Questioning Authority: Q&A with Leading Authorities for Entrepreneurial Excellence

From Commodity Trading to Compassionate Care: Autoimmune Disease and Nick Tan's Journey Through Hashimoto's to Holistic Health

• Scott Vatcher • Episode 7

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Struggling with Hashimoto's was a wakeup call that led Nick Tan to pivot from commodity trading to the world of holistic healthcare. Our latest episode features this health crusader's journey, where he unfolds the story of his personal battle and the birth of his transformative Gut Care program. Join us as we discuss autoimmune diseases, likening their targeted attacks to cancer, and unearth the vital, yet frequently overlooked, sign of persistent fatigue that could be a pre-disease state.

Nick's epiphany transformed him from a trader to a health practitioner, and he shares the life-altering realization that our environment, including our exposure to sunlight and artificial lighting, can significantly influence our well-being. Discover the simple yet effective lifestyle shifts, like adopting blue light blocking glasses, that have markedly improved both Nick's sleep and overall health. These are not just personal victories but milestones that echo the profound impact of aligning one's life with natural rhythms.

Our conversation concludes by addressing the health spiral, the concept that one negative health factor can ignite a chain reaction of decline. Yet, there's hope in reversing this trend. Nick advocates for a lifestyle audit, targeting sleep, stress, and nutrition to uncover the roots of health issues. We also unpack the immune-modulating powers of the equatorial sun, offering tailored advice for safe sun exposure to enhance your health trajectory. Tune in to discover how to forge a path toward better health and vitality with actionable insights from Nick Tan's journey.

Check out Nic's program here: https://www.onenictan.com/gutcare

Takeaways

Autoimmune disorders like Hashimoto's can be caused by an overactive immune system and can affect various parts of the body.
Gut health plays a crucial role in overall well-being, including digestion, immunity, and mental health.
Leaky gut occurs when the tight junctions in the gut become permeable, allowing harmful substances to enter the bloodstream.
A nutrient-dense diet, stress management, quality sleep, and sunlight exposure can improve gut health and overall health.
A lifestyle audit can help identify the root causes of health issues and guide individuals towards making positive changes.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
01:09 Nic's Journey with Hashimoto's
03:00 Understanding Hashimoto's and Autoimmune Disorders
04:03 Symptoms of Hashimoto's
06:18 Taking Health into Your Own Hands
08:06 The Limitations of the Medical Model
09:00 Discovering the Power of Sunlight
11:52 The Gut-Brain Connection
13:18 Understanding Gut Health and Leaky Gut
14:18 The Importance of Gut Health
19:12 The Impact of Gut Health on Overall Well-being
22:25 The Role of Diet in Gut Health
25:49 Exploring Different Diets
26:29 Addressing Fatigue and Gut Health
27:13 Taking the First Step Towards Better Health
30:30 The Power of a Lifestyle Audit
31:52 The Benefits of Equatorial Sun
37:26 Boosting Testosterone Naturally
39:34 Closing Remarks

Speaker 1:

I'm Scott Vatcher, the host of Questioning Authority, where I question authority figures about health, wealth and relationships. This episode is brought to you by TheAuthorityCocom, helping health professionals be seen as the go-to authority in their community. I hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome to the Questioning Authority podcast. I'm your host, Scott Vatcher, and on this podcast, we talk about everything related to health, business and relationships to help you, the listener, achieve better success and fulfillment both in your business and in your life. And I want to welcome my special guest today, nick Tan. Welcome, hey, scott. Thanks for having me All the way from Mexico. That's pretty cool. I love this podcasting gig that can really connect us all the way around the world. It's brilliant.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm looking forward to our chat today, and yeah it's been a lovely day today and I guess it's like nighttime, so we are on the opposite end of the world. Yeah, yeah, it's incredible a lovely day today and I guess it's like nighttime, so we are on the opposite end of the world.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, it's incredible. I love it. So you're a holistic healthcare practitioner and you've created a program called Gut Care eight weeks to heal your gut. Tell me your story about that. How did that program come about, how did you get to where you are today, and why is this work so important to you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, sure I would start off with gut care really evolved from me trying to overcome my own health issues and it really started off in 2018 when I was first diagnosed with Hashimoto's. Really started off in 2018 when I was first diagnosed with Hashimoto's and I was having sleep issues, anxiety, wasn't able to function really well at work, brain fog and constant fatigue, so I really wasn't taking care of my health and I was just like overworked as a commodity trader back in Singapore and you know I went through different doctors trying to find out what was wrong with me and that was when I found out about Hashimoto's.

