How to Change Your Environment to Make Healthy Choices Easier, Combat Stress, & Feel Your Very Best | The Model Health Show

You are now listening to the model health show with Shawn Stevenson.

For more, visit the model health show calm.

Welcome to the Model Health Show.

Every so often, I get to share with you some of the powerful conversations that I have outside of the Model Health Show studio.

When I'm doing major media, going on cool radio shows and talk shows and also some of the top podcasts in the world as well.

And I recently had the opportunity to sit down and to be interviewed on one of the top wellness shows in the country, hosted by industry leading nutritionist and wellness coach, Mona Sharma.

And this episode is particularly powerful.

And I wanted to share this with you because this time of year, as of this recording, it's the holiday season.

There's a lot going on.

No matter when you're listening to this, it's gonna be incredibly valuable.

But with so much going on, so much going on in the world to be rooted in wellness and that's the name of her show to be rooted in wellness and family and intention and connection is more important than ever, and this is why she invited me in to interview me about this subject matter.

And so in this powerful interview, you're going to be hearing why stress is a leading cause of disease and dysfunction, plus one of the primary ways to combat excess stress, and it has to do with our relationships.

You're also going to hear how I personally taught my kids to make healthier choices.

And in fact, my youngest son, Braden, came along with me for this interview.

He had the day off from school at the time.

And so he was able to sit in and to testify, to affirm as to what I've taught him over the years.

And, of course, you can glean some insights to support your relationships, whether it's your kids grandkids nieces nephews, whatever the case might be, because we are raising the next generation of human beings.

I believe that children are the future.

Shout out to Whitney Houston.

And so having some insights, because we're dealing with little humans and they got their own Goals wishes desires, ways of doing things that they wanna do.

So how do you modulate that kind of stuff?

Also, you're gonna be learning the number one thing people blame for not achieving their goals.

And with all these modern tests and trackers to analyze your health, what's the best way to know how healthy you are?

We're gonna cover that.

Plus, how to make family meals more consistent and rewarding.

And some of that you have likely heard, because I've been shouting this from the mountaintops for the past couple of years.

But there's a lot of new insights here in this interview because of the incredible questions that Mona asked me.

And it's just such a joy. to be able to do and to be able to share this with you today.

So please enjoy this incredible interview that I did on Rooted in Wellness.

Shawn Stevenson, welcome to the Rooted in Wellness podcast.

So good to be here.

Before we dive in.

This podcast is all about ancient wisdom in our modern world and really how we can help our listeners become more rooted, but rooted in the sense of who they are, but also their health, their happiness and maybe even the inner wisdom that everyone has that they can heal.

So, to start off, what are three things that help you feel rooted in your health and who you are?

Your happiness.

Number one, family.

You know, just being around my tribe.

And, you know, you know what it's like when you make people to be a part of your tribe as well.

And just being able to glean insights and energy from both sides of the generations my mom, my mother-in-law and my kids.

That's number one.

We'll talk a lot about that today.

That was a big part of who you are and what you share.

I love that you said that first.

It's a big leverage.

It's an epigenetic influence.

Again, we'll talk more about that.

That's number one.

Number two is lots of movement.

It's something that our genes expect from us is to move.

And there's still cultures today that it is a unwritten mandate within the kind of code of the culture.

If you don't move, you die.

We required movement in order for us to survive.

And now...

The game has changed a lot.

You know, there's everything is basically accessible with your phone.

We could sit here right now and have this interview and have DoorDash delivered right to us.

We don't have to move.

Right.

We got all the entertainment we could ever imagine.

You know, people can even find a mate without going somewhere today.

You know which is it's.

It's interesting.

So that would be number two.

Lots and lots of movement.

And yeah.

Number three, play.

You know, play can be kind of incorporated with the movement.

You know, it could be parallel to that or even perpendicular.

But play, you know, I love that sentiment that we don't stop playing because we get old.

We get old because we stop playing.

That's a good one.

So I own it on those questions because I think that you know, I have such incredible speakers and guests and experts sitting in that chair.

And I think that when people look to us as practitioners in wellness, they think that healing's complicated, that the things that matter most to us are gonna come with a lengthy checklist.

And I would say nine times out of 10, everyone that sits there, it's something that's free.

It's something that's free and it's something that comes to their heart.

So thank you for owning in on that.

The other part of that too, is I also don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of the people that you and I meet with they ended up hitting rock bottom through some sort of a health diagnosis.

You are not...

You are unique to this story, but you're not unique to this story, right?

So you were diagnosed with degeneration of your spine, right, in your 20s?

At 20, yeah.

At 20.

So you've been on this healing journey and I'm curious do you notice when you drift, like when you go back to old ways that used to be part of you?

And what are the things that cause you to feel uprooted when that happens?

That's such a great question.

You know this, even this conversation itself, the umbrella that kind of covers all of this, is about culture.

And to define culture, you know really quickly.

It's the attitudes values, beliefs and behaviors shared by a group of people and then passed from one generation to the next.

And so the culture that I've intentionally created makes it really easy to not fall back into these old habits and ways of being that led to the conditions that I was in.

Now, of course, this is not perfect, but I think it can manifest its head in different ways.

And that's what's so interesting.

So at 20 I was diagnosed with this so-called incurable condition and even for this to show up on the mri, where my l4 l5, s1 discs were just like showing up black on the mri because they were so degenerated.

I was a child, 20 years old, that took years of really devolution and degeneration of my spine for it to show up like that and for me to have these very noticeable symptoms.

Um, but prior to that, when i was 15, i was at track practice and at the time i just had all these incredible aspirations and opportunities to to play football at the next level run track.

I ran a four, five, 40 already as a kid.

And at track practice I was coming off the curve into the straightaway doing a 200 meter time trial and my hip broke right.

And it's just like, how on earth would that happen to a child?

There was no fall, nothing like that.

But my bone density was so brittle and it just led to a string of additional injuries that kept me off the football field, off the track, and ultimately i get that diagnosis now.

Here's the the rub at the time and i've been really trying to champion this message because this is very, uh like, pertinent right now at the time, i was eating and this is no exaggeration and i'm gonna back this up with with some science i was eating about 90 ultra processed foods.

Okay,

And right now and this was just published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Just a couple of years ago, they looked at ultra processed food consumption by US children from 1999 to 2018.

So it's about 20 years.

In 1999, the average U.S. child was eating about 62% ultra-processed foods already.

By 2018, that number reached almost 70%.

It's like 68% of the average child's diet in the United States.

As you know, There are kids at both ends of the spectrum as well.

So that's the mean, that's the average.

I was definitely on the other end of eating mostly predominantly ultra-processed foods.

And so an average day of eating.

You know, going to I was in the deseg program, desegregation program, getting bused from the city to the quote good schools.

And so I wouldn't, I wouldn't eat breakfast at home.

You know, I was leaving the house at like 530 in the morning and taking an hour bus ride.

When I get to school, I get free lunch.

I mean, free breakfast and free lunch.

And so I'd get you know some donuts, or you know little single serving, little bowls of cereal and some juice.

And, you know, so starting my day with ultra processed foods and only ultra processed foods.

For lunch and I just shared this with my son the other day I get a personal pizza and a pretzel with cheese.

I remember this.

And so I dip the pizza into the cheese, And that was my lunch.

And then, you know, we'd get something out the vending machine before football practice.

And then after school, long bus ride home.

And it was ultra-processed foods nine times out of ten at the house.

Wow.

And I was making my body out of some of the worst possible things.

And that was the disconnection.

Because people don't realize this.

And you know, when i graduated from high school, i wanted to go to and this was just aspirational, because i didn't know anybody who went to college like i was the first person in my family to go to college, let alone graduate.

But i wanted to do a pre-med program and so i went to this university And in my biology class, which I hated, I detested science.

So why on earth would I want to go to a pre-med program with aspirations of becoming a doctor?

And it was because of the way that I was taught.

It was so disconnected from me as a human in the real world because I didn't realize, as we were learning about the cell.

