EFR 813: Female vs Male Hormone Health, Best Foods and Supplements to Heal Your Gut, Signs You Have Toxic Mold, and Why Whole-System Functional Medicine is Best For Your Total Wellbeing with Rachel Scheer

00:00 - Chase (Host) The following is an Operation Podcast production. You went through such a wild journey that the doctors were even recommending removing part of your colon, right, no, my entire colon.

00:09 - Rachel (Guest) Motility in my gut completely came to a halt. We call that the progestation hormone. Progesterone is also great for our mental health. I actually call progesterone our nature's valium. Progesterone actually acts on the same pathways as GABA receptors in the brain. I'd say most people are struggling with some kind of a microbiome imbalance. So SIBO is very common and if you were to look up the symptoms of IBS of chronic bloating, constipation, diarrhea and you were to look up these symptoms of SIBO constipation, diarrhea, bloating you'd see they are very similar. In my. My opinion, that's the worst type of mold and how that can really impact our, our immune system, our gut health and a lot of these toxins. They actually cross through our blood-brain barrier. When we put so much of our self sense of worth in these things that are outside of us, at the core we, we lose a sense of ourself and that's why healing, I believe, is really a return back to self. Hi, I'm Rachel Shear. I'm a certified functional medicine practitioner. Welcome to Ever Forward Radio.

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03:03 What if the key to overcoming your toughest health issues was hidden in your gut? Welcome everybody. I'm your host, Chase Chewning, and today I'm joined by Rachel Scheer. I'm rejoined. Actually, she was able to hop on for the first time a couple years ago, back in episode 620, which I'll have linked for you down in the show notes where she was talking about bridging the gap between fitness and functional medicine and how to improve gut health through trauma healing. So we're really kind of picking up from our conversation there, but we are diving way deeper.

03:34 This episode is going to be your eye-opening discussion about the critical connection between hormones, gut health and functional medicine. In this conversation, you are going to discover how hormonal fluctuations, particularly progesterone and estrogen, can wreak havoc on women's digestive systems. We're also going to be kind of peeling the curtain back between the differences of men's hormones, female hormones and why there is this particular unique lens that needs to be applied when looking at the female digestive system, the female hormone health system and then collectively, as the whole human. We're going to be talking about how this can lead to conditions like IBS, irritable bowel syndrome, bloating, constipation. So if this is you, if you had any kind of stomach discomfort issues, then this episode is for you, because you're going to walk away with practical tactical things you can apply that you can take inventory of in your nutrition, lifestyle supplementation, but not to mention key labs and biomarkers to look for or request to dial in your health and to ditch the bloating, ditch the dis-ease overall.

04:46 Rachel is also going to be tackling the often overlooked impact of environmental toxins and even mold on our health. She's going to be talking about how these factors can lead to neuroinflammation and even autoimmune disorders. And then, rounding out the conversation, we're going to be talking about the profound connection between stress, self-worth, authenticity and even personality types. Pay attention, all my type A's out there. You might be running a higher risk for some unique health concerns. So if you want to check out the video, I was joined in studio and you can find that at everfordradiocom. It's linked for you, as always, as well as everything else we talk about and Rachel's information down in the show notes under episode resources. Again, that's everfordradiocom, or you can find us on YouTube if you want to join us over on there.

05:33 And, like you're going to learn in this episode, figuring out what is going on with our bodies is crucial and sometimes it's easier said than done. We can really rely on how we feel or just get really honest about our nutrition, our physical activity, our sleep. But beyond that, if you feel like, yeah, I'm kind of checking all these boxes but I'm just not feeling my best or there's just some area of my personal wellness goals or my wellbeing that just feels off or just not at that optimal level, one of the best things I can recommend is to get some more established labs, get some more comprehensive labs beyond just what maybe you can get from your traditional annual physical fasting glucose, cholesterol, a1c, all these things are great, but I really encourage you to kind of take a step further, and one of the easiest ways I found to do that is actually through today's partner, blokes for Guys and Joy for Women, and actually for less than a hundred dollars you can get this comprehensive, complete hormone panel drawn that analyzes 45 biomarkers, because when it comes to your energy, mood and even sex drive, it all comes down to your hormones, and this complete hormone lab panel provides a comprehensive examination, like I said, of 45 key markers. You're going to get insights into why you may be functioning at a lower level than normal and, more importantly, where to go from there.

06:57 These diagnostic labs test for metabolism and weight control, inflammation, liver function and toxicity, bone and muscle health, kidney health, thyroid health, menstrual health for women and so much more. It's so easy to do. You schedule it, you go to a convenient lab location, you do the draw, it takes a few minutes, and then in a few days or maybe a week or so later, you get a one-on-one call with a provider. You're going to go over a lifestyle, nutrition support that are matched to your labs and even, should you need it, doctor prescribed medications and supplementation and lifestyle recommendations. And to save 10% off of any lab, you can use my checkout code that's code chase C-H-A-S-E at either choosejoyco that's C-H-O-O-S-E-J-O-Ico. Slash chase is going to take you to the page for women, and then, for my guys out there, head to blokes B-L-O-K-E-Sco slash chase. And same thing check out code chase. You're going to save 10% off of any diagnostic labs. All right, and with that, welcome to the episode. This is Rachel Scheer. It's been a minute.

08:07 - Rachel (Guest) It's been a hot minute two years All right.

08:10 - Chase (Host) So for everyone that's new and they don't know who you are. They've never seen or heard you before. Can you give us a quick breakdown of credentials? Education, professional experience.

08:22 - Rachel (Guest) Yes, I have my bachelor's in nutrition science and dietetics from Baylor university, and then I'm certified in functional medicine and I'm also a somatic breathwork practitioner, as of recently.

08:34 - Chase (Host) That's new. Yes, it's new, okay.

08:36 - Rachel (Guest) Bringing in the mind body connection to the work that I do.

08:39 - Chase (Host) And how long would you say you have been working professionally in the functional medicine.

08:45 - Rachel (Guest) Functional medicine space since 2017 is when I launched my business.

08:48 - Chase (Host) She's legit. Everybody hear that. Okay, so, in learning more about your work and kind of diving into what we're going to talk about extensively nervous system, stress, cortisol, gut health, functional medicine some pretty wild stats that you talk about I was looking at one speech. You were giving a seminar. You were talking about how as much as 11.3% of the global population suffers from IBS irritable bowel syndrome but it's more women than men. As much as, or up to 24% of women compared to as much as 19%. Why do more women suffer from IBS than men?

09:26 - Rachel (Guest) yeah, more. Women are definitely more prone to gut issues and irritable bowel syndrome, and part of that has to do with the fact that women's hormones cycle right, so women have estrogen and progesterone levels that shift throughout the month around day 14 after when women ovulate, they actually start to have an increase in their progesterone levels, and progesterone can actually play a big role in our gut health as well as our estrogen levels. So, because of the cycling nature of female hormones, this leaves women more prone to gut issues like constipation bloating, so it is a lot more common in women than it is with men.

10:08 - Chase (Host) I feel like I can't open up social media or look at anybody talking about really any kind of health concern or health optimization area and not talk about hormones. Can you kind of go back for us a little bit and hit on some of those progesterone estrogen. What are they and what roles do they have? Not just in general health specifically for females, still, but why, if they are imbalanced, are they really causing more gut health issues?

10:34 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, and I think part of that is because of how water can definitely fluctuate throughout the month. So progesterone we call that the progestation hormone, so it's actually what begins to peak after ovulation, so it helps. It's what would build up the endometrial lining if we were to get pregnant. Progesterone is also great for our mental health as well too, so I actually call progesterone our nature's valium as well, because it all right, spill the beans on that so progesterone actually acts on the same pathways as GABA receptors in the brain.

11:11 Yeah, so that's where, when women actually have progesterone deficiency or they have estrogen dominance, they can struggle a bit too with anxiety or depression. And also helps us sleep at night, because GABA receptors and that activation can help us sleep better at night. But progesterone also can cause more water retention. So it's also in that second half of the cycle where women start to notice a lot more bloating around their midsection and they also start to notice that the motility in their gut begins to slow down, because progesterone can also slow down the motility. So our motility is how fast our food moves throughout our gastrointestinal tract. So for some women this can actually lead to constipation related issues.