Speaker 1:

So can you for the audience. Even though our audience is mainly healthcare professionals, there's lots of small business owners who listen. Give us a brief description as to what Hashimoto's is. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2:

So Hashimoto's is a form of autoimmune disorder where the adaptive immune system has become overactive, and we can go into why that's the case later on. And essentially because of that, the adaptive immune system goes into an overdrive and for my case the immune cells started to become overactive and started to attack the thyroid glands and basically lowering of the metabolism of my thyroid, and that's how Hashimoto's was diagnosed. And then obviously autoimmune disorder can happen in different parts of the body. So depending on where the immune cells are overactive, then you end up with different types of diagnosis. So it could be like rheumatoid arthritis, it could be type 1 diabetes, depending on where the immune cells are overactive. Then you end up with different types of diagnosis. So it could be like rheumatoid arthritis.

Speaker 1:

It could be type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, depending on where the immune cells decided to go a little bit haywire, so to speak. So from what you're saying there do I get that? It's not the same by any means, but is it a similar mechanism to, say, cancer, where cancer cells will grow and if they disperse to the liver, then you get liver cancer. If they disperse to the brain, then there's brain cancer, et cetera. So this autoimmune process that goes haywire can target different areas and so depending on where it targets that's the quote, unquote disease or symptoms that you get.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you got it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Essentially good cause. The mechanism is more or less the same, but then obviously when it hits a certain particular organ, then how healthcare practitioner deal with that symptom would be entirely different. But in a broader sense of things, generally speaking, when we're trying to reverse any form of autoimmune disorder, essentially the focal point is more or less the same, because it's essentially coming back to understanding why the adaptive immune system is overactive.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay. So in your case with Hashimoto's you'd mentioned fatigue was a big one, huge, yeah, yeah. So fatigue again. It's a bit of a rabbit war in a warren hole, isn't it when? Fatigue? And again for the listeners here. A lot of listeners are probably thinking, oh, I've got fatigue? Do I have Hashimoto's? So fatigue can be that one where it's very difficult to figure out where that's coming from. What else did you have in the way of symptoms that drove you towards figuring out? That's what was going on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would say fatigue is a huge one, especially it starts to become persistent. So even if you were to sleep for 10 hours and you wake up still feeling groggy, like you've been hit by a truck, then generally speaking, fatigue is often one of the what I call pre-disease state and it's worth looking into. I actually dragged my feet for a couple of years and just figure out that, um, you know, it's just mostly due to aging or something else. It didn't really occur to me that I had Hashimoto's until much later, so I kind of decided to live with it for the later part of my 30s. The other thing would be brain fork, having difficulty concentrating at work, making all kinds of like careless mistakes that you know, like rookie mistakes and being a commodity trader, we have to get our numbers right all the time. So mixing up definitely terrible thing, and you know I was constantly worried and anxious that. You know I was about to get fired because of my you know um, like careless mistakes, so to speak. But it was just one of those things.

Speaker 1:

It wasn't because I don't care, but it's just that you know, it just wasn't clicking mentally yeah, and so you know what, what uh sort of rang true for me there and what you'd said there is again, with health care practitioners, we tend to be the worst clients or worst patients, don't we? Um, you know, I'm tired, I'm sleeping 10 hours, but I'm still tired, as uh, I'll get over it, I'll be fine, you know. Um, so what was it? What was that impetus to have you finally go? Okay, this is enough. I need to do something about this yeah, um.

