Episode 145 – Dr. Will Cole – Inflammation, Sleep, Living Healthy

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gotten many requests for us to do a show based on health so that's what we're gonna be doing tonight so sit back grab a drink enjoy this conversation we've got set up for you guys The Human Experience is in session my name is Xavier Katana Our Guest for this

evening is Dr will Cole Dr will Cole is a functional medicine expert Dr Cole discovers and treats the underlying factors of chronic illnesses breaking away from The Limited approach of standard care which overly relies on drugs and hormones without getting to

the root cause of illness Dr Cole gained his Doctorate from the Southern Cal California University of Health Sciences he is trained in functional medicine clinical nutrition blood chemistry neurology and Botanical Medicine Dr Cole was named one of the top 50 functional

medicine and integrative doctors in the nation he's LED courses teaching people how to better understand their diet and health all around the world Dr Cole will thank you so much for being here welcome to hxp oh my goodness the pleasure is all mine

thanks for having me so I mean it's it's such a key part of who we are right is what we eat and you I mean tell us a little bit about yourself how did you get to this point we were talking a little bit about this in the pre-show but I mean you're you're a pretty young

guy and how did you get how did you move into this sort of phase of of you know being an author yeah I appreciate that so I I love health and wellness I love functional medicine I love writing I love people so it's really an awesome place where God

has brought me I think in my life where I get to talk to people around the world as I was telling you I mean I have a virtual functional medicine practice so I get to consult people all around the world about functional medicine and we deal with patients with autoimmune

conditions hormone problems digestive issues neurological issues like anxiety depression and fatigue um and I I like I live and breathe this functional medicine stuff so but my interest in Wellness began growing up I grew in up in a home that was interested

in how of my dad was into like bodybuilding in the 80s and um they my parents ate super clean I thought that was normal growing up and this was like in the 80s and 90s in like the rural Countryside outside of Pittsburgh and most Western Pennsylvania

but I learned quickly when you're in school that that actually wasn't normal to eat like adaptogenic tonics and you know weird mineral elixirs and organic stuff but uh and and this was in the 80s and 90s let alone you know it was not what Wellness is today

um and then that kind of informed me professionally as I grew up I knew that I wanted to be formally trained in this space of Wellness so I went to a very well esteemed School in the space at Southern California University of Health Sciences as you had mentioned and I was

heard of a guy who had gone to my school he was older than I was his name was detis karazien who even today is still one of the Godfathers of functional medicine so that's when I knew okay functional medicine was the space where it's really the best of Western medicine

which is getting being evidence-based and running labs and being analytical and the best of Alternative Health which is actually getting somebody healthy and getting to the root cause and it's functional medicine is really the marrying of both East and West in many

ways so that's that's what my my job is it's Consulting patients and all the while throughout this whole time I loved writing and when I wasn't seeing patients I was writing about research and making it easy you to understand and that's how my two books came to be

ketotarian was my first book it's a mostly plant-based ketogenic book with recipes and meal plans and all that sort of practical stuff and now my second book it comes out October 15th it's on pre-order now it's called the inflammation Spectrum so it's really a

deep dive into the space of inflammation and how it's such a commonality between just about every health problem we face as a world today and to provide people like practical real life tools to start reclaiming their health because so many people are are on you know unnecessarily

struggling with health issues when my experience in functional medicine has shown me over the years that largely these things are overcomeable and healable and reversible things so why would we want to settle for anything less so it's really my heart to really

get this message out there for people that they have Agency on their Wellness they don't have to just settle for oblique existence of of health issues yeah for sure I mean there's so many people that I personally know people that uh I come across or encounter and

you know they they struggle with inflammation and in the opening pages of your book uh inflammation Spectrum you know you talk about how our current ages the age of inflammation that's what you call it so let's let's define that what how do we Define inflammation and

what are some of the the health conditions surrounding influence what inflammation is sure so inflammation is a product of the immune system and it's because of that it's not inherently bad inflammation fights viruses and bacteria it's a good

part of our immune system healthy balanced inflammation is a great thing and you it's just really down to the Goldilocks principle right not too high not too low but just right and with inflammation just right at the right time when you need it and then calm down

when we don't need it the problem with so many people today around the world is that they're struggling with chronic inflammation that's too high so that's linked to autoimmune conditions is our inflammatory diabetes cancer heart disease two mental health issues like

anxiety and depression and fatigue and brain fog research suggests that these are inflammatory in nature as well at least having an inflammatory components to them so it is really at the heart of I mean those issues that I just mentioned are basically almost everybody

in the human race is impacted by that to some degree in some way so that's what this inflammation spectrum that I talk about in the book is really about it's this Continuum of inflammatory Cascades that people can find them on and these things are constantly and dynamically

shifting and it's checking in with your body to find out where your inflammation levels are at now and looking at your energy levels looking at your digestion looking at your sleep because these are check engine lights to see where your inflammation levels are on one end of

the spectrum it's the low-grade fatigue or anxiety or digestive problems and then the other end of the spectrum are full-blown you know ICD-10 like diagnosis codes and and then everything in between on this inflammation Spectrum so this is um these are the people I spend my time

