EFR 696: Therapies That Actually Work to Improve Mental Health, Healing PTSD & How to Make Your Body More Resilient to Future Traumas with Dr. Mike Dow

Speaker 1:The following is an operation podcast production.

Speaker 2:We still need to do a better job of taking care of the whole person. And I know you're very passionate about that, and a lot of the things that people know you for and biohacking and training and hormones. I, I think therapy goes together with that. You know, there's a study, it's the

Speaker 1:Glue that sets it all out.

Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Right. Because somebody can tell you what to do. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But a lot of people have trouble with the how, well, how do I weight train? How do I have the motivation to do that? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, what do I need to tell myself in order to get to that state? There was this UCLA study that came out that found that people in therapy had lower markers in their blood of inflammation. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it actually has a, an effect on the body, which I think is really exciting too. Hi, I'm Dr. Mike Dow, New York Times bestselling author of the Ketamine Breakthrough. Today on Ever Forward Radio, I'm gonna be talking about the new book, ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, how it can help you heal your brain and maybe change your life.

Speaker 3:This is your number one source for inspiring content from people who are putting a purpose to their passion and truly living a life ever forward. I am your host, chase tuning. This

Speaker 1:Is

Speaker 3:Ever Ford

Speaker 1:Radio.

Speaker 1:Hey, everybody. Welcome back to ever Ford Radio. This one is extremely special and I, I, I say that because it highlights an area of our wellness that I have thoroughly enjoyed diving deeper into myself and my own personal wellness journey, but also one that I think if you've been listening to the show for any length of time and have been hopefully applying some of these lessons to any other area of your life, you realize how important our mental health is for its own right, for its own kind of slice of our wellbeing pie. But like we're gonna get into here today with Dr. Mike Dowell, we actually be learning how the physical self absolutely serves the mental self and vice versa. We're gonna be learning that by taking better care of our bodies, we can actually become more resilient to high stress, even traumatic events.

Speaker 1:The short answer to that is, yes, absolutely this is possible, but make sure to tune in to the whole episode to hear Mike explain more. Dr. Mike Dowell, celebrity therapist is here to dive into the forms of therapy and the approaches to mental health that actually work. Things that are rooted in clinical evidence and hard science, but also kind of out of the gate here, he gets very real. And you're gonna hear how a therapist has evolved and grown over the years, how he takes care of his mental health, and how that in turn has changed and evolved. His approach to working with his clients, especially in unique new realms such as Ketamine assisted psychotherapy, you're gonna learn exactly what it is, how it works, and the science behind how it literally heals your brain, improves your mental health, and builds resilience to trauma. He has quite literally written the book on it, but he's a brain health expert, psychedelic assisted psychotherapist, and New York Times bestselling author.

Speaker 1:He is here to highlight work out of his new book, the Ketamine Breakthrough, how to Find Freedom from Depression, lift anxiety, and Open up to a New World of Possibilities. In the episode today, you're gonna hear how Mike uses therapy and medication as a stepping stone to his patient's next steps and how he would recommend it. For many of you listening now as your next step of healing, instead of just using it as a band-aid. Also, why do people experience P T S D differently? How can two people or a group of people go through the exact same traumatic event, but others leaves a much deeper, darker, more difficult imprint and takes months, years longer to recover from, and others just seem to be okay? Well, the short answer here is that it depends on oxytocin, genetics and how you take care of yourself also.

Speaker 1:Now, I've talked about this several times on the show before I even did a complete standalone episode that I'll link down the show notes for you all about how I have been really diving deeper into psychotherapy therapy, ketamine assisted psychotherapy to work through my own PTs d over the last, uh, year and a half now, I'm gonna talk to you all about, very candidly, my PTs d and using Ketamine assisted psychotherapy to really help my grieving my healing and ultimately reinstate a level of hope in my life that I did not think was possible. Dr. Doo sat down with me in the studio here today in la We got this link for you down in the show notes. You can watch this video either on YouTube or as always, you can find it@everforradio.com. Now, actually in this interview, I referenced a recent conversation I had not that long ago that I'll down the show notes with Dr.

Speaker 1:Chris Palmer talking about the brain energy theory and how a lot of our mental health woes and even mental illness stem from poor physical health, specifically poor metabolic health, and even more specifically poor mitochondrial health. And up until now, there haven't been very many supplements on the market to support mihay or aka a, the flushing out of old damaged mitochondria. Until now, until I discovered today's sponsor timeline nutrition in their revolutionary product, this compound called Euro Lithium A, this got my interest. I was super intrigued, and after trying it myself, I can tell you the feeling is real. And it's also very real in a clinical sense, because before they came to market with this product to support mitochondrial health, they spent about 10 years, about a decade conducting these extensive clinical trials. So this stuff works. It has a clinical evidence to support it, and I'm here to tell you personally, I love it.

Speaker 1:Now, your other thing, a is actually derived from pomegranate, but it's very hard, nearly impossible for any of us to eat or drink enough pomegranate to get the scientifically proven therapeutic dose. And trust me, I would know, my wife is Middle Eastern, her whole family, they're Persian, and trust me, there's a lot of pomegranate and a lot of the Iranian cuisine, and we're not even scratching the surface. Super easy to do simply pop two capsules a day, and in about month one, you're hitting the clinically effective proven dose and consistency to have already begun to repair and renew mitochondria. Then by month two, per their clinical studies, they're showing a 17% increase in muscle recovery and a reduction of muscle fatigue after eight weeks of taking a daily dose of my dpu. I want you guys to check this out for your own self@thetimelinenutrition.com slash ever, and you're gonna learn exactly why I love timeline nutrition, why I've been supplementing it now in my routine for about six months. And thanks to timeline, I'm able to fortify my health at the cellular level and support my longevity at the same time. You guys can head to timeline nutrition.com/ever and make sure to use code ever forward at checkout to save 10% off of any of their plan products. As always, there's a link for you down on the show notes, but that's timeline nutrition.com/ever forward.

Speaker 2:It's really interesting. There are a couple of things that have happened that I think are notable. First, I think there's a therapist shortage, <laugh> of a mental health clinician shortage, uh, which I think tells us, you know, two things that more and more people are struggling post pandemic. I think mental health and trauma and these, these words that are now, you know, every single psychology, uh, term I feel like is now on TikTok and Instagram, so people are more aware. So I think there's a little bit less stigma in certain areas and in certain populations, right? We got more awareness

Speaker 1:Of kind

Speaker 2:Hearing. Yeah. Uh, but I still see a lot of stigma in certain populations in certain areas. You know, I think here in Los Angeles, it's almost, uh, therapy is part of the landscape. <laugh>, uh, I was talking to a celebrity, that was it, I think. Yeah. Uh, just a couple days ago, I, I, I worked with this, uh, pretty well known person and she's like, oh, no, I grew up, you know, in my Hollywood family, like therapy was our religion, you know? So in LA and these famous families, you know, therapy is what people do. It's almost required. And wow, when you have these jobs or you're a public figure, I think it is really, really essential to be in therapy. But I think for everyday people, it, it is becoming more and more important, you know, whether you're balancing raising a child with a kid and inflation and trying to make ends meet, and how do you keep your cool? How do you manage stress? How do you deal with trauma, microaggressions? Um, so I think, I think we're, we're getting there, but I think there are also some other things that I talk about in the book where, um, we still need to do a better job of taking care of the whole person. And I know you're very passionate about that, and a lot of the things that people know you for and biohacking and training and hormones, I, I think therapy goes together with that. You know, there's a study, it's the

Speaker 1:Glue that sets it all out.

Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Right, because somebody can tell you what to do mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but a lot of people have trouble with the how, well, how do I wait train? How do I have the motivation to do that? You know, what do I need to tell myself in order to get to that state? There was this UCLA study that came out that found that people in therapy had lower markers in their blood of inflammation mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it actually has a, an effect on the body, which I think is really exciting

Speaker 1:Too. The whole concept of, you know, the bio psychosocial model Yeah. Is something that it's, when you actually just hear those words, it just makes the most sense to me. Yep. We're talking about what is going on internally in our internal ecosystem, what we're doing with the external self. Yeah. But then also this kind of like elusive third variable of, of consciousness and, you know, the psyche. It's how do we think about it? How do we feel about it? But then how do we think and feel about our thinkings and feelings? Right. And then how do we, you know, apply them and maintain all of that. Yeah. Uh, it's incredible. I, I think that is just like, that's what I'm after the most, and it's so cool in pursuit, you know, not me exclusive anybody when you're in pursuit of making your life better mm-hmm. <affirmative> to then find scientific proof that, oh, like this is a thing. Yeah. It kind of like validates this internal knowing and ways we're finding success on our own Yeah. To the human experience.

Speaker 2:Yeah. And I love what you just said about primary and secondary emotions and like what you tell yourself about the thoughts and feelings, <laugh>, and then how, you know, let's say you take these really expensive pre and probiotics mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, but then what you're telling yourself about your thoughts and feelings actually is killing these very expensive probiotics. We've seen that in research, right. So it's like, unless you get the mind right, even some of these other things are gonna be ineffective or less effective mm-hmm. <affirmative> because you're, you know, just one, one of many, many examples. It's like you're killing the good gut bacteria that you're spending all this money on if you don't have your mind. Right? Yeah.

