Home » Podcast » Want To FIX FATIGUE & Feel FANTASTIC? Begin By Choosing the Life You Love (& These SIMPLE Biochemical Principles): “SHINE” With Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum

Want To FIX FATIGUE & Feel FANTASTIC? Begin By Choosing the Life You Love (& These SIMPLE Biochemical Principles): “SHINE” With Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum

August 29, 2024

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Reading time: 5 minutes

What I Discuss with Jacob Teitelbaum

If you have trouble sleeping, you tripped your “circuit breaker”—the hypothalamus—and that's what needs to be addressed…03:32
How the hypothalamus impacts sleep, hormone regulation, and autonomic functions—understanding this is key to addressing chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and related conditions…06:15
Diagnosing fatigue-related conditions like long COVID, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome based on symptoms (rather than expensive and often unreliable tests)…08:39
The SHINE protocol—focused on sleep, hormones, infections, nutrition, and exercise—has shown high success rates in treating chronic fatigue conditions…13:49
Addressing nutritional needs with basic, reliable supplements like multivitamins, rather than resorting to comprehensive tests…15:09
Most people start feeling better in about two months, and 75% are feeling an average of a 75% improvement in their quality of life at three months…21:43
The importance of aligning tasks with your strengths, ensuring you get quality sleep, and maintaining hormonal balance to avoid burnout…27:38
Various strategies for managing your energy levels and stress, both in your personal and professional life, including techniques for energy conservation, stress reduction, and effective recovery practices that can help you maintain a balanced and sustainable lifestyle…34:26
Various techniques to enhance sleep quality, such as using sleep masks, taking sustained-release melatonin, and using heavy blankets…37:37
Addressing hormonal imbalances, such as low thyroid and adrenal fatigue, through holistic and natural supports, plus the importance of bioidentical products and the challenges of diagnosing infections like Candida overgrowth…40:56
The Smart Energy System, which is a blend of natural ingredients shown to increase stamina and energy, and how it can be incorporated into your daily routine to boost your vitality and endurance…48:30

25 million Americans suffer needlessly from fatigue, pain, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and fibromyalgia (FMS).

The good news is that you don't have to.

My guest on today's podcast, Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, wrote the original, bestselling guide to treating chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia—From Fatigued to Fantastic!—which has been completely revised and updated with the latest cutting-edge protocols and treatment plans. In this episode, we discuss the complexities of chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and long Covid as Dr. Teitelbaum shares his personal journey and the development of his groundbreaking SHINE protocol. You'll learn why treating patients based on their symptoms can be more effective than relying solely on test results, and you'll explore the significance of optimizing sleep, balancing hormones, and addressing chronic infections. Whether you're dealing with fatigue, fibromyalgia, or long Covid, this discussion offers invaluable insights and practical strategies to help you regain your energy and vitality, with the answers clearly organized and easy to follow, straight from one of the world's premier researchers in CFS and FMS.

Dr. Teitelbaum is one of the most frequently quoted post-viral CFS, fibromyalgia, energy, and pain medical authorities in the world. He is the author of 10 books including the best-selling From Fatigued to Fantastic!, Pain Free 1-2-3, and the popular free smartphone app Cures A-Z. He is the lead author of eight studies on effective treatment for fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Dr. Teitelbaum appears often as a guest on news and talk shows nationwide including Good Morning America, Oprah & Friends, CNN, and Fox News Health. You can discover more about his work at www.vitality101.com and www.endfatigue.com.

If you're struggling with chronic fatigue or pain, this episode—and Dr. Teitelbaum's book—could be the most current and reliable resource you've been searching for to reclaim your health!

