go back a little bit to 2016.
Well, in 2010 or 2009, I joined the Army Reserve. It was just something I always kind of wanted to do with my life. And I joined the Army Reserve as a. As a physician.
And in 2016, I was sent to the aviation medicine course, so to become a flight surgeon for the Army. And during that, they teach you, basically. So this was my first introduction to health optimization and medical, like performance medicine. So what our job is to make sure that the aviators and special operators are operating in the best health that we can get them so that when they're in a cockpit at night or whatever, their, Their. Their physical, there's nothing limiting them physically. And so, so that was the first. And they say, you know, aviation medicine. So. Right. Conventional medicine is abnormal physiology in a normal environment. Aviation medicine is normal physiology in an abnormal environment or aerospace medicine. So that was my first introduction in 2016 to like, health optimization medicine and just kind of performance medicine. So then 2018, I had that epiphany moment with that stroke patient, and I just started putting out an outline. I didn't know what it was going to be. I didn't know what it was going to. I just started putting my thoughts down on paper.
And first I thought it was going to be a book. Then I thought maybe it'll be a course. And then it turned into a coaching program. And the more I learned about health optimization and some of the science behind it, one of the things I really wanted to look into was the psychology of why we don't do. Because a lot of. If, even if he had done the basic things that everybody knows now, I work with a whole nother level. Like the place that we take people is a whole nother level. But even if he had just done the thing that everybody knows to do, he probably would have not ended up in that position.
So I thought, well, psychologically, why are we not doing this? So I took A whole, you know, track of, like, research on, on habits and habit formation and all of those psychological things that impact why we do or don't do what we do. And so that obviously has a huge impact on our implementation side of our program.
And so that's kind of. And over the years, well, it hasn't been linear, as most people's stories are not right.
So that was 2018. In 2019, I was deployed to the Middle East. Again.
In 2020, I came back. And you know what, you all know what happened in 2020, right? Covid. And I'm a hospital medicine physician, so we were, I mean, it was two years. That was a blur, basically.
And so But I continued at any time I got, I continued doing my research and continued working individually with patients. And then over the last couple years have really kind of fine tuned what the programs looks like. What the program looks like. And then also kind of where, where we're going to go in the future.
So that. I hope that answered your question. I know that was a long answer, but it was kind of an evolution of me personally.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: No, it does. I love it and I love the story, you know, that, that goes along with it. And I didn't know that story. That was a genuine curiosity of mine and I didn't, I wasn't, I wasn't prepped for, for it. So that, that, that's really a cool journey.
[00:29:10] Speaker D: Yeah, it's been, it has been quite a journey also in that, in that time period. Had my first child in 2016. My first child was born. I was, I mean. Oh, here's the other part. So I'm a Jerry. I call myself a geriatric father. So I was 35 years old when my first child was born. And during, during that time, we had, I was, my wife was pregnant in 2019 with our second child when I was deployed. And then we had our third child in 2021 during COVID So that whole time we're having children and I'm thinking about, I don't want to be sick and old.
When my kids are young adults and teenagers. I want to be healthy and vibrant. I want to do stuff with them. I want to have fun. I don't want to be sick. So that was another. That was really what kind of drove me. The other thing that kind of drove me into longevity was my own personal, you know, feelings and wanting to have it for myself.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: So speaking of longevity, the fountain of youth, you're talking to two people who, who burned the candle at both ends for a long time. Probably made some good decisions and some bad decisions. Joe's in a much better place today than he was 20 years ago.
What is some, what are some tips that you can give in that, in that area? Like, like, like, like if you, if you could only give someone one piece of advice, what would it be?
[00:30:54] Speaker D: Oh man, that's the one piece of advice. Thing is, is hard because there's really two. There's, there's really four. There's four main things that you, that if you get this right, just without any testing or any of the really high level stuff, if you just do these four things, you'll, you'll be better than most people.
And the first, you asked for one. So the first one is get your sleep right. And here's why.
Sleep quality and quantity. So not just, not just getting eight hours in, but it needs to be a good quality sleep. And that's a whole conversation. But if you get your sleep right, it impacts your health directly.
So we know it impacts dementia, impacts cardiovascular illness, it impacts our hormones, it impacts, directly impacts our health, and it also indirectly impacts our health.
So I don't know if you guys lost me there for a second, but, so sleep is.
Okay, so sleep is the number one thing. It directly impacts our health and it indirectly impacts our health, also significantly impacts our performance. And that's one of the things that I think a lot of people, especially entrepreneurs and, and high performers, don't want to accept. But you're talking about performance on the level of being drunk when you're having, when you have sleep deprivation.
