The Dr. Lam Show

Key Anti-aging Principles with Amir Ginsberg and Patti Shelton

September 11, 2022 Dr. Lam
The Dr. Lam Show
Key Anti-aging Principles with Amir Ginsberg and Patti Shelton
Show Notes Transcript

Everyone ages, but you can have quality and quantity of life if you do it correctly. Watch this episode to find out key ways of preventing aging and best ways of dealing with stress.

00:00 -3:35 The Difference between Functional Medicine, Integrative Medicine, Alternative Medicine, Anti-Aging Medicine
3:50 - 11:27 - Anti-Aging Pillars
11:35 - 15:50- What can you do to help cope with stress
16:00 -18:40 - Sleep and Day of Rest
18:40 - 24:45 - Food and Supplements to deal with stress
26:00 - 32:30 - Blue Zones and Centenarians
36:00 - Practical tips you can do to handle stress, and tips on exercise.

Trying to find an integrative medicine or functional medicine doctor who understands what you're going through? Lam Clinic does Telemedicine all over the world and is only a phone call away.

1. Educate yourself by visiting our website: www.lamclinic.com

2. Call our office at 714-709-8000 to schedule an appointment.

FIND US ONLINE HERE:
» Website: https://www.lamclinic.com/
» Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lamclinic
» Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lam_clinic/
» Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lamclinic
» YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/LAMCLINIC

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

What is the first question people ask? What's the difference between functional medicine, anti eating medicine, integrative medicine, natural medicine, alternative medicine? And so even me trying to go through it in medical school, I was also confused. Like, if doctors don't know it, you know, patients will not know it either. So this is how I would break it down, right? So functional medicine, is really the idea that you want to get down to the root cause. Finding out what is the root cause means not just fixing the symptoms. A lot of times, symptoms like, I have a lot of gas, or I'm bloated. It's not just okay here, take a PPI or acid blocker and fix it, because that's just suppressing the symptoms. But it's really getting to the root cause of why are you having gas? Is it too little acid? Is it too much acid? Is it small intestinal bacterial growth. So,asking the why and getting to the root cause is what functional medicine tries to do. Integrative Medicine is I would say, like the toolbox that you have available, or doctors have available or any person. It can be natural, it can be conventional, it can be any type of therapy. And it's the toolbox that you can use to be able to get someone better, or acupuncture or chiropractor, or Eastern or Western medicine. So that's what integrative medicine is. Anti Aging Anti-aging medicine, in a sense is, yes, you want to age gracefully, and have a more quality of life rather than quantity. A lot of times we think, oh, I want to live long. And you think of a quantity of life. But it's both quantity and quality for anti aging. And historically. Yes, I go to anti aging conferences every year. It's always on the forefront, because you have to have cutting edge technology to see, hey, how do we help people not only get to the root cause but to be able to live longer and feel better. So there are different ways, right? Historically, it was growth hormones or bioidentical hormone replacement or now telomerase inhibitors, and stem cells, peptides. So anti aging and regenerative medicine has always been on the forefront of seeing, hey, what else can we really push our limits in our body to be able to heal itself, to be able to reverse aging for long term. So I think anti aging and regenerative medicine go hand in hand. And it can also have the principles of functional medicine in it and integrative medicine. So natural medicine, alternative medicine, they historically are also more natural pathway, so whether it's like homeopathy, using herbals or, energy medicine, there's so much overlap. And probably all of those modalities use nutrition, and lifestyle and supplements and herbals to be able to help the body heal itself. That makes sense.

Amir Ginsberg:

It makes a lot of sense. And thank you for this. It's so helpful because a lot of people ask what are the differences between those. As you just demonstrated, if you take advantage of all of these for the benefit of the patient, maybe it's a good time to also dive from here to if somebody is asking is interested in healthy aging. And we can talk about it also in the context of the root cause of aging, and the functional medicine principle etc. But are there any common pillars that in your approach for anti aging or healthy aging? That I mean, obviously, it's personalized and this is a core concept, but are there anything that people should be aware or you would consider the staples are the pillars?