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Transcript

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Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:00:04]: Thirty-one percent of adults have severe fatigue, and almost everybody wants more energy. So number one, where is it coming from? Is it just day-to-day fatigue where a healthy thing and they need rest? Is it coming from having tripped a circuit breaker in the brain called the hypothalamus? We'll teach you today how to turn that circuit breaker back on. Not a single magic bullet, but it's not that complicated, either.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:30]: Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:37]: And a whole lot more.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:39]: Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life show.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:41]: Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this. Well, I was. I was bow hunting. I was bow hunting for turkey during fall turkey season. And I sometimes go out with a book because occasionally you're out there for a few hours in the dark or just waiting, and I occasionally will thumb through a book. And I had a book out there with me in a tree stand, actually, while hunting for turkey. That's how I read this book. It's called From Fatigued to Fantastic.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:16]: I get a lot of books about this kind of stuff, fatigue, functional medicine. A lot of them are just kind of the same old, same old. But I could tell just a couple chapters into this book that this guy who wrote it, Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, really knew what he was talking about and was speaking from a deep wealth of actual experience with his patients. I then went and checked out some of his Instagram videos and educational videos. I downloaded this app that he made called the smartphone app with Cures A-Z that kind of gives you a at a at-a-glance dictionary to tackle any issues that you're having. And I just thought, gosh, this is such a wealth of information that I would love to get Dr. Teitelbaum on the show to talk about being from fatigue to fantastic. He graciously agreed. So he's here with me.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:02]: And as you're listening in, if you want the show notes, just go to BenGreenfieldlife.com/fantastic. That's BenGreenfieldlife.com/fantastic. And Jacob, do you care if I call you Jacob? Because it's going to take up a lot of airspace for me to say Dr. Teitelbaum a hundred times. Let's go. Let's go with Jacob. So, first of all, welcome to the show.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:02:25]: It's good to be with all of you, because many of you, even though you may have the highest energy group in the world that's following your show, many of you may have triggered long COVID after the infection, many of you have fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or just need more energy or have pain issues. For all of you, today, we're going to help you understand what's going on with your body and how to get your health back, and then after that, how to get a life you love. So it's going to be a good one today.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:54]: Yeah. Cool. And, you know, the idea of fatigue, I think it can be a very catch all term, or there can be a lot of things that contribute to it. You mentioned long COVID. You talk about fibromyalgia in the book, CFS Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. But in terms of how you actually go about when someone, let's say, walks into your office or sends you an email or does a telemedicine consult or whatever, and they tell you that they're tired and they're fatigued, where do you actually start as far as testing or deeper digging or questions that you would ask?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:03:31]: Well, it's really pretty easy. 31% of adults have severe fatigue, and then most everybody wants more energy. So, number one, where is it coming from? Is it just day-to-day fatigue, which is a healthy thing, and they need rest? Is it coming from having tripped a circuit breaker in the brain called the hypothalamus, which means Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, fibromyalgia along COVID? One simple question will distinguish, can you get a good night's sleep? If you're exhausted, you sleep all day and all night when you have a chance. But if you have trouble sleeping, can't fall asleep, can't stay asleep, you tripped that circuit breaker called the hypothalamus, and that's what needs to be addressed.