And so go ahead.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: What's the definition of sleep deprivation? Because I, I can imagine sleep deprivation. Like, is it being tired, is it being exhausted, is it being, you know, just delusionally tired? Like what, what's your definition of sleep deprivation?
[00:32:50] Speaker D: Great question. So, so it's getting less sleep than you need.
And, and that, that is that. And it's a, it's a scale.
So it, it's, there's no, there's no exact. So like if you're training extra hard, you need more recovery. If you're doing more, you need more recovery, you may need more sleep. Now there's ranges, right? So like as we know, like as you pass the seven hour, the six hour, the five hour mark, you get worse and worse outcomes, right? So it, there are some benchmarks there that we know about where you can see, you know, significant decline, but a lot of it has to do with what you're trying to accomplish, what your goals are, and also what your recovery is. If you're, if you're sick, if you're trying to avoid being sick. So you know, one of the reasons that like, if you're, if you're trying to get better after you get sick, you catch the flu or a cold and then you try to do everything afterwards, you're, you're losing, you need to prevent that. Like, it's much easier to prevent than it is to treat it.
So, and one of my favorite quotes of all time is an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So that is very, very correct for our health now. So you asked, what is sleep deprivation? And so it basically boils down to getting less sleep than you need. And you know, you mentioned something about how, how you feel. Is it, if you are noticing the effects of sleep deprivation, you are way gone. You're, you're way too sleep deprived. Really? Yes. So if, because like, if you're like falling asleep at your desk or you're just like, oh, I feel so tired, or you're just like, I can't, you're having trouble word finding or brain fog, all of those things, those are signs that you're, you're, you're on the opposite spectrum of optimal performance. So what we want, we want to be performing optimally, right? We want to be working like hitting on all cylinders. And then the, the brain fog and the trouble, word finding, that's the opposite end of that spectrum. And there's a whole, there's a whole, you know, area in between, there's a whole scale in between of, from where you go backward from optimal to noticeable.
[00:35:25] Speaker B: All right, so there's a, I do feel like there's a shift going on, but someone who's an entrepreneur, someone who's a business owner, doctors, especially with sleep deprivation that you guys are almost like put through the ring of fire sleep deprivation earlier in your careers.
How can you convince someone that sleep is the new flex? How can you convince someone that getting up at 4am and taking a cold plunge and running three miles like, you know, you better off sleep until 7, get in your eight hours.
[00:36:04] Speaker C: Hold on.
I tell him I wake up at 4:30 every morning. I go to the gym, I work out in the morning, I come back, I do my day, I take a nap every day. I take a 15, 20 minute nap every day. But the key is I go to bed the same exact time every single night and I wake up at the same time every morning. So I see what you're doing there. K.J. you're trying to say like I don't need to wake up. And if you wake up early, dude, you're going to be way better than 99% of the people out there. That's. I will die on the sword with that statement.
[00:36:38] Speaker B: Let's let the doctor answer, Joe. Let's let the doctor.
[00:36:41] Speaker C: I'll just put my two cents in and I'll.
[00:36:44] Speaker D: So without knowing the sleep duration and looking at your sleep quality and everything like that, there's some things that you said in there that are, that are very good.
One, getting up and going to bed at the same time every day is essential. It's extremely important for your sleep quality. So when your sleep quality is really good and especially when your circadian rhythm is on point like that, especially getting up and going to the gym, that can actually shorten how much the duration of sleep that you need. So you may only need seven hours or sometimes six and a half hours to be fully rested because your body is really resting and getting everything it needs during that time because you are, are so on point with your circadian rhythm. And circadian or chronobiology is a whole field that we talk about and that I counsel people on and it's extremely important. One of the things, the other thing you're doing well is you're getting up and going to the gym. So we know that some of the, at least performance losses that we get and other biological, inflammatory and things like that, problems that we get with sleep deprivation are actually improved if you are mitigated, if you will, if, if you're working out. So exercise is kind of the second. We talked about sleep. Exercise is the magic pill. That would be the second one that is really kind of just right there. The reason I say sleep is the most important is because it's the foundation if you don't get enough sleep. Everything I said, it directly impacts your health, but it also indirectly impacts the other areas.