11:55 - Chase (Host) Then to shift gears a little bit into the explanation of maybe why men I mean it's definitely, statistically speaking, less than women but still up to 19% of men suffering with IBS. It's not nothing. What is going on? What's different in the male body compared to the female body that you think is contributing to a fair amount of men still suffering with this gut health issue?

12:17 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, so I think for anybody men and women a lot of IBS-related symptoms actually come down to microbiome imbalances in the gut. So we have now shown that most cases of IBS actually are due to small intestinal bacteria overgrowth or SIBO in the gut. So usually it's when the bacteria in our gut become imbalanced or a lot of our bacteria that are in our large intestine actually move upstream into our small intestine or bacteria begins to overgrow. This actually can cause a lot of bloating and distension because, as the bacteria are feeding on the foods that we're eating, and especially healthy foods like vegetables, fibers this will lead to a lot of gas production and I'd say most people are struggling with some kind of a microbiome imbalance. So SIBO is very common and if you were to look up the symptoms of IBS of chronic bloating, constipation, diarrhea and you were to look up these symptoms of SIBO constipation, diarrhea, bloating you'd see they are very similar. So I think most of the time not all of the time the root cause of IBS usually comes down to some kind of a microbiome imbalance.

13:31 Now it can definitely be due to other things like digestive enzyme insufficiency, so somebody who's not absorbing all of their food, this is going to create a lot of bloating and GI issues. This can be gut inflammation based off of a lot of chronic stress maybe in somebody's life. This can be because they're eating an inflammatory diet that's creating a lot of inflammation in the gut. And then, of course, you know, for women, we know that their hormones can also play a huge role in their gut health. But actually, uh, the bacteria in our gut can also play a role in our estrogen levels too. So so the bacteria actually help metabolize our estrogen levels. So if we have an overgrowth of a certain type of bacteria that produces an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase that's really fun to say beta-glucuronidase- Say that five times, fast.

14:19 - Chase (Host) Say that five times.

14:20 - Rachel (Guest) We will actually reabsorb estrogen back into the body. So this is where, for a lot of women or men, we will actually reabsorb estrogen back into the body. So this is where for a lot of women or men who actually are struggling with estrogen dominance-related symptoms. So, guys, this can be. You know, they get a little bit more fat or adipose tissue, especially around the breast area. For women, you know, estrogen dominance can lead to weight gain, heavy menstrual cycles, things like PMS. Part of this is not just the root cause being okay, my hormones are off. Part of the root cause has to be okay, my hormones are off. Maybe I have estrogen dominance, but the question is why, and oftentimes it can come back to. We need to heal our gut and address the bacteria.

15:03 - Chase (Host) What's your take on probiotics? Probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics, all the biotics yeah.

15:09 - Rachel (Guest) I think probiotics can be great. Um, I think, though, there is a misconception about probiotics that you can just take a probiotic if you're low on a certain type of bacteria, and that's actually going to colonize in your gut. So a lot of times in the functional medicine world, we'll do microbiome tests and we can see okay, you're low in these probiotics or you have an overgrowth in these type of bacteria, and so we need to get you on a probiotic. But probiotics don't actually colonize to the gut, but they have these transitory benefits, so they actually work to fight off bad bacteria that have been overgrown.

15:45 They can actually help with the body's immune system. So, just like taking a supplement, they work as they're moving throughout the gastrointestinal tract. So we have the normal strains of probiotics, like bifidobacterium lactobacillus this is the most common one, but there's also different types of probiotics, like Saccharomyces blartii. This is a beneficial yeast. This is actually one common one, but there's also different types of probiotics, like Saccharomyces boulardii. This is a beneficial yeast. This is actually one of my favorite probiotics that we use in my practice. It's incredible for strengthening the gut lining for fighting off any kind of bacteria overgrowth. So, if you are somebody who has SIBO, they've actually shown that combining Saccharomyces boulardii with a low fermentation diet, like the low FODMAP diet, can actually decrease a lot of bacteria overgrowth in the gut. And then the third type of probiotics are more soil-based probiotics and oftentimes these types of bacteria will produce a spore and they can survive through the gastrointestinal tract spore and they can survive through the gastrointestinal tract and there is some research that these types of probiotics can actually colonize to your gastrointestinal tract.

16:52 - Chase (Host) Yeah, that's always good to hear. You can kind of like take something that's not just going to solve a problem, but you know really kind of support you know what's the word I'm looking for Internal or innate kind of healing.

17:02 - Rachel (Guest) The world of probiotics is super fascinating, you know now they're coming up with probiotics that work just as effective as the leading SSRIs, like Lexapro. So they compared taking these types of psychobiotics compared to an antidepressant. And they've worked just as efficient. So probiotics are great. I'm definitely a huge fan of them.

17:23 - Chase (Host) I just pulled up this new one I've been taking. Have you heard of acromantia?

17:27 - Rachel (Guest) Acromantia yeah.

17:28 - Chase (Host) Yeah, I that was one of those things. Until I started taking it, I didn't realize how much I was actually walking around with gut health issues I wouldn't really, I don't even know what to say issues, but taking acromantia regularly made me feel significantly better, to the point of going oh, I was just walking around, not feeling like this before. I never would have thought I had gut health issues. I felt just smoother.

17:58 - Rachel (Guest) I felt less like my stomach. Yeah, okay, less bloating.

18:01 - Chase (Host) I never would have said that I was someone that had bloating or distended stomach at all. But definitely, taking that, I was like, oh wow, I don't feel as bloated. I didn't even know I was bloated before. It feels like my digestion is easier. I'm a guy. I train a fairly good amount. I like to eat, so I feel like I'm always digesting something because I'm always eating. But I was like, oh no, that's not actually the case.

18:28 - Rachel (Guest) I just had something going on with my digestive tract. They've actually shown that Archimantia, too, can help with insulin sensitivity and body composition, so that's why it's become quite a bit of a hot take for people to get on Archimantia probiotics.

18:38 - Chase (Host) What's your take? How would you kind of define or describe differences between postbiotic prebiotic? Or describe differences between postbiotic prebiotic?

18:43 - Rachel (Guest) Prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics. So prebiotics, pre-bacteria, biotic meaning bacteria. Prebiotic is going to be any kind of a food source that's going to feed bacteria that are already in our gut so we can actually get prebiotics from our diet. This is going to be all the fibers that we get in, yeah, so it's going to be like garlic and onion, all of the cruciferous vegetables, which are great, and it helps create more of a diverse microbiome. We can also get prebiotics from polyphenols, so our gut loves polyphenols.

19:13 Actually, one of the best things that you can do take as a supplement or get in from food for your gut microbiome, because they act like a prebiotic and they actually increase a lot of the good bacteria in the gut.

19:26 They're also great for our immune system and for a lot of people who have gut issues. They don't tolerate a whole lot of prebiotics, right, because they have bacteria overgrowth. So if you give somebody a lot of fiber, they're going to be like oh my gosh, chase. I feel way worse from eating all of these foods. But you can give them polyphenols. So polyphenols could be like quercetin, curcumin, um, and these work great because they don't cause a lot of the bloating and the distension, but they do work more as a prebiotic to feed a lot of the good bacteria. Colored fruits and vegetables are a great source of polyphenols and if you think about most of um, at least my diet, like back when I was in college, it was like all the creams and the Browns right, chicken nuggets with the French fries, french fries, chicken nuggets like yeah all of that type of food.

20:13 So those types of foods are, of course, we all know, like not good for gut health. But the more brightly colored your plate can be, probably the better it's going to be for your gut health because of these polyphenols, because that's what gives these fruits and vegetables their bright colors. So prebiotics, fibers, polyphenols, they're going to feed the probiotics that are in our gut. Probiotics we can get through supplementation, like we talked about, but you can also get it from food sources. So sauerkraut, kimchi, miso can all be great sources, though I think a lot of people though they're like oh, fermented foods so great for my gut health, but then they start to overeat so many of these foods and probiotics and fermented foods are great.

20:58 - Chase (Host) But baby step.

20:59 - Rachel (Guest) It baby steps like small amounts, because a lot of people actually feel worse and I know when I was on my gut healing journey I was like, oh, the gut health stuff, because I struggled so much with a lot of my my own gut health issues and it definitely actually exacerbated a lot of my symptoms. So they're good. But you want to start slow, work your way up. And then postbiotics these are what bacteria produce as a byproduct when they're metabolizing a lot of these prebiotics. So these are often things like short-chain fatty acids. So when the bacteria metabolize on these fibers, they can produce these types of gases. Butyrate is actually a type of a postbiotic.