Speaker 1:You're, you're killing your own poten own potential, um, before you even really give it, uh, a fighting chance. Yeah. In a lot of ways. Yeah. Um, how have you changed over the years as a therapist? Because you're someone committed to the work, the bio psychosocial approach. Yeah. Um, you're also committed to continuous education for personal and professional reasons. You have to. Yeah. Uh, and then I'm sure, you know, as a professional, we all kind of, if we're in the same profession for a decade, like you abandoned, plus you've probably evolved and changed along the way. So like how have you as a therapist changed personally, but also then how have you like improved and applied that in your practice?

Speaker 2:That's a great question. So I started my career, um, when I finished my master's in doctorate. I was working for a department of mental health agency and <laugh>, it was very old school, sort of eighties, nineties model. And what I mean by that, and I talk about this in the ketamine breakthrough, you know, back in the sixties, you know, sort of these New York psychoanalytically trained therapist days, maybe you see in like Woody Allen movies and people are in psychoanalysis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was this wave of therapy that was very depth oriented. Right. And the subconscious was really important. Back in the day, the treatment dujour. Today people are talking about emdr, which mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which I like, and I use some bilateral stimulation reprocessing. But, you know, back in the day, hypnosis was what the VA was using to treat ptsd. And by the way, clinical hypnosis that I'm training is also quite effective for reprocessing trauma. But yeah, we

Speaker 1:Actually just had a funny timing. By the time this is live, we just had an episode with, uh, Sam Vinik. We're coming out soon. Yeah. Cracking open an incredible new world of, of science and science and application with hypnotherapy. Yeah. Um, like it's, again, very real science. It is

Speaker 2:Very, very real. It's very real. And I think this transition, you know, in the eighties and and seventies when cognitive behavioral therapy became this gold standard, um, I think it sort of moved away from the depth and the, and the, and the, the subconscious. And, you know, so going back to how I've changed, so I was working for this department of mental health agency, and they wanted to see me do, um, intakes and, um, you know, Medicare medical approved assessments mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and they wanted to see me working with somebody. And I'm going to, in my work, reduce self mutilating behaviors from four times per week to two times per week, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it's all about the symptom, the symptom, the symptom. What is, what are you seeing on the surface? How can these cognitive behavioral strategies help with that? Right. It's almost, uh, it's like the things you see on the surface. So I often compare that to sort of allopathic western medicine, which has a place and is great, you know, obviously, uh, our are significant others. Uh, it, there's a place for that mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, certain models of western medicine are great. Worst case scenario, medicine, acute care, emergency care

Speaker 1:Care.

Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, my husband's an ER doctor, like you do not want to go anywhere else. When you're in that worst case scenario, you better be with a great ER doctor to help you not die. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. Um, but sort of going back, I really consider the biopsychosocial and now with ketamine spiritual approach, uh, the equivalent of root cause oriented functional medicine. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right. <affirmative>, because you want to go down to the symptom, so it's not just what you see on the surface. So I think early in my career, I was very sort of surface oriented and symptom directed, because that's how I had to be. Well, that's

Speaker 1:How you were trained and Yeah. That was the standard at that time. Yep. That's actually how you were expected and probably told to perform your job.

Speaker 2:Yes. And then as I was sort of working with patients, I realized, okay, this is working for some people, but there's like this whole other subset, not even a subset, like 50 to 60% of the people that this is not enough. This is not getting to the core of the problem. So then I get trained in all these other forms of therapy, uh, like clinical hypnosis, trauma reprocessing, and then, you know, the, the magic <laugh> aha moment, ketamine assisted psychotherapy, which

Speaker 1:We'll get

Speaker 2:There soon. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. So, so now I am just so much more, I am, I consider the depth oriented approaches, YY approaches, internal family systems, parts work, and man, and then you combine those depth oriented approaches with ketamine. Mm-hmm. And now I'm seeing people, it's like, now it's a whole enchilada. Yeah. Now it's like the symptoms on the surface, this is what I've been waiting for. Yes.

Speaker 1:That's what I've been working for. Yes.

Speaker 2:Yeah. But also like the why, you know, so when C B T first came out, you know, which was sort of this marriage of the cognitive therapy and the behavioral therapy, and they put 'em together, now it's sort of like this umbrella mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, for medical conditions. Psychological conditions. Right. Like you've, if you have overactive bladder and you wanna like, help reduce caffeine intake, that's like a cognitive behavioral strategy. It's like these simple lifestyle tips, but it doesn't go to like the heart of the matter. So I think when you can unpack that, then you really change lives. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which is exciting.

Speaker 1:I mean, that's, I feel like no matter what we're talking about in the human experience, the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual aspect, yeah. Whatever form of wellness we're working on, or just what we want for our lives mm-hmm. <affirmative> in terms of advancement, meaning, purpose, um, that's like, it, it's just here's what's being presented in my life. Yeah. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Yeah. There's something always at the bottom that is the driving force behind it, and it's, we kind of just have all of these tools, right? Yeah. To chip away to make it less or to make it more depending on what we need or want. Yeah. But that doesn't mean we're actually addressing or getting to the thing. Yeah. So why is it so difficult for us to get to the thing, whether that's personally or finding the right professional, maybe through therapy. Like why, why can't we just fast track and go, let's get to the root, here's the root, let's uproot the thing. Yeah. Or at least learn how to coexist with it.

Speaker 2:I think we have so many defenses, right? And, and sometimes traumas are buried in the subconscious and people have trouble even accessing them, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they have a lot of dissociation or repression or denial or projection. Right. All those sort of classic Freudian defense mechanisms. Like

Speaker 1:Sometimes we're, we're literally not aware of traumas that have been imprinted. Yes. I mean that extreme Yes. Survival modes kicked in and it's just like, shut

Speaker 2:Off and it's a different part of you. Mm-hmm. So I have people who have survived childhood trauma, and it's like the part of them that stores the memory doesn't even have words. And sometimes I will see when I'm working with them, they will revert back to a, an eight year old state where I can see, you know, dissociative identity disorder. Wow. Formerly known as multiple personality disorder. We all have a version of that, right. It's like, it's just more extreme in, in D I D where people sort of have these very wow siloed parts of themselves. But we all have these parts of ourselves. So when we, when I do inner child work, which to me is really correlated with the amygdala, which is the brain smoke detector, if you are amygdala because of something that happened to you in childhood sexual abuse when you were eight, or as a veteran when you were 22, and something in that amygdala got turned up, if we're talking about what's going on in your everyday life mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:<affirmative>, yeah. We're seeing the symptoms, we're seeing hyper vigilance. But unless you go to that root and you turn down the smoke detector by going to that inner child, by going and reprocessing that memory, we're never actually getting to the root cause. Which is, even though why veterans with pt s d, the most common medication they're gonna be prescribed is an S sri antidepressant. As soon as you stop taking it, the symptoms come right back. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> because it's helping with the symptoms, but it's not going to the core. And also the parts of the brain where trauma is stored. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think that's really, really important for people to understand. You know,

Speaker 1:When people think about mental health and how to improve it, they probably don't think of electrolytes first. Instead they think about social connection, meaningful work, exercise, and if they're keeping up with the science, keeping inflammation low. Now, don't get me wrong, all those areas matter, no doubt about it. But I do want to bring your attention to why electrolytes matter for your mental health. Electrolytes are an essential cog in your mood balancing apparatus. This is most obvious in anxiety and depression. The two, in fact, most common mood disorders in the world just take the link between sodium and depression. For example. Research has shown that when rats are sodium restricted, they actually stop seeking pleasant stimulation. In other words, sodium deprived rats become depressed. Scientists have also studied the relationship between magnesium and mood. Another critically important electrolyte and mineral magnesium supplementation, as a matter of fact, is a really promising therapy for both anxiety and depression.

Speaker 1:Still, electrolytes are often the last thing people think about for mood alteration. Well, this is where today's partner element is one of to step in and not only bring your electrolyte levels back up to homeostasis, but hopefully help with things such as anxiety and depression by taking care of your internal self. Real quick, here's maybe why low sodium might be causing depression. Um, one of the reasons this higher cortisol, cortisol is a hormone released during times of stress that affects nearly every process, including your mental state. In your body. High cortisol in fact, has been linked to fatigue and stress in both men and women. So where does sodium come in? Well, when someone is sodium deficient, their cortisol levels go way, way up. What does this mean? Well, it translates to bad news for your mood. Secondly, magnesium. Let's talk about magnesium in your mood.

Speaker 1:Magnesium is a required co-factor for most processes in your body. We are still determining and finding all of the amazing things that magnesium does and how it really is a catalyst for hundreds of bodily functions. You need magnesium to make bone, muscle and even energy itself as a t p. So, so it shouldn't be surprising then that magnesium deficiency comes with a number of neurological symptoms. They can include tremors, seizures, weakness, and muscle spasms. Magnesium may also help with anxiety and depression. Multiple studies in fact, suggest that magnesium status is closely linked to anxiety. Again, in mice, low magnesium levels are associated with anxious behaviors. Yet when the mice are given magnesium, the anxious behaviors dissipate. There's human evidence too. This isn't all just about the rodents. When someone is nervous before a test, they actually excrete more magnesium in your urine, in their urine, causing magnesium levels to drop.