Speaker 2:

So for me it was actually more of like a medical checkup. I decided to run a set of labs and when it came back they noticed that my thyroid, my T3 and T4 were in the lower range and my cholesterol level was like slightly elevated. And the doctor basically said hey, you know, it could be something related to your thyroid, it could be hypothyroid or it could be. We had to go through a round of additional testing and eventually the antibody test came back and it was elevated. Yeah, so that was the official diagnosis.

Speaker 2:

But for me because being curious and having gone through a couple of years before when my mom was passed away from breast cancer, it made me became very curious in terms of what exactly is the root cause of Hashimoto's or autoimmune disorder. So from a standard medical practice, from a conventional standpoint, you know there's nothing much you can actually do about it and really the only thing that you could do is just go on thyroid support medication and, you know, be done with it. But I tried that for a while and really didn't really see much improvements and eventually I felt that I had to get to the bottom of things or at least, from a bad minute, try to understand how did that really happen, and is there anything I can actually do to lower the antibodies so that I can at least move towards more of like a symptom free type of living again, because I really wasn't getting much quality of life and that's just no way to live for someone that just turned 40 year old then 40 is young, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's only halfway through 40s young to me anyway. So is that you saying, basically, the medical model helped you to diagnose the situation? But then they just left you and they were like, well, you can take some meds, it may or may not help. And you try that and it didn't help. And so you, as a, as a trader, said listen, I not even, as you were not a holistic practitioner at this point at all, were you? No, I wasn't. Just as a, yeah, wow, just as a trader. You're like, no, this, this isn't right. I need to, I need to do something about this. So, so how does how does that then lead you to where you are today? How did you go from that to where you are now?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so, what happened was I started to take health into my own hands and I went down the functional medicine path and one thing led to another and basically I was slowly introduced to supplements and then understanding how the gut works, and one thing led to another and before I knew it I was like three years down the rabbit hole and really trying to figure out what was wrong with me and really peeling things off, one symptom after another, and initially the supplements part actually worked and I could feel myself getting my energy back, but eventually it plateaued, which made me realize that, okay, this, this worked a little bit better than just um taking medication. But then it wasn't really addressing um, the root cause, at the deep enough level, and it really wasn't until um about five years ago, when I stumbled upon this neurosurgeon by the name of dr jack cruz, who lives in new orleans at that point in time, and he had this extremely radical way of looking at health and he started to identify things that I've never heard before or never had any of my practitioners mentioned, which was things like sunlight, for example, or even the light that we live under, like, for example, blue light after dark actually inhibits the melatonin secretion, it destroys our sleep. And I was like, ok, is that the reason why I can't sleep at night till like three in the morning, because I was like staring at my phone and he started like a lot of things started firing off. I was like, okay, like is this the reason why I wasn't able to sleep and I'm struggling to sleep? This, that and the other um.

Speaker 2:

So eventually I decided like all things when you try to do like simple, safe experiment was I decided to invest in a pair of blue light blocking glasses, because that um essentially helps to filter out the um blue light from led light bulbs and whatnot. And the very first time I wore a pair uh, it was like 9 30 at night and I'm I'm like a night owl for like since I was in my 20s and I remember that day really well because it was 9.30 at night I put on the pair and by 10.15, I was like yawning Tears was coming up from my eyes and I went to bed for the first time and it was the first time in my life where I could sleep through the night. And I woke up and I was like, oh't.

Speaker 2:

I mean, it was just like everything just flipped and I was like I couldn't believe that just by changing the kind of light that we allow in our eyes or our lives had such a big impact on my biology.

Speaker 1:

So that kind of took me down another rabbit hole and, before you know it, five years down the road here I am, and the reason why I'm smiling during this whole thing is I've been wondering why you've been in such like. You look like you're in an orange room or something. Is it because you're you're, it's nighttime for you and you've got all your blue blockers on, and so it's all orange?