21:42 - Chase (Host) And what is butyrate?

21:46 - Rachel (Guest) type of a postbiotic? And what is butyrate? Butyrate is a short chain fatty acid produced from bacteria. That is very beneficial because it helps heal and seal the gut lining. It actually also, too, helps quite a bit with body composition, so they've shown it helps a lot with insulin sensitivity as well. You can actually get butyrate from ghee as well. So two teaspoons of ghee or clarified grass fed butter, you get about 300 milligrams of butyrate. So you can get it from food sources. But when we do microbiome testing, with my practice you know we'll actually measure the amount of short chain fatty acids that somebody is producing, butyrate being one of the most common ones that we look at, and we know that a healthy gut has a good amount of short chain fatty acids being produced in high levels of butyrate.

22:35 Well, that concludes our gut masterclass in the first few minutes.

22:37 - Chase (Host) Very well said. Thank you so much for kind of helping shine a light on all those things and for anyone that's interested, maybe you were talking about your previous you know healing journey. I don't have it in front of me, I'm a bad podcaster, but I will link it down in the video notes and show notes for everybody your last episode. We really dove into a lot of your personal history. So not only do you have the professional experience with all this stuff, but it's for a very personal reason. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you went through such a wild journey that the doctors were even recommending removing part of your colon, right?

23:08 - Rachel (Guest) no, my entire colon. Yeah, they wanted to cut out my entire large intestine because of the motility issues that I was struggling with. And I didn't have crohn's ulcerative colitis, I didn't have you know anything where my gut was damaged, but the motility in my gut completely came to a halt and they just were like hey, we can cut out the large intestine and that'll fix a lot of the motility and the constipation issues. But you know, at the time Western medicine just wasn't talking about too.

23:35 - Chase (Host) This wasn't that long ago. What Like 10 years maybe? Not even 10 years, yeah, not even better healthcare.

23:42 - Rachel (Guest) Do better I mean maybe like eight years ago or so, so close to 10 years ago.

23:47 But yeah, western medicine had yet to really discover the power of the gut microbiome and how the bacteria just play a role in our overall health. You know SIBO was really at the early stages of what was being talked about. You know, ibs really the treatment was colonoscopy, endoscopy, ct scan. Ibs really the treatment was colonoscopy, endoscopy, ct scan. If everything comes back normal, we're just going to give you that label of IBS and work on managing your symptoms. And I think we've come now so far with the research on the gut microbiome and how the bacteria play a role in not just our gut health and the motility in our gut, but literally all of these symptoms. Systems in the body, like we talked about hormones, you know plays a huge role in estrogen levels, can play a role in testosterone levels, it can play a role in our thyroid levels and our mental health, brain health. You know all of this can go back to the gut.

24:36 - Chase (Host) I want to save that for later. I got some. Got some things I want to dive into with that, so I'm glad we're all on the same page here. I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about how a lot of your work is talking about whole body healing through whole body system work. You can look at compartmentalized silo one area of your health, one system in your body because it might need it. You know your gut health needs focus, your endocrine system needs focus, your whatever needs focus. But then you need to be mindful that it's part of a much larger system, particularly looking at the nervous system that connects. That's the through line for everything, and direct quote from one of your previous pieces of content is that you can't heal the body without healing the nervous system. Is it all due to elevated, chronically elevated, cortisol?

25:27 - Rachel (Guest) I think nervous system dysregulation can be a byproduct of many different things. Definitely, chronic stress plays a huge role, where the body gets stuck, really living in this sympathetic, dominant state. But it also can be a byproduct of other things that are off. So when our gut microbiome is off, we've seen it when somebody has a level of adrenal imbalances, we can see the nervous system get off due to toxin buildup. So like mycotoxins, mold, heavy metals. So there's other things in the body that can definitely influence the nervous system.

26:01 - Chase (Host) So we don't have to start in a interrupt, but just to clarify something real quick. We don't have to be living in typical perceived high stress to have high cortisol due to other things going on in our bodies can be increasing cortisol. Did I hear that correctly?

26:15 - Rachel (Guest) Correct, Because there's many different types of stressors on the body. There's definitely the emotional stressors, chronic stress in our day-to-day life. You know, emotional stress can also be unaddressed trauma, where the body actually stress threshold becomes narrowed and the body is more in a reactive place. Think about people who struggle with PTSD. Their nervous system, based off of trauma that they've walked through, is always on high guard and high alert, not necessarily because they're struggling with a lot of chronic stress in their life, but because the body holds on to so many of these pains and traumas that we walk through. So it can be emotional stress. It can be dietary stress.

26:59 So blood sugar imbalances right. So for somebody whose diet is full of a lot of processed sugar, carbohydrates, they're not getting enough protein. Cortisol it's a glucocorticoid, so when our blood sugar levels spike and then drop rapidly soon after and our blood sugar gets too low, cortisol actually picks up. So most people are living in this blood sugar roller coaster all day long, where their nervous system is constantly getting upregulated. Think about a time where you got really hangry and you hadn't eaten. How did your nervous system feel?

27:36 - Chase (Host) Scientifically speaking. Out of whack, Very out of whack yeah.

27:40 - Rachel (Guest) So people's diet can play a huge role in our cortisol levels. You know, for even people who are overtraining, who are under eating, the nervous system is definitely going to operate more in an upregulated state because it is a stressor on the body. We could say it's a physical stressor, it's a dietary stressor, just because we're not getting in enough nutrition. And then there can be the environmental stressors too. So this is where I mentioned like mold, heavy metals that are in the body and how that can interfere with the nervous system.

28:12 - Chase (Host) Can you walk us through some maybe possible ways mold might be coming into our life and increasing cortisol and causing multiple system disruptions? What does that look like? What are some things maybe somebody can look out for whether that's in their environment or just maybe even qualitatively how they feel.

28:30 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, actually we can eat a good amount of mold. Most coffees actually are pretty high in mold, I know right.

28:39 - Chase (Host) All right, shameless plug, not Sean Coffee Company.

28:41 - Rachel (Guest) Most coffee is very high in mycotoxins, especially if it's not organic.

28:46 - Chase (Host) Yeah, actually organic stuff coffee is one area I always push. You got to go organic because it's mold, chemicals, herbicides, pesticides. It's the most widely unregulated product because it's globally sourced those k cups, like you're drinking, full of natural flavors I did so much of those we've all been there the convenience age of coffee. It worked, but I'm glad you bring that up.

29:06 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, peanuts. So peanuts are actually a huge source of mold because peanuts are actually not a nut, it's not a tree nut.

29:13 - Chase (Host) It's a legume, it's a legume.

29:15 - Rachel (Guest) They grow from the ground, so they actually have quite a bit of mold, which I love. I love peanut butter, but it's also found in different kind of like dried fruits that can be a source of mold as well too. And then there's environmental molds, right. So you're living in a home that's maybe pretty old and there's been some kind of water damage and in my opinion, that's the worst type of mold and how that can really impact our immune system, our gut health and a lot of these toxins. They actually cross through our blood-brain barrier and it leads to a lot of these toxins actually cross through our blood brain barrier and it leads to a lot of neuroinflammation. So a lot of people who are struggling with mold toxicity or even heavy metal toxicity, you know they're struggling usually with a quite a bit of mental health issues as well.

29:58 - Chase (Host) And I hear a lot of that brain fog. I think a lot of people reverse engineer once they kind of get to oh, mold was a huge contributing factor to what I'm going through my health, if not the contributing factor. The biggest telltale sign was brain fog, like unexplicable brain fog.

30:13 - Rachel (Guest) And a lot of these toxins can create the onset of an autoimmune condition, right? So if my practice will work with a lot of people who have Hashimoto's rheumatoid arthritis, you know different types of autoimmune conditions and, looking at the root causes of the development of an autoimmune condition, genetics can definitely play a bit of a role. But I would attribute genetics to only be about 30% of autoimmune conditions, not nothing.

30:40 It's not nothing for sure, and a big part of that usually comes back to methylation status. So people who have comp t defects or have mthfr defects, where it affects their body's ability to methylate, can predispose them more with autoimmune conditions. But 70 percent comes back to environmental related reasons for the development of an autoimmune condition. So these are environmental toxins. This is actually the gut, because when our gut lining becomes broken down, so leaky gut, we start to get bacteria, foods and toxins leaking into the bloodstream, stimulating a massive immune and inflammatory response.