When we're looking and studying the cell membrane, we're looking at the meals that we've eaten.

When we're looking at the nucleus of the cell, it's the nutrients that person has eaten.

You know, we can go on and on.

The mitochondria is made from your menu.

And so all these cell parts we're studying in this kind of abstract way, we're looking at food.

If we're talking about it in the real world, And so I was making my cells out of just garbage, right?

Newly invented fake foods.

Fake ingredients.

And so my body was falling apart.

And we could talk about some of the things I did to change that, of course.

We will, yeah.

But I went from being radically unhealthy to being one of the healthiest people on the planet, you know.

And just having this incredible transformation was inspiring to people around me.

That really was the birthing of my career.

And so I put all my chips into that healthy environment creation.

And it just went kind of along stepwise.

And again, being able to make people and to attract other people who compliment that lifestyle makes it a lot easier.

But, like i said, it can manifest in different ways because of the things we carry from that yeah, you know.

And so i carried a lot of dysfunction from the environment that i come from, a lot of violence in my environment, outside my home, inside my home and having that show up in dysfunctional things.

Maybe i'm challenging myself too much, for example, and not really honoring my body and resting enough, right.

So i went through a phase of that and, just like you know, kind of teetering into dysfunction and another manifestation of an injury or a back problem or sciatic pain or whatever, because it's something else, right.

And so it's addressing all of these, and I'm going to say this all of these gifts that I was presenting with.

They looked like challenges and devastating things at the time, but they were blessings, because they helped me to continue to grow and evolve and stack conditions in my favor.

You're pulling at my heart.

And I hope listeners too.

I really want people to share their story because when you lose your health, nothing matters.

Everything stops.

And fortunately for people who are listening, who just have curiosity around health and wellness, I think these stories really matter.

When it comes down to community, I think that, like you, when you made the transition, who you surrounded yourself with was probably such a great contributor, because you digest everything right.

Including the conversations and the friendships and everything that you have.

And for listeners on the table here, we've got Sean's incredible book.

It's called Eat Smarter.

Before the show, we're talking about like every doctor needs to be gifted this book.

And one of the first ways that you started that I love is we were never taught that the content of our cells would be determined by the food that we eat.

There was a disconnect from understanding that our mitochondria were made from our meals.

Our nuclei were made from nutrients and our membranes were made from our menu.

It's like, yes, that just got me instantly because people understand this concept of food as medicine, but because we're so disconnected from where food comes from, how it's grown, what goes into it, the process from getting it from the farm to our table, there's a big disconnect in understanding that what I eat is gonna fuel the mitochondria in my body, right?

So I love that you speak to this.

Research shows that who we eat with is just as important as what we eat, going back to community.

So when we eat in communities, you share about the concept of how it releases oxytocin, lowers our cortisol.

It can improve our digestion, improve our nutrient absorption.

Growing up at the ashram, we always ate in community.

We always ate with people in nature.

No distractions, no phones, no screens, no anything.

And it doesn't surprise me that the environment that I was in there was also such a great part of my healing journey.

But can you talk a little bit more about that?

Let's start with that big picture.

What does the science say between the connection of who we eat with and how our bodies respond to what we're eating?

Based on that,

Mm, yes, yes, yes.

So obviously, just to set the tone for that we evolved for thousands upon thousands, upon thousands of years eating together as community or having input and responsibility in the procurement of food, the preparation of the food, and eating together and also celebration.

Like this was a hallmark time of sharing tradition, and also sharing history, right?

Passing down information to the next generation.

And I think a great example of this is like a luau, you know, because it's kind of the show you know for modern day people, but you're really seeing a representation of how things were across the globe, right.

And so there was obviously the procurement of the food itself, the preparation sharing, sitting together, but there's song, there's dance, there's exploration, there's experience and everybody's involved.

Today we're no longer.

We're more and more devolved or pulled away from that and we're eating more in isolation and most of the time in front of a screen.

And my question was, is this having an impact on our health?

And even just posing that question, you already know the answer, but to what degree?

And so I dove into the research and it changed everything for me, because my obsession was food, because I'm a nutritionist.

My obsession was food and I built my career on that.

But I found that, well, this is not just more important.

This is far more important Food matters, of course it matters, absolutely.

Exercise matters.

I wrote the book on sleep wellness.

It was the first sleep-related book to become an international bestseller about 10 years ago.

Sleep Smarter.

But all of those things pale in comparison to our relationships and how they impact everything else.

And so I'm gonna just stack some things here.

I'm just gonna rattle off some things.

So number one I shared in the book one of the biggest meta-analyses ever conducted by researchers at Brigham Young University and North Carolina University of North Carolina.

And this was 148 studies, over 300,000 study participants.

And they were looking at like what are the?

And they looked at everything diet exercise, smoking habits, you name it.

And they found that people who had strong social bonds had a 50 boost in longevity versus those who did not.

Said another way people who had strong or healthy relationships had a 50 reduction in all-cause mortality.

Right, all right.

So we're talking about 50 reduction in dying prematurely from everything more so than beating obesity, beating smoking diet, exercise those things matter again, but there's something about our relationships, So that's number one.

Number two, conversations with Dr. Robert Waldinger, who's the director.

He's the fourth director of the longest running longitudinal study for humans on longevity.

Same outcome.

He's at Harvard.

Same outcome.

As he shared with me, healthy social bonds are far and away the most impactful thing on how long we're going to live.

And now to take this to the level of how does food interact with this?

Other researchers at Harvard because I was looking at this intimate act of eating together and these health outcomes, and they found that when people eat together on a consistent basis, they seem to naturally consume higher amounts of essential vitamins and minerals and all these different nutrients that help to prevent chronic diseases in those family members.

When they ate together less often.

They were consuming more ultra-processed foods and more things that were considered to be problematic for human health and thus higher rates of chronic diseases.

And I was like, okay, this is getting crazy.

Dive deeper.

And I come across this study that was published in Pediatrics on children, all right?

And they found that when kids eat with their parents and or caregivers and I'm a big minimum effective dose person like what is the on-ramp for everybody?

They found that three meals per week was a minimum effective dose.

If kids were able to do that three times a week or more, they had dramatically reduced risk of developing obesity and disordered eating.

All right, let's stack it again.

What about the parents? researchers conducted a study on some tech workers at IBM.

They were looking at the impact of quote getting home in time for dinner, which was a tradition, you know, even a few decades back.

And what they found was that if parents were able to get home in time and have dinner with their families on a regular basis, their work morale stayed high, their job satisfaction productivity, all those things stayed high.

But as soon as responsibilities cut into their ability to eat with their families on a regular basis, stress increased skyrockets.

Work morale plummets, productivity plummets, job satisfaction plummets.

And to tie all this together and answer the question why?

In my conversation with Dr Waldinger at Harvard, he shared that it's because our relationships are the most powerful means of processing stress ever discovered.

Like there's nothing else remotely close.

There isn't a supplement.

There isn't a mental hack.

Being with other people who you trust, who you love, and you know that they've got your back.

It helps us to metabolize stress.

And as you know, stress is literally killing us.

Stress, caveat, is not all bad.

We need stress.

It's a part of life.

It helps us to grow and to adapt.

Part of the healing process is stress.

But when it becomes chronic, when we're not processing stress, when we're just carrying all these things and this doesn't mean you gotta vent per se, but just being around people that you love helps your body to process stress and it's unconscious.

And so we're talking about a change in your chemistry, right?

So we know that there's a shift from this sympathetic fight or flight that we're pretty much habitually in today over to that parasympathetic rest and digest, if we're tying this into the food conversation.

And it happens automatically.

A huge increase in oxytocin when we're around people that we care about.

And oxytocin is having a moment right now, right?

Its nickname is the love hormone, cuddle hormone.

Now, I wouldn't say it's just specifically that.

There's a lot of chemistry that takes place when it comes to love.

But what we do know and I shared this in Sleep Smarter 10 years ago is that oxytocin is one of the most powerful hormones in relationship to reducing the impact of cortisol in your body.