Speaker 1:And additionally, on a population level, dietary magnesium intake is slightly negatively correlated with anxiety. And even some clinical data will also indicate that magnesium supplementation can have a ative effect, which we all could probably use a little bit more of when we're more relaxed. Well, that quite literally means less cortisol in the body, improving mood, increasing our mental health status. But here's what I can tell you element, the recharge electrolyte drink mix has added immense value to my life for many, many different reasons for pushing three years now. And I want to pass those experiences and benefits onto you. If you're new to Element and you want to try out their incredible variety flavor packets of sodium, magnesium, and potassium, they even have an unflavored one that you can dump into water your smoothie. I personally love it when I'm flying cause I definitely get more dehydrated up in the air.

Speaker 1:I take 'em every morning in my morning health cocktail to make sure I'm just getting all these essential minerals in and supporting my mental health at the same time. You can get a free variety of sample pack by heading to drink element.com/ever. And you can learn so much more. They not only have great products, but a lot of science there, such as this article that I've been referencing here in this ad. So speaking of, let's wrap it up so we can dive into the conversation here today with Dr. Mike Dow. But again, if you wanna check out what Element has to offer in terms of electrolytes and potentially boosting your mood, get a free variety sample pack with any purchase. Like I said, head to drink element.com, that's D R I N K L M N t.com/ever scoop up any flavor you'll want or unflavored. And you're gonna get a free variety sample packed to go along with it. Details are in today's show notes, under episode resources. Well also not to disregard when symptoms are so severe, we need or even want something to suppress them or alleviate them or Yeah. You know, mitigate them. Um, when, in your professional opinion, I know this is probably a blanket statement here. Yeah. You know, but an example being this is when maybe something like that, let's say a medication would be the smartest choice right now mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but mindful of that, we don't want this to be a bandaid. So like basically a stepping stone to the next work. Right.

Speaker 2:I think there are a lot of people in that situation, and I think that's okay. So when you're gonna do this work, the myth about therapy is that therapy should always be easy and comfortable and warm and fuzzy. And your therapy's just gonna like hold your hand. Right. <laugh>, it's like too

Speaker 1:Much warm and fuzzy clips going around. I mean, sometimes I don't like

Speaker 2:That. You know, I, I, I think yes, obviously you want to have a good relationship. You want to feel that your therapist cares about you, but if your therapist is just talking to you and just being supportive of you and using these very humanistic approaches, which have a time and a place, it's, it's not gonna allow you to go to those deep places. So yes, you should be in a time and a space where you're feeling like, okay, I have the time to start to unpack this. So if I have a new project at work and my mom is, um, going through a health crisis and I'm taking care of her, maybe right now is not the time. Maybe three months is a time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you can kind of see maybe for that person going on an SSRI or a benzodiazepine, maybe that is a good choice for them until they have the time and the emotional space Okay.

Speaker 2:To really open up those wounds or open Pandora's box. Because sometimes people do get a little bit, they don't get worse, but they're going to be consciously aware of things that they've been repressing. They're gonna open up Pandora's box and things are gonna come outta that box. And sometimes they are going to be uncomfortable. I have a lot of people tell me, um, I often, pretty quickly, when I work in these deep ways, I will often sort of, if a primary care physician who's doing your physical is looking for that knee tap, knee jerk reaction, I'm going down and I'm going down and I'm looking for the tears I'm looking for like that I'm looking for the pain.

Speaker 1:Right. That's the mental health knee jerk reaction. It is. Wow.

Speaker 2:Amazing analogy. So when I don't like seeing people cry, but oftentimes I know that I'm in the right space. Cuz now we're not talking about all, you know,

Speaker 1:You're track and helping

Speaker 2:Them and not the part of the ego that's trying to repress that or take care of that pain, but the pain itself, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> the shame, the sadness, because that's the right spot. Neurologically speaking. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that's how we actually process trauma. It's like we have this, sometimes therapy, it's like this adult brain, uh, is, is mitigating or managing or, you know, not allowing the pain to come forth mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I think if you can go down and, you know, ketamine is a facilitator mm-hmm. <affirmative> for people who can't do that in, in ordinary talk therapy, it's, it's just a really fantastic facilitator. And then you have those breakthroughs, right? Yeah. Because then you start from like the very, very inside out. Yeah. It's like functional medicine. If you're, if you've got a thyroid condition and you want to go down and then you know, your tssh is uh, over, you know, ideally, hopefully that's under two, maybe it's over four or six. Um, and instead of just throwing out a thyroid medication, maybe you wanna see like, well what, what's going on? Like, why do you have that autoimmunity? It's sort of the same thing. And you know, so a functional medicine doc's gonna look at your intestinal permeability mm-hmm. <affirmative> and what foods are you reacting to and, you know, why is there inflammation? It's, it's a very similar model. So I always kind of think of that as like a parallel.

Speaker 1:Um, one area that's been fascinating me recently in personal research and also a lot of the guests we've had on the show, um, especially recently, Dr. Chris Palmer, this MD psychiatrist from Harvard, uh, wrote this amazing book recently called The Brain, uh, brain Energy. The Brain Energy Theory, um, is really kind of making a pretty bold claim, but one that I can get on board with and that's all root cause to mental illness is, um, or I should say, excuse me, the root cause of all mental illness is actually poor metabolic health. So basically there is a root cause underlying all mental illness that if we can address or get ahead of, can prevent or radically be ae alleviated or like made better. Yeah. What's your stance on that? Do you agree that at the root cause of mental health problems, mental illness is, you know, the physical self? Cuz you were talking a lot about, you know, functional medicine and gut permeability. I believe that when we focus on the body, we can help the mind and vice versa, but Yep. Uh, has that kind of come up in your work?

Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say that the root cause are these metabolic disorders mm-hmm. <affirmative> or trauma, right? Mm-hmm. So I, I think it's sort of half and half. So for some people the root cause is the trauma itself. But we're also seeing in research that a, a subset, and again, it's not a small subset. A a large subset of people who don't respond to traditional antidepressants, it's because they have an inflammatory disorder. Right. Ah, so then you're looking at labs like if your H S C R P that a cardiologist is looking at to determine your risk for heart attack mm-hmm. <affirmative> or cardiovascular events. If that's over one, those people have a higher likelihood of having an inflammatory depression. Hmm. People who have an elevated A1C are going to have, uh, a higher risk of both depression and dementia because those blood sugar spikes are shrinking your hippocampus rapidly.

Speaker 2:Wow. And that's just not affected, uh, linked to to memory because, you know, most people think hippocampus memory, but when that shrinks, we also see more depression. So yes, I think there are both these biological drivers of depression, anxiety, O C D, um, I don't even really care about the diagnosis. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's because the diagnosis, the I C D code, if we code somebody for an anxiety disorder mm-hmm. It doesn't tell us anything of about why mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. It can be biological, it can be trauma related. And you've gotta really, you know, the reason that I look at labs is because I want to, and you know, also this, this genetic testing and looking at, you know, A P O E four or M T H F R or your markers and genes that will make you more prone to inflammation. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, it's, it's fascinating cuz then you can start to see and help to explain to people mm-hmm. <affirmative>, this is why, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So for some people, especially if they have an inflammatory depression, those people are gonna respond to high dose omega three s because that's gonna bring down that inflammation. By the way, ketamine also reduces inflammatory cytokines. So it's, it's a great root cause medicine, but I think again, going to that root level is just vital.

Speaker 1:You and I were speaking, um, before the podcast a couple weeks ago and I was kind of, we were kinda like sharing some like life hacks, biohacks, all this stuff we're kind of diving into Yeah. Yeah. And, um, what you're talking about struck a chord with me because it, I was just like, I've had this happen. Mm-hmm. I, I was having this, I thought mental health flare up mm-hmm. Of depression. That's just inexplicable depression. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> that would kind of pop up every so often. And I, I literally had may, um, it got to a point where I was like, baby, like treat me like a patient mm-hmm. <affirmative> run me through this questionnaire mm-hmm. <affirmative> and she said at the end, like, I would actually recommend, I would, I, if you were my patient, I would say I would probably recommend you for either regular therapy around this or honestly like you might wanna consider medication. Mm. And I was like, this just doesn't make sense. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, fast forward I got this functional medicine test. Yep. Found out that my body just burns through dopamine. Mm-hmm. Whenever I have like a high, high or like a success in life or work or like even just I notice significant time around family and friends. Like whenever, whenever I'm in life and enjoyment Yeah. Dopamine high. Yeah. My

Speaker 2:Body just

Speaker 1:Drops it. Right. I burn through it and it takes me longer to replenish it. That was the depression I was experiencing. Right. And here I am thinking that I've got this new mental health problem or like a flare up when actually it's something going on internally.

Speaker 2:It's so interesting when you do genetic testing on people and you can see this C O M T gene that also, uh, that either makes you, uh, a slow or in your case a fast processor mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And by the way, that gene also has, uh, other implications in other areas of health. Uh, it's just so fascinating. And it's not just one gene. It's fascinating to me how I'm a sensation seeker cuz I have some, some, uh, mutations in my dopamine genes. Right. So iactually, it's

Speaker 1:Not just a personality trait, it's like who I am Who you are. Yeah.

Speaker 2:Wow. You can see that on people's genetic reports and fascinating. You know, I think you and I are probably just, you know, sensing your personality type in mind. We probably love the way dopamine feels, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. And if you have these mutations in your dopamine genes, it's like you've ha you have less receptors mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you need a little bit more dopamine than the average person to feel normal. So you're actually more likely to be diagnosed with addiction, but less likely to be diagnosed with. Um, and also probably more likely, uh, for depression, but less likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or phobia. Right. Because certain people who don't like the way excess dopamine feels, those are the sensation avoiders. Mm-hmm. They will have a lot of anxiety. So you can kind of see that every gene sort of has, it's, you're pulling on all these different levers and and pulleys that can really affect Yeah. What you do, what you gravitate towards, and also the treatment that works mm-hmm. <affirmative> from foods to supplements to which medication or which Yeah. Uh, which, uh, psychedelic medicine you're, you're, you're gonna want to take.