31:22 - Chase (Host) What's up, fam? Quick break from my conversation with Rachel to bring to your attention something that has added such immense value to my daily well-being probably single-handedly, the thing that has increased most noticeably for me my daily baseline energy, and that is MitoPure, mitochondrial revitalizer from today's sponsor, timeline Nutrition. Now, mitopure is actually made up of this ingredient called urolithin A and, honestly, before I tell you all the amazing benefits about this product, what impresses me most is that timeline waited about a decade to come to market with this product, because they have now over 11 years of human clinical trials proving its safety, efficacy and potency. So what happens when you take MitoPure? Well, within about eight hours, the healthy aging nutrient gets absorbed. You've just begun taking MitoPure and it's already springing into action. That's because urolithin A levels peak in your bloodstream right around hour eight, targeting key organs like your muscles. Then, by day two, recycling is activated. In just a day or two, your cells kickstart the recycling and rejuvenation process Mitophagy, maybe you've heard this term. Before Mitophagy begins its course, tagging damaged, worn out mitochondria for recycling. Then your first 30 days, one month, in your cells are transforming, and that's because damaged mitochondria step aside to make way for healthier ones. It's called mitochondrial biogenesis. This is true cellular health optimization.

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35:01 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, In functional medicine we can order mycotoxin tests, which is going to look at so running diagnostic labs, yeah, it's going to be a urine test. We'll. We'll test for a mold through the urine to see the levels of mycotoxins through different food sources, Like there's so many different types of mycotoxins, so we're not just testing for mold period.

35:20 - Chase (Host) Okay.

35:21 - Rachel (Guest) Um, but honestly, most of the time people are going to come back with them. Like. I even ran the test on myself. I had a bit of some mycotoxins.

35:27 - Chase (Host) So most people are running around with mold.

35:29 - Rachel (Guest) I'd say most people are yeah, yeah, and I think, though, what we have to look at is how much toxins are people running around with? It's not a question on do you have toxins?

35:40 in your body. It's a question of how much, and I think it gets to this point where it gets over this threshold, where then we start to create or have symptoms that begin to appear Right. And so if you're someone who's definitely symptomatic and you're struggling with gut issues or mental health issues or an autoimmune condition, I would say yes, a hundred percent, you should do an environmental toxin test to look at how much. You should do an environmental toxin test to look at how much not if, but how much toxins you have in your body that could be contributing to a lot of your health issues, but if you're somebody who's like, I just want to know great.

36:17 I mean we can still work on bringing those levels down. So testing and then you know the second part of that is we have to remove exposure. So if you do come back, you want to get your home tested for mold. You want to probably do some kind of a mold free or limited mold diet to try to remove the sources as much as possible. All right.

36:38 - Chase (Host) So, if not mold, some other reasons why maybe our nervous system might be running high. What are maybe some other contributing factors to elevated, chronically elevated cortisol levels? Beyond the obvious, you know, I think we can kind of skip past the. You're burning the midnight oil, you're working so much you know your family life, professional life, maybe you're not prioritizing recovery, All those kind of, I'll say more obvious, surface level things to high stress, high cortisol.

37:07 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, one of the areas I really like to talk about the most is the high achievers, the perfectionists. You know the type A personalities.

37:19 And you know it's not a coincidence that most people who are struggling with gut issues usually are, you know, these type of personality types and I think, if we think about it, you know, high achievers. They put such an incredible amount of pressure on themselves that is very often tied to their own sense of worth. This can lead to chronic stress, anxiety and a upregulation of the nervous system at the core, and this was actually a huge part of my root cause. You know, when I really peeled back the onion of like, why do I have a lot of these gut issues? Okay, I have SIBO, I have dysbiosis, I have a lot of these imbalances.

38:04 You know it wasn't just what is the root cause here, but what is the root cause of the root cause, and so much of a lot of my health issues were really stemming from the ways in which I was relating to myself. So a lot of my healing journey had to really go into doing a lot of the inner work and really addressing the ways in which I was viewing myself. And it makes sense, right, that when we're constantly trying to live up to the expectations of what the world demands, we're trying to be perfect that, you know, the nervous system is going to get so upregulated because we're not authentically in our sense of being when we're operating from that place, I think, at the core.

38:50 You know, when the nervous system is really upregulated, you know we're not really fully ourself, we're not operating from a place of authenticity, because being ourself is really when we are fully present in all of life. And it's like when we put so much of our sense of worth in these things that are outside of us, at the core, we lose a sense of ourself, and that's why healing, I believe, is really a return back to self at the core of everything that we do. And I think a big part of this is when you know we have conditioning based off of societal imprints, uh, relationships, traumas that we've walked through in our life. Um, you know this actually.

39:46 - Chase (Host) I feel like you kind of had like a little bit of an energy shift there. I feel like, talking about this stuff, um, there's something coming up for you personally and kind of describing inauthentic living and just the stressors that that inevitably kind of produces for us.

40:02 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, it's definitely very close to home for me. You know, I think that was a big part of my entire healing journey. At the core is part of healing the nervous system was really healing the relationship with self. It was a big part of a lot of the inner work that I had to do and I think when you know the perceived need to be what the world demands, gets entangled with who we are. Often we choose attachment over authenticity in a lot of ways, and so what happens is the body develops these defense mechanisms right when it begins to close itself off.

40:48 - Chase (Host) Is that what happened to you, Right? Is that? Was that your experience?

40:53 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, as I really began to do a lot of the inner work that was really the core of what was really stemming from. I think so much of my own sense of worth was stemming from these things that were outside of me and so a lot of my inner work had to be really working on the views that I had of myself and where that was stemming from.

41:15 And I think, when we're younger, and we have these traumas that we walk through. Essentially, when we're met with some kind of judgment or rejection, the body learns that it's not safe to be who we are at the core, and you know, looking at the nervous system, you know we tend to think of just physical safety high achievers, perfectionist type A people. This is really the core of so many of our wounds. It's really this part of us. And so you know, we can do a lot of different things to ground our nervous system. You know, we can do the meditation, we can do a lot of that, which I've done, all of that.

41:56 But unless we really heal the relationship with self, the view of self, you know, we're still going to be running in circles. And I had the huge wake-up moment where I was like fuck, I've been living actually and I didn't realize it. You know I wasn't like trying to be fake in different ways, but I've been really contracting and closing myself off and not really being fully, all of Rachel and everything, out of fear of judgment and rejection. And this is what led to so much of my nervous system, dysregulation, issues, and it was ultimately led me to pushing my body to such an extreme point where it led to all of these gut issues. You know all of the hyper achievement.

42:36 I think, we can really trace it back to this, but it's such a beautiful thing is when you can step boldly into that part of you and to let the world see it. You know what? It's probably going to make a lot of people really fucking uncomfortable too.

42:52 - Chase (Host) Hell, it makes me uncomfortable, but you know, being committed to the process and having such immense progress thus far and getting closer and closer and closer to authenticity, I really know what that feels like and I love it.

43:08 - Rachel (Guest) It's expansive and it's like. It's like that place where you know that the fear can be there. Like the fear is there and that's why I totally understand You're like well, okay, how am I stepping forward into a more authentic and fully embodied, expansive version of me and there's so much fear there. Like there's so much.

43:26 - Chase (Host) How can I be growing but breaking down all along the way?

43:29 - Rachel (Guest) because you're stepping into the unknown Right, and that's what it's really all about, and I think that's what is so powerful and I think so much. So many of us live in our comfort zone of what is safe and we're not trying to step on anybody's toes and we want to be liked and we all want to be received, and we live our entire life living in this box, right, and we're not trying to step on anybody's toes and we want to be liked and we all want to be received, and we live our entire life living in this box, right, and we never really fully get to experience all of life because when we're constantly, you know, living in this inauthentic version of ourself, we don't fully get to experience all of who we are.

44:06 And I think you know the authentic self at the core, like its origin, is truly infinite presence, where love is at its highest vibration. So as you are stepping so boldly into your most authentic self, you are also saying yes to so much more love in your life, and any amount of love, you know, accolades, achievements and things that we get when we are not really fully all of ourselves, it's never really going to feel like it's ours and the people who do love us. We're not going to even be able to fully receive it because we're not really fully all of ourselves. So it's like, yeah, even if I'm all of myself, and it's probably not going to be received by some people, you know what Great, because then I know that those aren't my people, but the people who do receive all of me, all of who I am. I know those are my people and that's what is so powerful. But I think exactly what you're talking about is that fear and that anxiety as you're stepping into that version of you is why most people stay stuck.