with Consulting I know it's the people that are listening to this conversation right now and I know it's it's impacting so many people and if it's not impacting you it's impacting someone you love um and this is the state when I say this is the age of inflammation it's a sad

statement it's not a good thing to deal with this this age of chronic inflammation okay so I mean let's let's get to the root cause I mean it if if you see when you encounter a patient I mean what is something that you would call the most common thing or theme that you

see with most people what are people doing wrong with with their diet so this is the the bigger the question because we we talk about inflammation is this commonality between all these health problems but then as we explore in the book and how I explore

for my patients it's what's driving inflammation where because the body's interconnected uh something is Upstream from inflammation something is driving it but then because the body is interconnected inflammation in one area can beget inflammation in other areas

and it's what's called systemic inflammation in the research um and this poly inflammation if you will or you have inflammation because of the body's interconnectedness so if we look at the things that are driving inflammation what is Upstream to

inflammation it is food as you suggested and that's a lot of what we talk about in the book because every food that we eat every breakfast lunch dinner and snack is either feeding inflammation or fighting it there's no neutral food there's no Switzerland meal it's it's

serving one or the other in some bigger ways in some smaller ways depending on what you're having and how much you're having of it and your own genetic adaptation and tolerance for these sort of things in your gut microbiome balancers of course variables

to consider but but ultimately food is doing one or the other and uh it's the exploration that I want people to to just really go through the the questions I want them to ask is really what works for your body what does your body love and what your body hate and what I found

over my years of seeing patients is there's not there's no hard and fast rule when it comes to food other than Eat Real Foods we know that right as a culture especially people are you know educated and well read on this we know real food is is where it starts but

under the umbrella of Real Food what works for one person may not work for the next person so I've seen really good healthy things work great for one person and not work well for another person it flares them up because them digestive issues it cause them not to feel good it

raises inflammation in their body and this largely has to do with intestinal permeability or what they call leaky gut syndrome or increased intestinal permeability so basically this gut-centric inflammation which you look at which I mentioned inflammation as a

product of your immune system well 75 percent of your immune system resides in the gastrointestinal system so to understand inflammation you have to look at where the predominance of the immune system resides which is largely in the gastrointestinal system or what we

commonly refer to as the gut um so and this is obviously where food is being processed and being digested and a lot of food reactivities can upregulate inflammation in the body so there's foods that cause inflammation like sugar and you know refined sugar

and refined grains and we know that but then there's even healthy foods because of this this epidemic of intestinal permeability and underlying gut issues that can cause even healthy foods to cause problems for some people so my goal as a functional matter citizen

practitioner is to really tailor a food medicine protocol and for if we are Advocates to use food as medicine to really find out what's right for the individual so the conversation that I'm having in the inflammation Spectrum book is teaching them the methodologies and

the practices from a functional medicine perspective how to discover what foods work for you because it does start with food it absolutely does but when we talk about all the other things that are not of food because it's not just about food

and we can't be overly myopic and say well it's only food and that's the cause for everything because it isn't that we have to look at stress we have to look at toxins we have to look at genetic predispositions we have to look at sleep all of these are epigenetic

things and then we have to look at genetics as well these are constantly and dynamically instructing genetic expression and inflam inflammatory Cascades so we look at epigenetics genetics and I look at the different Gene Snips as well like meth isolation

Gene steps which methylation is this big biochemical superhighway that makes detox Pathways healthy and hormones have the happy and it builds proteins in our body and we look at cannabinoid Gene Snips and people are you know obviously CBD is all the buzz and the

health blogosphere so we talk about the cannabinoid system and how that regulates inflammation in the body and the gut brain axis there's so many variables to consider we are intricate people with a lot of different variables to consider so I start to hopefully

educate people in the book of how to find out their own food code and what works for their body and and their own life code as well like how what a different Stress Management tools to calm inflammation what are different ways to use movement to calm

inflammation because all of these things are are low cost they're effective they're some of them are no cost that you can start integrating in your life to improve how you feel well I mean let's get let's get let's give that right now that are listening let's get

let's give people a taste of that at least and you know a couple things that I want to mention because I don't think you know my apologies I don't think that we defined early on that we should is just a definition for functional medicine because it's it's different

than ordinary medicine and you know it takes a different angle and Approach at inflammation so if you could address that and also you know you mentioned the gut so there was actually a question that was right on the tip of my tongue I was about to ask you this because

commonly we hear that the gut is like the second brain so you know if we could touch on on first functional medicine part and then how the gut is you know part of this this such an intricate part of you know the whole system of the human body that would that would be

great sure um functional medicine another word for functional medicine is integrative medicine or systems medicine one of The Godfather is a functional medicine called it that um and if I had to differentiate functional medicine from conventional

medicine if we had to like delineate the points here number one is that in functional medicine we run more comprehensive Labs we look at our we're looking at these underlying commonalities after a Comprehensive Health history we know what labs are

relevant so we're not being Superfluous with lab testing we're not just running labs for the sake of it but we are being comprehensive without being excessive with Labs because we want to not just run the best basic tests and just say well beer cholesterol is above 200