Ben Greenfield [00:04:14]: That is actually really interesting. That's an unexpected answer to my question. How well do you sleep? And why is that? Why is the hypothalamus so affected by fatigue that one of the first things that goes south is sleep? What's going on there?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:04:29]: The hypothalamus is a key circuit breaker that controls sleep, your entire hormone system, and what's called autonomic function, your ability to have blood pressure, pulse, gut function, and things like that. It uses more energy for its size than any other area in the body. So as energy levels in the cells go down, it goes off first. It serves a protective function, kind of like a circuit breaker. Many of you out there, I know I was myself before I came down with post-viral Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. You know, we're gonna dam the torpedoes full speed ahead instead of resting. And there comes a point. I mean, sometimes that's healthy, but sometimes it's that sometimes you need to rest. So that circuit breaker pretty much takes us out of the game.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:05:15]: The problem is, once you've rested, it often will not come back down by itself. We'll teach you today how to turn that circuit breaker back on. It's not a single magic bullet, but it's not that complicated either.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:29]: So you're saying that if I'm fatigued and I'm having trouble sleeping, that if I dial in my sleep, whatever, dark room, cold, not working in bed, maybe taking some adaptogenic herbs or something to help me sleep at night, and I begin to sleep, let's say, 7 to 9 hours a night, and I'm able to do that consistently, that if I were to do that for a few weeks, I could still be experiencing daytime fatigue. Because the issue doesn't necessarily go away by logging extra sleep.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:06:00]: It could, but they're likely not having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or fibromyalgia if even with those basically lifestyle measures, the dark room or the rest you're able to get a good sleep.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:12]: Okay, I got.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:06:13]: You haven't tripped that circuit breaker completely. If you're tired, achy, have brain fog, or can't sleep, then you tripped out the circuit breaker. And there's what's called the shine protocol. Sleep, hormones, infections, nutrition, exercises, able that turns that circuit breaker back on. Our randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study showed 91% of people with fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. And this now applies to long COVID. We have several studies on effective treatment for long COVID can recover with an average 90% increase in quality of life.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:06:48]: This is very, very, very treatable unless you go to your regular doctor. But you don't need a doctor for a lot of this. You can do it on your own, but they have to know it exists.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:02]: Did you come up with that? The shine? Is that your word? What's it stand for again?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:07:07]: That's fine. It was hormone sleep, infection, nutrition, and exercise protocol. You know, I was talking to him about it, you know, and he said, yeah, yeah, that's all good proof. Commander Gallop allows me. He said, get her. Well, okay, now you can be on the show. And he said, oh, but the. She's the one who shined.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:07:37]: You gotta have exercise to shine. Mild for conditioning.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:45]: Yeah, I actually agree with that. I actually have been through times of fatigue in my life that didn't really involve COVID or significant chronic stealth co-infections or anything like that. But yet moving and exercising paradoxically, right? Because you'd think it just exhausts you more. But sometimes that actually kind of restores my energy levels and I'll wake up sometimes very, you know, fatigued or sluggish or brain fog. And, you know, five minutes into a workout, be feeling fantastic, you know, with the highly scientific term being I'm shaking off the cobwebs or at least clearing them out a little bit.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:08:19]: Have you seen a stagnant swamp versus one that the river that's alive and active?

Ben Greenfield [00:08:24]: Yeah, yeah, great metaphor. Great metaphor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I come to you and you ask me, hey, are you sleeping well? And I've already told you I'm fatigued. I say, no. What's the next step?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:08:38]: Okay, so you're not able to sleep. Then I'm going to go ahead and look. I don't do blood tests to make the diagnosis. You don't need any testing to diagnose fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or long COVID. It's very simple. You can go on my website at Vitality 101 and do a three-quiz in your own five minutes. We'll just tell you, you don't even have to bother with that. Tired, achy, brain fog, can't sleep.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:08:59]: You've got the fibromyalgia. If not, you've probably got other causes of fatigue.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:05]: Wait, you said tired, achy, brain fog, can't sleep. Those are four.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:09:09]: And I give you 100 other symptoms, but you commonly may have numbness and tangling, lightheaded while standing, a little disequilibrium. But the core four, tells you that you tripped the circuit breaker. So either way, I'm going to be looking for causes of your energy crisis. On the blood testing, that'll include nutritional things like vitamins B12, and iron level. I don't do other nutritional testing. It's easier. Just one, they're not reliable. Two, I can give you the nutrients and they're not expensive.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:09:38]: And you don't have to take handfuls of pills and flush your system with nutrients for the good vitamin powder. And that'll take care of it.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:45]: Okay. And I may interrupt you a few times as you go through this, but when you said you don't do nutritional testing, what testing are you referring to?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:09:52]: Oh, God. I mean, there are things where I can test for all the amino acids, all the multivitamins, omegas, and there's hundreds of other very fashionable tests that propose to look at the most recent wisp of smoke off the fire. And unfortunately, one, they're interesting. They may be a little helpful, but this is a very dynamic process. Most of these levels are fluctuating minute to minute in the body, and the tests just aren't, in my opinion, that accurate. And you can spend thousands of dollars doing all these different ones. I'm just going to give you a 50-cent multivitamin. It'll take care of most of those.