And so it just is like, it's that thing that naturally helps to buffer stress.

And so, as we go deeper into this conversation, we can like unpack, like what are those specific things?

Yes, it metabolizes stress.

That's a very big idea, but how it all happens is really miraculous as well.

There are few things better than a home cooked meal.

It's like a warm hug inside.

It's a great opportunity to deliver some of the best nutrition as well.

All kind of managed and curated by us or our loved ones versus all the stuff out there on the streets.

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And now back to the show.

It's such a beautiful and simple concept again, right?

Craig and I talk about this all the time.

I think we've had more dinners with our kids than we ever saw our parents at dinner.

Like my dad worked at IBM, funny enough.

Come on.

It's not an accident.

That is the secrecy.

He made it home really late, but he was never available to just sit down with us at dinner.

And what I'm thinking is like gosh, I think, for children especially, it's like it creates a sense of safety right.

You're with the people who have your back, you know, you're protected during that time.

And people 10 years ago would use energy and vibration and all those words.

And now it's backed by science, right?

But there's an energy when you're with the people who you know love you.

It emanates from their body.

And in Ayurveda we talk about the concept of like.

When you eat, when you're stressed, your digestion it shunts, it stops down completely.

You cannot digest your food when you're in that state of stress.

And, like you, I don't know about you, but every single client that I've worked with this year has said that they spend more time, with the exception of one, spends more time in a state of stress than not, but also not recognizing it.

It's almost like it's become their blueprint because we live in a world that reflects that stress.

It's good to be busy, good to be doing more all the time to be available, right?

Not to mention what we're watching on our screens instantly makes us feel a sense of stress and, God knows, like the hormonal cascade that that's doing.

But I wonder, listening to you, how many of our listeners especially have adopted to living to a higher level of stress.

Like if I could step in their body, what would I feel, right?

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Yeah, we went out of there quick.

We went out of there quick.

So let's break that down and understand then, what are the long-term implications?

People.

They might be listening.

Yeah, I get it, but I can't necessarily change my lifestyle right now.

Or maybe they don't live with their family members, or maybe they didn't even have that experience growing up, right?

What are some of the long-term implications then of this isolation?

Yeah.

Oh, funny enough, this was just published about a year, year and a half ago.

And this was another one of the biggest studies ever conducted on human health and longevity.

And this looked at over 2 million people, longitudinal.

And this could be tracking them up to about 25 years plus.

And what they found was that The most dangerous thing right now for human health is social isolation and loneliness.

So individuals that had chronic states of loneliness over the study period had around a 15 higher incidence of death from all causes.

But it was... about twice as bad, around, you know, over 30%.

So this is around like 34 35 increase in all-cause mortality when people were socially isolated.

Okay,

We need each other.

And so when you're talking about energy, this is not a joke.

Like, even as we're here in this room and you know this thing, HeartMath Institute, for example our bodies are emitting certain fields that we can't see with our, you know our I don't want to say dumb, but like we see a certain spectrum of reality.

There's so much we see way less than than what's here right.

There's way more stuff, and so there's a tube torus is what they call it that extends from the human heart up to about eight feet, and so literally, when you're around other people, your energies are interacting, but And then we take it to the level of the microbiome, which is having another moment right now.

And there's a lot of microbial file sharing that takes place when you're around other people.

That trains your immune system.

What happens when you're isolated?

It's not getting that exercise that it needs for your immune system to be functioning properly.

I can go on and on and all these invisible things.

We talked about the hormone change that takes place.

We talked about the change in your nervous system.

But what I wanna make sure that I share today is something that's very practical.

And this is the fact that, again, as you mentioned, we're on our phones a lot.

We're on our phones, we're staring at screens, and we're not really being seen, right?

And so we can superficially look for that in likes and things like that and people become obsessed with doing that stuff.

But this is all, that's new.

What we need, what our genes expect and need from us, is to feel seen and valued in the real world, right.

And so giving this blessing and benefit to your children, especially today where they don't feel seen more than ever to sit there without your devices and to eat a meal together.

It's just stacking conditions because you gotta eat anyways, but it's that psychological human need of feeling like I matter, like somebody sees me.

I'm here.

I'm here and my voice matters.

And so, you know, just that's a little bit more practical than some of the invisible stuff.

We need that.

We all need that.

You know, we need that for ourselves as well.

And what I feel like one of the benefits that's happened with me, with my kids, when I brought my son my youngest son Braden, is here is it's humanized me more.

You know, because what tends to happen, and you probably had this with your father as well.

It's like, it's kind of like Superman, you know, like nothing phases him.

He's doing his dad's working, you know, and to humanize me.

And he has so much more empathy for me.

And he's like looking out for me and making sure that I'm good.

I'm taking care of myself and these kinds of things, you know?

And it's beautiful.

It's because of these touch points and sitting around together before we eat.

Nine times out of 10 we go around.

We do like a gratitude practice, right.

So we'll go around and share, you know, three things that we're grateful for from that day.

Or, you know, a while back we did like, what's something you failed at today?

And we go around and talk about these things.

And me talking about failing Me talking about failing Superman.

Here you know, it's just again.

It really helps to create more rapport and connection with our family members.

And, you know, I just want to share this because Father's Day just passed.

And I like to control my schedule, as my family knows.

I don't like to sporadic unless I choose it kind of thing.

So they're like, okay, we're going to do this stuff, you know, Sunday.

I'm like, okay, I guess.

Yeah.

And so they took me to this really dope brunch and it was awesome.

And so we all get.

We had that thing of us sitting together, we're not on our devices and we're hanging out, we're chopping it up, we're eating good food.

And we've had this tradition And I actually want to share a couple of tips if I can.

Please do, yeah.

So how to be, because this also leads into part of that question.

How do we do this today when we're more fractured than we've ever been?

Yeah.

Kids are exposed to so much through their screens.

Exactly.

And it is like, it's so addictive.

It's so savory.

It's like, it's just so much.

It's infinite, right?

And so we've got to first understand that we are addicted, right?

That's kind of the first step is understanding that we have a problem.

Yeah.

And more often than not I've had the opportunity to talk to so many different addiction specialists over the years in doing this work.

And one of the most practical things is to, if we were wanting to change a habit, is to replace it with something of equal or greater value, right?

Because just going, quote, cold turkey is very difficult.

Impossible.

It's hard.

Right?

So you got to replace what's in your hand with something else, right?

Yeah.

And so we had to anchor in in this society today.

And I just ran into, at one of his basketball tournaments, a mother and her family sharing how this book has impacted, or the Eat Smarter Family Cookbook, in changing the dynamics of how our family is eating together.

And so what do we do?

What we have done, for whatever reason and every family's gonna be different is kind of like having um, something to look forward to in that meal.

Right so, food is awesome, but you got to be careful about rewarding with food, for sure.

So, but after dinner, you know, back in st louis, before we moved to la, we had this phenomenon where we end up having a dance competition or dancing together, or it evolved into like having rap battles, all right, and so once we got to la, my son has a ipad and like somebody would like make a beat, and we go around the table and freestyle, And it got to a point where we actually bought a microphone.

And so we passed the microphone around.

But when we haven't done that in probably a year, we haven't done that practice.

Like our family structure changed.

Like my oldest son moved out for a bit, they moved back.

And driving back from the brunch, we're freestyling in the car.

You know what I mean?

And it's just like this thing that adds unconsciously, like I have something to look forward to.

It's creativity.

You know, it's challenge.

It's fun.

It's funny.

It's, you know, empowering.

You know, it's like it has all these ingredients that you look forward to that family meal.

This could be a game that you guys play.

I've just talked to a family.

They play a board game while they have dinner, which I never thought about, you know, which seemed kind of obvious.

This could be, you know, you guys doing some kind of.

You know, maybe your family sings together like playing instruments.

Maybe it's just like telling funny stories or.

Choosing a playlist.

Each person gets to choose a playlist.

If you're not, you know, sets the tone for what's happening.

Endless possibilities.