Speaker 2:

yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's a little bit strange sometimes when I jump on podcasts, yeah, but like it's a good opportunity to explain, like, how it all really works, you know, from an aetherythm standpoint, and how it protects our sleep, and it's pretty straightforward, because when we sleep well, the body tends to regenerate, and when we can regenerate, then half the problem essentially solved.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and it's so simple and it's free. Basically, I mean, if you want to buy some blue blocking lenses, but, um, I've seen them online. When they first came out I I got a pair years ago and I don't know like 40, 50 bucks for a pair and now you can get them for five bucks. Like, again, supply and demand. So, um, no real excuse for anyone, uh, who's got some trouble sleeping, to not try this as a as a free experiment. I've never heard it go quite so well as you the first time wearing them. That's, that's amazing.

Speaker 1:

Like I did, I thought from my experience I'd seen it a little bit more of a slow burn effect. I thought from my experience I'd seen it a little bit more of a slow burn effect, but hey, I mean, you know that just shows you how incredibly powerful a small change can be. So I know your program's called Gut Care eight weeks to a healthy gut and that's phenomenal, like if you're getting results with people in as short as eight weeks. Because again, my understanding around gut health is is it? You know it could take months to years to. You know quite a long time to heal that gut. So curious, tell me what you know.

Speaker 1:

A couple of things around gut, because I think it will come back to a little bit of, you know, finding the root cause, like you said, of a lot of these, for example, autoimmune issues like what. What is the root cause? Where's it all coming from? And, and you know you, you'll let us know a bit better, but I feel like you're probably going to say the gut. So tell me what like? What is gut health and what is leaky gut? So maybe start with leaky gut and then what is it to not have leaky gut?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, sounds good. Maybe what I could do is just quickly introduce gut and then lead that into leaky gut. So yeah, sure, that way it will make a little bit more sense.

Speaker 2:

Make more sense. Perfect, the canthum and anus, right. So it's kind of like a big, long tube. But essentially the primary role of the gut is to break things that we eat down into nutrients, and the nutrients get broken down and become vitamins, minerals, as well as like fuel for our cells through the mitochondria and the gut. Health affects a lot of different aspects of our well-being.

Speaker 2:

It's not just to digest food and assimilate nutrients, but there's also a immune immunity component to it which is tied to leaky gut that I'm about to get into. But there's also a very interesting gut brain connection that is, uh, essentially connected via the microbiome, which I'm sure we'll talk about, as well as the vagus nerve. So they're all kind of like connected, and a very common saying is the gut is the second brain. So essentially, when we are able to digest well, most of the time we are able to think well as well, and the opposite is also true. It's a bidirectional feedback loop. If we are anxious or we are not digesting well, it tends to feed anxiety to the brain as well, and vice versa. So it's a very dynamic relationship that we have, and in addition to that, the gut is also responsible for making about 70% of our immune cells, as well as important neurotransmitters and hormones such as like serotonin. I think that's about 80% of them is made in the gut, so it's very fascinating and when it comes to the leaky gut.

Speaker 2:

Essentially, what leaky gut really is is the gut is actually made up of, like tight junctions, but when we start to eat like gluten or anything, that's inflammatory.

Speaker 2:

And if you were to go back to the gut-brain axis again and, like you, add into that, like what actually happens is the body is actually sensitive in the sense whereby, when we put food in the mouth, it actually starts to trigger signals into the rest of the body to prepare specific enzymes to start breaking specific food that we are chewing in the gut down in our mouth down.

Speaker 2:

And what happens is when the vagus nerve is not working very well, for example when we are stressed, it doesn't release the right kind of enzymes to prepare for the food that's actually coming down into the stomach and the small intestines and as a result of that, we are not able to digest the food really well, and what happens is the tight junctions in the gut starts to become leaky, so to speak. So what actually happens then is you have viruses, bacteria and even food particles that can leak through the tight junction and essentially leaks into the bloodstream because of this particular protein known as anolin. And what happens is when you have foreign molecules that end up in parts of our body that's not supposed to be there. It creates some kind of like immune response, so to speak. So but, it's not.