45:15 - Chase (Host) Well, I didn't know this was going to turn into a billable hour for my therapy, but I'll, I'll take it. Thank you so much, but you know, that kind of personal story sidestep does bring me back to a point I wanted to make about, as we're navigating gut health high stress, you know, regulating our nervous system.

45:35 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah.

45:36 - Chase (Host) There are a lot of things that we can try. We've talked about quite a few of them, but I think it's such a unique area kind of going back to a recommendation by my therapist of when we do try something like, that's great. Whatever we can do is great. Whatever we can test and evaluate and try like we should do, that we should be a study of one and we should really try to figure stuff out. We should stay committed to getting better right, Moving ever forward, but sometimes there could be a better way to try things out. What I mean by that is so I've been back in my meditation game for a while.

46:08 - Rachel (Guest) I remember when you started.

46:09 - Chase (Host) Yeah, and I'm loving it, I'm so glad you're just starting.

46:13 I'm so late to the party on this and I love it. But what I've been doing is, you know, probably I'll meditate in the mornings four days a week at least, and it's typically I wake up, drink some water, I'm meditating within the first 15 minutes of being awake and I thought this was great and again, I think it is adherence. Whatever you can do is great. But my therapist was like I don't think that's the best time for you, at least in this state where I'm. I'm having PTSD triggers, I'm having panic attacks, like all the time.

46:44 It's like what, if we've recognized that? Hey, those first waking moments in the morning, that's actually when your cortisol, naturally, baseline is already at its peak. That's when it's got to wake up your organ system, your body, that's you know what gets you up and moving. So you already having high stress, high cortisol, you're going through all these things on top of just baseline. That's not the best time to try to be slowing down, dropping in meditating. So she recommended I actually wake up, do my thing, do my morning routine, take the dog out, take a walk, kind of like, allow that natural morning cortisol spike to kind of go through its process and then you know, hour ish. Maybe later kind of come back and try meditating. What's your take on that? Is there? Is there a kind of preferred protocol when we're looking at natural cortisol peak time in the body to try to do something to support regulating our nervous system?

47:36 - Rachel (Guest) That's the first time I've heard that, but curious. Has it helped?

47:40 - Chase (Host) I haven't tried it yet. I had my therapy session yesterday and I did meditate this morning, but I forgot.

47:46 - Rachel (Guest) I forgot to change it up, Like she mentioned do you have a very sensitive nervous system Like where you feel like you pick up on other people's energy also very easily?

47:54 - Chase (Host) I wouldn't say very easily, but I'd say a little bit more than average. Yeah.

48:01 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, I've noticed that about myself, like it's a gift, in so many different ways because I can like connect with people, you know, very intimately. But I also feel like I pick up on other people's energy. But my body can very easily go into a hyper aroused state, a heightened nervous system response, and I think there's the point where a little bit of a heightened nervous system response can actually be beneficial. It's powerful, you know. It's like full body arousal.

48:27 And that's actually, in my opinion, an incredible place to be, and in my morning routines I actually take it, you know, a whole lot of benefit in that and I use that to my advantage. So I love meditating every single morning.

48:41 - Chase (Host) It's in that kind of heightened full body arousal state.

48:45 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, and I will actually notice my nervous system start to slowly build up during my meditation and actually even this morning I was doing a meditation and I noticed my body just get to this point of like full bliss and ecstasy of what I was experiencing. Now I think if you don't know how to really control it and if your thoughts really shift to maybe a place like PTSD where you don't want it to go, I think that can be incredibly overwhelming. But I've learned that if I can really like, harness and tune in with my body and stay present with it all like it's actually such a powerful energy, and then I take that energy and I bring it into my day. Now I have to be very careful because I can almost kind of lean over a little bit too far and then it almost feels like that anxiety Like if I add in a stimulants in the morning so I actually quit coffee.

49:37 I know we talked about coffee.

49:38 - Chase (Host) You quit coffee. You didn't just postpone it?

49:41 - Rachel (Guest) No, I quit coffee last October because of my nervous system and it's like one of those things that was just sending my nervous system a little bit over the edge and I like to have like my coffee like right when I wake up. So I was like meditating, I was doing my coffee and I just was noticing like a bit more anxiety and then I pulled out coffee and it completely got rid of all of my like upregulation.

50:06 - Chase (Host) So really what we're talking about there is you quit caffeine.

50:09 - Rachel (Guest) No, because I still do matcha green tea and like I do cacao, but I quit coffee because I didn't notice that coffee had the same effect really as intensely like. I still will get the caffeine and the buzz, but I don't get like this massive hit particularly caffeine from coffee, was giving you this disruption all I can do match a green tea which has a little bit less caffeine.

50:33 - Chase (Host) It's still very caffeinated it also has naturally occurring l-theanine and some other amino acids. Yeah, and I'll notice that it'll be a little bit less caffeine. It's still very caffeinated, but it also has naturally occurring L-theanine and some other amino acids.

50:37 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah and I'll notice that it'll be a little bit more of a stable energy for me. I'll still get that rise, but I won't get that massive spike and drop. It'll send me too far over.

50:47 - Chase (Host) All right, I'm going to go back and shout out again Strong Coffee Company. You've ever heard of them?

50:51 - Rachel (Guest) I love coffee. Yeah, I do love Strong Coffee too. The brand okay.

50:54 - Chase (Host) Have you ever tried that? Do you get the same thing with Strong Coffee?

50:56 - Rachel (Guest) Theirs is the one that has the things mixed in it.

50:59 - Chase (Host) Right, I'm their biggest spokesperson. This is not a paid endorsement. I love Adam and the whole family crew. I've been drinking Strong Coffee four to five days a week for the past six years. It's instant organic coffee. So organic um has L-theanine, hyaluronic acid, mcts, coconut water extract and, depending on which one you get, it can have adaptogens, functional mushrooms. So, um, no crash, no jitters, smooth sailing.

51:24 - Rachel (Guest) Sounded like a amazing.

51:26 - Chase (Host) I'm going to. I have some here. I keep it in the studio. You're getting some with you when you leave. Try it, try it, she's going to be like I, I hate you you've ruined my nervous system. I was doing so well before you it's a polyphenol.

51:37 - Rachel (Guest) I love my matcha so much so I'll do that like in the morning time. But you know, to answer your question, though, about like what your therapist said, right, like kind of like fine-tuning and, you know, optimizing that protocol.

51:49 - Chase (Host) My whole point here is to kind of highlight that we can be doing something and that's great, but there might be just a better way to do it, dependent on our symptoms and what we're going through.

51:57 - Rachel (Guest) I also believe, too, in just like bio individuality, and I know there's been, like times in my life where, like I, could lean into certain practices much easier and there's times where, like I couldn't. You know, there's times where you know I could do intermittent fasting, but then there was a point where, just based off of a lot of other stressors in my life, as I did intermittent fasting, it led to a lot of the nervous system imbalances because of the glucocorticoid response, right. So I think we just need to be cognizant of like, okay, what are all of my stressors that are happening in my life? Um, but I mean it's. It's interesting theory, though, about like, if you postpone it, it makes sense though, you know, looking at the circadian rhythm where we get that cortisol spike in the morning.

52:41 I'd be curious, though, if you kind of really leaned into it, because I also think too, it's like if you get that kind of rise during the meditation.

52:49 - Chase (Host) Like, I like to harness that as power.

52:51 - Rachel (Guest) It's like a very powerful energy and if I can really feel it fully in my body and I can like feel that and turn it into like action and manifestation in my life, it feels like a very powerful, potent energy during my meditation. But I think if it can create that level of overwhelm, then I think that's maybe where you know it may not be beneficial but also depends on the type of meditation that you're doing. Like a lot of my meditations are like visualization type meditation?

53:19 - Chase (Host) Are they like guided and you actually have like a process for it?

53:22 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah.

53:23 - Chase (Host) Other than just dropping in.