Speaker 1:For me it was just like, even just the knowing can be medicine. Yeah. For me, just finding out that there's nothing wrong with me. Cuz I was just like, I, I do all the things. I, I take care of my mind, my body. Yeah. I'm hydrating sleeping. Like I was just so, like, how could this be? Yeah. And I, I was really getting into a lot of negative self-talk. Mm-hmm. And it was even then spilling over into my work. I I would just go in my office and just sit on the floor, stare at the wall. I was so unmotivated to do the things that I always loved to do. Yeah. And it just, it really, it, it messed with me. But then literally just knowing, just finding out that I, it really doesn't matter mm-hmm. <affirmative> because like, this is just who I am and I just need to give myself a little time and a little grace. Yep. In, in a day, maybe two, I'm gonna be back to normal. Yep. And so, okay. I don't need to resist this. Yep. I just need to let my body do its thing what

Speaker 2:You just said. I mean, that's the knee-jerk reaction. Something's wrong with me, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and your inner critic is saying, something's wrong with me. Something's wrong with me. So then, because you don't have the information, you're looking at those states and you're saying something is wrong with me. And then you're, you're charging the brain with a lot of bias and now you're looking at your whole life mm-hmm. <affirmative> and yourself criticizing yourself more, that inner critic gets even louder. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then everything you do feels worse when really it can allow you to be mindful. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I've had people who've done mindfulness trainings and for some people they say it makes 'em worse because it's like, really it listen, I knowing too much, it's, it's almost like because they didn't have that answer mindfulness, she's just telling you, well, just tolerate it.

Speaker 2:Just watch it. Don't judge it. But some people are like, but there's something here. Like, I wanna know what's here. <laugh>. So somebody knew I started working with this was in this boat and um, you know, this person did all of the mindfulness based therapies that are wonderful mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but this person also wanted to know what you had, which is the, the why mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And once you know the why, I think then you can use the mindfulness techniques, uh, the mindfulness-based stress reduction, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, these mindfulness-based therapies that do work to tolerate that as long as you know what it is. Right. So that's interesting too.

Speaker 1:Sometimes, you know, ignorance is bliss. I still feel like sometimes. Yeah. Uh, but there's a lot of power and a lot of health to be had in the knowing. Yeah. Like you've been talking about. Um, I want to now shift gears a little bit into specific, um, diagnoses. Specific things that people suffer mm-hmm. <affirmative> something that I have suffered with for, for many years and have actually, you know, through forms of therapy and through ketamine therapy mm-hmm. <affirmative> have been transformed. Um, and that's PTs d mm-hmm. And diving into your work, I was, I was, was finding so many amazing things about post-traumatic stress disorder Yeah. That I was like, oh, like I, I I can feel this, I can understand it. Yeah. But also it helped me understand things in a totally different way Yeah. That I didn't know people, you know, would be experiencing through ptsd, cuz I only know my experience.

Speaker 1:Yeah. Primarily a group of people can go through the same traumatic event. Yep. The same horrible thing can happen to them around them the same time, same day, all the stuff. But for some reason, reasons that you'll explain it imprints deeper, harder, more traumatic on some than others. Yeah. And some really fascinating things around that. Such as, um, susceptibility or even levels of oxytocin. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> quality of sleep and a lot of different, you know, biomarkers that we can be looking at. Um, why is that? And secondly, does that mean by better taking care of our bodies we can become more resilient to traumatic events?

Speaker 2:The short answer to that question number two is yes, absolutely. But then let's go to question number one. So we know that people who have lower levels of oxytocin, which I can also see in the genetic report that I do for people. So if you have those mutations in the gene that is coding for your oxytocin levels, you may be more likely than somebody in your, um, platoon, is that the right word? Oh, yeah, yeah. Platoon. Yeah. Uh, to be if you all go through the same trauma my

Speaker 1:Military unit. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:Uh, you're gonna be diagnosed and experience P S D because of your low levels of oxytocin. We see this in research. People who go through a traumatic event, a, a traumatic event and are administered intranasal oxytocin immediately after the event, the event are much less likely to go on and be diagnosed with ptsd. Oh. Way so that's really interesting. I think within have that as a treatment.

Speaker 1:What timeframe is that?

Speaker 2:Like, uh, immediately, you know, so usually within the first 24 to 48 hours Okay. I believe in the research. So

Speaker 1:This is kinda like a trauma first response, first aid kit. Yeah.

Speaker 2:Wow. So I think people who go into the military, you know, first of all, I think we should have intranasal oxytocin available if you're in a high traumatic wow event likelihood scenario like military, I do that on my

Speaker 1:Person. Yeah, yeah, for

Speaker 2:Sure. Um, I also think that if you have this genetic testing, maybe you wanna sort people out, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I don't think, uh, people with one or two copies of a P OE four, which is the gene that is sometimes called the dementia gene or the Alzheimer's gene, you probably don't want to play professional football with that gene. So maybe you should just know that because with a head injury you get

Speaker 1:Couples, you're exacerbating situation.

Speaker 2:Yeah. Because you're with two copies of a P OE four, your lifetime risk of dementia is already around 50 50. And then you add head injuries and multiple head injuries to that. That's, that's a recipe for disaster.

Speaker 1:Wasn't this the one that, uh, came up recently with Chris Hemsworth? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:So he has, I believe, I believe he has two copies. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so if you have one copy, um, but it's not a, it's not a sentence. Right. Right. But you do want to mitigate your mm-hmm. <affirmative> your lifestyle as best you can. Right. And for trauma, maybe you wanna look at that oxytocin gene, and maybe if you're 18 and you're deciding to go into the military or not, maybe you want to know if you have that gene. Mm-hmm. Um, also sleep. So, you know, I, I know you and I are sort of biohackers in the or ring <laugh>

Speaker 1:Move over here.

Speaker 2:Yeah. That we both sort of wear these, these devices. If you're the kind of person who doesn't get a lot of REM sleep, you probably are also, because you know, the REM cycle, you know, the deep sleep that occurs mostly in the first few hours after you fall asleep is great for physically restoring the body. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But the REM sleep cycle that's been like

Speaker 1:H G H is being produced and all of these restorative elements for recovery.

Speaker 2:Right? Yep. And it's deeper, it's delta wave, which is the lowest band of, of waves we would see on an e E G. And then your brain goes up into theta, which is when you dream. And isn't it so interesting that when you dream, you have this rapid eye movement, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you're in this theta brainwave when you are in a therapy called e mdr, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. You know what they do? Eye movement. They, they do this. Right. So you can do it with your finger. And I'm doing this. So rem on demand. Rem on demand. Wow. Clinical hypnosis. What happens when you hypnotize people? Ah, yeah. Yeah. Have you ever seen somebody? When I hypnotize patients, sometimes I'll do this like eye flutter thing. It's really trippy. It's when you, you do it. Y well, when I've been hypnotized Oh, I got you. I have a lot of eye flutter. And when I do a two patients, when I hypnotized patients, you'll see them and their eyes start to like flutter and like interesting. Sometimes they almost look like their eyes are rolling back, but they're in the theta brain wave. So see that's a,

Speaker 1:That's a signal that they're in theta, correct?

Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, interestingly. Guess what else takes you down into like the theta delta area? Ketamine. So isn't it so interesting that all of these, so the natural way mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the organic way that the body knows to emotionally process is the theta brainwave that you are in when you get sufficient r e m sleep. Wow. So if you're the kind of person, I get a lot of REM sleep. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, my husband does not, he gets way more deep sleep than I do naturally. I do not, if I don't fast three hours before bedtime, I get like 15 minutes of deep sleep, but I get great REM sleep. So I'm a little bit more emotionally resilient, but sometimes I'm more physically tired because of just the way my body likes to sleep. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and I've gotta sort of change that. But it's fascinating, right?

Speaker 2:Because now we're looking at all the therapies that really work. These, uh, these psychedelic medicines, especially ketamine, uh, the trauma reprocessing that is sort of, uh, imitating rem sleep in a way mm-hmm. <affirmative> clinical hypnosis, these theta brainwave states, they're far more effective and they're sort of these closed eye therapies. So it's like you're talking to a different part of the brain. Yeah. In traditional talk therapy, when people think of psychotherapy, they think I'm gonna be talking and my therapist is gonna be responding, asking me questions. And in the old terrible model of processing trauma, the cognitive behavioral therapy based trauma is have a veteran come in for 50 sessions, have him tell you the trauma from beginning to end over and over and over again, and you can slowly chip away because the brain will eventually associate a feeling of safety and that event, but it takes a long time. Guess

Speaker 1:What? You're kinda like desensitizing yourself a little bit into that traumatic experience,

Speaker 2:But guess what, the dropout rate is very high because who wants to go to 50 the centers and

Speaker 1:Relive

Speaker 2:That, recount it again and again and again. So you can fast forward that with ketamine assisted psychotherapy with some of these other novel trauma reprocessing methods. But you've gotta get into the theta brainwave and the limbic system, the amygdala, the emotional centers of the brain, the dominant brainwave of that limbic system is theta mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So if you're not in a type of therapy that's talking the language of that part of the brain, you're missing it. Right. Wow. It's like you're strengthening the rational adult who can tell you things about the trauma. That's what talk therapy does, right? It's like, okay, I can learn how to normalize it, I can learn how to be aware of it, I can be mindful of it, but you wanna go straight to the part of the brain where the trauma is stored. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So internal family systems, emdr, hypnosis, ketamine to really heal that part of the brain.