Exercise. You're less motivated. Typically most people are less motivated and they perform worse with exercise. Their, their hunger hormones change. Their, their gluc glycemic control changes if you don't have enough sleep. So that means your blood sugar isn't as well regulated, which has longevity and performance effects. And then your mood changes too. So if you're cutting your sheep sleep short, it impacts your REM sleep, which is typically at the end of the night, and that impacts your mood and your cognition and all of those things.
So it directly and indirectly impacts your. But what you said, Joe, you're getting up at the same time every day. You're Going to the gym. Those two things are really, really big in improving your sleep quality, which can actually shorten how much duration you need to be in that optimal zone. But, but that's why I answered that original question, Ken, So, so ambiguously, because it does, it does matter. Some of those other factors all play a role.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: Does sleep.
[00:39:34] Speaker C: I'll throw a little hack in there too, that I learned a long time ago before I go to sleep, because it is hard to go at the same time every night, but I do. But anytime before I go to sleep, I count on my fingers the number of hours I have to sleep. And typically I set an alarm, but I usually wake up right before the alarm. But if I know mentally in my brain how many hours I have to sleep, then like, I feel like I get through like the full sleep cycle because I'm not like anxious whether my alarm's going to go off or not. So that's a little hack that I share with people too.
[00:40:08] Speaker D: But I like that to me, is.
[00:40:10] Speaker C: The most important thing in the world. Yeah.
[00:40:13] Speaker B: And, and I, I agree. One of the things that I, you know, waking up, you know, is a lot easier when you, and this is one of the things I do. I enthusiastically talk myself into being excited about waking up at a particular time, you know, rather than work, like dreading it. Some people are like, I gotta get up at 5. I gotta get like, people dread it. And, and I kind of try and psych myself up for the idea of getting up at a particular time. Let me, let me ask you this.
Sleeping in.
Is sleeping in detrimental or helpful? If you find that your lifestyle is causing sleep deprivation?
[00:40:52] Speaker D: So it depends. If you're sleeping in on a regular basis, that's probably not a good sign. Right.
It means you're probably sleep deprived on a reg, you know, normally. So say you get up, you have to get up at a certain time every day for work on the weekdays, and then on the weekends you sleep in two extra hours. There is data that shows that, that circadian rhythm disruption is detrimental to our health.
And I don't know if that me if that's just because you're sleep deprived through the week or if it's, there's, there's evidence that it's actually coming from the circadian rhythm disruption. Now however, having said that, if you are sleep deprived and you need to catch up on your sleep, especially for the immune system and that kind of thing, it can be, it can be favorable on a, on a limited basis. Right. But again, if you're doing that on a regular basis, like a weekly thing every weekend or something like that, that actually shows that you, you're disrupting your circadian rhythm and you, you're sleep deprived probably during the week. And so both of those, for both of those reasons, I would say it's more detrimental.
[00:42:16] Speaker B: Okay, fair enough. So you said sleep, then you said exercise. I know I asked for one, but you wanted to give me all four. I could, I could just sense that you wanted to tell me all four. So let's go.
[00:42:26] Speaker C: Number three, hydration.
[00:42:29] Speaker D: Well, so nutrition is a huge topic. Hydration is part of that. But you know, it's hard. There's, I mean, nutrition is such a massive topic, but getting your nutrition right. And the number one thing from a longevity standpoint and from an overall health standpoint is don't eat too many calories.
So there's a few things that I try to help people with. The really, really big, high level things are get enough protein, don't eat too many calories and get enough fiber. Fiber has a dose dependent relationship with longevity. So the more fiber you eat, the longer you live. And so, and even in that we can talk about, I could probably do a whole podcast on fiber and the microbiome and how, you know, fiber feeds our gut microbiome and, and how that influences our health. So, you know, that's, that's a huge topic, but I would say that and hydration. So, so those, those kind of high level things with nutrition and, and when, when we talk about nutrition, we, we go, we, we go through all of these things and all of the other nuanced things, but those are the big ones. If you don't eat too many calories, you get enough protein and you get enough fiber and you drink enough water, you're, you're going to be, again, you're going to be doing better than most. Yeah, you're, you're going to be putting yourself ahead of the path. You're going to be exceptional is what I say.
You're going to be an exception if you do those things. And then the fourth would be mental health. And that one again is kind of like sleep. It impacts all the other areas of health and it is impacted by all the other areas of health. So, but mental health, there's a fair amount of good data that a good community, good social network and having a positive mental health is like just a positive attitude is strongly associated with longevity. So like just your social interactions. In fact, I literally just saw something the other day that said loneliness is associated with poor Longevity.
