-: Another way you can look at assessing this stuff
is to use something like the Braverman test,
which is going to look a little bit more
at the psychological component.
And it's gonna break you down
into neurotransmitter dominance
or neurotransmitter deficiencies.
So neurotransmitter dominance
is kinda like a personality test.
It kinda helps you understand what your character is.
So whether you're naturally more dopamine driven in
with characteristics are with that,
or whether you're more GABA driven
and with the characteristics are with that.
Because understanding a little bit about like...
The personality tests
and some of these character tests
can kinda let you know where somebody exists
on the pendulum of these things.
'Cause one person may seem like not very energetic,
but that's their normal.
And another person may seem a little bit more hyperactive
but that's their normal.
And it's when they deviate
from what is their natural neurotransmitter dominance
or their physiological dominance
or their natural personality traits.
When they deviate that is when there's likely
the largest physiological problem going on
or psychological problem.
So you get that.
And then the deficiencies tells you kind of like
it's kind of the guess
of how different your current level is
from what your dominance would be.
And so I have used this in the past
to help kind of figure out what the nutrients
that I would like to use
for somebody for sleep would be
or for pre-workouts things like that or stress management.
So if I see that this person is very,
maybe say they're naturally dopamine dominant
and they're very GABA deficient.
I know that their natural character burns out
the dopamine system really fast
because they kinda skew in that direction.
So it can be like
this is a person that probably at a base level then
if their goal is like hypertrophy,
which is say more of a recovery driven process
than a performance driven process.
We need to be constantly doing things
that kinda push them in the other direction
or they're just gonna deplete that system too much.
And also we're gonna use magnesium more.
We're constantly gonna be working on sleep
and more restorative and relaxing type lifestyle
interventions for them.
Because that's what's gonna help them get to their goal
or it's another person they might be like,
I gotta a really...
It's not hypertrophy it's a purely performance driven goal.
And it might be like,
actually you're for where you're set up there,
that aligns with you just fine.
So there's a book,
the old book
that the Braverman has out there has this test in it.
But we'll go ahead and put a PDF
with the questions in there for you too.
Some of the neuroscience in there is good.
But you can also use personality tests as well.
And I like Jordan Peterson.
I think he's a brilliant guy
and he's got a personality test now
that you can take and then get the...
I think it's a couple bucks or whatever to take the test
and get your results there.
And I'm kinda leaning towards that
as being a more updated version of this
in terms of kinda understanding the character dominance
and whatnot.
But with that information, he has a course on that too.
Can give you an idea
of how different personality types are going to succeed
and be challenged by different environmental factors,
by different interpersonal relationships
and things like that.
So when it comes to improving somebody's environment
and encouraging introspection
and having those conversations.
Knowing a little bit more about their personality
can one, help you communicate better with them,
but also help you give them better advice.
See Cody's right there.
And I know it works
because when Cody took it, it said robot.
So I know it's accurate.
So if you are rusty on this,
remember the things from course two.
Dopamine is like the size of your engine, the horsepower
it's the thing that gives you energy, motivation.
So if you don't have dopamine, you have low energy,
you may be depressed.
But you'll be depressed and tired.
Acetylcholine, that's the gas pedal
ability to regulate energy.
So if you have poor acetylcholine
you may have more kind of manic type issues up and down.
Like you don't regulate your energy very well.
More mood swings, up and downs, highs lows
et cetera like that.
From a training perspective,
dopamine is what gives you the ability to
perform with intensity.
Acetylcholine is what gives you the ability
to maintain execution and coordination.
So you can kinda look at those things
from a training perspective as well.
GABA is like the brakes, it slows everything down.
And this is where you basically get to switch
into recovery mode.
So basically if you don't have enough GABA
you're gonna be under recovering most of the time,
because most of the things that we do
push the other direction.
We take things to help us perform better.
We try and progressively overload our training.
We try and get our calorie deficit
or our macros or whatever push to the limit
in terms of us getting the body composition goal
that we want or whatever.
And if we aren't able to switch to recovery mode
and we stay in a stress state,
that just ends up with a crash over time
and serotonin is like the alternator.
It's the thing that recharges your battery.
So while GABA essentially is our brakes
that allows us to recover.
We need to be able to sit at idle
and then recharge our batteries.