53:24 - Rachel (Guest) I've done different types. I mean, I've done the meditations where just like it's pure silence and I'm just like sitting with myself. And I do agree, typically midday I'm able to do those a lot easier, where it's just like perfectly quiet, versus in the morning. But a lot of time my morning meditations they're more focused, you know they're going to be more so, like focusing on gratitude, things in my life and then taking that energy of like love and gratitude and shifting my focus into what I want to create in my life. So it's like memories of my past, memories of my future.

54:00 The one I did this morning it was a loving, kindness meditation. So it's like picturing, you know, this white light in your heart and you're just feeling and all of the love and it just like growing and expanding and filling your body. And then you're taking that, that love and that bliss and all of that energy and you're you're pouring it outward to, um, you know people in your life, your close circle, and then you're going from your close circle to people you don't know and to the whole world, and you're extending it out and that's where it's like, when you can feel that energy and that love and that bliss which probably is also a little bit of a cortisol spike too, like it's.

54:36 It's powerful, so maybe it kind of depends on to the type of meditations that you're doing.

54:40 - Chase (Host) Yeah, it's an interesting approach, right.

54:41 - Rachel (Guest) It's just kind of a reminder of you don't have to keep me updated.

54:44 - Chase (Host) Yeah, there are a lot of different ways to do things, but for you, for right now, there might be a better way to do it. I'll keep you posted. What are maybe some other signs that we are chronically stressed and might not realize it? Particularly, I want to talk about maybe particular biomarkers, biometrics, feedback things like maybe on a wearable that we can get you know heart rate, hrv biomarkers and biometrics. What maybe would you recommend us to look at to be possible indicators that we are chronically stressed out, ie heightened cortisol, and might not fully realize it?

55:19 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, I do like HRV testing. I think it can be great. So heart rate variability, because when we're under a lot of chronic stress the heart rate variability gets decreased. So I love a lot of those wearables. Sleep can definitely be impacted, so a lot of like the aura rings and the whoops that will measure someone's sleep pattern. You know we'll often notice a lot of sleep inconsistency where maybe we'll see a bit of a decline there. Lab testing too. You know, often when there's a lot of chronic stress we'll see thyroid begin to slow down. Now, most hypothyroidism is a secondary condition and it makes sense because when the body's under a lot of chronic stress, it could be any of these type of stressors. It could be emotional stress, it could be physical stress like overtraining. There's a feedback loop where it begins to slow down your thyroid. It's going to make you colder. It's going to actually slow down your metabolism. As a byproduct and this is a bit more of a protective mechanism that your body does as a response to stress we see hormones begin to slow down.

56:25 So testosterone can decrease, progesterone levels can decrease men and women well, more so the testosterone, yeah, for men, um, we'll usually see an increase, like I I said, in cortisol, so we can see that sometimes in blood work we may do a 24-hour cortisol test. So often with Western medicine they'll test cortisol just like first thing in the morning.

56:47 - Chase (Host) Get a snapshot, yeah.

56:48 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, but we can test cortisol throughout the day and actually see is cortisol chronically elevated? And actually sees cortisol chronically elevated. Or even for some people we may see low cortisol, which is usually the byproduct of cortisol being chronically high for an extended period of time, where we actually enter into that phase of burnout.

57:07 - Chase (Host) Relatively new for me that concept, but as soon as I read it I'm like, oh, that makes perfect sense. We run so chronically high with cortisol and high stress that we kind of reach a point of diminishing, return to where a body will then stop or slow down significantly the production of cortisol and then that causes just a myriad of other effects, Can you?

57:24 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, that's burnout at the core of what is happening.

57:26 - Chase (Host) But you're so stressed out you stop producing the hormone that causes stress, but yet you're still stressed out, Like how does that make sense? It's like wired and tired right.

57:35 - Rachel (Guest) So you can think about like the first stage of chronic stress, which is where you're entering into stress but your body is able to kind of come back out of it. This is most people's normal stress response. There are stressful things that happen and then I can reground myself Versus. The second stage is where cortisol becomes chronically elevated. We also see DHEA levels, which is also produced from the adrenal glands, begin to increase as a by-product, and this is where often we'll see that heightened nervous system response.

58:03 You know we'll have a lot more anxiety. And then, over time, though, when cortisol is chronically elevated, it then begins to deplete a bit of the adrenal glands, so we'll start to see cortisol decrease, dhe levels decrease, where now it's more of this like fatigue type feeling. So it's like this I'm wired, but I'm also tired. Simultaneously. This is burnout and also, if you think about it too, like burnout in terms of the nervous system. It's like when we've been living in this sympathetic state for so long, the body also needs to bring us into the parasympathetic states for a period of time, and this is really what burnout is doing, and it's going to do that by making you sick, we're going to impact your immune system. We're going to begin to slow everything down. Thyroid begins to slow down. That's going to make you more tired. Like.

58:52 All of these are just protective mechanisms that are happening in the body. So that's why we can't just throw a bunch of supplements Like I'm a big fan of adaptogens so you're under chronic stress. You can do things like ashwagandha, rhodiola. High dose vitamin C can be great for supporting the adrenals, but at the end of the day, if we don't get to the root cause of the root cause. As I said earlier, you know we're not going to actually truly heal and it always comes back to you know our lifestyle.

59:17 It comes back to the relationship with self. It comes back to all of these things. If you even look at someone's diet and the foods that they're putting in their body, we can also probably bring that back to the relationship with self, their view that they have of themselves.

59:30 - Chase (Host) Actually there was another prompt by my therapist to kind of look at um, recommending some key supplementation outside of what I normally do and you know, meditation practices and all the things to slow down. And she's like I'm at this point, you know, I've been going through this now for like five months, pushing six months, and she's like and I'm getting to the point now I'm being worried about your adrenals, You're you're putting such a tax chronically. You might want to look at, you know, getting something to support what you're going through on top of everything else and they can be great to help support right.

01:00:02 - Rachel (Guest) We just can't think that the supplements, without any other shifts in our life, are going to fix it, but I'm a huge fan of adrenal support can definitely help protect it.

01:00:09 You know from you know decreasing too low it can definitely help keep your cortisol levels a bit more stable. I think there's also the compounding effect over time and I've known this to be true for myself, where it's like I went and grinded so hard in my business for like six years and and built everything. I chased my dreams and all of that. And then now, like I'll incorporate a lot more like meditation and like the parasympathetic type activities, building resilience, but also to like I'm a lot more sensitive to a lot of the stressors and I've realized like what my body has been craving for so much is more rest and play, and it's like I'll be like all right, we, we did like the meditation, we did some of these little things. But it's like my body has actually been asking like can we like slow down a bit? Can?

01:00:57 we actually incorporate more play and rest, and I think that's also an area of health that we don't talk about a whole lot. And you know we can talk about macros and nutrition and we can talk about mindset, which I love. All of those topics that's like what I first got started in and I love all of those things because I can muscle my way through it, Right, If you give me a diet. You give me a workout.

01:01:19 - Chase (Host) I can muscle my way through it, you just head down do the thing Head down Discipline has never been a problem for me.

01:01:24 - Rachel (Guest) What has always been the struggle has been actually the slowing down, incorporating more play and incorporating more rest, and so that has really been like the the second area of health I'm really been focusing on, and actually a quote I've said before is you know, sometimes it's not that we're burnt out on doing too much, but too little of the things that really feed our soul and make us feel alive.

01:01:47 And for me now, you know, I can be grinding, you know, in my work, but if I don't have play and I don't have a lot of the things that feed my soul and really help me live more heart open, you know I go straight into burnout like real fast.

01:02:04 But I can still do a lot of these things that I love and chase my dreams, and I think that's the fear for a lot of these high achievers. Right, it's okay, I have to give it all up because it's impacting my health, which, yes, it is impacting our health, but I don't think it's that we have to give up our dreams though. But I think it is learning to go in and out, and I've had to really learn this dance of. I can lean more into this sympathetic state of like chasing my dreams and going after it, but I also need to lean into this other side, where it's a bit more flowing, it's a bit more playful and it's a bit more heart centric and I need to have more of that in my life and it's like this balance between the two has really been. You know, what I've learned is essential for our health.

01:02:50 - Chase (Host) Essential is such an understatement? I mean even to the point I'll say I think it should be periodized just like we do anything else. You know, look at periodization in your training. You know you put in key blocks and you cycle through and you go through. You know a baseline, you go through PRS. You know maybe same thing in nutrition, but where's that in our rest and digest? Where's that in our downtime? Where's that in our? I purposely blocked two hours to do nothing. You know, let myself just chill, take a walk, get connected to nature, um, leave white space for creativity, dance exactly like.