Ben Greenfield [00:10:32]: Okay, so what I'm hearing you say is that a lot of people might go first to these super fringe, expensive, very comprehensive tests, like Genova Diagnostics, metabolomics, or something like that, when there's lower hanging fruit, such as maybe multivitamins and minerals that they haven't even paid attention to yet.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:10:51]: Yeah, I don't want to use the word fringe, places like many of these other labs. They're very good labs, but I don't need them for things I don't need testing for, and it's more reliable to just take a vitamin powder and it takes care of the problem. I'm going to go that way if I have a really tough case, that 10% that doesn't respond to anything, and then I'm going to start using some of the more esoteric testing that is less proven. I have a problem with tests that I'm concerned may be positive on 80% of the healthy population as well as on sick people. It doesn't tell me anything.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:29]: Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So I interrupted you when you were talking about looking at some of the basic nutritional needs and then what comes next.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:11:36]: Yeah. So basically what I'm going to do is some of the testing. I'll do hormonal testing. I'm going to look for a number of infections, although most infections I want to diagnose based on symptoms and response to treatment. So I'm going to break it down into these categories. There's a simple test. A lot of you out there who have this have what's called pots. You stand up where a big bag of water, gravity sends some blood down to your legs.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:12:02]: And because this circuit breaker sends her blood back to the body, it's not working. And you get lightheaded and then you get brain fogged. You don't need a $2,000 tilt table test for all of this stuff. You can email me, and if you want to put this in your notes, it's fatigue F a t i g u e d o c @gmail.com.

Ben Greenfield [00:12:22]: [email protected]. Careful doing that. You're going to get blasted. I'm assuming you got some pretty good filters set up for email.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:12:29]: I'm a teacher and I'm happy to teach. And I've organized the information for people, so you can ask for the information. She's for fatigue or fibromyalgia or long COVID. If you have nerve pain, you can ask for it. If you have mast cell activation, if you have a lot of sensitivities to everything, you can dope that. I will send it to you. And it just organizes it. I know I'm going blah, blah, blah, blah, blah here, but it will take it all and just put it together.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:12:57]: And then here's how you start, here's how you move forward. Here's how you tell.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:01]: Even though, admittedly, I'm more of a book. Your book kind of does that too. But it's nice that someone could email you.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:13:06]: Not everybody has the attention span for a book.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:08]: Yeah. And not everybody's stuck. Not everybody's stuck in a turkey stand for 6 hours with your book.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:13:13]: Right? So the book is great. And for those who want the textbook that's From Fatigue to Fantastic book. That is the textbook that will go through all of these and tell you in really straightforward language how to take care of it. For those who want, especially with long COVID, something short and sweet, there's a shameless plug. My book you can heal from long COVID-19 just came out on June 9.

Ben Greenfield [00:13:43]: Yeah, you signed it to me, by the way. I didn't read it yet, but you sent it to me. Got it on my shelf.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:13:47]: That's a short and simple version for people. So there's all kinds of stuff you can do. So the bottom line is you got these issues. How do you optimize energy production? And shine is the way to do that.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:02]: Okay, I want to dig a little bit more into the details of what the shine protocol involves, but do you ever get called out of by some of these other shanty functional medicine practitioners, many of which I probably had on my show saying, dude, you're just looking at symptoms. You're just, like, asking somebody if they have brain fog or fatigue or they're not sleeping well, you gotta be more precise than that. Like, this person could have some, you know, chronic stealth co-infection like Lyme, or we'd be testing for this stuff from the get-go, so we're not wasting our time.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:14:31]: Ben, I'm a science geek, you know, I couldn't get a date to save my life in school, even if I could talk to a girl back then. And I'm a science geek. I go through the medical libraries for fun during the turkey stand in the libraries, or now online, just going through the studies. Anybody is welcome to call me out on any big thing. They don't anymore. If I'm in the room, they'll wait until I'm not in the room because I'm happy to answer them and say, here's what the research shows. Fancy testing. One, if I take five people and do five tubes of blood and send it to five Labs or even the same lab, I'm the same person.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:15:08]: I'm going to get different results from most of these tests. I'm not impressed with the reliability for many of these.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:15]: Interesting. Yeah, and see, that's why I liked your book because you're doing a lot of this stuff from practical experience. So what you're saying is you're just seeing so much variation in the results of this test, even in the same patient, that you'd rather put more faith in the symptoms.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:15:30]: What you are telling me as a person is that you have what their symptoms are and how you respond to different things and pieces of paper that have black and white scribble that may or may not be valid on it? I'm sorry. We love things in writing, no matter how bullshit they are.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:47]: Yeah, yeah, that's true. And in an information era, it's very easy to get a lot of bullshit shoveled in your direction. And in many cases, the schooling system doesn't help this out. But because it's in writing, you assume it to be true, which can be quite dangerous considering how easy it is to get something in writing these days, not just published, but on the Internet.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:16:07]: I have three of my twelve grandkids here with me. They're like six to eleven. And what I've been teaching them is all the stuff that they get in the newspapers, on TV, it's a fiction. And making it up just like the cartoon shows.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:20]: Yeah, some of it at least.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:16:22]: It's. No, no. And it's not that they're bad people. There are no bad people out there. It's just a lot of misinformation. I love fiction. I mean, I'm a geek, Camille, Lord of the Rings, and I'm a happy camper, but I like my fiction to be labeled fiction.