Yeah, those are amazing tips.

Yeah.

I think the no screen thing that you mentioned, Jay's smiling in at us.

You know, as we're talking about him.

I think what's really cool is first acknowledging that maybe screens are like the new McDonald's.

You know, when we were growing up, it's like we normalized eating at McDonald's.

Now we know like the horror that played.

Screens are the new McDonald's.

And you know if we own in on what's gonna happen in the future because it's being so normalized You talk a little bit about this in your book also, but the impact on children and the trajectory of the future.

I want to point out this was a conscious decision for you and Anne.

You set the environment in your house for doing this with your kids because you're imprinting on them so that they carry that on out into the world, right?

Do you share with them the stats?

Do you share with them the dark side of what you know around all of this?

My son is right there.

And this is a part of it.

He's around, like even right now.

And when we were leaving the house, my wife was like, it's take your kid to school.

I mean, it's take your kid to work day.

But this isn't really like work for him or for me.

This is, it's our passion.

It's what we do.

And him being a part of these conversations and listening in on stuff has been obviously very powerful.

He's been to tons of my speaking events and just involving him.

I interviewed him on my show a couple years ago when he was a tiny little guy.

And just involving my family.

My oldest son is a really incredible strength conditioning coach, personal trainer.

I never told him to do that stuff.

He just decided that that's what he wants to do.

And it's because he's around it.

And so the power of modeling is incredible, the power of creating an environment.

As I said earlier, culture is the shared values attitudes, beliefs and behaviors shared by a group of people, passed on from one generation to the next.

The problem today, with so many like we might want to change our habits and we had to deal with this stuff.

Maybe there's certain things we want to stop doing, stop eating.

It's so hard to get somebody to change their habits that's hurting them when they're in a culture that is feeding them those habits constantly.

You can't escape it.

It takes so much more turbulence to try to change that.

What if you create a culture where it's just automatic?

It's just what you do and so you know for my kids, just being around it obviously, but also yes, having the conversations, talking about the things but, most importantly, asking questions and letting them share like, share their voice, share their perspective and not making them wrong because we, we can easily and i went through a phase of like You can't eat this.

You can't do that.

You know, be the kid at the birthday party.

Like, you know, you don't eat that, whatever.

And I just like step back and I just let these things happen because we have a healthy base.

Yeah.

And also he knows how he feels if he has that, that chitty, I'm going to edit chitty cake.

Yeah.

And he knows how he feels like he doesn't feel his best.

And they don't want to like, you know what?

And he'll tell me like, Dad, we should really eat a good dinner tonight.

You know what I mean?

And so again, it's just stacking conditions and understanding that you know our families, our children, our relationships.

You know our significant others.

Um, we need a lot less berating and we need more inclusion.

We need more patients and we need more.

And this is another tip.

We know our family better than anybody.

We know what motivates our husband or our wife or our kids more than anybody, but because we're stressed out, we don't want to do it.

Got it.

Right.

And we also know what demotivates them, and so what we tend to do as a reaction unconsciously, is do the thing that demotivates them.

Yeah right, and so we have to take care of ourselves.

So we have that space to have that patience in those moments.

Right, because i know what motivates my son, i know what motivates my wife, and my wife is like i said, she is, she is crushing it right now and this thing is going in our house even this morning and my son told her, and she told me that he said it yesterday.

He told her, like The secret to your happiness is just listen to your husband.

Because she did what I said yesterday.

And she was like so happy.

She was tired.

We did a really tough strength training workout in the morning.

And then we went for a pretty long walk later in the day.

And it was super hot as well.

And so, you know, I went back to work.

And then I saw her like an hour later.

She's just in a chair.

Feet are kicked up.

And she's just like half asleep.

And I'm just like, baby, just take a nap.

If you're tired, it's okay.

Because she said, I'm so tired.

I'm like, just take a nap.

It's okay.

And she picked up her phone.

Cause what happens a lot of times when we're tired, we'll just start scrolling.

Right.

Instead of you're not, you're, you're, you're distracting yourself and not getting restored.

And so she did it.

She went, took a nap and she took a shower and she was like, so pumped.

She was like, I feel so good.

She got dressed up.

She went to the grocery store.

She like planned for the week.

She made dinner.

And then she was still like bouncing around, like all happy.

And these are things I might have told her before, but in a different way.

Like, you know, it is just like creating that space and that encouragement.

And also you can recruit your people that you make into this as well.

And so my youngest son and both of my my sons, they're so affirmative and supportive of their mom, you know, and just letting her know when she looks beautiful, letting her know when you know she does something you know, does something that you know, a quote, good job, just everything is just affirmative and loving.

And let me be clear, we do get on each other's nerves, all right?

We talk a lot of shit, all right?

But we love on each other so much.

And even in the shit talking, like there's still, it's imbued with love and compassion.

Well, the boys do that because that's modeled from you.

Let's just call it as it is.

So that's incredible.

And I love that you're sharing stories because I think a lot of people when they get to that point of frustration where they wanna give up right.

Oh, it's too hard.

I can't make them do what I wanna do or vice versa.

You're not giving every person in the house an opportunity, right?

Yeah.

And I love that you hovered on that, because I've worked with so many people where, if they're not one person's into health and wellness, the other partner isn't.

One of the partners is still buying the Cheetos and the cereals and stuff like that.

The communication to kids.

If you say don't eat this, it's bad for you, versus eat this, this is way better for you.

It's going to get lost.

All their friends are eating the junk food.

It tastes way better to them because it's hyperpalatable.

So giving them other tools to understand how it makes them feel.

My son looks at his bowel movements and he knows when he's eating the shitty food.

Like he just knows instantly, oh, okay, that was it.

What did I eat today?

But having open conversations about that because it's not just about what's healthy and what's not.

It's about how it makes you feel.

And when you feel better, you make better choices.

When you feel better as a family, God, life just gets better.

That part, yeah.

That part you know uh, really quickly with that.

Working as a nutritionist for so many years, i also worked as a strength and conditioning coach at the university that my wife and i went to.

But working with people, that was the number one reason that people gave for why they can't get the results that they were wanting to get again, whether it was losing weight, whether it was, you know, getting their blood sugar in check, hypertension whatever they were dealing with, they blamed their family.

It's the number one thing.

My kids.

It's my kids.

I want to do this, but my kids, right?

I'm not going to make two different meals.

My kids, they only eat pigs in a blanket or whatever, mac and cheese or whatever.

Or it's my significant other.

It's my wife.

It's my husband.

They just make it so much more difficult.

And what really changed the game for me with helping individuals was helping families.

Yes.

Because, as you know, you know, there's these sentiments which I don't necessarily like saying anymore but, like you, can't be a prophet in your own land.

Yeah.

Right.

To where you know.

If I'm trying to, you know want to help my mom, for example.

It's just like my mom's not really listening to me because she's like Boy, I changed their diapers.

Like, what are you talking about, you know?

But when it comes from an external voice, it's very, very helpful.

This is why the show and shows like this are so powerful because you get to share from another perspective, right.

And so being able to incorporate and bring in, like we'll just say that I'm working with a woman, you know, she's a lawyer.

Her husband, you know, maybe he's an engineer, whatever the case might be, and they've got two kids and she's just like they're the problem, right?

And they're pointing the finger outward, and i come in, instead of just meeting with the, with the, the wife that i'm working, with the woman that i'm working with, i come hang out with their whole family and just, you know, introduce myself, hang out, you know, talk to them a bit and that person personifies me or personalizes me.

Yeah right, and this just happened at his tournament, when that, when the family came over to me, but in particular it was the, the mom, And she was just like I've been listening for 10 years.

And the husband and son were there.

And to actually see me, because what the sentiment, as they said, was in the house, like Sean said, that might get on their nerves.

And so being able to actually talk with people and to create a cohesive thing.

And what I would do is find out what motivates each person.

Very practical, like so.

I might find that the the son, is a soccer player and i talk about how their nutrition and their sleep habits can radically improve their performance and put them in a different league than everybody else.