And so like quality of sleep is more serotonin-based
where falling asleep is more GABA-based.
So when we're looking
at somebody that has trouble falling asleep,
that likely things that improve GABA,
those are the things that help people fall asleep.
Whereas things that improve serotonin
are the things that improve people,
getting quality, restorative sleep.
And you'll see a lot of we'll say crossover
between the psychology and the neurology with this
as well as the performance and supplementation aspects
of looking at these things.
Like, for example when you're unhappy
because you have an unresolved issue
you get poor quality sleep.
Well, if you were happier
then serotonin is the happy neurotransmitter
then you sleep better.
And so all of these things kind of correlate together
and you can see how it's just the cyclical things
that make men.
Anything that we can do
to get a positive input into their system.
So that maybe taking an SSRI,
that maybe taking 5-HTP,
that maybe getting appropriate B vitamin levels,
that maybe writing a grateful blog,
that maybe taking time for yourself
or spending a thing, whatever.
Or maybe having a conversation
with somebody resolving an issue
that you've been avoiding or whatever
or maybe just developing a better perspective
of where you are.
Not competing with the joneses or whatever.
So many ways that we could work on improving serotonin
both from a pharmacological perspective,
from a training perspective,
and from a psychological perspective.
All we gotta do is just improve it.
And so as a coach, as a trainer,
you may give somebody acetylcarnatine
'cause it's good for dopamine.
Or you may say,
hey, we're gonna pick up the intensity
in your training cause drives dopamine
or we may say,
actually, no we need to focus on something else.
So we're purposely not going to
do this direction of training.
'Cause right now we need to switch you over
to being more in this other state.
So like for instance, a runner's high
that's more of a serotonin-based than a dopamine-based,
versus the feeling you get when you break a PR.
That's like (growls) dopamine
versus like this is great, serotonin.
So even things like the movies you watch
the books you read,
the music you listen to.
All of those can be influences in this light.
Can be powerful influences
on your brain chemistry, your mood.
So all you gotta do is find ways
to start pushing that in the right direction.
And then think back to that triangle.
Now, this is a very important part
for you guys not to tune out.
So read that title there.
The danger of using non psychological interventions
to resolve psychological stress.
So, I've been saying,
what you need to do is you need
to focus on the things that are in your toolbox
to create resiliency so people can deal
with the psychological issues.
This can do a 180 and completely backfire on you,
If you don't take the appropriate approach.
Because what can happen is people can start
to think that the solutions to their problem
are not the psychological thing,
not resolving the psychological issues.
But the fact that what I have is
I don't have a deal stress management issue.
I have a theanine deficiency.
So I'm just going to take theanine all the time.
So that I never feel stressed.
That is not the solution.
So people essentially are creating mental dependencies
on the supplement or the routines they're doing.
And that essentially can create a false stress
where essentially anytime they go off the routine
or don't have it, they will become stressed.
It's like a reverse placebo.
They will become stressed
replacing basically the old stress
that you were suppressing pharmacologically.
Now with the new stress of which is just the absence
of the pharmacological solution.
So you essentially like, if I take this, I feel better.
Therefore, if I don't take this, I will feel worse.
That is not what we wanna put people
if we give them supplementations
or lifestyle changes or whatnot
to reduce stress or to improve their resiliency.
We don't want to get people
into a fragile mindset where they think
they need these things.
They're now dependent on the supplement
or they're dependent on their morning routine,
or their evening routine
or their exercise routine or whatever it may be.
And the absence of that exposes them to stress,
that can be an issue.
It can also give a false sense of security
'cause people can like
you can give somebody something that can work really well.
And then they could be like,
"Oh man, I can handle anything."
And then they'll behave like an asshole
because they have a false insecurity
and it won't work out so well.
'Cause theanine doesn't solve the world's problems
and you can only take so much magnesium
before you poop out your whole colon.
So, you need to make sure
using these interventions is
under the guidance and under the perspective
that these are things
to help make you
a little bit more resilient so that you can overcome
the psychological issues when you address them.
It's like leveling up
before you go fight the bad guy
at the end of the video game.
That's essentially what we're trying to do to people.
But you can't just be going around grinding,
collecting gold and getting shiny weapons forever
and win the game.