Ben Greenfield [00:16:37]: Yeah, true fact. So the idea of looking at symptoms and then addressing your treatments based on that and your experience kind of leads me to what I'm wondering here, what are the big wins? Like when somebody has fatigue? You talked about your shine protocol, but what are some elements of that that just seem to work over and over again? If I come to you and I've got fatigue.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:17:03]: Okay, so, first of all, let me note that after 50 years in medicine, I retired from seeing people about 18 months ago. So I'm no longer treating directly. My focus is on teaching, but I am happy to send the information. So where do you start? Number one, you make a list of the things that you put energy into each day, and you have one side that says things that feel good. Leave your brain out of this list at the beginning, feels good, things that feel bad. Time for that second list, the part that feels bad. Put a star by things where you will be homeless or arrested if you don't do.

Ben Greenfield [00:17:38]: Give me some examples of the feels good and feels bad.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:17:41]: Well, for example, I may like reading. I like reading my Kindle. I'm a reader. I like to read. I like to go through the science literature. All of that feels good to me. Someone has been doing it. I like playing with the grandkids.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:17:54]: I like playing with my wife, you know, going out for my walks. These things feel good. Doing certain kinds of paperwork, addressing, you know, nonsense things with paperwork. You know, I remember having five kids, so going to the school meetings. I used to be the chairman of the board of over a dozen organizations. And except for starting a new school, because I thought the school system was crap and the city where I lived, I started a new school. I was chairman of the board. That felt good.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:18:26]: But all the other meetings that I was doing were, a good citizen will go and a good parent. I'm not going to show fingers on it. Gives an expression of my joy towards those, you know, I came home one day, and my wife, you know, midnight almost. And my wife said, how was the meeting? I said, horrible. Anything useful happened that was a waste of a lot of high-powered people's time for hours. And it was just.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:49]: And I don't think you have to have chronic fatigue to have an experience like that.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:18:52]: Nah. And she said, why do you do this? And it's like light went on. And all those on my list, are off, off, off. I kept the school. I told the school, I give you three years to get started up and stable and running, and I'd be the chairman of the board and fundraising for that. Everyone of the rest of them, I cut loose. For those of you who see a vessel, or fibromyalgia, probably have 30 bags of paperwork you haven't been able to get to.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:19:18]: If you use this and you get yourself feeling great, so you can go back to those 30 bags of paperwork, your body will tank it again. You know, you haven't been arrested for it yet. Let it dry. Go do something fun.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:31]: So, from a practical standpoint, I'm assuming that if someone's listening in and they have fatigue and they're taking notes here, they could theoretically write to their employer or to their coworkers and say, hey, I need four weeks here, or I need eight weeks. Or maybe you can tell me, Jacob, what a reasonable period of time would be to be able to tackle some personal health issues, and focus on some things that are really draining or not really draining and stressful for me right now. And then I'll come back after X period of time to begin to dig into some of these things that are still my obligation or still expected for me to do.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:20:04]: So here's the thing, Ben. This is not a one-size-fits-all. And that's why when I first noted this, people are going to say, well, gee, this is all nice and good, but give me something to friggin help me get better. But what I'm doing is starting with, this is how you start it. And then we'll go into the biochemistry. Because if you don't start it this way, you're going to crash and burn. What's your reasonable amount of time off? See what feels best to you. That will tell you your personal responsibilities.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:20:30]: Your brain will tell you what you're supposed to do to be a good boy and a good girl and sacrifice yourself for everybody else because that's what good citizens do. You know, turn your brain off for this. See picture being off for two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, three decades. See what feels better to you. Let that sometimes gotta go.