Speaker 1:All of that was amazing. But one of the most fascinating things I'm taking away is that there's external oxytocin, <laugh>, <laugh>, there's like, that's a, that's a new bio. That's a oxytocin could be a supplement. Yeah. Um, or also it kind of reminds me of fundamentally, I believe meaningful quality relationships is one of the best health hacks biohacks ever.

Speaker 2:1000%.

Speaker 1:And in that why odds are we're probably touching hugging. That's right. So much more release That's right. From oxytocin. Again, this isn't just like out there woowoo stuff. And what does it mean? Relationships, health help my health? Well, it's quality, meaningful, consistent touch that naturally releases this. So I I also am thinking like <laugh>, if the military could get to maybe not every soldier, every person gets, uh, oxytocin nasal spray. Yeah. Maybe before every training, every deployment, you just hug, hug maybe. Like that's, you know, the next part of drill's ceremony. Yeah. Yeah. You get something kinda that emotional.

Speaker 2:Wow. There are so many ways to release oxytocin and, you know, human beings, we have more, which is why we also speaking relationships have the ability to be in long-term monogamous relationships. You know, we share these higher levels of oxytocin with the mammals that are in long-term monogamous relationships. So yeah. I think a lot of the biohackers are missing. You know, they're taking resveratrol and nmn and they're, you know, some of the things that you and I like to talk about and, you know, mTOR and m PK and all the things that, not hating

Speaker 1:Also not excluding ourselves

Speaker 2:Sometimes. Yeah. But in all the research, you know, if you don't have those strong networks and relationships Yeah. Uh, your lifespan, your abil or your chances of surviving a heart attack go way down. But if you have those relationships, your lifespan will go up. So it's, you know, again, it's, it's taking the supplements, it's knowing the biology mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but the psychology, the social aspect is just as important as all those hacks.

Speaker 1:I don't know why, but this, uh, this anal or this, uh, picture comes into mind of a calendar. Mm-hmm. And I feel like, you know, if we go with, we are the calendar, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we are, you know, the drainer that we dump our spaghetti in mm-hmm. To let the water out. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> that is us. And all the things we're typically doing, I think a lot of us gravitate towards in terms of better wellbeing. Yeah. Some of that stuff's gonna stay in, but a good amount now or over time Yeah. Is gonna trickle out when we focus on, I think this missing link, the secret sauce of mental health Yeah. Of meaningful connection. Like Yeah. We're slowly patching every individual hole, and then everything we're doing is pouring in and filling that cup and staying in there mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:<affirmative> and we need to, right? Mm-hmm. And we need to realize what should go on our calendar mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and, and what needs to be drained out. And, you know, how do we fill out bucket True and our energy reserves and you know, how full is your cup and all these, these metaphors of, do you have people in your life who fill up your cup or take from it mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and can you just fill, keep

Speaker 1:Making holes bigger for some damn reason. Yeah.

Speaker 2:Yeah. And, you know, going to the court, I had this, I was working with somebody, and sometimes when you have this breakthrough and you sob and you realize that what you are doing is not meaningful, and that aha moment that feels painful can change your life, what a gift. You know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I will often use the deathbed question, and I, you know, I help people to reframe. It's like, okay, you're 99, you're on your deathbed, what are you thinking? Is this something that you would be worried about? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> or not? Right? And usually it's like, oh, the thing that I'm worried about, it's, it's a blip. Like what really matters? What do you want to be doing? If you had unlimited money and you could do anything, what would you be doing? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then, you know, figure out a way how to do that either for your main nine to five or like your side hustle.

Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. But purpose and meaning, that's what makes us want to live. So if we can all extend our lifespan by 30%, but we're all ego driven and we are materialistic, and we are, um, sort of in this state of self-referral mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I'm sorry, object referral. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, is what Deepak Chopra calls it. Um, or in the ketamine work, you know, you're in that sort of inner critic, um, the party that wants to compare your car to other people's car, their your bank account and all of these things. And the beautiful thing about ketamine work is that who you are, your bank account, your title, that's all gone. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in these deep ketamine states mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And you realize, oh, everything is just a construct. Yeah. You know, so what do I ask? Nothing matters. <laugh>

Speaker 1:Literally nothing matters.

Speaker 2:Nothing matters. And then sometimes, because nothing matters, paradoxically, then the things that really should matter start to matter. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it's like you can be a, a speck of dust and you realize, you know, the analogy off the news. It's like you've been on earth, but for the first time you're an astronaut and then you can see the earth from the moon. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it's like the first time, what did I read this? Uh, I feel like this is from a psychedelic, uh, researcher.

Speaker 1:Sounds about right. <laugh> the

Speaker 2:First time, was it in the sixties that most human beings on earth got to see a photo mm-hmm. <affirmative> of the earth from the moon, this poo, right?

Speaker 1:This

Speaker 2:Shift, right? Yeah. But that's what ketamine does. It's like, oh, this is also inconsequential and I have an important part to play, but I'm so connected to other living beings,

Speaker 1:Which is perfect. Tommy, let's kind of now shift into what you've been talking about, and I know is at the core of your new book and something that I personally have gone through about 13, maybe 15 times now mm-hmm. <affirmative> over the last year and a half. Yep. Ketamine therapy. Yes. Ketamine assisted psychotherapy. Yes. To kind of piggyback off of our last section on PTs d that's why I went in. Yeah. I went in to seek ketamine assisted psychotherapy to really face in a big, big way my PTSD around the death of my father. Yes. And I'm sure we'll highlight some of the sections of my experience, you know, feel free to use me as a sounding board or questions there. Yeah. But I've talked about it a lot on the show. Um, but I would love to kind of define our terms, ketamine therapy. Like what is it, is it safe? Why is this, you know, you've talked about it so much. Why is this so important and so revolutionary for therapy work now?

Speaker 2:Oh, so many reasons. So let's start with the biochemical, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So if you look at SSRIs, um, you know, it's sort of like a band-aid. And if you look at ketamine as a functional approach, these are all the things that ketamine does. Number one, it boosts all your neurotransmitters. So it's boosting dopamine like Wellbutrin does and antidepressant, it's also boosting serotonin like SSRIs do. It's also boosting, uh, feel-good chemicals like gaba that benzodiazepines do all in one medicine, right? So it's like you've got the best of modern psychiatry, uh, but in a way that's not doing it in an artificial way. So it's not trying to like a, a, a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. It's not trying to sort of quote artificially block the re-uptake. It's actually working on this really abundant neurotransmitter glutamate. And by targeting the glutamate system, you get these downstream effects, which is probably why we see these improvements in the more traditional neurotransmitters. Mm-hmm. And a lot of researchers in the past 10 to 20 years are realizing that, Hmm, interesting. Maybe the glutamate system is more central to mood disorders than the serotonin system. Ah, so maybe we're in the wrong spot on time. The wrong

Speaker 1:Tree. Yeah.

Speaker 2:But then also, you know, again, going back to these functional approaches and, you know, your C O M T mutation for people with an inflammatory depression, you know, so if you have an elevated H S C R P, if you're eating the Western diet at all <laugh>, or you have a genetic susceptibility for more inflammation, or you have some sort of, um, infection, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I use, uh, ketamine assisted therapy with a lot of, uh, people with chronic Lyme, chronic fatigue, some of these really hard to treat illnesses or syndromes, and

Speaker 1:A lot of, uh, uh, a addictions Right. You know, substance

Speaker 2:Abuse, alcoholism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, so then it's also targeting inflammation. There's a reduction in those pro-inflammatory cytokines that we see in everything from long covid to Lyme disease. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> to, you know, any, any infection under the sun. It's also like all psychedelics, including the quote, classical psychedelics. So interestingly, ketamine is not a classical psychedelic. The classical psychedelics are also targeting the serotonin receptor versus ketamine that is targeting that glutamate receptor. Um, but whether it's the classical lsd, psilocybin or this atypical, um, novel psychedelic ketamine, uh, they're all helping to increase connectivity in the brain. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Speaker 1:Um, this is, uh, the term neural crosstalk.