Speaker 2:

It's like a molecular mimicry. So, as a result of that, when leaky gut becomes chronic, that's one of the main root causes, so to speak, of potential autoimmune disorder as well as leaky gut Right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean that's a great explanation, I think, as healthcare practitioners, unless you have a specialty in gut, you have an idea about what's going on, but you do tend to forget you do unless you deal specifically with it. Like, for example, I'm a chiropractor and although there are lots of chiropractors who do you know more work with the gut, we were mainly spinal nerve system focused.

Speaker 1:

And so you know vagus nerve stands out. You know, I think as a chiropractor, most of us would be very familiar with the effects of the vagus nerve stands out.

Speaker 1:

Um, you know, I think as a chiropractor, most of us would be very familiar with the effects of the vagus nerve from a, from a spinal perspective and then the effects, the onflowing effects from a spinal issue causing problems to the vagus, but forgetting around then how that flow on effect, and then from the other side, how that vagus nerve can be affected, not from spinal but from food itself. And then that autoimmune response, which can then lead down to like we talked about earlier, depending on where it happens in the body, can then be related to. You know, I mean, some of the testimonials that I've seen of people that work with you is just fantastic. Like I just actually wrote a few down, I wanted to list a few things. We might go into them a little bit.

Speaker 1:

You know Crohn's disease, poor sleep, lowered immunity, chronic fatigue, burnout, so there's, you know, a number of things that I feel healthcare practitioners are prone to a number of these things and just forget about the gut being the root cause or just ignore it, like like you did when you were you know, a number of years that you kind of feel like you know my body will figure it out, because I think, as, as again, us self-practitioners tend to believe in the body's ability to fix itself. But in your case, the way you've described it is really great because the immune system is doing its job. This autoimmune response is not the immune system doing something wrong. It's we're doing the wrong thing and then these molecules are getting through the leaky gut and the immune system's just responding to it the way that it should.

Speaker 2:

And if we can then remove those molecules from the blood, then the the immune system will continue to just do its job properly, not have to deal with that anymore yeah, yeah, that's that's usually one of the biggest game changer that I see in the eight-week program, whereby when people start to do things right in the right order, then they start to basically see a huge shift, even with simple things like removing certain food that's causing or triggering the inflammation.

Speaker 2:

That itself is a big game changer and obviously, apart from the food that we eat, it's also because of the modern world, the lifestyle and the environment that we are in. So it's really difficult to live like a perfectly healthy life these days as a modern human um just from simple things like pesticides, for example, or being exposed to microplastic um, there's no point in um being perfect, like you know, being a perfectionist about it and being neurotic because we live in a toxic environment. But it's more about how do we become but at the same time managing it in such a way that it doesn't hurt our health, so that we can reverse the autoimmune component and really quiet down the immune system. Yeah, so like environmental toxins is another one yeah, huge.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we might get into a little bit more of that. But, um, something that stood out earlier is you were saying this this the gut, the microbiome, etc. Can be responsible for a huge amount of serotonin, and you know, you know we tend to think serotonin, brain serotonin, happy molecule, you know that type of scenario, but it's all coming from here. But you're saying up to 80% could be gut related. So then the effects around mental health and then, like you said, fatigue and just that brain fog all makes sense, that is, you know that gut brain connection is huge. So back to you mentioned foods.

Speaker 1:

It's such a contentious issue in the world right now. Like we've got everything from vegan to carnivore. Like you, you couldn't get more different, and people certain people will thrive on all of these different diets. It's actually phenomenal how incredible the human gut is. Animals, they eat the same food, pretty much one or two different things, completely that's their whole diet all the time, whereas humans, we eat everything. Have you found that with your gut care program that? How different is it for different people? Like it does, everyone tend to be on a very similar diet and and there does seem to be a better diet than others.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I tend to be more focused on the carnivore side, at least in the very beginning of the protocol, mostly because it's nutrient dense. And when I say carnivore side, at least in the very beginning of the protocol, mostly because it's nutrient dense, and when I say carnivore I don't just do like a standard carnivore. In fact I focus very much on nutrient dense food. I don't have like a particular preference, but I would like to focus on things that has very high omega fatty acids. So I focus, which is a lot of good, like minerals that we can't get just by eating beef.