01:03:27 - Rachel (Guest) I used to not allow myself to do that, and that's such an interesting conversation that we even have to have that, but I think that, like the, the culture and society, that like we're now in right now where it's like the hustle culture and again, I love like I at the core entrepreneur, love, chasing my dreams, going after all of that, not against it.

01:03:45 I'm not that like anti hustle culture person, but I think I've just realized like there's so much more to life and health and it's, it's really about living this like heart, open life and and play in relationships and that's like what my soul has just so been craving for.

01:04:01 - Chase (Host) Well, get out there and get some girl.

01:04:03 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah.

01:04:04 - Chase (Host) Kind of getting towards the end here. I want to shine a light on another area of your work and expertise, and that's kind of around the functional medicine aspect. When we're we're feeling some kind of way or we're not, we well, we just want to get different labs. We want to take a different kind of snapshot internally to really know what's going on or what's not going on. Um, but particularly when we feel normal or when we don't, I think some people will go through functional medicine testing or get labs because they feel some kind of way and they're like, ah, like I don't feel this great, I want to optimize something.

01:04:37 Or you think you feel fine, but then you get a lab and something comes back and it's like oh hey, actually we do have something to work on. Can you walk us through? I'm not feeling great and I won't get too specific. But just you know, what would be the benefit of getting functional labs for someone that is just feeling like their health is not generally optimized? And then someone who I think I feel fine, but then you know why should I get functional labs to maybe kind of look at something that could be underlying that I can't always necessarily feel.

01:05:05 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, you know, I'd say the majority of the people who come to our practice, it's usually because they're suffering in some way or shape or form in their life. You know, for someone to say like okay, enough is enough, like I'm willing to go seek answers, I'm willing to invest, like usually we have to have most of the time like a big pain point in order to do that, um, but every now and then, like we do get the people who are just like they want to know everything about themselves and maybe they feel okay, they don't feel like anything is necessarily wrong, but they really want to focus on optimization at the core, which in functional medicine. You know, we can not have symptoms, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're healthy. Right, and actually a quote that I've used before you know, health is not just the absence of disease, but it's the presence of optimal feeling and function. So if we're just looking at health in terms of I'm not sick, I'm not symptomatic, we're still missing an entire other piece of the equation.

01:06:07 So this is where we will get people every now and then who are like all right, I want to do the testing, I want to look at my gut microbiome, my hormones, my thyroid. I want to do the micronutrient testing and the toxin testing and these people will always come back with things that are off and I think that's what's cool about functional medicine testing. Yeah, I mean, you know we're looking at like the entire body at the core. Like Western medicine is usually just doing basic lab testing CBC, you know, maybe a basic metabolic panel. They're usually not going to even be running insulin levels. They may do a fasting glucose, they'll do A1C.

01:06:41 - Chase (Host) Most won't even run testosterone, especially if you ask for it.

01:06:44 - Rachel (Guest) They're running a partial thyroid test, they're not looking at free T3 levels and they're also looking at this reference range where we're not looking at optimal levels, like we're actually looking at these ranges that have been collected from other people who have been going to the doctor, who have been sick. So we're looking at those reference ranges versus with functional medicine when we're testing everything and we're looking at how everything's interconnected. You know, usually everybody's going to have something that's off, because I've never met anybody who's perfect. Someone may have something off with their gut, maybe something with hormones, thyroid deficiencies that they may have. Like I said, everybody has some toxins in their body.

01:07:24 - Chase (Host) What do you think are maybe some most common things that are off in a functional medicine or a more comprehensive lab panel where the person doesn't think anything's wrong?

01:07:36 - Rachel (Guest) Gut microbiome test for sure, I'd say most people have low diversity in their gut, where the person doesn't think anything's wrong. Gut microbiome test. Gut microbiome really For sure? Yeah, I'd say most people have low diversity in their gut. I'd say about eight out of 10 people have that. I'd say most people have some degree of dysbiosis, of bacteria imbalances in their gut. So we can optimize gut health a bit further. Optimize nutrition Most people have a deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids.

01:08:00 I can believe that Absolutely Most people do have some type of micronutrient deficiencies, unless they're just eating the most bioavailable food and they're eating, like, all of the diverse amounts of fruits and vegetables. But most of the time, like people aren't. Most people are going to come back with a certain level of a toxin load and then, you know, every now and then you'll get people who maybe there's some things that are off with their hormones, or maybe that's not necessarily off, but it could be optimized, it could be a bit better, Right? And I also think we need to look at trends over time.

01:08:30 So like if you're a guy who used to have, you know, 800 testosterone and then now you're at 500, where 800 testosterone and then now you're at 500, where you know, below the reference range of Western medicine is 300. They're like, hey, you're totally fine, but they're like, no, I feel tired. Well, I used to be at 700 or 800 and now I'm at 500. It's like that shift and change over time. It makes sense as to why that person's going to be fatigued. So could there be some optimization there? Definitely for sure. But for a guy who's maybe, you know, his reference has been at 500 his entire life and you know the reference range is 300. He may be actually pretty okay. So we also need to look at somebody's trend history over time.

01:09:11 - Chase (Host) So the numbers on the labs are not always the only thing to really go off of in terms of making changes, or health or not health.

01:09:19 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, I mean, I like to treat the person at the core Like we. We need to look at the person and what their goals are and, if they do have symptoms, and be able to tie it into that and I think that's what's so unfortunate is, so many people will go to Western medicine. They'll be like I know there's something that's off. You know, women in particular like they're definitely overlooked, or like I know there's something that's off with my hormones. I'm fatigued all the time, I'm tired. It's a lot of these people who are struggling with chronic health issues. They run the basic tests and they'll come back and they'll be like, hey, you're the picture perfect of health, everything's normal. And then you know, these people leave and they're like, okay, I'm crazy, it's just all in my head. You know, I just, I guess, have to live with this my entire life.

01:09:59 And then they come to us and we run all the tests and we're like well, you got a lot going on and they're like well, oh my gosh, and you know it's so beautiful Cause they're like I'll actually have women who will start to cry on some of our lab reviews.

01:10:12 - Chase (Host) And they're like, I'm like what's? Finally, I have something to work off of.

01:10:15 - Rachel (Guest) They're like I just felt like I was crazy. I felt like it was all in my head and like they don't even care that I'm like there's a lot that we need to work with here. They're like I'm just so glad that.

01:10:23 - Chase (Host) I'm glad there's something. Yeah, optimization. We've said that quite a few times and I feel like that is a word being used a lot right now. How do you define optimization and are there obvious markers, ranges, thresholds for optimization, especially when we're looking at, you know, labs? It's any lab range will say, you know, on par below or above. But optimization, is there an actual way to quantify that or is it just better than typical?

01:10:52 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, so not average, not where most people are at. And I think too, like so many things now today, it's common and we attribute it to be normal. But just because something is common, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily normal. And so we look at these baselines where somebody maybe isn't sick, like I said, but it doesn't mean that they probably are feeling the best that they could, Kind of like the example with testosterone, where a guy may have a level of 400 testosterone 500 testosterone but could he feel better, Could he have better energy levels, better libido, Could he maintain more skeletal muscle at a higher level of testosterone? Probably right. So optimization would really focus on getting the levels to a point where we're going to have optimal feeling and function, versus just a baseline of not sick.

01:11:49 - Chase (Host) Speaking of guys, and June is National Men's Health Awareness Month, and I would love to get your take on what is maybe one area of majority speaking men's health that you would recommend a guy to really look at for optimization and just key awareness right now.

01:12:07 - Rachel (Guest) Men's health and optimization. I do think, though, we are in an epidemic of low testosterone, like quite a bit with men, and I think for a lot of men who go to the standard physician's office, like the, the reference ranges are not great that they're looking at. So I do think hormonal health is huge for men overall. I also am a big believer in, like gut health for everybody.

01:12:34 I just think that plays such a huge role. I also think, just overall, um, I'd say, uh, adrenal health plays such a huge role. So it's also when we're looking at testosterone levels, you know, and let's say they're low functional medicine, we want to look a bit more further at, like, what is the root cause. So this is where we don't want to just test that. We want to look at, okay, what is really happening with inflammation levels? You know what is really happening with inflammation levels. You know what is really happening with the adrenals, what is happening with, you know, toxin load. All of these things can play a big role in a man's testosterone levels.