Speaker 2:Correct. Neural crosstalk. Neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so it's, there's sort of a crosstalk of these parts of the brain that usually don't talk to each other. They're now talking to each other. And then that brings me to another point, which is the default mode network. So before the age of five, we're all tripping all the time. <laugh>, because the default mode network has not, I knew it, I knew it <laugh>, which is why, you know, the Buddhist call it the Uncarved block. We come into this world, and when you see like a, a six month old, like discovering their, or playing with their feet, it's like, yeah, they're, they're kind of tripping, right? It's like they don't have a sense of like what mom is versus me and like, oh, wait, that, what is part of me? Why

Speaker 1:Are you, what is this? What is

Speaker 2:Everything? And that's sort of what ketamine and other psychedelics take you to and what's happening, you know, the default mode network starts to come online and, you know, also the ego. So we develop this ego as a way of keeping us separate, because obviously if we are being chased by a tiger and we're perceiving everything in this sensory-based psychedelic space where things are just energies, we're not gonna run from the tiger. So we wanna have a healthy ego, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's, it's, Carl Young said that we develop, uh, we spend the first half of our life developing a healthy ego, and then we should spend the last half of our life letting go of it, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and moving back to that self with a capital S self. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so the default mode network is basically the ego. So it's the me network, it basically the name default mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:<affirmative> mode network. It's what the brain defaults to when you're not doing anything, right. So it shuts off when you're in an activity or a task, but then when you sort of just go back to yourself in your own apartment and you're alone a lot, the default mode network will get very overactive. So in people who are lonely and people who ruminate a lot, and of course we see that paralysis by analysis in people with depression, anxiety, P T S D O C D, it'll start to get really, really overactive. So there's a reason why we want to nudge the brain away from this very, very overactive default mode network. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> people with certain disorders have underactive default mode networks, and we don't want to use ketamine with them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so namely schizophrenia, they don't, they don't have enough. But for most mental illnesses, it's actually too much default mode network.

Speaker 2:So you can kind of see, oh, and it also boosts brain derived neuro neurotrophic factor BDNF nausea, and that's sort of the miracle growth for the brain. So if, for example, because of the root cause metabolic disorder that is spiking your blood sugar, you have a high A1C that's rapidly shrinking your hippocampus, the primary, so, uh, site of adult neurogenesis by revving bdnf, you can help the hippocampus to make new brain cells and sort of undo some of that damage. Wow. So now you're seeing, oh, and when, as it relates to trauma, especially, what's really fascinating, this study, they did it in rats, in rodents, um, mica rats, I can't remember, but they basically scanned the rodents brains before they initiated some sort of like a neglect or trauma by, like oftentimes in research they'll like take nesting material away, which sort of is like a child, like with parents who don't love him or her mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:<affirmative> or pay him or her attention, and then they sort of scan the brain after. And what we saw is in the neurons, these dendrites, which are like, you know, like these things that should be like nice and up and buoyant and sort of like sticking out that helps, you know, these electrical signals and these neurotransmitters that allows these, uh, these happiness chemicals to flow from neuron to neuron after trauma, they go flat. The amazing thing is they gave these rodents one dose of ketamine, and then they scanned the, again, guess what? After one dose, ketamine, those dendrites were like, the trauma never happened. Wow. So you're actually repairing the brain, the part of the brain, the neuron that is damaged by sexual abuse, physical abuse mm-hmm. <affirmative>, trauma war, all of these events, you're actually fixing the brain. Right. And when I

Speaker 1:Know of it, it's not just during that experience, it actually is long lasting.

Speaker 2:Yes. Correct.

Speaker 1:It's not just like, oh, I can only have these brain health experiences during ketamine or during this psychedelic medicine experience, but it actually corrects and then like, you're kinda like reset. Yes.

Speaker 2:It's a reset. Yeah. You know, a lot of people say it's like a reset for the brain, or it's sort of like putting a cast on the brain mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it's not just as you just said, it's not just in the moment. Mm-hmm. It's what you're doing mm-hmm. <affirmative> with your life. It opens this, what we call in research, this window of neuroplasticity mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which is why you don't just want to do ketamine and not change your life, right. Because you have more BDNF for days, weeks, perhaps months. You have this dendrite repair. You gotta

Speaker 1:Integrate,

Speaker 2:You've gotta do something differently. So if you are, you have this neural pathway that's etched in the brain, because every time you feel stressed, you smoke. If you have this bdnf, if you have your brain connecting in different ways, and you can actually start to exercise every time or go for a walk every time you want a cigarette, it's gonna be mm-hmm. <affirmative> that, that track in the brain, it's gonna be laid down more quickly and more effectively and more deeply in that window, which is why you want to pair it with psychotherapy. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, if you just take ketamine without therapy, you're wasting half of the benefits. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you're gonna get some of the benefits, you're gonna get the, the revving of those neurotransmitters, you're gonna get less inflammation. But then it kind of just like falls flat mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because you're not actually accessing, um, this, this window. And when it comes to trauma reprocessing, you know, something that I do with your incredible wife is we use ketamine in the way I use ketamine is in, is in a very novel way. And usually for somebody with trauma, instead of giving them like one big dose of Im ketamine, like 50 to a hundred milligrams, and just, you know, and that's, that'll get

Speaker 1:You there. Yeah.

Speaker 2:But what I like to do is maywell come in the room, uh, we'll do like a lower dose of some of ketamine, especially for people with trauma or you know, also for anxiety disorders. Yeah. Cause I think the, the way that IV ketamine clinics just sort of base the dose on weight, I don't think that's a good idea at all. I think we should look at the personality type and what they're experiencing. So when there's unprocessed trauma, what I like to do, mae's gonna inject, you know, closer to like 15, 20, 25 milligrams that opens up this window where the trauma reprocessing is really, really deep in the brain. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So then we are actually, and because it's a lower dose, you can actually process and talk mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So then I'm actually doing that therapy.

Speaker 1:It's like one foot here, one foot there, quote. Right? Yes.

Speaker 2:Yeah. So the eye mask is on. Yeah. And it kind of feels like in all these trauma reprocessing therapies, they take you back to the scene mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it almost feels like you're there.

Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So

Speaker 2:That's tricking the brain Yeah. Into like taking the memory out, rewriting the memory, and then putting it back mm-hmm. <affirmative> and you're doing it in a way that's 10, or, I don't know, maybe a hundred times more effective than without ketamine mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So then you can reprocess trauma, you know, in the traditional talk therapies, C B T based, it's 50 sessions. Some of these other modalities, you can do it in like eight 10, man with ketamine plus the advanced trauma reprocessing one, two sessions. Yeah. And you're changing somebody's life and they feel better right away. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then sometimes, we'll, the second dose we'll do either if we wanna reprocess more another low dose to give us like a longer window, or we can do sort of like 1520 milligrams of Im ketamine to start, and then 15 minutes later do like 30 to take them into the psychedelic space. And then they're getting the best of both worlds. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> what we call the psycholytic or low dose ketamine states, and the medium to high quote, psychedelic dosing, which is gonna give you more of that sense of connectivity being a single point of consciousness that love and connection is the true ultimate reality. Um, the,

Speaker 1:The through line of connectedness and all of life and everything, all of time and yes. All of space and time. Yeah. And

Speaker 2:The, those two things together. Yeah. The trauma reprocessing and really fixing the amygdala mm-hmm. <affirmative> that's damaged and too overactive. Plus this, you know, hyperconnectivity in the brain, turning off the default mode network. Now you have this whole new way of being in the world. I'd love to hear your, can I ask you your experience? Yeah.

Speaker 1:Okay. I'll say to your kind of last point of just a couple treatments, getting there mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, I, I won't say cured. I, I won't say, um, fixed. I won't say. Well, I will say better. Um, as someone who has suffered for many years with undiagnosed P T S D to finally get that diagnosis, again, like I was saying earlier, just knowing gave me knowledge. Mm-hmm. It gave me empowerment and it gave me hope. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and it gave me next steps. But as someone who has gone through a lot of personal work, a lot of therapy mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, off and on, I had three, my first experience with ketamine assisted psychotherapy mm-hmm. <affirmative>, my first three were three sessions were I am Yep. Assisted psychotherapy. What was

Speaker 2:Your dose? Do you remember? First

Speaker 1:One was the 2025. Yep. Uh, and then my booster, um, was my total, I think it was 50. So I went up to like, I think 75 ish. Um, and then my second and third were also the 25 to start. And then, uh, my max I went up to was, uh, a hundred mm. Um, and to share a little bit of my experience, like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I, I do believe my every experience you're gonna have is totally different and totally unique. And is yours, I do credit what happened in that first session mm-hmm. <affirmative> complete, like within the first couple seconds, complete and total death, I literally separated from my body. Yeah. I, I, I, I died. Yeah. My first experience under was, oh, I'm dying. This is death.

Speaker 2:Yeah.

Speaker 1:I do credit having that kind of experience and understanding of that experience to a lot of that therapy and a lot of that work, personal development, self-help work. Yeah. That got me to that point. Yes. But then the level twitch that I was connected to, everything you were just talking about mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but also immediately connected with my dead father. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, was really interesting because I kind of thought I was expecting, I'm gonna re I'm gonna relive this trauma. Yeah. I'm here to get traumatic help work. I'm gonna have to relive this trauma in a new way that is going to help me process it in a better way. But it wasn't that at all. Ketamine therapy for me was just like, everything I thought it was gonna be, but nothing like I thought it was gonna be. Totally,

Speaker 2:Totally.

Speaker 1:Um, what are your thoughts around like having such, uh, an initial big experience as like an ego death? Is that common, uh, or, you know, having done the work ahead of time, is that kind of like best practice?

Speaker 2:I think it is best practice. So the work that I do in my preparation session, I'm really setting up this framework of the ego versus the self. Right. And if you have a framework, it makes that ego death. You know, ego death sounds sort of scary, but if you have the right framework, it's actually sort of beautiful, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So were you scared?