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Yes, definitely. Nutrition is always one of the very big items that many people have to take care of. Nutrition meaning diet or supplementation, but mostly through foods. Okay. Lifestyle also in the how active and your movement in your life is important. And I would say stress. Stress and how it affects your body and how you deal with stress is so important to figuring out how it's affecting your aging, but also how you can combat it to prevent further aging. And so I think those are three very big pillars to deal with when you're looking at anti aging,

Amir Ginsberg:

Even if somebody doesn't like the word anti aging, what you just mentioned, those three pillars are factors of healthy age. If you have a problem with any of these, you're not. They're going to be related to health issues anyway, right?

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Definitely. And I deal a lot with stress response. So we talk about this neuro endo metabolic stress response. And that historically, we think that stress only affects certain parts of your body/ The conventional model tends to say, you come into contact with the tiger, and you're in your fight or flight response. So then your hypothalamus tells your pituitary to produce ACTH, the adrenal cortical tropic hormone. Then your pituitary tells your adrenals to produce cortisol or norepinephrine, epinephrine, and to be able to fight or flight. But now I see that stress not only affects that HPA axis, but it really affects all organ systems in your body. So whether it's the gut, because high cortisol can make your gut leaky, whether it's detox pathways, or whether it's your hormone pathways or your neurotransmitters. This whole neuroendocrine metabolic stress response means that your whole body is affected by stress. So it's important to know what comes up, but also what to do when you have those symptoms come up.

Amir Ginsberg:

It's a good question maybe to ask, how do I know if my stress levels are crazy? Or normal? Or how do I know if I have the stress affects me? And the reason I'm asking is that we all experience stress, but it seems like the individual response varies and the perception of stress of how do people tell if they have a stress problem or not?

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Yeah, so like you said, every person has their own different response to stress. If you have a quick quiz on my website, you know, that if you wanted to go on it DrLamcoaching.com. And we have a, what color is your stress, because depending on the symptoms that you have, from stress, that will kind of point to where your primary dysfunction is. So let's say someone who has a lot of bloating, or constipation or diarrhea, when they're stressed, like when they're taking a test, you feel these butterflies in your stomach, right, or you start getting these gut symptoms, then maybe your inflammation circuit is the primary dysfunction for how stress affects you. Or, let's say you have a lot of PMS, or you have a hard time losing weight, and you get heart palpitations, sometimes, then maybe it's more of your hormone circuit, which includes the thyroid, the adrenals, and the ovaries or the reproductive organs. Or let's say you have problems sleeping, and you have depression or anxiety, and it seems to not be helped with anything, okay, like taking medications or things like that, then maybe it's a neural effects circuit. And where your stress is affecting each of these different organ systems. It is important to find the root cause because it could be all of this. The first signs of stress that you can say, is that we have different stages. So stage one of adrenal fatigue, maybe I just need a cup of coffee in the morning, and I'm tired, I wake up tired and one cup becomes two cups, two cups become three cups. And pretty soon you go get lab work done. And actually your doctor says, hey, everything's normal. You get your thyroid checked, it's fine. All right. But as you move along with the stages, you get more and more tired, especially in the afternoon. You need more energy drinks to kind of prop you up. You might start gaining weight, unable to have it come off. Every time you eat, maybe you get hungry, right after you eat even though you just ate. So different symptoms start to pop up again. And you're like, Oh, my doctor just says I'm normal, there's nothing wrong with me. So trying to figure out what the root cause is still super important to not just brush it off, because I think in conventional medicine, a lot of times they say hey, it's just aging, or you're getting old or hey, it's menopause. No, because even in menopause, it's not normal to have hot flashes. Women have been just told that it's normal to go through menopause symptoms or it's normal to have PMS prior to your period. No, that's not normal. That means there's some imbalance in your body. And so I think different stages can show up with different symptoms. And so I would really try to impress that it's when you're going through is not normal. You don't have to just accept that, that you have to deal with it. Right? A lot of people go in there searching and they don't find answers, and they just accept it. But I think your body, God made your body to be able to heal itself and to feel great, even if you're 60 or 70 years old. So you don't have to settle. Right, that this is just aging.