Right, i find that leverage point for each family member and it's just like it creates this lasting impact to where literally, i get messages to this day of people i work with 10, 15 years ago, like sean.

Ever since that day, or ever since that time that i worked with you man, you changed the trajectory of my family and so, if we can find leverage points now for people listening, they might not know a sean or a mona directly, but what are those things that you can do to where it's coming from someone else's voice or perspective?

This could be as simple as like an.

Since we're here, I'm going to be real.

It tends to be guys who are more hardheaded.

Yeah, I agree.

And she's looking over.

And so, but also we tend to be more skeptical too.

And so I found a great strategy to be like.

This guy said something about like, if you, you know, eat this food, like it helps improve your sleep quality.

Like, what do you think about this?

And like maybe give him the paper or, you know, the study or send him the post and just see what you think about that.

And then he might be like, you know what?

Like yeah, what a lot of guys would be like I knew that already, or whatever you know or you know, I don't know about that, but it can spark a conversation versus you coming in and telling him what to do, which we tend to rebel.

Know, it depends.

It's not a a man woman female, male thing, it depends on our personality um uh, character.

Right, it depends on our character.

But also what i've seen in working with a lot of people is that guys tend to be a little bit more hard-headed and so yeah, just being able to be like, you know, a little bit more of like I'm the student here.

Just like, what do you think big daddy?

You know?

And so like, that could be a strategy.

Yeah.

I love that.

The other part to that though, is if there's something around health that you're interested in, if you start searching on your phone, you are part of this algorithm, right?

I know there's like a love and hate.

You've got to be careful of the algorithm that you're part of.

However, if you're talking about these conversations, if you gently send those recipes or articles or inspiration to the other people, change the algorithm.

At least it gets the dialogue shifted, right?

So own in on that.

Change the algorithm.

And I want to point out too that people might not know in your cookbook you have recipes from your family.

Yeah.

And what I love about that.

In our house, what we do is like one person will choose the food for the night.

I want Indian tonight.

I want we're big on taco Tuesdays and or it's pasta, but people will have a say in what's being given.

And I'm calling that out because I think that for a really long time now, women tend to be seen as the ones who kind of are the drivers of wellness in the house.

But I think the paradigm's shifting.

Like I really think men want to be part of that and want to be inclusive.

And so having a man like you, who's a leader and a model for that is a really big deal.

Yes, I 1000% agree.

I 1000% agree.

And coming in that with intention.

And so, for example, you know, inviting my kids in on what are we making, you know, for dinner this week.

Right.

And that's another buy in for the family dinners.

Right.

Something to look forward to.

So we're doing the planning.

You know, what what what kind of dessert do you guys want, you know, after dinner?

Right.

So it might be the cherry yogurt pops that are on the cover of the book, or it might be, you know um, the uh superfood bark that we make as well, so it could be like a buy-in on what we're actually preparing.

This is another great thing.

Again, you know your family better than anybody.

What motivates them, and so them being a part of deciding what we're going to eat together, and My wife tends to do that quite a bit of inviting me in on the conversation.

She knows how I am too.

You know what I mean?

You want to say.

I want to be a part of it.

But I've loosened up on that a lot because we've intermingled so much.

We're just like, babe, you know, just pick something.

It's fine.

And so yesterday, funny enough, and my son had this for dinner, one of the recipes in the book.

It's a Greek bowl with these incredible meatballs and just all these different flavors and flavor sensations.

I think a big part of why this book is successful too is that we're big foodies.

Yeah.

We love food.

Oh, you can tell.

And we've accumulated these recipes over the years.

And, like you just mentioned, like there's a hot chocolate recipe that I make my son all the time, or that my oldest son randomly at our previous house, he just randomly made these cookies from like four ingredients amazing, and it's just like okay, that's going in the book, right.

And also my wife and i perfecting some really delicious meals.

We used to teach classes of food preparation as well.

I didn't know that.

Yeah yeah, for years we did that and it got.

It got bonkers like trying to feed a lot of people.

Uh, in one class, like you know, it's like 30, 40 people it's.

It's a lot of work.

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Now back to the show Again, just inviting people in on the process.

Another part of that is inviting your kids in on the process of preparing the food.

This is another big part of this mission.

Because right now, somewhere around 30 plus percent of young people don't know how to prepare a single meal.

We're talking like college age kids.

So like under 25 and under.

And adolescents.

So we'll just say 18 to 25 year olds don't even know how to make one meal for themselves.

All right.

It is becoming on the endangered species list.

And so what happens and I share the data on this is that when they don't know how to prepare food for themselves, they automatically eat more ultra processed foods.

And family meals are also on the endangered species list.

Only about 30% of American families eat together on a regular basis, right?

This used to be the majority, now it's this extreme minority.

And so please invite your kids in make some recipes together.

Give them this vital skill to be able to take care of themselves.

Because this world, it is just going to be tantalizing them with all these convenient, easy things.

But this can be easy too.

Just being able to whip up a couple of things for yourself with real foods can be absolutely life-sustaining.

Truly make a recipe book as a family right.

I could be doing anything right now.

I would travel, pack up my family, travel the world, go to every village and find, like the sage wise, older man or woman and like find all the recipes.

Let's document them before we lose it all and like trade it all in for these.

Genetically modified food, fast food, everything.

Fast food nation.

You should do that.

Right?

I feel it out every time with guests.

I'm like, okay, you should do that.

Okay.

It's affirming.

And I will to close that topic on men.

Cause we do have a lot of male listeners.

When my husband, he was inspired on a trip that we had to Morocco.

He bought a tagine pot and then just starts making these big tagine pot meals.

That was like a love language for me.

It was like one of the most amazing kind of sexy things for a man to do.

So tip for the men out there.

Now that we've drifted from that a little bit, let's go back to how we eat and who we eat, with being important, but also the science around how it drives our cravings and also our metabolism.

When you speak to metabolism, when we think about the impact of our physiology, maybe we take it back to the mitochondria.

So when we think about our bodies actually utilizing the food as information, what is the impact?

How could it shift our metabolism?

How could it shift our food cravings?

Yeah.

This is multilayered.

At its core.

As soon as you're around other people, in particular people that you have a relationship with, that you love and that you care about, and they care about you, our biology changes dramatically.

So as I mentioned, this is an epigenetic influence.

And so one of the things that also there's over 250 studies that are embedded into the content of the book itself.

But I talked about some data affirming how we're at this place now, where.

When I was in college, What I was taught was that genes control your destiny.

You know.

And if you have a genetic predisposition for a particular disease and you have this they started looking for all these genes that cause disease.

And that was the thing, like genes are the reason.

Like this is the, yeah, your lifestyle kind of matters, whatever.

But it was all really, all the chips went on the deck of genes control your health.

Today we know this and we're so far from that, that upwards of 99 of disease manifestations unless you're born with a true genetic defect.

Unless you're born with a true genetic defect, most of us get here with pretty healthy genes.

And we don't have genes.

And one of my mentors, and I've had multiple conversations with him about this, his cell biologist, Dr Bruce Lipton, and him being really the pioneering voice in epigenetics.

He told me Sean, we don't have genes for disease.

And I was just like, whoa, that doesn't feel, that's ruffling my feathers.

He's like, no, no, no, we don't have genes that code for disease.

Because disease genes can manifest or present certain symptoms, right?

And so a good example of this might be type 2 diabetes, which is obviously of epidemic proportions today, where we have around half of the US population diabetic or pre-diabetic.

And it was somewhere around, you know, 30 to 40%.

And this is a quote, adult onset diabetes, right?

So you're not born with this, but something happens.

It's something happens along the way.

And what happens is, for example, we'll just say that one of your primary causative agents is epigenetic influence, is ultra processed foods right?

Extreme amounts of sugar and carbohydrates that your genes never interacted with for thousands and thousands of years prior.

And now you're getting exposed to, and now our body is responding and making an adaptation to that exposure to keep you alive.

It's changing the way that it operates to help you to survive.