Speaker 1:Um, no. Mm. I, I, I went in, um, with the intention of full surrender. Yeah. And I think that really set me up for success because I, I read some things, studied some things, heard some things, and I've had some other psychedelic experiences before that. Yeah. So I kind of got a little taste or I had an expectation. Yep. And so I was just like, you know, credit to my therapist and the work at the clinic I went to. Yeah. Like, whatever happens, just go with it. Mm-hmm. Or, or don't be afraid of it. Just ask, oh, interesting. Why is this happening? You know? Yeah. Okay. Just, you know, just be present and surrender and, and that served me tremendously.

Speaker 2:And if you can also trust that inner healing intelligence mm-hmm. <affirmative> that psychedelic researchers note some part of you, some higher self knows what you need, so maybe it is gonna take you back to the trauma. Yeah. Or maybe you're going to see your father's spirit in a different form, and maybe that's what you needed. Right? I did. And yeah. Yeah. Some party, you probably needed that, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and talk therapy,

Speaker 1:I needed closure.

Speaker 2:Could have never gotten you to there. So how did actually having that experience with your father's spirit, what did that do for you?

Speaker 1:For me, well, first of all, it got me to a point to where I can actually talk about it. Yeah. Like, literally up until that first experience, I would not be able to talk about it. Mm. Without reliving Mm. Not just remembering, but reliving Yeah. Feeling to my soul level. Yeah. The pain and anguish and like, he was dying every time over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. And I would become unsafe behind the wheel of a car, any little trigger anything, I would have to leave movie theaters with a death scene. I, I, I couldn't talk about it. I couldn't live my life in the way that I wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. So first of all, it got me to experience of Oh, I can think about it.

Speaker 2:Yeah. I

Speaker 1:Can talk about it. I can, I can feel it and it's not the same. Yeah. That gave me hope that okay, I can work through this even more because I never thought that I would get to this point.

Speaker 2:Beautiful. And what hope, right? Yeah. And what a different way of approaching healing grief or moving through grief or embracing grief, uh, that SSRIs are not gonna give you that standard talk therapy can't even really give you that. You know, maybe you can approximate it with some hypnosis, but, you know, really that deep ego death experience and feeling, you know, it's a very common experience when I'm working with people who've recently lost somebody. They will often say like, oh, mom's here. Oh, she was there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, or my ancestors were there. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, epigenetically inherited traumas, you know, this really incredible study looking at animals. Uh, and, you know, we think that it's just the things that you go through. But, um, there was a study where they paired shocks with the smell of cherry blossoms. And it wasn't just those animals, but it was their children and grandchildren that also were there were then afraid of cherry blossoms. So you can Oh. Way almost inherit fears from your ancestors because it's turning on, um, you know, these, these switches, epigenetics, it's turning on switches, so Wow. If you have some sort of fear, maybe it's something your ancestors went through, which is sort of, uh, woowoo and spiritual. Yeah. But, you know, there's some science behind that. Uh, it's, it's really incredible. Can I ask you, so you've also done oral ketamine, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1:So, uh, my first three experiences were I am intramuscular, and then I've also done two different versions of at home ketamine therapy. And that was, uh, with a lozenge and then the troche. Yeah. It's like same, same but different kind of thing. How would

Speaker 2:You describe the subjective experience of I am versus oral?

Speaker 1:For me, and I feel like this, I feel this to be true for what we're talking about, mental health in general, but also I, I think you can take the same model and look at it as, uh, like working out at home versus going to a gym with a personal trainer. Yeah. Yeah. I personally feel gold standard is going somewhere with a professional devoted to this work. Yep. Gold standard. Yep. You're gonna get the most bang for your buck. You're also gonna have, I think, the most potential for healing. Yep. Or most potential for the next Right. Questions, hopefully even some answers. Not to say doing the stuff at home can't yield results because I did get great results at home, but I just feel like I'll say that at home, the approach is a little bit different. You know, you gotta like swish it around for like 10 minutes and so it's not as quick and easy and sexy as like just an injection in the arm.

Speaker 1:Yeah. Which is fine. Um, I did enjoy the aspect of like, there is comfort at home. Yeah. There is comfort at home, but for some people home could be a trigger, you know? So I, I think it's really interesting. Yeah. But my personal experience was, it was different. It was good. Um, I needed to go higher dose Yeah. With, um, lozenges and oral to get kind of tapped into really also to dissociate. Right. Um, but I will say my, um, my last several sessions were at 400 and 500 milligrams oral. Yeah. Which is equivalent to what about like a hundred? Probably like,

Speaker 2:Uh, probably just like one above a hundred, probably like 125. Which, but it, again, it's also apples to oranges, right? Cause it's, you know, the Im is hitting your bloodstream like BM within 60 seconds versus like, you gotta swish that oral and it's metabolizing different. Yeah. So it's like, just like this slower, more gentle rise mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it's like you're absorbing it slowly and then it's sort of leaving your body more slowly, I think sometimes. Yeah.

Speaker 1:So I mean, like, it was same, same but different. Yeah. I'll say this in terms of the journey, the experience. I did need a higher dose to get that dissociative state and it would kind of really tap in. Yeah. Um, yeah, it, I see benefits in both approaches, again, from a gold standard is go to the facility where this is what they do, but also especially having the therapy before the integration after.

Speaker 2:So back in Detroit, the researcher's wife was like, oh, what if we call this a dissociative anesthetic? Which is what it was designed for for anesthesia. So from 1960 on really being used primarily by anesthesiologists and er doctors, it's super safe. My husband uses it all the time. Like, if a kid needs sedation for something that could be painful without sedation, bam, a little bit of ketamine, fix, whatever they need to fix. And easy breezy. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, it's so interesting cuz it doesn't, uh, most anesthesia, you know, you're sort of on the brink of life or death, but not with ketamine. Right. It's not gonna pressure, uh, you know, anything going on with your lungs or some of the things you need to stay alive mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, which is also why it was called the quote buddy drug, um, back in the Vietnam, Vietnam war because it was given

Speaker 1:To soldiers. Yeah. And you on the

Speaker 2:Field. Yeah. If you and I were, um, on the field together and you got hurt and shot, I could just bam, give it to you, easy breezy, get you back to base and go turn

Speaker 1:On. Yep. Hit me out with some ketamine, you can drive me back to safety. Yeah.

Speaker 2:So like a a a a buddy could give it to you. No problem. Um, it was being used in earlier decades. Like in Argentina, there was this form of therapy, like regressing patients back to the womb. There was a super controversial, I thought this was really fascinating, uh, this psychiatrist who was using it for all types of severe mental illness, but he was using it in combination with all these other psychedelics and locking people in a room with high dose psychedelic medicines, including ketamine, and then projecting like violent scenes on one wall and sex on the other. And then, you know, then they kind of all like, over the course of 24 hours. And I just thought to myself, that sounds effing terrible. <laugh>. Like, that sounds like my own personal hell <laugh>, you know, being Wow. And, and then they do like family therapy and, you know, listen, that being said, it sounds like my personal hell.

Speaker 2:But, uh, he also said that he had incredible success rates in treating these very difficult to treat illnesses. Um, so going back to this FDA a approval, so, you know, it's, it's approved as anesthesia. There is one form of ketamine that people are now seeking, uh, bravado mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So bravado is actually Yep. The nasal spread. It is actually FDA approved for treatment resistant depression. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So the caveats are number one, you have to be on another prescription antidepressant because bravado is not that strong. First of all, it is only, there are two ketamine molecules. So the original form of ketamine that we use for ketamine assisted psychotherapy is r ketamine and s ketamine together. Hmm. Bravado is only a very low dose of Esketamine by itself. So you have to go to your doctor's office, you have to take it there, you have to be on another prescription antidepressant, and you kind of have to be on it indefinitely. Right. So you're like going every single week indefinitely. So

Speaker 1:It's another kind of prescription, big pharma, lifelong band-aid

Speaker 2:Solution. And of course, since ketamine is, what, 60, uh, 60 some years old, it's not patented. So of course big pharma's like, oh, let's tinker with the molecule and let's mm-hmm. <affirmative> and it's very, very expensive and they make a lot of money off that. Um, the reason ketamine assisted psychotherapy is so expensive is because you have multiple healthcare professionals wrapping around you, um, and, um, you know, just the site and the malpractice, uh, to use something like

Speaker 1:This. There's work that begins before you ever step foot in the clinic. Correct. I can tell you that Abso and, and, and after as well.

Speaker 2:So like our program is, um, when you break it down per hour, it's like, I think around $260 per hour when you look at like how many hours, like your wife and I are gonna be, yeah. One of us, or both of us is gonna be with you for hours and hours and hours. Uh, usually like six ketamine assisted psychotherapy sessions to start, plus standalone preparation sessions mm-hmm. <affirmative> integration sessions. So it's almost like this intensive outpatient based treatment where you're getting like these rapid results, uh, within like a two to four week timeframe. Um, but it's just remarkable what it does. And then, you know, so the difference after you finish that intensive period that can, you know, I think the biggest barrier for most people is just the cost

Speaker 1:To start. Yeah. I was gonna bring up accessibility. I mean in, in any kind of, especially I think mental health avenue. Yeah. Therapeutic avenue accessibility cost is always a big issue because for sure we think about people who maybe are suffering more. Yep. They're most likely in a lower socioeconomic status. Yep. It's like the people that need it most are the ones that really can't afford

Speaker 2:It. Correct. And wherever you go, whether you go to an IV ketamine clinic or ketamine assisted psychotherapy, the national average per session is gonna be anywhere from like 500 to a thousand dollars mm-hmm. <affirmative> per session. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So obviously very, very expensive, especially if you need six sessions to start. Right. And then, but the nice thing, after you exit that crucial period of stacked doses, you know, two a week for three weeks to start mm-hmm. <affirmative> with psychotherapy, the results will last up to four months without therapy, they're only lasting 30 days. So you can kind of see, yeah, it's expensive and time consuming to start, but then if you only need one session every four months, so you're looking at three doses per year to keep the depression or anxiety to keep your brain making all of these beautiful new neurons mm-hmm. <affirmative> and new connections, great. Easy, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and then you're really looking at an alternative to daily medication for depression or anxiety or ooc d or eating disorders and yeah. All of the things that it can treat, which is just remarkable. Uh, but I will say that barrier, I think the at-home ketamine version that can cut the cost down from, you know, let's say five or $6,000 to get started to like a couple hundred bucks per month. Yeah.