Eventually you have to go and take on
the big, bad boss at the end of the game.
And that's what people need to understand.
Is that nothing that they accumulate
in this little fun place
for we're changing out your shampoos
and you're getting a little light therapy thing
and you got some blackout curtains
and you got some calming teas
and you're taking your magnesium
and like all these cool, fun,
little bio-hacks that we're doing.
At the end of the day It's like, yeah.
but you need to have the conversation with your mom.
You can't just build a wall
of magnesium between you and your mom.
You need to go and have that conversation
or whatever it may be.
So we don't want to create that environment
'cause we can create a temporary solution
that leaves people off worse longterm.
Because then,
now if they came in fragile
and stressed before
and then you made them a little bit better
but then they didn't resolve those issues.
And eventually they came back into the same state.
Now, they're in a state where
they don't even have a short-term solution
because they've managed to mentally push through
any benefit that they were getting
from that improved environment
and that improved nutrition and all that other stuff.
So basically all of the things that we had going
in our favor are now starting to have less of an effect
because we just spent so much time putting Band-Aids
on things and not actually healing the wounds.
-: So, we don't wanna discourage 'em
from dealing with the causal issues.
And we don't want people
to see themselves as adequate or dysfunction
You're kinda cool,
but you're kind of (grumbles) a little hard
to be around when you haven't had your magic,
calming tea or whatever it may be.
Or your Prozac or your whatever fancy thing
the kids are taking these days to deal
with their personality issues.
We want people to see themselves as they're adequate.
These things they're just temporary boosts.
They're just Band-Aids.
But the healing happens from themselves underneath.
So, with that being said, I wanted to just kinda
do a little thing on psychological stress here.
I am not an expert in psychological stress,
but like I said, introspection is huge.
And just getting people to be realist,
rational can go a long way with self-improvement.
So when we look at psychological stress in primates
and that's you guys, you and me.
We're just slightly less hairy primates
than our ancestors.
That's essentially what it comes down to.
So a large portion of emotional stress
in primates is self-inflicted.
Most of our emotional stress
is about things that have not happened.
And probably a lot of them never will happen.
A large portion
of our environmental stress comes from other primates.
Most of our environmental stress is stressing about things
outside of our control that has minimal impact
on our lives and wellbeing.
It's that whole thing is like,
will this will affect you in five years?
That's one way you could look at it.
There's a ton of different phrases.
People could be stressed
about keeping up with the joneses on social media,
which is unrealistic expectations.
We're in the area now where it's like
the thing to do is to find a reason to be upset,
to find a reason to be offended by something.
There are people right now that are stressed
about the gender of a plastic potato.
That is the world that we live in.
Do you think that
it's an appropriate physiological response
for us to be
creating extra stress hormones
and creating imbalances in our neuro-transmitters
and taking away from our metabolic efficiency
and our ability to recover?
Whether or not we share the same opinion
on the gender of a plastic potato toy.
So when we look at human psychology,
a lot of the stuff
is just getting people
to be more grounded, to be more centered, to be more present
and to realize the majority
of the stresses that you probably are thinking about
are caused by yourself
or things that are outside of your control or whatnot
that absolutely you're not worth worrying about.
So you wanna focus on the things that you can control.
So when we're looking at stress
and assessing psychological stress,
you can use those questionnaires.
But you could also just say,
hey let's look at the basics, rate your stress.
How well do you think you handle stress?
When you're stressed, how do you respond?
How long does it take to rebalance that?
How long are you effected?
How do you typically manage that stress?
Is it with a pound of cookie dough?
Is it with a workout?
Is it with a pill? A supplement? A tea?
A stretching yoga class?
You go for a run?
You beat up your sibling?
Whatever it is. Walk the dog?
I don't know. What do you do?
You can get a lot of information
on what people are thinking about.
How rational they're being
about the stresses of their life
and how rational their responses
to those stresses on their life.
Just by those four simple questions.
And these aren't questions that give you the solutions
but they give you the ability to then have the discussion
to maybe bring that person to
dare I say reality.
Because the answer is they could come in
and be like, "My stress is a nine."
And they could be like,
"How well do you handle your stress?"
"Well, I handle it really well it's like a 10."
And then you're like,
"What is the cause of the nines?"