But then we blame the stupid disease, like body, why are you doing this thing?

When we were exposed to something that was making us to adapt to this condition.

And then of course, what do we do instead of removing the cause?

We start to treat the symptom.

You got it.

And we get into this vicious circle.

The full cycle.

And so, and then we blame, oh, you've got diabetes in your family.

And yes, that absolutely plays a part, but it is a tiny, tiny part.

You know that the vast majority of people, And what he shared with me was that you know we've got the human genome project.

We were expecting to have all these genes and come to find out like there's certain varieties of corn that have way more genes than humans do.

But what we have is incredible diversity in how genes can be expressed.

One gene can have thousands of different potential expressions.

And that's what he shared with me based on epigenetic inputs.

So your environment, your diet.

But every time I talk about these things as well, and this is exclusive stuff right here.

Every time I talk about those things which I was studying nutrigenomics, nutrigenetics.

But he'd be like Sean no no no no, no no.

The mind first.

The number one influence over your gene expression is your mind.

And it just like, oh, it was so hard for me to like really accept that.

But then, as I dove deeper and deeper into the data over the years, every thought we think has correlating chemistry that's instantaneously produced.

And so if we're having thoughts of anxiety or something that's pissing us off, or something that we just feel joyful about, we feel that feeling because there's a change in our chemistry.

With that said, and to put a bow on this and to tie it all back together, when we're around people that we care about, there's a deep, deep change.

That happens with our biochemistry.

This unconscious, just our thoughts, even if we're pissed off at them for whatever reason.

If we know that we love this person or our family members, our chemistry changes.

And it elicits more of what we would refer to as like anti-aging expressions of certain things.

And so what we are doing when we stack conditions in our favor with our environment, with our family members, and understanding that we need this for healthy genetic expression.

We need each other more than ever.

We know the ramifications with social isolation.

It's deadly.

And we know that being with people that we care about, having healthy social bonds, is the number one from the longest running study on humans.

Number one determinant of how long you're going to live is your relationships.

And it's because it's impacting you at the level of your genes.

And so I hope that that answered the question.

It does answer the question completely.

And I love that you took it there.

I'm doing my master's in quantum healing and Dr. Lipton is one of the professors in that.

And I have to say, looking back, do you not believe after your diagnosis, if you didn't believe that you could heal, Done.

If I believe that I was gonna have a heart condition for the rest of my life, prescription after prescription.

I wanna throw that back at the audience, because so often we witness people in our family, in our circle, getting sick.

We believe that it could be part of us.

And this is what gets me with longevity right now.

We talk about longevity in our circle as well.

So much of it is fear-based, like the fear of getting older, the fear of getting sick.

And it's like well, are you taking the supplements and the vitamins and working out because it makes you feel good and you're happy.

Or is it driven by fear?

And the fear is the emotion of what's in your body.

We have to switch our perspective and change our lens.

So I think belief is something that's so huge.

And going back to something that you said earlier with heart math, just thinking about someone that you love changes your physiology.

I took those old school epigenetics tests within school and nutrition school and stuff like that too.

And there's a completely different lens in how we understand epigenetics today.

Do you recommend that people do their epigenetic testing?

Mmm, that's such a good question, oh my gosh.

Okay, so i just did what, again at this current time, appears to be the most advanced panel on.

You know, it's like 110 different biomarkers and in addition to that you can get like ct scans and all this stuff to come up with your biological age.

This is where we are.

Again, I think there's.

Yes, we have these objective measurements, but some of that being a quote, biological age is still subjective.

Like there's nothing that's invented today that could tell you like, how old you are biologically, but we can see some very close approximations, right.

And so I just did that.

Cool.

I am almost eight years younger biologically than I am chronologically, which is pretty dope.

According to this,

Mm-hmm.

And also i see this room for improvement, like there's this one surprising nutrient deficiency that i had.

I was just like what and by?

And this one was a controller of so many other things and so just being able to focus on that can make me even more basically, slow my rate of aging let's not say reverse my age per se, but slow my rage of age of uh, my rate of aging dramatically.

And so I was actually one of the keynote speakers for one of these big biohacking events, like the big one you know, Dave.

But I was brought in to be like the grounded person.

You know what I mean?

Just like listen.

I know you guys want to take all this shit in another room and do all these treatments, but just go for a walk.

So I'm coming and I'm sharing the data on this.

And, you know, and so it's the approximation is so much closer, right?

We overcomplicate things because of fear.

Right.

And so I'm very big on practicality and, and, Doing that and getting that blood work done.

I think it speaks to some people.

Like my wife is very analytical with that when it comes to that stuff.

Self-quantification motivates her immensely.

I don't want to do that.

I want to pay more attention and advocate for people to pay attention to how you feel.

God.

Pay attention to how you look, how you feel, how you perform.

Just see yourself, right?

Pay attention.

Like, am I doing something?

And then like, I'm hella puffy the next day.

Like your body's telling you, you don't need a blood test.

You don't need like this complicated thing to tell you.

Like that thing didn't really jive with you, right?

But we're so externally focused today.

So many things are pulling our attention outside of our bodies.

I know this intimately.

We can have all the studies in the world.

And by the way, you can go and look at my track record.

I've got stuff from almost 20 years ago where I'm using peer-reviewed data to affirm a certain point which has become popular today.

I did that.

I'm going to share this with you.

I haven't really talked about this before.

I did that because...

When I started to like speak at these different events and I go like speak to the biology department at a university and I've been in this field for like 23 years now I felt inadequate because I didn't finish the pre-med track.

I got out of there because I hated it.

Life brought me back to studying health.

And so and I'm coming at this with a different perspective of overcoming a so-called incurable disease that the way that you're teaching is.

It put me into that position, right.

With the nocebo effect, right?

This is incurable what I have, and that made everything exponentially worse, and so i'm coming in to speak to this department maybe i think at the time i was like talking about telomeres and whatnot, which i know, you know, elizabeth blackburn and and uh, alyssa apple and like that whole thing.

But you know, i felt like i've got to come with the data, just so they listen to me about practicality.

I did it with a purpose, because i didn't have a lab coat on and i'm just you see me like, i'm just a cool guy, you know.

Just, you know, i show up how i am authentically, And so that's why I was using published data to affirm a point or something practical.

Now it's used in everything.

Our friends and colleagues use this template.

And many of these folks and they've sat in my office or in my studio and they share with me, like I was listening to your show for years prior to what I'm doing and I could see that template.

And it's a great model because it provides some verification for you to tell the story and to empower people.

We're at a point now where these studies can mess people up.

Because that study is not the end all be all.

That study might say this thing that is completely wrong for you.

And an end of one experiment is more than enough.

Like you could be doing something that works remarkably for you that doesn't seem to work for anybody else that you know.

And you're not gonna honor that because of this study says that this isn't good for you.

You know, we've gotta take back our agency And to yes, we can have and I've shared a bunch of studies we can have that data.

But the most important data, more powerful than any of these studies, is the data that your body is presenting to you.

Literally every single microsecond of your life, if you just take a moment and tune in.

You got it.

God, I love that.

That literally word for word is the inspiration for this podcast.

How do we merge that ancient belief system?

I say with modern medicine, right?

There's so many gifts to modern medicine.

Having this information is really, really nice.

But as much as we can talk about root cause healing any doctor who's getting that lab report and they're seeing an increase in liver enzymes or lipids that are elevated, that doesn't give you root cause, doesn't help you understand any differently.

You've got to go out and figure out how, what the source is for you and how you can um, you know, switch tracks and for healing 99 of the people that i work with, it starts with the supplements and the food plan and that, because that's what they're conditioned to thinking.

Then it turns into ah no, that doesn't feel good for my body.

I want to do this instead instead.

Right, and to bring that back to everything that you've said, i think the foundation of what you're speaking to today um, it comes down to an emotion that you, it's a state that you're setting within your body, and that state starts with community and with the, the state that you're, you're putting your body and when you're with people that you love, when you're eating with other people instead of isolation, absolutely.