There's, there's a lot of data on this. So mental health, not just from like a, you know, do you need to see a psychiatrist type of thing, but just mental wellness and stress management. So stress is, stress wreaks havoc on our system. Chronic stress, short term stress is good. So we call those hormetics.
Exercise is a short term stressor, those kind of things. But long term, chronic stress wreaks havoc on us.
And so we need to learn how to manage that and how to deal with that.
So that would be the core four.
But there's obviously so much more. But those are the, if you do, if you get those right, you know you're going to be way ahead of the pack.
[00:45:31] Speaker C: So what are your thoughts? So I've been able to quit everything. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't, I eat healthy. I work out. The one thing that I cannot for the life of me, I'm not even willing to give up is, is caffeine or coffee. What's your, what's your thoughts on coffee and caffeine?
[00:45:51] Speaker D: Yeah, so caffeine can, can disrupt your sleep a little bit if you drink, drink it too late so that you have to be careful about that. But coffee has a strong association with longevity. Up to four or five cups a day of coffee is associated with longer life and decreased inflammation. So coffee has powerful antioxidants in it and probably other things that we don't even like polyphenols and those kind of things. There you go.
That is very healthy, beneficial.
Yeah, coffee is good for you.
[00:46:33] Speaker B: All right, I want to hit you with a couple of quick hits here and then we're going to get into the two truths and a lie. So TikTok doctors are everywhere, right? I want you to tell me yes or no.
Fasting, 72 hour fasts. Yes or no.
[00:46:57] Speaker D: That's, that's a tricky one. I'm gonna say no.
A 72 hour fast. I'm gonna say no.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: Cold plunges.
[00:47:15] Speaker D: Sure. If it, if it, if it suits you. Now the other thing with cold plunges are a lot of these things are nuances. You can tell by the look on my face. These are new. These, these really require nuances.
So you know, even the fasting could be beneficial. Right. So there's, there. It's not, it's. These things are not what they are. They're not the magic pill that they are proposed to be. And they. We don't have the evidence to support the dramatic claims that are being made. So that's my issue with, with a lot of these things, right? These, these topics that are, they're fad, you know, health hacks.
They could, a lot of them have some potential benefits.
So you mentioned cold plunging. Cold plunging is another hormetic stressor. Right? So if too much too often creates chronic stress, like people say, oh, your growth hormone goes up and your, your epinephrine goes up and all these things. Well, those are, those are stress responses. So if you do it too much, you know, that could actually cause harm. So you do have to be, I mean, it seems like people are getting more and more extreme with how cold and how long and how often and all these things.
A cold shower, a room, like a, like a cold shower will, will produce some of those responses that you're looking for that could be health beneficial, but you don't have to be extreme about it.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Good to know.
[00:48:44] Speaker C: What about sauna? I do the sauna every day. I swear by it.
[00:48:49] Speaker D: Sauna is probably one of the better.
Better well researched and has excellent data on decreasing cardiovascular disease. Even, even improves like exercise tolerance. And yeah, sauna is great up to three times, like three times a week of sauna is, is from all the data that we have, health beneficial and probably more people should be doing it.
I love it.
[00:49:19] Speaker B: Yeah, you're. Dude, you're a model, You're a model student, bro.
[00:49:22] Speaker C: It's not, I didn't like everything that I do wasn't. It's been a process of learning this stuff.
Actually a lot of it. The sauna is out of necessity. I train every night. I get the shit beat out of me and if I don't get it, if I don't, then I'm sore and I can't recover from workouts and from trainings and sparring and all that stuff. So that's that. I've noticed. I didn't, you know, the health benefits of it. That's a positive. You know, that's an ancillary effect of like the fact that I just need to not feel like crap after training.
[00:49:52] Speaker D: Now sauna again is another hormetic. So, you know, you can do too much of it, you can go too far with it, as some people do. Right. So you have to be careful about doing too much because again, we're creating, we're trying to create a certain, we're triggering a stress response in our body by putting ourselves in a stressful environment. So recovery is a big issue with sauna. So it helps you with recovery. But if you do too much, you could have difficulty with recovery.
We're looking at, again, cellular health. And, you know, these stressors, if you compound these and you're doing sauna and cold plunging and this and that and all these other things and you don't have the opportunity to recover. Now, these hormetics that are. That. I'm sorry, I never explained what a hormetic is. A hormetic is something that in a small dose is good for you and a big dose is bad for you. So now all these hermetics now become harmful if you, if you do too much and you don't give yourself the opportunity. Opportunity to recover. And. And so that's kind of how I look at it.