Speaker 1:Yeah.

Speaker 2:That's a lot of the, to me is

Speaker 1:Great, like the monthly model. Yeah.

Speaker 2:It, it's, you know, as you said, yes in clinic, gold standard, but for some people, if you can't afford it, I think setting up that at-home model mm-hmm. <affirmative> with concurrent psychotherapy in person or online is, is a great affordable option. Yeah.

Speaker 1:Well, well, Mike, this has been incredible and I, I, I feel like from here I could definitely go a lot more with you because I've experienced, I've been on the receiving end of this medicine and my audience has heard me talk for a long time about, you know, what I have been through, what my family has been through, which really kind of takes us back in the beginning when I was talking about how humans can go through the same traumatic experience mm-hmm. <affirmative> and an imprints very, very, very differently. Yeah. Um, and, and I love, I I want a big takeaway here for the listener to be like, taking care of your body as much as possible Yeah. As well. And as long as possible is always gonna set you up for success. And I think here the important takeaway is the, the resiliency we can have to trauma by so many things as as sleep, as human connection.

Speaker 1:Mm. Uh, and making ourselves more resilient to the inevitability. Yes. If we walk out of our door of something negatively affecting our lives and imprinting lower t capital T trauma mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, but then if we're on the other side of it, there are a lot of modalities we can use. Yeah. Through mental health, through therapy work to get us there and ketamine therapy, it has done that for me. And after three sessions I am psychotherapy sessions, I literally felt like what I would equate, but at that point, the last 16 years Yeah. From when that traumatic event happened Yeah. To me and my family, I felt like I got 16 years in three sessions. Wow.

Speaker 2:Mind blown the

Speaker 1:Level to which I could talk about and, and you know, even just think about Mm. And, you know, still get upset sometimes. Mm. But just like, I, it was totally different. Yeah. It wasn't the pain and the reliving Yeah. Getting upset. It was, oh, like I'm upset for Chase 16, 10, 15 years ago. Yeah. That couldn't do this. Yeah. I'm, I'm upset for my, my choice or my, my, um, indecision to like process this and just to feel it. It's a whole nother perspective. Yeah. And I, I literally feel like Ketamine assisted psychotherapy gave me my life back. Mm. But more than that. Incredible. I took it for the first time on my 35th birthday. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. So also another aspect here beyond just like healing, um, because of this kind of like god's eye view of, of my life Mm. And, and my world. And the world. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I felt like I finally started living my life Mm. Because I knew who I was Mm. For the first time in 35 years. Wow.

Speaker 2:So

Speaker 1:Healing from trauma, but also meaning and purpose. Yeah. It cracked me wide open in the best way possible. Mm-hmm. Talk to me like ask like how different was Chase before Ketamine after? Uh, it, it's, it's transformed my life. It's transformed my marriage, it's transformed my relationships, um, with my family. Yeah. And just now also another part of mental health healing that I love so much that I I'm now in mm-hmm. <affirmative> is you get to feel better and you get to work on your life and you get to take your life back. But then especially in someone like my case mm-hmm. <affirmative>, other people who have relived that trauma mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I now get to be a champion for them. Yeah. I am able to talk about things and be with them in ways that they are not, and like I have helped my family heal in unique ways mm-hmm. And in doing so, they teach me new things as well. So it's this just back and forth healing process that I didn't need to know existed. Yeah. But I never thought like I would ever get there.

Speaker 2:What was the one or two words of Chase before and who have you discovered that you are? What are the one or two words that come to

Speaker 1:Mind? Oh my gosh. Um, may would say uptight, <laugh>, <laugh> may would say, like, she always called me like officer tuning or sergeant tuning, you know, I was always by the rules. Yes. No, black, white. Yeah. You know, I, I always say this analogy, I'm the guy before academy, before psychedelics, before all this, I would stand in the corner and wait for the crosswalk sign to turn and say walk, because that was the right thing to do. Mm-hmm. Even if there's literally no other cars. Mm-hmm. But it just introduced so many ways in my life of like, it's okay to question things. Mm-hmm. It's okay to keep things that served you in your life that you still resonate with in terms of values and right and wrong and all that. Yeah. But who's right and wrong is that right? And so it it introduced this whole level of lovely gray area in my life. Yeah. Yeah. That I have fully embraced and stepped into. And at 35, I started finally building my life Yeah. And going, I resonate with that. I don't, I believe that I don't, I've never questioned this before. Should I question it now? Yeah. And not a like, oh my God, what is a meaning of life? Like, let me question everything, but just a curiosity and an innate knowing that has reminded me that has, it has always been there, but I just have suppressed it

Speaker 2:And it was trained outta you. Right. I love that word, curiosity. I think the two things I always see on patients face in ketamine sessions are all and wonder. And if we can just have all and wonder and curiosity and compassion for our experience, and why do I want to follow that rule of, of walking, uh, or, or not, or what do I want to do with my life and why that's life changing.

Speaker 1:It seems so basic and fundamental, but like, again, there's a root cause of that.

Speaker 2:Yeah.

Speaker 1:Mike, um, this has been a pleasure, man. Thank you so much. Such a pleasure. And to bring it all home. My final question, um, a big, you know, kind of to highlight the, the work that I did. Yeah. Um, like I said, the death of my father ever forwarded, these were his words. Mm-hmm. This was his mantra. This is the way that he lived his life. He said, these I didn't for us growing up Yeah. And literally up until his last breath is something that he just embodied. Mm-hmm. Um, that everything is here, is happening. It's up to us to make meaning out of it. Mm-hmm. I, I like to go that route rather than everything happens for a reason. Mm-hmm. Everything happens and then we give it reason. Yeah. But here's your level of awareness to kinda like, introduce that. Yeah. Um, so that's what ever Ford means to me, where it comes from, and everything we talk about on the show, I hope is a way for the listener to kind of pull something and to apply to their life, to move forward in life. Beautiful. When you hear that, what is your interpretation? What does ever forward mean to you?

Speaker 2:First of all, I didn't know that, that, uh, your podcast name came from that, so I'm just truly touched, you know, I think ever forward to me is, is realizing that no matter what age we are, we always have to go ever forward and we continue to grow. You know, as somebody who is in my forties, I, I'm still discovering who I am and I'm still curious about life and age really is a mindset to me. And I feel oftentimes, like I'm 12 years old Yeah. <laugh> and I credit ketamine for giving me some of that. Right. And, and all of these constructs and consciousness and the things that we see are really just illusions anyways, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, when, when somebody's listening to this, it's, you know, digital coding and zeros and ones that you're experiencing, but you know, it's not really happening in real time, but your brain is telling you that it is, right?

Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so all of these illusions, so what if we just unpack all of that and we got to the root, and we're always sort of, as you said, curious with awe and wonder and this discovery and curiosity. I wanna live like a child who I'm like six feet under <laugh>, and, you know, and, and I really want to, um, look forward to death as like the next great transition and passing into something mm-hmm. <affirmative> else, you know, and, and, and something not to fear, but to, to look forward to. I don't think, you know, truth be told, I don't think I'm totally there yet, <laugh>, because I have, I think I also really like my life. You know, it feels, of

Speaker 1:Course, that's a human

Speaker 2:Rewarding. Uh, but I think that with work, I, I still want to do more work to, uh, reach that. And I just always want to be ever forward with on curiosity and, and also purpose. You know, like, I love taking care of the people, um, that I treat, I, I was saying to, uh, my husband and our other friend who's a physician, and like, oh, we all have kids, right? Like the people we take care of. I kind of feel like I'm, I'm reparenting them. I feel like I've got children even though I, um, I don't have any human children. Um, and if I can keep doing that and helping people, then I'm always, ever forward with purpose and awe and wonder.

Speaker 1:Beautiful man. Well, I always say there's never a right or wrong answer. I appreciate every interpretation. Uh, and that's the way for me to kind of bring it back home to the, the theme and the reason of the show here. Really

Speaker 2:Awesome.

Speaker 1:Uh, well, Mike, we're gonna have all the information down on the show notes, the video notes for everybody. But where can they go to connect with you most online?

Speaker 2:Uh, dr mike dow.com. I'm at Dr. Mike Dow. D r m i k e d o w. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> on Social Media. And the Ketamine Breakthrough is the name of the book. Uh, you can go to the ketamine breakthrough.com also,

Speaker 1:Which by the time you're listening to this and watching this, it's all live.

Speaker 2:Yep. With some free goodies there. Go to that website

Speaker 1:Too. Beautiful.

Speaker 4:For more information on everything you just heard, make sure to check this episode, show notes, or head to ever forward radio.com.