And one last point with this is that why are relationships so impactful?

Yes, the leading researcher said it was stress, metabolizing stress, which is dope.

Okay, got it.

One of the things that I feel again in of one understanding of this is that and this is going to be obvious once I say it, but we don't have published data on this

Your relationships impact what you eat more than anything else.

Your relationships impact your sleep habits more than anyone else.

Your relationships impact your exercise habits more than anything else.

I said anyone else, but anything else.

You know that your husband is going to impact your sleep.

Your wife is going to, your kids are going to impact your sleep more than anything else.

So again, your relationships are the tip of the spear.

It's that thing, that it's the umbrella under which everything else sits, because it impacts everything so much.

So what if you get the relationships right?

So it automatically makes everything easier.

Invest in that thing because it's going to be influencing you, period.

You can't get away from it.

And there are like, of course, if you have enough will, you can be that person in your family that gets out and goes to the gym and gets the hell away from your family.

Like this is my whatever, you know, I'm dedicated to this thing.

But what I found to be more beneficial is, instead of dad going to this magical place called the gym and coming back like happier and, you know, sweaty or whatever, just like where have you been?

You know, it's more like, let me show them what I'm doing.

Yeah right, let me do this in front of them.

Let's train together.

Yeah, and so i intentionally did that early on and to this day, like my son is sitting in the other room he's 13 years old, he's.

I don't have to tell him, he's just gonna get out and train, he's gonna, he's gonna shoot around, he's gonna do some exercise.

He's gonna ask like, what can i do?

And like, even if we we do game together, by the way, which i had a, i had a terrible gaming day yesterday, i But after that like, we go outside and we play in the real world.

You know we went outside and played horse, you know, shot around and we have this balance and he invites that balance because of our culture that we've created.

And so it helps to affirm and makes everything so much easier when you get the culture right.

And so I wanted to share that.

And also if I can close with some tips to go back with this family eating phenomenon.

Today more than ever.

If I pull out my phone, and you as well, we've got all this stuff on our calendar.

That's scheduled.

Isn't our family more important?

Our family is more important than any of that stuff, but we usually don't put them on our schedule.

Schedule it.

Three meals per week is that minimum effective dose seen across multiple studies.

I just shared a couple.

Schedule it, make it sacred, put it on your calendar.

And so whatever that looks like for your family, it doesn't have to be dinner, by the way.

This could be brunch on Sunday, like we just did.

And then a couple of meals per week.

This could be coffee with friends.

Right.

And I'm talking outside of your family.

If you don't have kids, if you don't.

Friends count too.

Yes.

All right.

Shout out to friends.

Shout out to Ross and all those guys.

Rachel.

But friends count too.

And having that very powerful interaction.

So this could be getting coffee with your friends.

Schedule it. this could be you know maybe you have family dinners monday wednesday then brunch on sunday or family dinner monday through thursday then one of the things we haven't been eating together as frequently because basketball season we've been watching a ton of basketball wow and playing basketball and watching basketball while having dinner and it's just been like it's a season for that with us right now but we have a deep anchor in us eating together and talking.

And even outside of that, if we don't have that time of sitting down and eating together, we have time of us seeing each other and talking.

Like even a walk over here, five minute walk, just me and my son, you know?

And so having those touch points.

So schedule it, make it real, schedule it.

That's tip number two, because we talked earlier about having something of value attached to the meal, right.

So- find out what that thing is, make it fun.

Make it it doesn't have to necessarily be like super fun, but like something rewarding, something connecting.

It could be even a tough conversation.

You know it could be.

Apparently, my mother-in-law used to ask my wife and her sister, when they were little like littles like you know what's the meaning of life type questions and having philosophical conversation, right?

So whatever that looks like for you.

And as we've talked about multiple times, make it a phone-free zone.

Absolutely, yeah.

Another study done on children minority children who are generally in the context of a low-income environment.

Like I come from, I can literally count on my hands how many times I sat down and ate a meal with my parents.

Okay, outside of a holiday.

It just didn't happen.

It wasn't a part of my reality.

But I know, if my parents knew, if they deeply knew, that eating with their kids was going to protect them against illness, they would have done it.

There weren't bad people.

We just didn't know.

And we were living in just chaos, essentially.

We'd eat a lot at the same time, but we'd just grab and go.

You know, get in front of the screen.

I sat down to eat with my brother and sister quite a bit.

But I couldn't wait to get back outside or go to the TV, play a video game, whatever the case might be.

And so we know that our phones are... Our devices are dividing us.

Our devices are divisive.

And so...

Even having the phone in eyesight and I shared a study in the East Martyr Cookbook actually on this pulls away like literally strapping people up and monitoring their brain activity.

It pulls away attention from the moment.

Because your brain knows, if it sees that phone, there's so many goodies in there.

And so make it a phone-free zone.

Because that study on these children found that when parents or caregivers ate with their kids four meals per week, didn't matter which meal they ate five or more servings of fruits and vegetables five days a week and significantly less ultra-processed foods, namely chips and soda.

But what they noted in the study was this if the TV was never or rarely on, there's something about having that thing in between everybody.

Plus the marketing to the children children who watch it was like every hour that a child is watching television led to a consumption of 127 more calories per day.

And it's that of course it's from ultra processed foods and the marketing and those kinds of things.

So with all that said, Make it a phone-free zone, tech-free.

Of course, put a playlist on, whatever the case might be.

That's fine.

Yeah, that's in the background.

And make that a time to be present with each other.

That time is for you and it's so healing for everybody.

Is connection the missing ingredient to everyone's wellness plan?

Absolutely.

It's the number one, number one.

Let's just reiterate that.

So family meals linked to 35, just three times a week.

Linked to 35 lower risk of disordered eating.

Better school performance.

Lower obesity rates in kids.

This is one of the studies that you pulled out.

We have to really own this.

And I think that we need to model it when we're out in the world and talk about it with our friends, because it's the only way that we're going to see change, because using a screen is just going to become more normalized, moving forward right.

So great tip.

All right, I want to get some more things out of you as we wrap things up.

The biggest one was on, where did we go here?

So people who had, oh, the connection.

You've written that connection is one of the most overlooked ingredients in your wellness plan.

But talk to us like what are some of the trends that you're seeing out in the world in terms of food consumption for children that are really impacting their physical and their emotional development?

Yes.

So this goes back to that study we mentioned at the beginning from JAMA.

So the average child in the United States right now the 20-year study is eating almost 70 ultra-processed foods.

That is absolutely atrocious, and it's unacceptable.

This doesn't make any sense at all.

Except the fact that the culture that we have has normalized the consumption of these fake foods.

All right?

Now the trend is that what i'm an advocate for is just don't go cold turkey.

Let's change the ratio, even though this could be easily framed as, like i'm making this as bad food or the villain.

Humans are awesome.

Like we've created some really cool stuff that's tasty.

We've got these brilliant food scientists who are doing all this um, incredible innovation to make foods taste a certain way.

We can acknowledge what that is, appreciate it.

Let's not villainize it and just have more of real stuff that we know again we've been eating for thousands of years and save some space for a little fun stuff.

You know, quote fun stuff for for which, even as i say that yeah, food is fun as hell too.

Um, but just like, let's not villainize the twinkie and i'm saying that because i've thought a lot about this like i'll contemplate on twinkie, for like just i'll go on a walk and think about it for an hour.

It has value.

It has its own value.

You know, if this was an apocalypse situation, like that Twinkie can keep you going for a day.

I just watched.

We're going through right now, since my son is 13, we're going through the archive of Denzel Washington movies.

We just watched Book of Eli.

Okay.

And the movie starts off with him, spoiler alert, eating a cat.

Right.

All right.

He eats a cat.

And I'm just like, in that situation, like if he came across a Twinkie.

Right.

I mean, that is literally like cause for celebration.

Like for real, we're going to throw a party.

We found a box of Twinkies.

So that could be around for a hundred years because it never dies, basically.

It's like designed to be, you know, it's fake.

It never had any life force to it.