here's a Statin drug or if your blood sugar is above 100 let's give you a glucose management drug let's give you a blood sugar lowering drug let's find out what's the root cause of why you're going through what you're going through which for the most part the human race

isn't sick from a medication deficiency nobody's ultimately sick from a pharmaceutical critical deficiency and obviously some people are alive because of medications we're not anti-medication and functional medicine we just asked the question what is your most effective

option in health care that's causing you the least amount of side effects and for some people medications fit that Criterion and they're they're managing their Med symptoms with medications fantastic but a lot of people are on medications that's the only option that

they're given in conventional medicine yet there's a lot more effective options to go to the Upstream core dysfunction that's even causing those symptoms in the first place without the potential side effects that a lot of pharmaceutical drugs carry along with

them so we are looking at things like microbiome issues or gut problems or hormonal imbalances or toxicity issues or genetic predispositions or so many different variables to consider that we get multiple Labs perspective from their Vantage Point like what's the root cause

of what's going on here and then the second thing we we do differently in functional medicine is that we interpret the labs that all are already ran in conventional medicine we look at those labs differently because the labs reference range that you're being

compared to when you go to like a standard lab whether it's your doctor's office or a hospital or a Lab Corp or quest You'll see your lab number and then you'll see this reference range that you're being compared to well we we get that reference range that X to Y

interval of numbers based on a statistical bell curve average of people who go to that lab people that predominantly go to Labs aren't the healthiest group of people so there's a lot of people that go to the doctor and like hey Doc like I don't feel this way

I'm fatigued I have anxiety I can't sleep I'm my dead digestion is wreck that these hormonal symptoms and then these basic Labs come back quote unquote normal even though the person knows like heck like this is not normal for me and what the doctor is unintentionally

telling them is that you're a lot like the other people with how health problems that are making up this reference range that we're comparing you to right so in functional medicine if we're taking people with health problems out of that reference range what's left

it's people that are living long healthy vibrant Wellness life lives so that's where we're comparing you to the patient to to get you there so we can see that objective Baseline like what the heck are we up against so we can start leaning into these findings to start

being start seeing the needle move in a positive direction so we can retest and track changes so we're diligently evidence-based tracking changes on Labs because the labs are a reflection of why somebody feels the way that they do so and then we realize we're all different

so this a concept called bio bio individuality and I talk a lot about it in the inflammation Spectrum because you cannot there's not a one-size-fits-all approach to getting well and the Heart of functional medicine is finding out what's right for

you and you could have a hundred people with the same ICD-10 code let's say this fatigue you have a you have you were labeled by conventional medicine as fatigue well what's driving that fatigue because that's just you're just diagnosed with how you feel you know you

just yes I know I'm tired but why or you're you're labeled with low thyroid issues you're labeled with fibromyalgia but why and you can underneath the hood so to speak because we see the symptom as a check engine light okay you don't just cover up the check engine light and

say see you in six months you say what's underneath the hood as you know from a diagnostic standpoint that's actually causing the symptoms to be on in the first place so for if we're using fatigue as an example is it a nutrient deficiency is a hormonal imbalance is it

a chronic infection is it a gut issue I mean it could be anything or is it a stressful job is a stressful life is it some sort of toxicity we have to keep our minds and our hearts open to really be a thoughtful diagnostician you know okay so I mean

you jumped a little bit ahead because I mean bio individuality is in it it's looking at it on my questions list so I mean you're segueing a little bit but I wanted you to address the you know the importance of the gut and as the second brain I'm not sure if that you did that

or not could you uh yeah no I didn't yeah so I that was my long-winded answer of functional medicine right uh but uh the gut is as you had said our second brain Hippocrates the father of modern medicine he said all disease begins in the gut and now

research is catching up with Antiquity that the majority of health problems today at least to some degree begin in the gut if not at least having a gut component to them so it's formed from the same fetal tissue as your brain uh it's your second it's known as a second

brain for a reason it's that when babies are growing in their mom's womb in the brain are formed from the same fetal tissue and are inextricably linked for the rest of our lives through what's referred to in the scientific literature as the gut brain axis and the and the

vagus nerve and if you think about it on a physical level the gut even resembles the brain and it's also in many far-reaching ways I mean if you look at it 95 percent of serotonin levels your happy neurotransmitter is made in the gut stored in the gut when people are

maybe nervous about public speaking they have to run to the bathroom that's the gut brain axis that's the stress gut brain access it's always in flux it's always functioning and that's why there's an explosion of research around the gut brain axis being associated with

different neurological issues the second brain the gut is influencing the first brain our actual brain so things like anxiety and depression and autism and ADHD and different autoimmune neurological issues have gut components to them and it's bi-directional if

someone has God forbid like a brain injury that can impact the gut so it's definitely bi-directional but oftentimes you have these gut-centric influences causing problems in the brain and because it's 75 percent of the immune system like I said it also is linked to

many different autoimmune issues so you don't have to have digestive symptoms to have underlying gut problems many people think I'm going to the bathroom fine I'm fine there gut Health's not my thing but oftentimes you can see the core underlying gut issue causing a

downstream Ripple effect in the brain or in the immune system or with our hormones because a lot of our hormones are converted in the gut like the thyroid hormone for example so it is so powerfully influential on human health yeah yeah I find that really resounding