Amir Ginsberg:

And that's a great empowering message. I think that I just want to recognize and let people kind of be aware and appreciate what you just said.

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

yeah, so Adrenal Fatigue is not say it's not a medical diagnosis, because it's not in the ICD 10 book, where they just code everything and put people into numbers. So yes, adrenal fatigue. Now we know it's not just the adrenals. So I like to say it's a neuroendocrine, metabolic stress response, meaning it really affects the whole body. The neurotransmitters and nerves, the brain, and those like all hormones, and then metabolic, your detoxification, your inflammation, your gut, all those pathways are all interrelated. And stress does affect all of them.

Amir Ginsberg:

Right. And I think maybe we can also continue just this, since we cover stress, and it's so common is, what are the things that people can do to help to cope with stress better. Because we can avoid those stressors. I mean, you can just go to the office, you have a great day, and then your boss looks at you. And you're like, okay, this day is not so good. After all, then your kid calls, he's doing something in school. And before you notice you have a flat tire. And it's like the whole universe is telling you, hey, you're human. It's great, right? So what can we do?

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Well, lifestyle habits do affect the way that you can deal with stress. So we talked about nutrition. So there's physical stress, and then there is yes, environmental, emotional stress. So what you talked about the boss and things like that, yes, those are due to your environment, something is happening to you. But first comes first is the food that you eat, and the nutrition that you get into your body. You can have stress from eating, you know, toxic foods, junk food, or non organic, or if it's sprayed with a lot of pesticides. Those have stressors into your gut, and that is a physical stress. But then if you're talking about. So that can be, you know, changed or modified so that you reduce that form of stress in your body or whether it's food sensitivities, like certain foods, just for certain people cause issues. So making sure that you find out if you're eating something that might be causing you problems. Environmental stresses, what you were talking about, what are some tips that we can do? We can't prevent that thing happening to us, but we can change our response to stress correct. And so, I like to always recommend Adrenal Breathing for my patients. Adrenal Breathing exercises, I think are the most important thing to improve your parasympathetic nervous system. When stress happens, that's a very sympathetic response, right? Your epinephrine goes up and norepinephrine goes up, and then your cortisol goes up and then to deal with epinephrine and norepinephrine. The cortisol is anti inflammatory. It's trying to bring down that response. But over the long term, it does get tired, too. And so how do we actually help the parasympathetic nervous system. I recommend breathing because abdominal breathing, where your diaphragm actually comes down, when you're taking a deep breath in your belly goes out, the vagus nerve actually sits on the bottom of the diaphragm. So when you move that vagus nerve, you're helping that parasympathetic nervous response. And so you can actually do more resting and digesting rather than the fight or flight. And so I like to say the yogi's in India, they can control their heart rate just by breathing and so people who are dealing a lot with panic or anxiety, you know, problem sleeping at night falling asleep or staying asleep. Breathing exercises will be the best for them to kind of reset that sympathetic nervous response, that autonomic HPA axis that keeps firing. That's the number one thing I would recommend for stress, to be able to deal with that,

Amir Ginsberg:

that's a great tip for because we have access to breathing all day long. How can people learn more about this type of breathing?

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Yeah, so we have a Adrenal Breathing app, if you wanted to download it onto your phone. Basically, it's like I said, it's abdominal breathing. But it's not a full deep breath. A lot of times, if you take a full deep breath that can actually stimulate some people, rather than relax them. So I tend to say it's more like a 70% 80% of a breath, you should just be very calm lying down or sitting just wherever you can. You do it every hour, if possible. But I know people are busy. So when you're symptomatic, you can also do their breathing. More is better, and it's free. and I think it's, it's very good to focus on that breathing exercises.

Amir Ginsberg:

Any other practices before we talk about supplements for stress, which is, of course, the magic pill kind of thing. But any other practices you like to recommend for stress relief?