Ben Greenfield [00:20:51]: Yeah. Yeah. There. You mean there are certain things that. That just doesn't serve you, and you should not be doing it because they obviously drain you. Very similar to, like, if you run a business and your calling is not copywriting and you're banging your head against the wall trying to do the copywriting every day when you're better served by, I don't know, working with the books or doing bigger vision stuff, not being in the weeds as much. That's just like a permanent lifestyle adjustment for you. But surely there has to be, like, some research or some science.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:22]: I don't want to, like, you know, push back and push back to you on everything.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:21:26]: Push back.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:27]: That shows that there's a certain amount of time that it might take for the hypothalamus to, like, come back on board for that circuit breaker to start working again. I realize that's not a very scientific explanation of it, but is there any hope for people to know an approximate number of weeks or days to get over something like this?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:21:43]: Using the approach we'll talk about today, most people start feeling better in about 2 months, and 75% of most people are feeling an average of 75% improvement in quality of life at three months.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:55]: Okay, that's very helpful.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:21:57]: In the book, I talk about each treatment, this is a fair period of time. If I'm giving low-dose naltrexone and I give four weeks, it's going to do nothing. At eight weeks, it starts working. If I'm giving what I take myself on busy days. This one thing I have on my desk, it's called HRG80 Red Ginseng Trouble Tablets. I did a study on that. Again, it's funny, I gave up on ginseng about 30 years ago because they started using farm ginseng, which was useless. It was the wild ginseng at work.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:22:30]: And then a friend of mine came up and he said, try this stuff the way it's put together aquaponically. It had the old levels of ginsenosides that have the active components. And I said, he stuck one in my mouth kind of a thing. And I'm pretty energy-sensitive. I could tell in a minute, I could feel the difference. And it's kind of healthy energy. And a special kind of red ginseng was HRG80.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:23:06]: And use the chewable because it'll cut, drop the cost 75% just by using.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:10]: HRG80 Chewable Red Ginseng.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:23:13]: Yeah. I just took half a tablet this morning.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:16]: Interesting.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:23:17]: It's a busy thing and you can take it every day or the Sundays. In the study, 188 people who had at least a 50% drop in function, their energy went up an average of over 60%. Just take one half to one. So these are simple things that you can do and that I tell people to give it one bottle, 30 to 45 days is enough. But really, for a lot of people, you'll know quickly.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:46]: Yeah. I run into the same thing with my own supplementation. I tell people who start using NAD, for example, usually, it takes five to seven days for that to start to accumulate, for you to really start to feel the effects on fatigue, sleep deprivation, recovery, etcetera. And, you know, it varies from supplement to supplement. You mentioned 30 days for something like red ginseng. I know some people get on an adaptogen and, like, feel it right away, like, you know, ashwagandha or shilajit or something like that, but it does highly depend. You're right.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:24:15]: I'll tell them six weeks. I'd rather have them be pleasantly surprised when one day later they're already feeling the adaptation.

Ben Greenfield [00:24:22]: I hear you. I hear.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:24:24]: So the timing varies, but in terms of the letter to your employer, see how it feels to try on different things in your mind and see how it feels. The best definition, Ben, that I've heard for burnout, is when your soul grows too big for the role that you're playing. And, you know, if you've hatched from that egg and you're trying, you've outgrown it, and now you're trying to stuff yourself back in the shell, your psyche's not going to support you on it no matter what you do physically, you can kind of tune things up and keep them going a bit, but that means it's time to start taking a look around, see who you are, where you are in life. And again, your brain is just telling you the product of your programming as a child, how and, as an adult, see what feels best to you and what works.