01:13:07 - Chase (Host) Yeah, I think the last kind of stats I heard was this current generation. You know, most men now are running about 50 to high, maybe even 60% less testosterone than the generation before. They've lowered the ranges over time too. Come on.

01:13:21 - Rachel (Guest) So the ranges used to be a much higher because the average men testosterone ranges were higher. So they actually have lowered the reference ranges. I can't tell you exactly what they were, but now, like, the baseline is lower because now this is the normal and so they're basing it off of what is common. But again, just because it's common doesn't mean it's normal, it definitely doesn't mean that it's optimal.

01:13:44 - Chase (Host) I think another area a lot of guys look to when they think men's health is, you know, they get really focused on libido and I think most men equate libido to testosterone and like, oh, if I have low, low libido it's because low testosterone. If I have high libido, it must be high testosterone.

01:14:03 - Rachel (Guest) Is there a correlation, direct correlation there, I guess even causation with libido and testosterone? Yeah. So it's like, is more testosterone necessarily better? Like there's definitely that point of no return. It's just like everything in life, like one coffee great, two coffee great, three coffee not so great tequila two, tequila three, yeah they're not so great and I've seen this, you know, with a lot of men.

01:14:21 I think they're the ones who are like, oh, more testosterone the better. And then this is where we start to see a lot of negative downstream effects, especially if you're a guy, let's say you're taking testosterone, because most of the time a guy's natural testosterone is not going to probably be well, well above the upper limit naturally. Let's be real there. So if I see guys like in the 2000 range, right, and you'll see that, 1000, 2000 yeah, I've seen that before in my practice of guys naturally no, not naturally okay, I was like come on, not naturally so right if you're supplementing

01:14:54 yeah you know, and I'm all for bioidentical replacement therapy. I think it's great, I think it can be great for men, I think it can be great for women, but it's like the point of no return where we think more is actually going to lead to more muscle and that's actually not true. Like there's a point where it doesn't actually help you build that much more muscle. But men will start to see negative side effects a loss of hair, right, because a lot of the testosterone then begins to convert into dihydroxy testosterone, which is a more potent androgen. Dht will lead to acne. It'll lead to the hair loss. So this is where the guys will start to get a lot of the back, knee, the facial acne. Quite a bit Aggression, right, a lot of more like that type of mood can be pretty common. So this is where I think, like the, the heightened, overly heightened libido isn't necessarily a good thing, may not be most ideal for your relationship.

01:15:47 - Chase (Host) Yeah, they're like no, no, no, I want it. They're like no, no, no, no, you don't.

01:15:50 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, um, cholesterol metabolic panels also get really negatively impacted so it could also lead to an increase of iron levels, so thickening of the blood.

01:15:59 So a lot of guys who are in testosterone actually usually every so often need to go and donate blood every now and then, because increase those omega-3s and things like that the iron is a neurotoxic as well, so a lot of these guys will notice a lot of like neurological issues, brain fog too. When these levels get really high you can put them at risk for, you know, atherosclerosis, other cardiovascular issues, especially if you're a guy and you want to have kids.

01:16:26 - Chase (Host) You know this kind of course, yeah, fertility Absolutely. Can you quickly kind of highlight the need to be at least aware of possible fertility issues when it comes to focusing on increasing testosterone, especially supplementing with exogenous testosterone for guys?

01:16:44 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, I mean doing natural things to increase your own testosterone levels. Great, Awesome Resistance training supplementation. You know, all of these things can be very beneficial, but it's not actually taking exogenous testosterone. So when we take exogenous testosterone, our body decreases and stops producing our own levels of it. So over time, for a lot of men, this can lead to fertility issues.

01:17:11 - Chase (Host) Now, is that reversible if you get off of it, or can you kind of do other things while still taking it?

01:17:18 - Rachel (Guest) It can be reversible for some, but I think it also depends on, like, how long you've been taking it and then how much you know. Everything has really been negatively impacted over time, and I also think this is why you know so many people are having to do a lot of fertility treatments as well fertility treatments as well.

01:17:38 - Chase (Host) To get to the end, before I ask my last question, what is one thing you would love to leave the audience with, right here, right now, to just walk away with that they can try, they can test, they can ponder that maybe, maybe it's something you're going through personally and your kind of wellness journey that's really working for you that you just think is so important people need to know about.

01:18:00 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, so I said at the beginning of the podcast that I'm now a somatic breathwork practitioner. That's right.

01:18:07 - Chase (Host) So we did not get to really hit on that.

01:18:09 - Rachel (Guest) And just keeping on our theme of the nervous system, we can't heal the body, we can't heal the gut without healing the nervous system, and I'm a big believer of this is why we have to do a lot of the deep inner work.

01:18:23 I'm a huge proponent, of course, for functional medicine right, doing all the testing, do all the optimization but healing often involves, yes, taking a functional approach, but also being our own advocate for our own healing and really doing a lot of the inner work. Where a lot of these things are really stemming from and I think, part of really healing the nervous system is getting a lot of these trapped emotions out of the body, because what we don't express when we've gone through a lot of these traumas in our life, our body holds onto, and that's really ultimately what's happening often when we see a lot of contraction and upregulated nervous system is we. We see the body holding onto so much emotion and pain, so somatic breath work for me has been a very powerful part of my journey. I had a beautiful experience with it the end of last year. It led to some deep, deep healing in my life.

01:19:19 - Chase (Host) Breathwork's wild everybody.

01:19:21 - Rachel (Guest) It's like a psychedelic experience out of body experience right, and so I started to incorporate a lot of that into my healing practices. You know I would do some like daily breathwork, but you know what's interesting is I've noticed the compound effect. So I used to have to do a lot more breath work, where now I noticed that my nervous system is just a lot more calm and I don't really need to lean into it as much. So I think what are some of the ways we can actively work on our nervous system? Some of the things we've talked about like, yeah, meditation can be great. Other things that really can create grounding, more play, getting outside, getting in nature All of these things are incredible. Doing the testing, because nervous system dysregulation can also come from a lot of things that we talked about that may be just off in your body, beyond just the chronic stress or the inner work side of things.

01:20:13 - Chase (Host) To get into the most present state of mind and body. What I mean by that is in a lot of my breathwork sessions that I've gone through is you know, you get hypoxic. So basically, you get to a point to where and especially if it's guided like you actually won't be breathing. You'll get to a point to where you can, you're not holding your breath, you're just in a state where your body doesn't need any new oxygen and it doesn't need to expel any CO2. You're just existing, and it is the most trippy present moment, to where I don't need to bring in anything, I don't need to let anything go and I can just be, just be in a way that I never have before. Have you ever you know what I'm talking about?

01:20:57 - Rachel (Guest) Have you ever experienced that? Yeah, you know I'm talking about. Have you ever experienced that? And there's minimal thoughts.

01:21:03 - Chase (Host) You're just, you're fully, all of you. Yeah, it's, it's crazy, it's, it's bliss.

01:21:06 - Rachel (Guest) It's bliss, it's incredible.

01:21:08 - Chase (Host) Um well, it's so good to see you again. Glad to have you back on the show and I'm going to let you get going here soon. I know you got a lot of fun coming up and I'm going to let you get going here soon.

01:21:32 - Rachel (Guest) I know you got a lot of fun coming up and my last question is taking kind of all of what we just talked about wrapping up on a bow, putting it through the version of ourself. It's our most expressive version of ourself. It's being all of who we need to be. It's leaning into doing a lot of the inner work, leaning into the fear. It's unraveling all of these stories of who we think we have to be and really coming back to self and healing at the core. It's a return back to self. It's a return back to self. It's a return back to our most authentic version of us. It's a return back to love and I think that's really the journey that we're all on and that's truly what health is. I don't know we ever reach a point of like pure health and wholeness, but I really think this is the beautiful journey and for me, authenticity is living an ever forward life.

01:22:21 - Chase (Host) Never a right or wrong answer. I always appreciate everyone's interpretation. I really enjoyed that one, thank you. Where can my audience go to connect with you, learn more about your work and what you do?

01:22:31 - Rachel (Guest) Yeah, you can check out my Instagram, Rachel Scheer.

01:22:33 - Chase (Host) My practice is Rachel Shear Nutrition, if you want to learn all about working with me and my team and taking a functional medicine approach you can go to rachelsheer.com and that's S-C-H-E-E-R.