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

I think making sure you get enough sleep is so important. And also rest. Okay. What is rest. For me, it means taking a whole day off. It's my Sabbath. So on Saturdays, I don't do any work at all. I make sure to spend my time with family, at church or be able to rest my mind from any type of work. Because that just is so important to helping your brain reset. And I've done this my whole life, through medical school, through residency, I never studied on Saturdays. And people are so tempted, you know, in medical school, they're like, how did you not study on Saturdays, but God really made us to be able to take that Sabbath stress, because he knows how much we need it. And so for me, it was super important. And I think that's what really made me seen because you do what you love, you know, you are able to work hard, but play hard too. To be able to rest your mind to be able to process everything that you've done throughout the week. So rest, in one sense can be the rest one day a week, but also to sleep. So yes, I went through medical school, and also residency, I always slept at least eight hours a night. I know people are like, how did you do that. But I mean, that is so key. Because if you don't sleep, then you wake up tired, you wake up tired, you're going to be dependent on coffee, or some other type of stimulant like caffeine to get you through the day. And then in time, it kind of just cycles and that stimulates your adrenals even more, making it more stressful. And so I rarely drank coffee in medical school. That was also people were, super surprised. But I think it's good for people to learn that, if you take care of preventively to be able to take care of your sleep your rest, then you don't have to rely on some of these items to get you going right . Maybe it is a luxury to be able to sleep for some people Yes, but I would say that long term just helps your health out so that you don't have to make it go downhill later on. There are consequences that you deal with when you don't sleep right. That's very key.

Amir Ginsberg:

And it's always the sleep stress, Any food or supplements that can help people cope with stress, adaptogens, food maybe on the flip side not to eat or things like that, that can help. Because like you said, it can be a vicious cycle where I am so stressed, I'm caught in this loop, that in order for the first step to help me as Okay, I need just the two minutes that I am not stressed just to kind of reflect and move from there.

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Yeah, I would say I like to always make sure you know what your root causes of your stress. So that is still very key to know first, because any supplements that you do, you have to make sure you do it with a healthcare provider, or someone who understands. I don't recommend that you just go and self navigate because I've seen lots of people actually backfire from that because there's a time and a place and certain delivery and dose that you need for supplements. So it's not just for everybody because every person is so different. So making sure you find a provider is key. That's number one. Okay. Regarding nutrients, let's say you have a renal or HPA Axis dysfunction, and you really want to help support your adrenals. Many people do start to go for the adaptogens. But I would say that might not be the best idea to start off with, because adaptogens the word means that it adapts, meaning it can either stimulate you to give you more energy, or it can adapt to actually relax you to reduce the cortisol, let's say. But you don't know where you're at, unless you test. Okay, so I've had a lot of people that take adaptogens, I'm actually crashed from picking adaptogens, because they did not, see where their cortisol levels were first, and they didn't do basic nutrients that your body needs. first. You have to make sure you get to the root cause and adaptogens are not getting to the root cause. They are again, like symptomatic treatment, right. I'm tired, I want to take something to have more energy. But that said, there is a time and a place for it. But I would say not without, not without expert help. And so for the adrenals, I tend to say you know, make sure you don't have any thyroid issues, make sure your hormones, your other reproductive hormones are in balance. And for your adrenals. The key ingredients that adrenals usually need is vitamin C and B5 and good fats to begin with. And so I usually try to challenge and see whether your body can make your own hormones, from the adrenals. Because your adrenals produce cortisol, aldosterone, estrogen, progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, all the metabolites, over 50 hormones. So you want to be able to give yourself nutrients that would help your body make its own hormones. God made our bodies actually not to make vitamin C, we're one of the few mammals that aren't able to make vitamin C in our body. And so I would say it's kind of hard to eat, like 30 or 60 oranges a day in order to get enough vitamin C to feed your adrenals. So in that sense that yes, like supplementation is important. But it also depends, like there's so many different types of vitamin C. So what dose. what delivery system, that also is dependent on how sensitive your body is. Because like I said, I've seen people overdose, they take so much vitamin C, it makes them jittery problems sleeping at night. So it can backfire. If you don't know what you're doing. Key to really just work with somebody, I would say very important. And if you have any questions, you know, you can always call, call me or call my clinic and we help people all over the world via telemedicine.