And they list all of these things
that are very non-important.
Do they stressing about the Kardashians?
What are they stressing about?
Is it things that they have any sort of control over?
I'm not saying don't be mindful.
Like a perfect example right now
is everything that's going on
with the politics in America and stuff like that.
It's just very easy to really let that stress you out
because it's not a good time to be in America.
But so much of that is not under your control.
And so you basically when it comes down to like,
if it's in your control
do something about it or leave it alone.
Don't stress about it.
Those are your two options.
If it's something you can control
then you either choose to take action
or you choose not to take action
and you be okay with that decision
and you can always reevaluate later.
But that's essentially what you have to get to people to do.
This is actually just being realistic
about the things that are stressing them out.
And then actually being realistic about how they respond.
'Cause somebody could think like,
"I respond really well to stress."
And people drastically overestimate
how well they respond to stress
because it's the slow frog in the pot type thing
that affects people's responses to stress.
It's not like a little thing happens
and then they just jump up and scream
and pull out their hair or whatnot.
But what they may do is,
they may fidget and eat some carbohydrates
and talk bad about somebody behind their back
and go on this whole cascade of very small, little,
micro things that you've developed a very unhealthy way
of dealing with this stress.
You've just rationalized things and made things
small enough that they're socially acceptable
or they're acceptable to you or whatnot
that you think that you were dealing with this well.
When really you're dealing with it like a child
and therefore you're handling stress like a two.
And so we just need to upgrade you to rational adult mode.
It's gonna be amazing how much less stress you have,
and how much better you handle it.
So, those four questions that gives you the ability
to have the conversations.
You could be a coach like me
where back in the day when I did this stuff
I would not consider myself a very strong person
in terms of interpersonal communications.
That's why I talk to you guys all through this camera thing,
where you can't talk back to me
and I can't see you making faces at me whatever.
You may choose to have somebody,
in your corner, on your team, somebody you refer to.
To really have these conversations with people
as to just a standard practice.
and then you can get a green light,
yellow light, red light
from that person and know what's going on with this person.
So keep that in mind.
So I like to start with introspection first.
Start with those four questions,
move on to then some deeper ones.
Do you have triggers?
Why do you think that is?
So if there's like, "What stresses you out or whatnot?"
Or they say, "I got my stresses in nine."
And you're like,
"What are the things that cause that stress?"
And they be like, "Well, it's this that whatever,
"these are the things about me."
And then they're like, "Okay."
Why do you think that is?
Because in reality
stress is only our perception to the event.
It's not the problem itself.
It's how we perceive that problem.
So stress is never the solution.
Stress it doesn't solve anything.
Being worried doesn't solve anything,
being pissed off doesn't solve anything.
Now those emotions may lead to actions that solve things.
But what we have to figure out is
why do we have the perceptions that we do?
Why do we do that?
Right now we're not in a position to judge that
but maybe that person hasn't asked themselves that
and maybe asking themselves that question
or you asking that question,
which is then them asking themselves that question
to come up with an answer.
Dig into that then use psychology majors.
That could be the start
of their introspective journey
that leads to them resolving that issue.
because they're like,
"You know what?
"I never thought about why I happened to react this way
"to that particular thing."
And then they start to work on that problem themselves.
And then when they figured that out,
they can maybe resolve that.
They can have the introspective moment.
They can think about it, they can process it,
they can have the conversations,
or look back at the experiences that led them to react
in this way and be like,
You know what? I react this way because,
way back when this thing happened and
that doesn't need to affect me now.
And all of a sudden now I don't react to that thing
in the same way, or maybe I do react
but I'm able to like, kind of self-correct
because I'm consciously aware that,
I'm reacting because this is a trigger for me.
And now that I know it's a trigger for me
I can work on reducing my reaction to that.
And eventually, maybe then conditioning myself
till it's not a trigger for me.
And that's the best self-help it's like
kinda figuring that stuff out.
Other things. How often do you stress
about things that are outside of your control?
How often do you stress about things that haven't happened?
How often do you stress about the past?
This kind of gives you an idea of
where somebody is in terms of,
are you existing in the present?
Because sometimes that's just the big thing.
You know what you need to do
is you need to focus less on things that haven't happened,
things that may never happen,
things that you can't act on now
or things that happened in the past that you can't change.