Ben Greenfield [00:25:18]: Yeah. As a physician, I'm sure you're used to people being vulnerable with you. I didn't think that the show would go this direction necessarily, but I'll share that. Just this morning, I actually almost broke down crying in front of my computer. I was helping to get my kids ready to leave for camp, take care of morning chores, and assist my wife, who woke up not feeling that well. I grabbed my cup of tea and I went into the office because usually there are a few fires that I need to put out in the morning before I go do my workout and have breakfast and get ready for formal obligations. And I had at least 20 emails and I had about 100. I think it was about 115 emails in the inbox, and at least 20 of them were big things like, hey, we need to have this chat immediately, or I need to talk to you before the end of the day, when can we hop on a Zoom call? Or I need you to review this 20-page contract and get it back to me tonight so we can get it signed for a video shoot tomorrow.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:24]: And my heart just, like, sinks and sinks. And don't get me wrong, I love my job, Jacob, but I almost broke down crying this morning at 06:45 a.m. in front of my computer. And it's not because I have chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia or something like that. I just had a big workload. And for me, the way I approach that is I just basically think, okay, one by one, just get through this one by one. Look at what's the most important things that you need to do. Make sure that you actually triage this and don't necessarily tackle the things that don't need to be tackled right away.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:02]: Go get your workout in so you feel a lot better and you have some energy coming back into this. I can tell you by the end of the day today, that even though I might stay up a little later than usual on the very busy day, I'll get through it all. But, yeah, I mean, I run into that kind of stuff all the time. And if I didn't have strategies in place, like eating good nutrition, food, exercising, working out movement, stopping every half hour to move a little bit and blow off some steam, you know, get good sleep, focus on relationships and my children and my wife. I could see myself emailing myself into a state of chronic fatigue.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:27:35]: And it would be a protective mechanism on your body's part to get you to pull you off the side of the road and see who you are and what you want. Because, Ben, you may have outgrown a lot of this detail, high-pressure kind of stuff. What I found, I'm an efficiency expert geek. I mean, the amount of stuff I can get done and roll through. I mean, when I was in college, I was paying my way through college, at college in two and a half years, because you paid by your tuition. So lumped everything through, was working to pay my way because my dad was dead, and was doing a bunch of other stuff. And the rest, I'm very efficient when I want to be. But what I found is when you're very efficient and you're very good at what you do in terms of getting all the stuff rolling through, rolling through.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:28:19]: It doesn't mean you get caught up. The universe just sends you more.

Ben Greenfield [00:28:23]: Yeah.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:28:24]: And there comes a point where you need to say, you know, I can do it, but I'd rather start being a bit more than doing, you know, it's like when you run away from the city and suddenly you're out turkey hunting. I don't think it was the middle of the backyard Los Angeles who were doing a turkey hunt with the kids. So you're escaping the city, but you're taking it with you. And you can change the expectations you have. And it doesn't have to be sudden, but you can start to get a sense of how much of this I want to delegate or have I outgrown. I like to do the teaching. I'd like to continue doing that, maybe see what feels good and start seeing what in your life feels good. Do that list, and see what feels good.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:29:12]: You don't have to. And you just withdraw the energy for those people who are like, everything needs to be done yesterday. You send them a note. Job, I know I got the business. You're under a lot of deadlines, and a lot of pressure. I'm not the one to handle all that kind of stuff. I will get to this stuff when I can. If that doesn't work for you, then you know I'm not their man.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:32]: Yeah. Yeah. That makes, it makes really good sense. In three companies, I've got 32 employees, delegate and outsource. Great deal. Yet I wanted to share that story to make sure that people know that we all sometimes feel like we're fighting a big uphill battle. And what you just told me, Jacob, is reminiscent of this guy named Chad. Father, CEO, Ironman, triathlete.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:55]: Eleven kids. He's featured in this book I wrote called Boundless Parenting. But he told me, sitting across from me at dinner one night, Ben, your business will eat you alive. Your business with utilize the emails, the tasks, the opportunities, the growth. From a million to 100 million becomes 100 million to a billion. It never stops. So you must set up your life in the following order of priority. God and your spiritual growth.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:19]: Your wife or your spouse, your children, your health. And then businesses. And that is something I've really made a concerted attempt to do and has been a lifesaver for me.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:30:31]: He gave you wonderful wisdom. Can I add a 6th one to that?