Amir Ginsberg:

I'm actually super happy and excited, you mentioned the fat because we get so many questions about those essential fatty acids. So if you can think of any specific fats, either foods or supplements that people can take if they're stressed just as a healthy support. Like you said, I mean, their body needs those fats for a whole lot of functions, including adrenals, but not limited. What type of what are the best fats for, let's say, to take when you're stressed to help?

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Well, fats can from foods, avocados and nuts are usually good fat based sources of good fats that you can get. Omega threes and sixes are important, threes more than sixes. But you still want a good ratio of them. So whether it's a very purified type of liquid omega, that has been distilled, so there's very little heavy metals in there, or like a cold pressed flaxseed oil. That would be also good for getting a good ratio of omega threes to omega sixes type of fat because yes, fat is important for brain and nerve function. Right? And then to make hormones.

Amir Ginsberg:

And you mentioned there is for those of the audience that are vegan, you mentioned the flax seed, does it matter? Are you looking into the conversion of those ALA's to the EPA and DHA? Is it important or not as much?

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Different people again, have different genetics, so it really just depends. I can't make a generalization that some people are going to do well, and some people aren't. So it depends on their, their genetic mutations and also what they can handle and their food sensitivities. That's why having a provider is important. I mean, I don't like to just say, hey, everyone should take this. It depends. It's personalized.

Amir Ginsberg:

It makes sense. And it's a lot of it. The key takeaway here is guys, you can try to do things on your own, but you're maybe you're just guessing and maybe it's the solution is way simpler. Maybe from here, it would be a perfect time to talk for our longevity community about awareness, it can be action so people can take. Maybe we should talk a little bit about the connection between stress to aging, healthy aging or longevity. In a sense that a lot of people are doing a lot of things to help with aging, doing a lot of longevity protocols, fasting, NED boosters, a lot of those things. But maybe they don't consider their stress levels. Or maybe they think that because I'm taking all of these things and growth hormone etc, I'm immune to stress. And it's not a problem. But maybe we should talk about this. It seems like it's very related to aging on both sides, it can accelerate, but also if you're calm. And there's some studies on the blue zones that actually show that centenarians, really it's amazing that these isolated areas, they still figure out all these rituals and practices that were very effective to cope with stress.

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Yeah, I love that you brought up the Blue Zones because I'm actually from one. So I yeah, I came from Loma Linda and it's not actually Loma Linda but the people the Seventh Day Adventist people that live. They have a high percentage of centenarians. Right. So I already mentioned one about the rest of the Sabbath rest. That was one of the key things in the blue zones that they pointed out that Seventh Day Adventist that have. But your question was about how stress can affect aging? So I would say a good amount of stress is actually normal, right? We are supposed to have stress to be able to adapt and to be able to grow as people, okay? Just like you know, you have a wound and the wound usually sometimes needs to be scratched in order for it to grow back. So stress in some form, just like when you walk on the floor, you are pounding so you're causing stress on your bones, but that tells your bones to regrow. So a little amount of stress is supposed to be normal in our system, because that's how we know that things are working and that you need to regrow and regenerate. What happens is when stress becomes chronic. Another example is that when you produce this HPA axis, when you see the lion, yes, your body is stressed, because it needs epinephrine to pump the blood to your heart into your legs, so you run away from the lion. So those are all normal responses that we're supposed to have that is in place as good stress. The problem with our society now is that we have chronic stress. So instead of our brains turning off at night, we work late into the night, we watch TV, maybe after work and even though we don't think it's stressful, we think, Oh, I'm just relaxing, a lot of TV nowadays is super stressful to what you're perceiving. That also is, you know, like, puts out a lot of hormones in you going home, it's supposed to you're supposed to be relaxing, but then, you know, maybe working moms are like having screaming babies and, having to cook and so we just have this chronic stress and that produce production of epinephrine and norepinephrine longterm can cause inflammation in our body. And so what is inflammation? So if you have a lot of epinephrine and norepinephrine, it's supposed to constrict your circulation in order to help you run away, put the blood where it needs to go. But long-term constriction of your blood vessels, then what leads to high blood pressure. So that is one of the really big chronic diseases nowadays, like stress can cause high blood pressure and then high blood pressure goes and increases your risk for heart attacks and stroke. So cardiovascularly that's not good, right? Another thing that stress can do with an overproduction of cortisol is cortisol can make your gut leaky, meaning the tight junctions in your gut become less tight and you start letting in a lot more antibodies or toxins into your body from the food that you eat, okay or the drinks that you drink. These toxins your body start making antibodies too because that's where a lot of your immune cells housed in your gut, your small intestine. And then when you start making antibodies to these foods, or these toxins, they go and attack your thyroid, they go and attack your skin, they cause brain fog, you have overwhelmed. And so the gut now is more involved in this inflammation pathway. Then that can also cause worsening of your symptoms. So cortisol, leading to leaky gut, leaky gut cleaning to more autoimmune problems and inflammation. Inflammation long term, is going to affect your aging, right. So if you think that small amount of stress is okay, but a lot of stress to your body will ultimately lead to long term inflammation, and there's long term inflammation, whether it's in your gut or cardiovascular health can affect your cells, okay? The way you detox, the way you are able to make DNA, okay, the length of life of your cells. I think, also just ultimately, your cardiovascular inflammation and risk of your blood vessels also is important to note. So, stress affects your whole body, it's not necessarily just one part. And so reducing stress will be important, but learning I know, environmental, you can't really reduce stress, but it's like how to change your mindset and dealing with stress is, in changing your lifestyle factors would be important to how you can take the stress and not have it affect you as much. Because stress I know is in everybody's life.