Speaker 2:

So it's kind of like a modified version and it's great because a lot of my clients are busy professionals and they haven't really got a lot of time to prepare food.

Speaker 2:

But everyone can spend five minutes preparing like a simple meat-based meal that doesn't require them to spend, like you know, an entire hour in the kitchen. So that tends to be a very easy win for my clients in the very beginning, just to make things simple for them, and it's tasty and satiating. So that tends to work quite well. But as we go along in the journey, what's really important is to start to introduce different foods so that my clients can start to enjoy wide variety of food again, so we would want to focus on healthy vegetables as well as things such as kimchi, kefir you know, introducing dairy back into the gut again and all these wonderful like pro and prebiotic, because one particular component that we haven't really spoke about, which is also very strongly connected to the gut, is the microbiome. So having a rich and diverse microbiome is also a very important component to restoring health as well as optimizing health in the long run.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I definitely wouldn't have a problem with trying. I've thought about trying carnivore for a period of time. It's very restrictive, so it's not the easiest diet to follow for a long-term strategy and there's no way I would go without vegetables forever. But I would like to try it. I think it could be a really interesting experiment.

Speaker 1:

And you know I'm a big meat fan. I have a smoker in my backyard, I smoke meat on the regular and just like it's my favorite thing and my daughter is the same she absolutely loves it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no one can say no to a good barbecue, that's right love the barbecue.

Speaker 1:

Here in australia it's quite, quite easy, you know. Basically all year long there's no snow where I am, so it's it's like not in mexico either, though hey yeah, not here, yeah so definitely in the realm of small business owners, healthcare professionals, I think fatigue tends to be a big one.

Speaker 1:

We have a lot of hats we put on, like we have our small business hat, we have our professional hat, we have our health hat. You know how do couple of these things are happening for me and I do want to check it out, like what's going to be the best way for them to, you know, dive a little bit deeper and just have at least a focus on okay, is this what's happening and what can I do about it?

Speaker 2:

Okay, and are you referring this from a gut health perspective or fatigue perspective?

Speaker 1:

I assume a little bit of just in general, like if somebody's listening and they're like, yeah, you know what, I do have a bit of fatigue or, man, my brain fog, I just can't shake it or they're actually having gut symptoms, you know know, because it's so varied in the symptomatology that, um, just they know there's something going on and, like you, it's been hanging around for a few years and they're just kind of ignoring it or not knowing what to do. Where would they start?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I would say that if I have to turn back the clock and look at my past self, I wouldn't delay, purely because the more we delay when we start to realize what's going on and try to firefight and fight back and take back our health, the longer we wait, the more work we have to do. So I would do it all over again. What I would do is, if any particular symptom is to last more, it's probably a good idea to start getting it checked, just so then you can get your health back before it snowballs into something more unmanageable. Um, so that would help me do things.

Speaker 2:

Um, if I have to basically do it all over again, and you know like, you can even try to do things yourself by paying attention to the food that you eat and see how that sits. You know 30 minutes after you've had your meal and you know. Just pay attention to what you eat. That's usually a good sign. And obviously, when it comes to fatigue, pay attention to your sleep and stress levels as well. So, gut, sleep and stress they tend to go hand in hand together, like it's a very synergistic approach and more often than not they're always interconnected. So I would say that if we start to notice that either of these three pillars is getting a little bit out of control, then I would slow down and focus in on on those things to try and address it and obviously, if you need help and support like it's always a good time to to reach out to someone that you trust for for additional help yeah, yeah, I get it like I call it when I speak with clients.