I'd love that answer I think it's really important to really understand what's happening in the gut and I mean you nailed it there's there's so many levels to how much it's regulating um I you know I wanted to ask you a little bit more specifically let's say

that you have someone in their you know mid to late 20s or even early 30s I mean that should be the peak of your health right like I mean if if you're if you're in your early 30s and you're waking up fatigued or tired and there's I mean at any age I guess right is there there's a

problem there right oh yes certainly and I have to tell you that um I'm seeing more people in their 20s and 30s and 40s now more than ever because of the rate the rise of these inflammatory inflammation Spectrum issues as I refer to in the book is that

they are struggling with anxiety they're struggling with depression they're struggling with fatigue they're struggling with autoimmune issues and this is growing by Leaps and Bounds and these this generation I mean My Generation they are for the most part good patients they are

good stewards and they want to do the right thing and they're exhausting all the options in conventional medicine but yet they're still struggling so these are the people that I see these complex issues where they're doing all the things quote unquote

um but they're looking for answers and we're having an epidemic of people and I think it's awesome conversations that you provide on your show that really start to wake people up to whoa I have Agency on my Wellness I can actually do something about this and or they see

themselves in the conversation and they think whoa I thought that was normal just because something's common doesn't make it normal ubiquity doesn't equate necessarily to normalcy and many people are struggling with things that they go through every day that they just think

eh it's normal it must this must be like this must be the early 30s well no I mean chronic health problems and a growing medication list are certainly ubiquitous but it shouldn't be something that we settle for as a society because as I said these are largely things that

people can improve whether that that's you know 40 Improvement or 100 Improvement we have influence on our health in most cases okay okay so let me pause you there sorry well I just I have to you know I feel like you're T you know we're getting into the what we've

defined that so let's get into the how let's get into you know how what can we do how can we change our diet how can we recognize what our triggers are what are the some of the things that we're eating that are bad for us how do we learn how to do that how do we learn

how to you know make our diet different or what do you suggest your patients to do that yeah so you I would start it depends on if what they're doing you know you could get a functional medicine practitioner if you wanted to and that you know if you go to

functionalmedicine.org that's who trained me and my team the Cleveland Clinic as a functional medicine center you could find one in your local city or we see patients around the world they could do that at doctorwillcole.com they could do that clinical level but I

realize not everybody wants a functional medicine doctor not anybody not everybody needs it they're not at that place they just want to start taking action on their health and that's why I wrote the book and why I provide content on the site so people can just lean into

it on their own um and I think a good starting point is to kind of see where inflammation's impacting you and in the book we have a quiz that I adapted from questions asked patients but it's all the quiz is also free on our website at Dr willcole.com

they can just take it to get a questionnaire perspective a sub diagnostic if you will perspective that it's not a lab but it's it's still checking in with your body and questionnaires are very helpful from a health history standpoint to kind of see

these are Pointers as to things that may be an issue for you so let's say hormones are more of a problem for you or digestion is or brain health is then you want I in the book I gave tools to for people to start leaning into different foods so for example if it's

normal logical issues then we bring things like nootropics in and we bring things like adaptogens in which help these are different plant medicines or food medicines that people can focus on to start increasing neuro neurological function and things that enhance brain

derived neurotropic factor of bdnf to improve neurological capacity so to decrease fatigue increased Clarity increased energy levels decreased anxiety and depression and then from a food standpoint to be specific I think they should start with an Elimination

Diet and that's tailored to the individual there's definitely tons of ways to do an Elimination Diet I mean a carnivore diet is an Elimination Diet and then there's different variations that aren't that so um I teach in the book based on the quiz score which way

they would do it would be the most appropriate for them but generally speaking or I should I mean maybe generally without looking at someone's quiz but specific enough to give people some verbal direction today um is that they would remove foods that

are most likely to cause a problem so what I refer to as the core 4 would be grains and that's going to be wheat and corn and oat and spelled and Rye all of that stuff uh sugar and that's going to be processed sugar but also the you know more natural sounding euphemisms for

sugar like agave nectar or coconut sugar sounds more natural but still we're going to remove those for a while and then three I would see say high omega-6 oils those are going to be things like canola oil and soybean oil or what's referred to as industrial seed oils and

four are going to be a dairy I didn't mention Dairy so four four would be Dairy and then again I I'm not making any broad sweeping statements about either one of those four Foods because some people can tolerate more of those some people can tolerate less of those

some people can't tolerate them at all so what we're doing is a food experiment for you to see how you do them do on them so you go off of them for a number of weeks and then you slowly reintroduce them and I teach how to do that in the book and obviously for my patients if

they needed Elimination Diet and then a more advanced Elimination Diet is taking that core 4 into what I refer to as eliminate in the ate and eliminate is the number eight because there's eight foods and then we do the core four plus four or more and that's going to be

nightshades which are plant group of foods of fruits and vegetables like peppers and tomatoes and eggplants and spices and white potatoes nuts and seeds legumes uh and and eggs and that's going to be the eliminate and then you remove all eight of those foods for eight weeks