Amir Ginsberg:

Thank you so much for mentioning this. And I think it's my key takeaway from this is looks like the ability of us to handle those stress stressors effectively, is probably one of the biggest powerful anti aging tools. Otherwise, it's like, you know, you have a fire, and you keep putting fuel on or wood on one hand, and then you try to put some water or sand to set it off. But there's still enough word for it. And the stresses the here in this is the wood, right? And I have to mention, and then you mentioned that the whole chain of reaction that started with stress or the gut to the cortisol, the gut and everything. And you mentioned that the skin and I think one great example is if you simply look at any one of the US presidents before they start their time and four years later, that's like an anti aging study. It's actually aging study, not anti Yeah.

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Their hair has all become white. It really affects their skin, and they get more wrinkles. And yeah, I mean, it's a very stressful job. No one I mean, I would say half the nation at all times hates you.

Amir Ginsberg:

The thing though, is that on a personal level, and the perception, everybody of us might be a president, especially if we're stress enough, there's enough stressors that we may not age as president because I think they also don't sleep, but you see the hair and the skin and everything. So that's a good example for people just to see it. Is there anything else you want to mention for perhaps things that people can do with stress, or that we haven't mentioned?

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

I think it's key to know that whatever symptoms you're having, know that don't just brush it off to say that it's normal. Because it's not normal. Even though maybe conventional medicine might not know what to do, they just bring you from specialists and specialists. And you've kind of lost hope labs are normal. Continue to look and search and find someone who understands you educate yourself and know that there is hope because there are people in this functional medicine community that understands what you're going through and they can keep investigating, right, they can keep trying to look for the root cause. We just want to instill that hope into people and so if, you know like I said if you need help, you don't know what to do, continue to educate yourself and reach out. We do telemedicine, we do free initial phone calls for people so they can and see what's going on globally. So call us at 714-709-8000. And we'll be able to point you in the right way, you know, if we can't help you we will tell you. And so there's always options. I don't want people to feel alone in this journey.

Amir Ginsberg:

Yeah, that's a great message. I think the difference between a functional medicine evaluation here to a conventional, for example, is that you may together with your patient just figure out the source of stress that they were not aware of. It's not just, let's take this drug, or let's just do this or that you may just realize that you're eating while you're stressed. And that's a core problem with your gut issues and all that sort of thing. These may not be the first to come in mind when you think about stress, or when you think about a problem. Yeah, definitely. Patty, any questions you want to bring?

Patti Shelton:

I'm just taking my little notes. Yeah, I think like any, the practices that you can share that like that helped people. It sounds like you recommend that people kind of practice these techniques for dealing with stress all the time to get those pathways set in the brain. And then maybe use those breathing techniques extra when they need a little bit more help distressing?