You're spending too much time focusing
on the things that you can't change
and not focusing enough on being present
and pretty much this is where every sort of
meditation practice and stuff comes in.
Pretty much every Zen activity is about being present.
And that's why so many people
find those tools
emotionally and mentally healing
because it gets them to focus on being present.
And when you are present,
that is where you then
can actually work on correcting the things.
'Cause when you're left with your own thoughts
if you leave the present
that's you avoiding self.
And so what we're trying to get people to do
is not avoid self but deal with self and grow self,
and then be better self.
So I'm not a religious person,
but this is probably the best advice
I've given on stress management.
You can use the word God whatever not God whatever.
But basically you self, grant yourself the serenity
to accept the things that you cannot change
and the courage to change the things that you can
and the wisdom to know the difference.
You don't have to be religious to read that.
I put an asterisk there by God.
You take God and I just say you, you yourself.
'Cause essentially that's what you need.
You need your own permission to accept these things
and you need to develop the wisdom
and the courage or whatnot.
But essentially,
this is my everything in terms of,
advanced interventions in terms of
dealing with psychological stress.
This is like the foundation of that
is like understanding what you can change,
what can't you change
and focusing on that stuff
and letting go of the stuff that you can't change.
Obviously there are definitely harder
and easier things to let go of
and move on from or whatever.
I'm not trying to discredit
anybody's traumas or stresses or anything like that.
I'm just saying it all start
with this foundational message of understanding.
Putting things into reality and perspective
that you can manage and separate and move on from,
and either grow from or move past.
So returning from the beginning.
The goal of physiologically supporting psychological stress
is to provide the opportunity to resolve the causes
of the psychological stress.
We're trying to make anti-fragile humans.
So if we have...
I just wonder when you get the point.
Use my mouse thing over here.
So you get psychological stress.
I was gonna (indistinct) that long enough,
hard enough, will manifest into physiological stresses.
You could also have physiological stress bundled
on there that weren't because of the psychological
because you could be upset and then you could go overtrain
and then you've been pushing the circle
and now you're pushing even harder.
Your interventions exist right here.
Your goal
by making somebody more physiologically resilient
is to reduce physiological stress leading to
them being more susceptible to psychological stress
and then continuing this cycle over
and over and over and over again.
And usually as it goes over and over and over again.
It starts to go faster and stronger
and stronger and stronger until people are
in that what I called a free-fall mode.
So our goal is to stop this fragile human syndrome
and make people resilient.
So that then it's easier for them to deal
with their psychological issues
without making them dependent on the interventions
that you use to improve their physiology.
So, this is the thing
that we were looking at the beginning.
This is the solution.
Create resilience in all three ends of this triangle.
Basically whatever you can get a problem solution.
Wherever you have an intervention that you can act on.
Act on it because it's gonna improve
everything else across the board.
And this is essentially how I started,
when I was back focusing on functional medicine.
This is how I started fixing people
without, a gazillion dollars worth of blood work
and every single pill and whatnot.
As I was like, "Where can we make improvement?"
Let's focus on that
because it's impossible to know the precise answers
with some of this stuff.
We have layers of biochemistry and physiology
and psychology all coming in.
That's that big mass of arrows at the beginning.
That's is an impossible situation for you
to try and figure out for somebody else, yourself, whatever.
But you can figure out a better calorie deficit
a better macronutrient ratio, appropriate micronutrients.
Maybe finding some nutritional interventions
that work better with somebody's neuro-transmitters
or that happen to help buffer their stress
or improve their energy.
Maybe some things that improve their ability to
do the things that make them happy.
So I'm not giving them a happy pill
but maybe they were too tired to do that activity.
And I can find a way between the things that we're doing
from an exercise standpoint
or a nutrition standpoint to improve that.
I can find a way to reduce some inflammation.
I can find a way to improve some sleep
and get a little bit better recovery.
And so that tomorrow we end up
in a little bit more resilient state than we did yesterday.
And then it just cycles over and over and over
and over again until eventually we've recovered enough
that now we can take on the next big problem.
That's how you gotta work on this stuff.
That's how you gotta solve it.
And that's the mindset that you should take
with your clients.
(ominous music)