and then you slowly reintroduce them and then what the person's gonna find is oh when I bring this food back in I feel great it's fine I love it I missed it I want to bring it back in and then a certain foods on that list they're going to be problematic so these are the foods

that I most commonly have seen over my 11 years of seeing thousands of patients around the world the most likely to cause problems and obviously there are nuances to this I mean there's ways to prepare it like you can soak nuts and seeds you can pressure cooker beans you

can have like different variations of dairy like grass-fed or fermented dairy you can have soaked grains you can have gluten-free grains there's so many variables amongst that so what I'm teaching in the book is not only are you having problems with that food but what

form of that food will you do better with because for example eggs can be problematic for some people but if they have uh like duck eggs they'll be fine because uh it's generally more tolerated for some people and then and so on and so forth there's different versions of

all of those eight foods that are generally speaking more tolerated and some that are less tolerated so we go through all over the nuances you can enjoy food you can love food you can really get the most out of it but do it in a way that works for your body okay

so let me let me just unpack you know as much as I can so it's important for you know a person to realize that whatever they're assigning whatever they're feeling and if if that's associated with fatigue or anxiety it's common to have a person associate that

with being normal because they feel or experience that on a regular basis right so the first thing that we're doing is kind of introducing this idea that um you know it's it you should be waking up and feeling energized and good about your day right

oh certainly yeah so so and then you know you're you're advocating a sort of Elimination Diet where you're starting to remove certain foods and and and then see how your body responds or reacts to the things that you're removing exactly okay and so when you mention

sugars I mean that that seems like the biggest thing but when you mention that does that obviously includes fruit sugars as well right uh it does not include sugar it includes added sugar so not sugar inside of fruit so people can have fruits and I do

explain in the book and to my patients to not have lots of fruit sugar meaning don't have fruits all day long just to focus generally having more vegetables than fruits and I generally would say cooked vegetables to make them more digestible

um but yes fruits allowed Whole Food sugars are fine um in an Elimination Diet approach and you can modify that if you want to have like more of a lower carb elimination dye approach or a ketogenic Elimination Diet approach you could do that and

remove the fruits but from a general person standpoint there's not an inherent need for that okay very interesting I mean someone we had a question come up uh that I I found interesting they talked about fasting how connected are you to you know really

like intermittent fasting or just just fasting for a short period do you recommend it yeah yeah I do I I and it's about finding out how to do it that works for your body we do talk about it in both the books um because it is a major facet to Health

and Longevity and lowering inflammation fasting has really some exciting research around it in enhancing something called autophagy or cellular repair it's uh basically cellular recycling it's your healthy cells recycling out the dysfunctional cells

it's our body's own inherent uh like anti-aging anti-disease mechanisms and uh fasting increases it ketosis increases it there's a lot of uh research around that um and it is the goal of intermittent fasting or time restricted feeding is finding out the window that works best

for you so when I go over different ways but the the simplest way of time restricted feeding is what's called a eight to six window and it's eating between 8 AM and 6 p.m uh that's very easy I mean that's just not eating too late it's allowing your over the night

for you to fast until you break the fast at breakfast and then there's tighter time restricted feeding Windows like 12 to 6 you're only eating between 12 p.m and 6 p.m and then there's modified fasting mimicking diets where you're we're doing caloric restriction for a

number of days to mimic the benefits of fasting the ketogenic diet is by its very definition it is a fasting mimicking diet because it's mimicking a lot of the benefits of fasting without actually fasting and you see a lot of the same benefits and similarities

between both the ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting so for example like I will eat what eat when I'm hungry I eat until I'm satiated and the more fat adapted or keto adapted somebody is they can start leaning into these practices the problem

I find with fasting is people doing too much too soon like gritting their teeth and they're coming into fasting with like uh a dieting Consciousness or mentality where they're just gonna like push through it which maybe has its place in small instances but largely

speaking I find that people set themselves up for for failure because they aren't fully fat adapted they're doing too much fasting and then they go and binge after the fast and that's not the appropriate so it has to be in context with a larger healthy lifestyle

and a healthy relationship with food in your body and wellness um so I think that the best form of intermittent fasting is the kind and the type that works for you and start off slow lean into it see where you feel the best take into consideration how you

feel um through that time be because more isn't always better but I am excited about the research around it I do it almost every day to some degree and I even lean into these more extreme versions of it like What's called the omad or one meal a day the acronym ad

sure where I'll do like a 22 to 2 or 23 to 1 fasting to eating window and I'm getting my calories in in the in that range so I I it's not for everybody but I think it's about leaning into it and seeing where you feel great at and I I I tend to do really well with it I mean

there's there's a lot of stuff there that's that's really crucial I mean Dr Cole I I mean admittedly I don't think I have the best you know diet I just I work a lot and most of the time what I find myself going through is you know it takes me some time to get out of bed I

mean I'm fatigued when I get up and then when I finally do it's like coffee the only thing that I'm thinking about and you know I just I'm really trying to figure this out more but you know and then you know as I start to sort of ingest this caffeine