Speaker 1:

I call it like the, the downward spiral of health, like one thing can lead to the next, can lead to the next, can lead to the next, and it's just this spiral that continues down. You're like, and you can blame it on. Oh, I feel like maybe I'm just getting older. You can blame it on that. And you know, I say to people I don't let you use age as as a, as an issue like that is not, you know, unless you're perfect. And then like when you're 80, and then all of a sudden you're like okay, maybe age is, is a consideration but our bodies are designed to live for quite a long time, be healthy for the whole time.

Speaker 1:

You know if, if we're doing the right things and you know, if we can figure out what's small and and create a change, and then then we can create the upward spiral, whereas, whereas one small change for example, blue light lenses could then help you sleep better, and then if you're sleeping better, then you're handling stress better, if you're handling stress better, your leaky gut can get better. Your leaky gut can get better. You can, you know, and this upward spiral can happen Absolutely. And so you know if, if anyone out there is listening, they're like, yeah, I'd like to check this out, but I don't quite know where to start. You have a what is it? A health check, or like a complimentary call that you can jump on and discuss with people? What do you call it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a lifestyle audit. So basically, up on, we understand what's bothering you at the moment and basically I have a very simple way of doing an audit on your sleep, your stress and your nutrition and diet and then we basically run through them and help you identify what are the potential root costs, because every individual is unique and basically we break things down to see how we can best solve this problem so you wouldn't have to worry about it again.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I would guarantee, like, take advantage of that call you know, check and see what's going on. It's an audit, right. So it's a fantastic way that, even if you're not with a specific symptom, but you're just like, yeah, I want to be better, you know, I might take you up on that audit, check myself out and see how things are going. And there was one thing in your um bio that I want to make sure that I don't forget to ask you before we do jump off. It was the power of the equatorial sun. I want to know what that means. Like I I believe from our conversation I've got a bit better of an idea, but I want to hear what is this Sun?

Speaker 2:

is actually one of my five pillars of healing and it's a very powerful one because most people actually understand OK, most people probably think that sun gives you skin cancer, especially in Australia. That's a very huge thing. But in addition to that, um, sunlight is a very powerful immune modulator. It actually, um, like suppresses the adaptive immune system but at the same time it stimulates the innate immune system, so that that's how we get like vitamin d in order to fight against, um, you know, infection and whatnot. So it's huge in a lot of different ways. And also, apart from that, it powers up the mitochondria, which then obviously the powerhouse of the cell starts producing enough energy which helps with a very big healing component to improve my client's quality of life.

Speaker 2:

So the power of equatorial sun, or especially during summertime, has like a really potent effect on our health, and I don't mean by, you know, sitting outside and getting sunburned, but it's more of like practicing reasonable, uh sun exposure, even if it's just like five, ten minutes of sun, to basically allow the red light from the sun to go past our skin, to essentially stimulate the cell so that we can have more energy from a cellular level. And there has been some interesting studies. I'll be happy to share some of the links with you where this guy actually did a very comprehensive study whereby the equatorial sun is particularly strong in ultraviolet light and the further we go away from the tropics further north or further south, he actually found a very strong correlation of cancer as well as autoimmune diseases starting to increase the further we go away from the equator.

Speaker 2:

So that was a very telling data point and obviously you can tie that and correlate that back to vitamin D as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt we need sun for vitamin D In those studies. Is there an ideal amount of time Like is five minutes sufficient, or should we be looking at 10? Should we be looking at taking our shirts off so we get more skin exposed? Is there any guidelines on that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. First of all it depends on the skin type. You know, obviously if we have darker skin, then the likelihood of us making vitamin D would require a much longer time because of the melanin that's in our skin. So Mother Nature is fair, so it takes a longer time to make vitamin D if we have darker skin, but then you obviously don't get sunburned. Versus someone, for example, living in Ireland with Fitzpatrick skin, type number one, most likely they just need like five minutes. They can produce vitamin d more efficiently, but the likelihood of them getting sunburn is going to be much quicker. So they would have to be more mindful of sun exposure, especially when it comes to equatorial sun.