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Yeah, so like I said, it is very personalized to see how you can deal with stress. For example, people with adrenal fatigue, tend to be type A people, right? They're people pleasers, they're very successful. They want to say yes to everything. So a practical tip, I would say is like, no, like, set your boundaries, make sure you tell people No, I can't do this. And it's okay to say no. I like to tell people, no, there's something on my calendar. And it's like the word something. Because I'm not lying. There's really something on my calendar, you know, or find that accountability person that will tell you Okay, no, you should not do this. I'm type A, I will always say yes, but my husband is more relaxed. So he'll be that person that says, No, you shouldn't do this. Right. So some people need that. I think support is very, very important in dealing with stress, having somebody to be able to talk to or get support from that's also an important tool or Toolbox or to have in your back pocket. I think ultimately, though, for me, for helping people deal with stress is to talk to them, get a good history and see what can be those stressors. Like you said, there's a lot of underlying physical stressors that they don't know about, whether it's heavy metals, or mold, or stealth infections, or environmental stressors, right? Or their lifestyle, the food that they eat, they don't know they're putting into their body, or gut issues. So those are all stressors that can cause so it's not just emotional stress, that people have. So those are all things that you can deal with when if we find it. But if you go to a regular doctor, or conventional doctor, they won't even know to find it in the first place. So figuring that out, I would say is the most important thing.

Patti Shelton:

Um, what about exercise? Do you have like a way that you recommend people use exercise to deal with stress?

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Yes, to a certain extent. So the people I see that have a lot of fatigue, it's very key to not push your body to stress your adrenals out even more. So. Yes, everyone says exercise is great. And I definitely say yes, it's great. But you have to evaluate how your body is after you exercise. So let's say you're in the beginning stages of fatigue, but you really you can bounce back really quickly. Exercising makes you feel great, then yes, go and exercise. Moderate exercise means that you can get your heart rate up and not sing and not be able to sing. And so that's moderate exercise, usually, like 150 minutes a week, right? And helps you deal with stress. And that's great. But let's say you're someone that is very tired, and you can't even like get out of bed or you can to motivate yourself to exercise and you really have to evaluate. Don't push yourself to exercise just because it's good for you. Right? Because then your adrenals might be already burned out. And if you exercise even more, you could actually tire yourself out even more. So let's say you go out and you go on a run and you just feel like you've crashed after that, that is not a good form of exercise for you, right? Maybe you need to do something way gentler like yoga, which focuses a lot more on the breathing exercises. So like I said, it's still very personalized, the general normal person, yes, by great go exercise and, and get your cardiovascular health a half up to deal with stress. But if you are on the spectrum of adrenal fatigue that I see a lot of because we're like that the ICU of adrenal fatigue, then, there is a time and a place for exercise. If you're not ready, then I usually say don't do it yet. I will let my people know when they are ready to get back into it.

Amir Ginsberg:

And on that note, I think it's really important maybe to say that, it seems like sometimes overtraining or excessive workouts are actually the cause of stress. And we see a lot of people reports on the longevity community, for example, they're competitive athletes, and they're saying, Oh, my God, when we're competing, we look 40 years older, and then we just take two weeks break. That two weeks break, and these wrinkles are just gone. My skin feels great and what have I done? Well, I just stopped to work out. So it's, it's real, right? It's not imagining they're not imagining this.

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Yes, I have many, many patients with adrenal fatigue that are highly functioning athletes that push their body until it crashes. And so just gotta evaluate and see, hey, if this is causing your stress, maybe it's not worth it to crash every time you exercise.

Amir Ginsberg:

And people what happens is they read the literature and they see a study, for example, I mentioned growth hormone released after high intensity workouts and they think okay, so I'll just do it every day. But I don't think it works like that. Right.

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Yeah, yeah.

Patti Shelton:

They both think if some is good, then more must be better. But that's not really how that is. Right? Yeah. Very true. Beautiful. Thank you so much. It's amazing information to share with the communities.

Dr. Carrie Lam, MD:

Yeah, thank you for having us.