you know my energy comes back and you know I'm feeling good and I will I will you know I'll roll through you know until like two or three p.m I look down I go into my flow state zone you know as I'm working I'll look down it's it's like two o'clock I haven't eaten

anything and next thing I know I'm just I'm crashing you know and like I'm I'm headed to the kitchen looking you know I'm primarily eating like salad or something like that in the middle of the day I mean when when you see someone waking up fatigued I mean what could be

the cause of that well it really could no no it's not um some things I would uh think about is looking at the quality of sleep I think many people are not sleeping well they're they're stressed they don't have what's commonly referred to as sleep

hygiene they kind of are on electronics too late they are on social media too late and their circadian rhythm is jacked for a lot of lack of a more technical terms it's off um and they aren't getting restorative sleep and they're getting very

interrupted sleep and so they wake up in the morning feeling like they could have slept like two hours but actually it was like six or seven which probably still isn't enough because it's not enough quality and it's not enough good enough quantity of sleep that's one thing I

would think about but then you could run some labs and check into their biochemistry like where where are their hormone levels uh where are their inflammation levels uh What uh what do their nutrients look like so all of these things can be um assessed from an

objective data standpoint and looking at cortisol which is inversely proportional or should be to serotonin which is converted into melatonin at night so you see this melatonin circadian rhythm um inversely proportional to cortisol Rhythm Which is higher in the morning to

wake you up in this nice s-shaped circadian rhythm throughout the day to allow melatonin to come up through the night and you can quantify melatonin and cortisol throughout the day so what's commonly referred to as adrenal fatigue it's really a brain-based issue the

hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis that we measure via urine and saliva and what's called the cortisol Awakening response or the car and there's some exciting research centered around that to kind of gauge these circadian rhythm issues which are again brain based

issues adrenal fatigues not an adrenal problem inherently it's a brain-based component which external stressors like technology and blue light and stress all of these things can impact a circadian rhythm and the foods we eat can impact with circadian rhythm so bringing things

into activate the parasympathetic resting digesting system things like adaptogens to help with that brain cortisol access things to support melatonin production all of these things are are some things to consider but keep an open mind it's the science and the

art The Duality of functional medicine because the other side of that is the art and what's the space in between the facts whether the space in between the data and really kind of looking at this person and being almost like a clinical Sherlock Holmes and finding out

okay what's missing from here and don't be so like sure you can double look and triple look at what's going on here yeah yeah it's amazing I'm so glad that you mentioned sleep hygiene I think that's really important I mean there was it seems like you know there there are

more people that are that are focused on and we're finding out like we had we had uh Dave asprey on the show and he's all about you know bulletproof diet and blue light and avoiding that and a lot of my friends you know started picking up these blue light blocking glasses and

wearing those so I mean like what would how would you design sleep hygiene I mean should we be off of our phones not looking at our phones whatsoever for how many hours before we you know are getting into bed and then you know like just the blue light blocking glasses I

mean do you do you find those are substantial enough to recommend yeah I do um it depends on what your Baseline is like are you sleeping fantastic or are you not do you feel great or not so like my advice that I'm going to be given this instant is about about if you're

having issues and then how far you have to go to provide the quality sleep and the energy and the you know restorative sense of well-being that you're looking for so the variability back to that bio individuality is those are all different uh glass sizes so to speak like glasses

of water some people have bigger glasses some people have smaller glasses and there's people with the smaller glasses they'll fill up and overflow Tipping Point of symptoms quicker than somebody with a big glass you can't change your glass size that's our genetic tolerance

to stressors but we can change what we put in the glass and when we're talking about one Tipping Point one glass overflowing and that is poor sleep or fatigue and if it's fatigue centered around poor sleep which it doesn't always center around lack of sleep but

um in this example if we're looking at improving sleep some sleep hygiene things that people can consider if their glass is overflowing so to speak with poor sleep is and is are things like going off of technology I think that would be around sleep I would

probably recommend one hours to two hours before sleep going off of technology and if you are going to be on technology look at things like blue lock blue light blocking glasses and Dave asprey actually has he's invested in the company uh that's really good and he may

own it to some degree I don't have any connection with them other than knowing that they provide really good evidence-based stuff it's called true dark that Dave asper is an advocate for I'm an advocate for as well and they do have different lenses

depending on what you need some that are like Twilight ones that you do wear at night that are very helpful for people and then ones that are like daylight ones and they have uh like uh the the glasses that change um colors in in the light they have a lot of different

variations in Styles I have seen in my own life and in my patient's life and in my team's life in my functional medicine center these glasses work really well and again I have no connection to that brand there's other brands that are great too but that's the one that I have

the most experience with um and then I think essential oils can be really good and some promising research and really good anecdotal just clinical experience that I've noticed over the years of things like lavender to be really helpful at night whether

you can put a few drops in your bath at night or shower you can put some on your pillow you could put some like on um like under your nose to help breathe in calming things like lavender or have it diffusing in the room um meditation apps can be really

fantastic so at meditation apps like headspace or calm have nighttime meditations or hopefully it would be turning off the technology once you learn how to meditate and then just do it on your own but guided meditations can be great and then your phones you're