Speaker 2:

So one of the simple hacks that I recommend to my clients who are just getting accustomed to sun exposure is to always start off with morning sun, because morning sun tends to be much lower in UV light and you don't get burned. So what happens is the first hour of sunrise, first two hours is always a good time between sunrise and sunset, and that conditions our skin to build up more of like a melanin so that it allows us to be outside during noontime and over time we would be able to tolerate that. I would say it's no different from going to the gym. You know we don't go in and start lifting the heaviest weight trying to break the record. Start slow and basically build it up and always listen to your body and not get burned.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and something I've heard recently as well as a like a double whammy, but in a good way, is getting that morning sun, getting your eyes and your circadian rhythms Like when you first wake up. Getting that blast of sun really sets that circadian rhythm correctly and helps with your sleep patterns as well, just like you know the opposite at night getting those blue light blockers on, but in the morning. Get that real blast of sun will have a big impact.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Yeah, it also helps with dopamine and serotonin production as well, especially early in the morning. And then another nice bonus is it helps to optimize your testosterone and hormones as well, especially early in the morning.

Speaker 1:

and then another nice bonus is it helps to optimize your testosterone and hormones as well ah, yes, he said something about testosterone and he um, you know what one of the way like as your journey went on, you'd mentioned? You know, in your 40s you doubled your testosterone levels, which is just off the charts, phenomenal without actually, you know, injecting the oil. Is that? Is that one of the you know tricks of the trade is? Is I, you know, it's probably all of it? Isn't it Like, when you get your gut right, when you're sleeping right, your body's going to make that better testosterone level? Is there any other tips or tricks out there for us? You know 40, 50-year-old men looking to give us a good boost to testosterone?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, sure, I would say, start off with the basics, fundamentals, like you can't go wrong, which is, take care of the stress levels and make sure we sleep well. Seven and a half hours of optimum sleep. The more you dream, the better. So generally that itself is going to help, uh, improve our tea, and if I can do it at 45 um, anyone can, and uh. The other thing is also to obviously watch the consumption of too much alcohol, because, uh, that tends to um split things up from estrogen level, so we don't want to become estrogen dominant and end up with the beer belly. So watch the kind of alcohol and in moderation, of course, sunlight exposure that tends to help as well and eat some quality fats, so seafood, again, high quality egg yolks, so that you can get into the sun and the LDL cholesterol can essentially convert into vitamin D as well as testosterone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I, without a doubt. I find if I have, say, two to three beer, my sleep levels at night are unbelievably bad compared to if I don't. So you know, alcohol has such an impact on the body. Haven't gotten to that point of going. You know what. I really should give it up. I haven't gotten there yet, but I do see the effects and I make sure that if I'm going to have a couple of drinks I'll know that that night I will not have a good sleep and it will affect me the next day pretty dramatically. So I really limit that, you know, try and at least at most one time during a week to have a couple of drinks.

Speaker 1:

It makes a huge, huge difference.

Speaker 2:

We all have to miss a little bit. Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, this has been brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We'll put a link in the show notes there to have people be able to book a life audit. Is that what you call it? Lifestyle audit? Yeah, lifestyle audit, that's it. Yeah, I highly want people to take advantage of that, because I think it would be eye-opening to get something like that done and really be able to dial in. A couple of small changes could make a massive difference in your life. So thank you so much for being on the show and I'm sure we're going to jump on again too. I'd like to go into more detail about a few other things, so let's do another one in the future.

Speaker 2:

Sure sounds good, and thanks for having me again. Scott, Appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

Thank you very much. So me again, scott, appreciate it. Thank you very much. So that's it for another episode of Questioning Authority. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for listening to this episode of Questioning Authority. I hope you enjoyed the show. Stay tuned for the next one coming out soon. This episode has been brought to you by the Authority Co. Helping service providers increase authority and revenue. Check out theauthoritycocom for more info.