And, you know, but it can sustain you.

It has its value.

And I'm open to the possibility that all this ultra processed food we're consuming is mutating us in some beneficial way.

Okay.

Maybe we're going to get X-Men powers.

I don't know.

I'm just saying, I'm throwing it out there.

We don't know.

Chances are it's really messing us up.

Extremely, extremely bad.

But I'm open to that.

And I'm saying, I'm setting it up like this to say we don't want to villainize this thing, because it tends to push people towards the things we tell them to stay away from.

Let's focus on adding in, shifting the ratio.

I'm a big advocate of 80-20, right?

Eat 80 real food to make that the basis of your diet and save that 20 for whatever you want to dibble and dabble in.

Yeah, all right.

So that's kind of just one of the big like mindset shifts to take with that.

A Twinkie could bring someone a lot of joy.

And if it's the joy, that's the rainfall in your body.

I totally get it.

But to your point, it's like once you get to the part of doing the healing where the foundation is solid, I think our bodies are so resilient that we can handle it.

It's when it becomes in excess.

So what about the tips?

Like the parents who are listening and were like yeah, but Sean, you know there's goldfish everywhere at my school.

Cheerios are there every single morning.

There's coffee cake.

And, you know, the school's saying it's good for me.

How do we make parents understand that it's really up to them to make the change?

I get hate mail on goldfish crackers, by the way.

I'm so anti-goldfish, but I get hate mail on it.

But what are some tips for those people?

The first of all, the power is in your hands.

You know, so much of our culture has been outsourcing our kids, everything to other people.

And we just need to be honest about that.

Yeah.

Now this doesn't mean we have to be you know, live on, you know off the grid and you know homeschool our kids and all that stuff and more power to people who choose to do these things.

But this doesn't have to be an either or situation.

I am a firm believer that it's a both end world and our, Our responsibility, our blessing, our greatest gift is to be able to create that foundation and set the template for these kids right.

And so do the things that we can.

We know that at school yeah, they're going to have, there's going to be candy, there's going to be this, there's going to be that.

But what are you doing at home?

Like, let's really stack conditions, make sure we get all the good stuff we can when they're at home and find creative ways to do that and also lean into innovation.

Right, and so goldfish crackers.

There are quote, healthier iterations of these.

Absolutely everything, less of everything.

Now it is insane.

Anything that you could think of there's a healthier version of that thing now, because humans were like yo, i really love pizza, but i know it totally messed me up.

So they're creating these like healthier versions of anything that you could think of, right.

Just yesterday.

Wait on Father's Day.

We got.

This is a plug for our favorite YouTuber, Ryan Trahan.

All right, that my son and I will watch his videos together.

But he's got a company that he created, this young kid.

He's like, I'm gonna guess he's probably 25. but he created a candy company called Joyride.

And so it has no artificial colors, significantly less sugar.

But kids really love it and they love him.

And so he's wanting to make his candy the number one candy at Target.

He's number two right now.

But it's just like even these kids that are getting some of these ideas And truths about nutrition.

They're trying to find a way like hey, I'm a kid, I still like candy.

I want these sour strips and twists and things like that.

But how can we do it a little bit better and not hurt ourselves so much?

And also understand that's just candy.

Like let me eat real food as a primary thing in my diet.

And it's okay to have some of this stuff.

So be an advocate for better than, And you can be an advocate at your school, at your kid's school as well.

You can be an influence.

You could suggest things.

You could talk about things.

You can get other parents together.

They have meetings for this kind of stuff, or you can put them together yourself and you can change.

And I'm saying this from a place of experience Some of my friends Kelly Starrett, Dr Kelly Starrett and his wife Juliette Starrett, incredible coaches.

They've got standing desks at their kids' school.

Incredible.

Really?

They got standing desks put in.

Yeah.

And you know again, it's just because of who they are and the influence and having these conversations.

Things are changing right now.

And we could be a part of that change.

Beautiful.

It's happening.

I really do feel it's happening.

Thank you for being here today.

It's my pleasure.

This is awesome.

I'm so grateful for you.

Last two rapid fire questions.

If you could leave our listeners with one takeaway that you're most excited about for the future, what would it be?

Getting people hanging out together.

Yeah.

AI is here.

AI is listening right now.

I don't know what AI is thinking, But the thing is our lives as AI is integrating itself more and more into our culture and more things that humans have been doing that AI is going to be doing.

And it's just, it is what it is.

There's no stopping it, even if I might want to.

What that's going to do is lead more time for us to do something.

And as if things are going now, that's going to mean more time for people to be in that meta universe online and jacked into the matrix.

Honestly,

And I get conjured up the ideas.

Right now, as I'm sitting here, my son is in the other room of that movie, Ready Player One, right.

Where people like are getting on virtual to experience life and experience whatever you can imagine really.

Anything.

And that in of itself is very alluring.

But what we know about humans is that, again, we need each other.

And so my proposition for everybody is to make it your mandate to be more human than you've ever been.

All right?

That stuff is awesome.

My family and I, we went and did a virtual video game place, whatever.

It was amazing.

It was awesome.

But we don't want to live there because chances are, as things have been affirmed to us now, that is going to be a detriment to your health if that is the majority of what you're doing and where you live.

Get offline more.

Create.

Connect.

Be again as human as possible.

Move your body explore, have fun, see the things you know.

Go outside of your environment as much as you can.

And this is coming from somebody who didn't get on a plane until I was 25.

It was the first time I got on a plane.

And because I had no aspirations of leaving, you know, the St.

Louis hood that I lived in, you know, but get outside of your environment, experience life.

This is our chance to be more human, to create, to connect.

We're going to need each other.

I don't know how quickly this is going to happen, but it's going to come a time in the near future where we're up against some insurmountable odds from technology and us in some way.

I'm not trying to conjure up a terminator scenario, but we're going to need to band together.

We should start that process now.

Love each other, respect each other, spend time together in the real world.

So that encompasses a lot more than two things, I think so.

You were such a model of that.

Everything from your content to the guests that you have on to your cookbook to.

You don't have eat smarter or sleep smarter.

Make sure you go and get that.

And I couldn't agree more.

It's connection connection to yourself, to others, to your food, to your environment, to your loved ones.

Thank you for modeling that today.

Thank you so much.

Of course, it's my honor.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today.

I hope that you got a lot of value out of this.

And definitely check out Rooted in Wellness with Mona Sharma if you enjoyed her interview style and the questions and just the vibe overall.

She's a wonderful human being, great teacher as well.

And of course, she's been a guest here on the Model Health Show.

So check out that interview because I know that we talked about some things that she don't really talk about, even through her own media experiences.

So it's incredible, incredibly insightful.

She has an amazing story of recovery because she had heart surgeries and all kinds of stuff trying to figure out her own health.

So again, I hope that you got a lot of value out of this.

Apply, apply, apply.

This is a time, more than any other, to connect.

Connect, to spend time devoted, intentional time, with the people that you care about, to make that an intention.

If you don't have that right now currently, to make it an intention to gather clarity and to move, take those steps in that direction, because we truly do need each other more than ever.

We got some amazing masterclasses and world-class guests coming your way very, very soon.

So make sure to stay tuned.

Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon.

[The Power of Connection: Building Health Through Community and Intentional Living]-[How to Change Your Environment to Make Healthy Choices Easier, Combat Stress, & Feel Your Very Best]

📋 Summary

Cultivating Wellness Through Community and Connection

The Science of Social Bonds and Longevity

Metabolizing Stress Through Connection

Creating a Culture of Health at Home

Shifting the Paradigm from Fear to Empowerment

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[The Power of Connection: Building Health Through Community and Intentional Living]-[How to Change Your Environment to Make Healthy Choices Easier, Combat Stress, & Feel Your Very Best]

📋 Summary

Cultivating Wellness Through Community and Connection

The Science of Social Bonds and Longevity

Metabolizing Stress Through Connection

Creating a Culture of Health at Home

Shifting the Paradigm from Fear to Empowerment

Deep Learning with ListenLeap

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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