not looking at your phone you're just listening to it um but then once you get the hang of meditation you don't need an app you can just do it yourself um but you have to build that mindfulness muscle and sometimes at the beginning it's using technology to learn

that skill set um unless you're going to go to it like a mindfulness class but you could do that um and then I I'm also a fan of uh weighted blankets or gravity blankets which are like this proverbial hug of a blanket um that um really again activates the

parasympathetic resting system and it is just a blanket that's weighted and it is um great for people that are wired and tired where they are they know they're exhausted but they just can't calm down um they have racing thoughts at night and they have the anxiety at night and

they just can't relax or they have interrupted sleep this is something to consider a weighted blanket or a gravity blanket um so those are some some things to consider and like obviously keep the lights off make sure that the windows are closed up so you're not getting the

morning light up it's a dawn so those are some things to consider CBD oil can be good chamomile tea can be good these are all things to consider in your sleep hygiene toolbox I love those I love those suggestions I hadn't really considered the weighted blanket

I've heard that mentioned before um I specifically I've I've got my place sort of wired with red light to reduce the the blue light aspect of things I tried the the blue light sunglasses they just didn't you know I don't know it's hard to wear those hard to put those on

sometimes there's a program that you can download called flux I'm sure you've probably heard of it yes and and that will adjust your your screen settings and how much blue light is coming off of your screen um I think it's I the smell aspect of

you know introducing this smell that's this calming thing and attaching that to you know calm centered place in your brain that's a really great recommendation as well what about exercise how much should we be exercising should we should we be doing

weight training should we be doing cardio I mean where is the balance there I think the balance is there depends on the individual so that's definitely a topic of exploration that I have in the inflammation Spectrum in the book because I want people to find that

rhythm of things that invigorate them that challenge them that push them that's not causing them an accentuation or a flare-up of any inflammation so for example people that have like these adrenal Rhythm issues like the Circadian rhythm HPA axis

issues uh sometimes they can work out and they'll feel worse after they work out they say things like I'm I'll pay for it an increase of fatigue for like a day or two and it's not just the normal like muscle soreness or like I had a good workout feeling it's like no I'm

have an increase of fatigue or a real flare-up of symptoms so that's too much for them they need to scale it back and find a workout routine that works for their bodies again more isn't always better when you have these either inflammatory issues or hormonal

imbalances perpetuated by inflammation so then um maybe they need more restorative yoga in tai chi I think that we need to find a balance we need to mix things up I think humans do good with mixing workouts up and not being always doing the same thing I think the general

um advice that I would say is finding a rhythm that works for you go outside of your comfort zones make sure you're moving and sweating as much as your body can tolerate and give yourself rest in between I think those are some things to think about so for example like I'll do

a Peloton uh cycle that I like the Peloton because I can get a lot done in a short period of time time and I don't have to go driving to a gym and then next day I'll do a burst training circuit and the next day I'll just rest or the next day I'll do yoga and the

next day I will just go walking with my dog so you can mix it up you don't have to do the same thing every day mm-hmm and I mean I I would presume that if if you're at that stage of you know burning out when you're after the gym you're pushing way too hard you got to

scale back certainly yeah and it's it's just maybe you need to check in if you feel burned out I would almost advise you to check in with some Labs like what's going on there maybe it is just you need to rest and it's as simple as that as that or is

there something going on hormonally or from an inflammation standpoint that's causing you not to rebound like you should yeah I think it's really important that we get a sense of measurement I Labs crucial to that I mean it getting your met your levels measured and knowing

where you are I mean that's that's a key part of understanding your your health well we've got about 11 10 minutes left so you know I really want to take the rest of this time to sort of wrap this together in a way that you know people can sort of understand how to

better you know certain practical things they can apply me we've been giving a lot of those really appreciate that um one thing I wanted to ask you about though was you know I am very much a night owl I just enjoy being up at night um I a lot of my friends are this way as

well and they're just awake at night you know what's it I mean what's your recommendation there how do you how do you respond to that well I think people can get away with it for a certain period of time and some people have again big glasses some

people have smaller glasses they can handle that certain level of stress but the research is pretty clear that if you are even just one night of poor sleep will Spike inflammation levels up but yeah how many people do we know either like you you're saying like you enjoy it

you just are staying up late or you they can't fall asleep because of you know insomnia for whatever reason and both of those cases you'll see spiked inflammation levels it's how much is it going to take to overflow your glass that's the question because some people

they have a big glass and they're gonna they could do that for years and years of their life and they're fine right and then some people if they do that enough times they're really going to pay for it in their quality of life so there's no broad sweeping statement on that as if

you feel fine if you're getting through your day if you're meeting your goals both in life and in your health then maybe don't stress about it I think you live your life people should have the freedom to live the life the way the way that they want to live but my experience

are the people that can't get away with that is that they've done it for a time and it's created actually poor circadian rhythms now they can't get to sleep even if they tried um because their circadian rhythms are so imbalanced or deranged that they

can't actually get a proper sleep um so what Maybe started off as like a night turn or a graveyard shift or they just like staying out late they actually can't get a normal circadian rhythm they don't have that rebound that that flexibility to like do it and then flip