[00:50:59] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:51:00] Speaker B: I will tell you this. My wife would classify Joe as a hermetic. For me, like, it's small doses. We're good. We can't hang out too long.
[00:51:10] Speaker D: Perfect.
[00:51:11] Speaker B: Bad things happen.
[00:51:13] Speaker D: That's fair.
Well, you're on.
So that's a.
[00:51:20] Speaker C: We're about as far away from each other as we can without going to another country, so.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: Exactly. All right, let's get into the two truths. And Elijah, I'll reread what, what, what we have and you tell me, which I think I know where I'm gonna go with it. But this is your segment. So I played college basketball. I almost crashed a Blackhawk helicopter in the desert, and I'm a professional marksman. What do we think is the lie?
[00:51:51] Speaker C: So he tipped his hat, his hand a little bit about being a flight medic. So I'm.
[00:51:59] Speaker D: That.
[00:52:00] Speaker C: That one's probably true with the. He didn't say he crashed the helicopter. Almost, almost in one that crashed. He also said I played college basketball. He didn't say I played basketball in college. So I'm going to put that one aside for a second. Given that with the reservist background, you're going to have to go through some training. They're going to teach you how to shoot. So that could also be. I know a lot of people that pick that up as a hobby and then get really into it. A little suspect on the professional part of it. So profession, you'd have to actually get paid to be a marksman. So that's. I don't know. I don't know how that fits in. So I'm going to have to go with. I believe that the lie is he's a professional marksman.
[00:52:45] Speaker B: I'm going to say college basketball is the lie.
I can't tell how tall you are. But, but, but, but I imagine that that's you made that just because someone plays.
Someone plays baseball, that makes them tall. Like, you brought that analogy in. I think you wanted to play professional basketball or college basketball, but I don't think you did.
[00:53:12] Speaker C: All of these truths and lies, they all come down to very specific.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. All right, which one is.
[00:53:19] Speaker D: Well, Ken, you nailed it. You nailed it. So, Joe, your reasoning was very good, though you do have to get paid to be a professional marksman.
I do this for the Army Reserve. I'm on the Army Reserve Marksmanship Units Service Rifle team. So that is something that I picked up in 2014 as a hobby to.
To just kind of do something besides stress out about medicine and was able to get picked up on the team. And so I am technically a professional marksman for the Army Reserve Marksmanship Unit.
But, yes, I did want to play college basketball and did not. I chose the medicine route, but that's something that I always kind of wanted to do. I kind of wish I had maybe a little bit.
[00:54:20] Speaker C: That's pretty good.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: I know it's hard to play sport and be in medical school at the same time, too. So, you know.
[00:54:28] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, I did play.
[00:54:31] Speaker B: Well, I. I guess.
[00:54:33] Speaker D: I guess technically I played intramurals. I was really referring to, like, I played, you know, on a team. I did play intermurals, but that doesn't really count, in my opinion, so. But, Joe, you were on the right track. If I had been. I wasn't trying to be sneaky like that, but that was. I like you, man. You.
[00:54:49] Speaker C: In the spirit of two truths and a lie. It's, you know.
[00:54:53] Speaker D: Yeah, I wasn't trying to.
[00:54:55] Speaker B: I wasn't trying to. Gave all Ultra.
[00:54:59] Speaker D: There you go.
[00:55:01] Speaker C: Said he claimed they were all truths, but they turned out to all be lies. Like, we did some research after the fact, and I was like, I called it out from the beginning, but.
[00:55:13] Speaker D: There you go. All right.
[00:55:14] Speaker B: Dr. Yerkes, thank you very much for joining us today. I really do appreciate. I can't wait to have you back on because. Because we could, you know, we could literally, I could talk about this stuff for hours. And I know that it's an area, especially for the people that are listening, the entrepreneurs out there, the people that are grinding, like, we can't sacrifice this stuff or I'm in my mid-40s, Joe's in his mid-40s. We can't afford. It's a necessity now that we start to take care of ourselves. We're not going to be around, you know, long enough to enjoy the fruits of our labor. So why do all this shit if we're not going to stick around long enough to enjoy it. So I appreciate your knowledge, I appreciate your candor, I appreciate your, you know, you joining us. And I can't wait to see you again.
[00:55:53] Speaker D: Thanks for having me.
[00:55:55] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Selling the Dream. We know you don't want to miss a single episode, so go subscribe today, wherever you get your podcasts, and then make sure to share the show with your friends and leave us a review.