back or maybe they did it for so long that they can't flip back so it's my job to kind of get that flip back on the normal circadian rhythm because sleep is so important sleep is not just a luxury or something that you do when you're older or dead as people say I'll sleep

when I'm dead sleep is a mandate on your Wellness it is Paramount to your health and uh it is so important I think we have an epidemic of poor sleep in our culture largely driven by technology actually I think people have too much content in a way that they just can

preoccupy themselves with more content and they're not getting enough sleep so I think it is finding that Rhythm that balance that Stillness that the human body needs because remember our genetics haven't changed in 10 000 years for sure but yeah our society has changed very

dramatically in a very short period of time and that's it's this onslaught of technology which is the double-ed sword we love technology it's how I talk to my patients it's how we're talking right now it's fantastic it's amazing but it is can be when unregulated create this

sort of endless Vortex that's impacting our physiology in a negative way through blue light and just constant stimulation um and Stress and Anxiety sometimes with the content people are confused about um especially when it is regards to health

um Dr Google as we call it but but it's the you know I think that it's it's other reasons too obviously you might like hanging out with your friends at night too but I would just say just look and take an inventory on your health and ultimately say am I out where I want to

be and where am I willing to start making some compromises of things that maybe aren't in alignment with where I want to be okay okay so a couple things that you know sparked just some questions as you were speaking um okay so you know I think it was

really important that you said you know right now it might not feel like you're impacting your health in a negative way but later as you get older it is going to impact you you are going to feel it and I think that's crucial of an understanding so that we start at an

early age and look at you know what am I eating is it balanced and usually your body will tell you you know your body it will communicate with you and let you know when you're doing the wrong thing it feels like the wrong thing right so um one other thing I wanted to ask was

uh just you know if we could get into supplements and supplementation uh it's a really big part of you know kind of my life are there some specific supplements that you absolutely recommend that people use uh I I'm actually really excited about

things that help modulating uh inflammation levels and modulating stress hormones um and so I'm fascinated by different uh Botanicals like turmeric and curcuminoids and Resveratrol uh that help to attenuate inflammation levels and same with adaptogens I think that

the adaptogenic kingdom is quite fascinating as far as the research is concerned um actually for the inflammation Spectrum book we put together these Botanicals that are very highly researched in this in the clinical nutrition research to for people to lean

into it's a blend we call calm calm yourself but it's about calming inflammation and calming stress but specifically curcuminoids are really fascinating those are the compounds that are in turmeric um and uh ashwagandha as far as adaptogens concerned holy basil rhodiola

these are adaptogen to help with that circadian rhythm and l-theanine I think is really fascinating too it's not an adaptogen but it's just a compound that helps with this route relaxing and parasympathetic activity in the body yeah I I love it Dr Cole I mean there's

so much information in the book and you know it does seem like inflammation is a huge part big part I deal with it a lot and you know I I've been trying to hone it and trying to you know force myself I you know I'm I'm kind of a workaholic and I thrive on

just working a lot how important is it that you know we are purposely intentionally not doing anything you know maybe maybe we're just you know in this zone of of nature you know like going out and going to a park and just hanging out there how important are

those two things doing nothing and connecting with nature so important and again we have to check in with our body and how much we can handle some you can maybe handle more than the next person um but I would say to some degree it's going to be applicable to most people

um that they have to find Stillness and whatever that looks like it may be doing nothing and just relaxing and resting um or I think things like Forest bathing uh which is what the you know the translation from Japanese calls it it's just getting out in nature and the

benefits coming out of Japan and South Korea are really fascinating that I actually talk about the research in the inflammation spectrum of how you can use nature uh in something as simple as just walking out in the forest to lower inflammation and the fact of the impact

that has in the modulation of these different inflammatory Cascades is really exciting and it's free it's in something that anybody can do I mean unless you live in the middle of a city but even New York City has Central Park even the most robust you know know

metropolitan areas have some green space so it's finding that that Stillness even in in the noise but I I that's why I live in the in the countryside so I can have that a little bit more easily available yeah yeah so important uh Dr Cole I really really appreciate

sincerely appreciate your time tonight I know you're very busy very busy guy um where can people pick up the book you said that it was coming out October 15th but it's on pre-order now yeah we have everything at Dr willcole.com thanks again for having me

but yeah it's Dr w-i-l-l-c-o-l-e.com they can pre-order the inflammation spectrum they can check out that quiz that I was talking about it's free on the website um and we have actually an instant download of the first chapter right now during pre-order uh so yeah I'm thanks

for having me again yeah for sure guys that is the show thank you so much for listening I know that kind of wrapped a little bit early tonight I mean it's right on time actually usually we're way over so I kind of wanted to be guarded about how far we went with the

show tonight but I think we covered a lot of really good information by you know this book inflammation Spectrum the name of my guest Dr will Cole I mean there's a lot of really good information in this book so that's gonna do it for us here at hxp

for this week we're going to be back next week for sure if you're not subscribed to us on YouTube if you're listening to this on the podcast version go and search for The Human Experience Podcast click subscribe and if you can if you if you have access

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