Ben Greenfield [00:30:34]: Oh, I'm curious. Yeah.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:30:36]: Create from being instead of doing.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:39]: Create from being instead of doing. You mean like having creative outlets in life?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:30:43]: Be happy, be joyful, be quiet, be at peace, be vibrant. And from that state of being, let stuff flow from you as it naturally will. That's where your inspiration comes from. You're so used to, from the age you're coming, you're growing through to, well, I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this, I create, I do this. You're getting to the point where you're just going to start spinning your wheels.

Ben Greenfield [00:31:11]: Yeah.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:31:11]: And so you're at an age in the highway of life. You're hitting past 35, where you're going to go ahead and there's an exit on the road of doing that's called being. And you will see, if you look around the execs and CEOs, the major companies that didn't have friends in, they're ones who keep going, faster, faster, faster, faster, faster. And everybody hates them, the board hates them. They're all burnt out. They have a life of crap and the company doesn't thrive. And then you have the ones that have the CEOs that they're not micromanaging everything. They are setting a tone and the direction and mission statement, like speaking the language of the company.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:31:59]: They are basically expressing where the company goes. They don't say much, but when there are key decisions, they'll go, no, I think this decision, and it's a knowing that people have and they just handle the ship by turning the rudder just a little bit here and there and then they're off living their life. But every so often they adjust the rudder and the boat goes perfectly and you have a choice. The first one leads to burnout. The first one is really good for women who hate their husbands. So the husbands can burn out and die and leave them wealthy widows. You'll think about that. It'll hit you as I said later tonight. If you want to have a healthy life and happy wife, start to get into a space of being, choose.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:32:46]: You create states of being by choosing what they are. I am really happy. I choose to be happy. People say, but everything works out great in your life. Of course, you're happy. You moved to Hawaii. You've got these great kids and grandkids. Yes, I chose to be happy.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:33:01]: And then great things happen.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:03]: Yeah. And that Viktor Frankl-esque mentality of choosing contentedness and spreading that to others from a business standpoint can permeate an entire organization, you know, the spirit of scarcity, rushing and unhappiness that I often find myself guilty as charged, backsliding into that attitude and beginning to bark orders and micromanage, you know, especially on a busy, stressful morning like this. But what you've explained, actually choosing the attitude that you want to permeate into your organization, and spreading more happiness and joy and creativity and abundance is a much, much better way to live and probably one that has a much lower risk for things like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:33:45]: Yes. And I'm going to invite you to notice because you're still, you can have a really good mind and you're used to using it. There's times to get out of your mind and just to see how things feel. So later on today, when they're out on the turkey hunt again later, have a little note about, leaving my book home. Have a little note about things that feel good, things that don't. Don't think about the two lists. Feel into each of them. Just picture them.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:34:13]: How does it feel? Feel good. Feel bad. And then how does it work out? You know, how does it feel? How does that work out? That's how I steer. So. And then you don't have to make sudden changes. It can be okay, I'm going to give you guys 90 days heads up. And I'm going to be doing less of this minute-to-minute micromanaging. If you have a contract you need for a video tomorrow, I need at least 30 days.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:34:40]: I needed to get to it. I'm not doing the deadline. Whatever. See what feels to you and start to reclaim your life. Then you start to picture things, just daydreaming and see what things feel good while you're daydreaming in that turkey stand. And, you know, and then add those things to the list that feel good. They don't have to be practical at all. But once you have a list of four, five, eight things that feel good, you're going to start to see patterns that, oh, well, this can happen in this direction or you'll forget about it.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:35:11]: And this great virtual reality game we call life will start bringing that to you.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:16]: I can tell you my top four on my feel-good list that'll likely materialize when I do this later on today. And I will. Four I can think of off the top of my head would be pickleball, playing my guitar, cooking, and praying.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:35:30]: Good. Give yourself room and space where you can do it comfortably and not feeling like you're having to be somewhere else at the time.

Ben Greenfield [00:35:39]: Yeah. Because those are four things. When I go do them, I'm constantly thinking, gosh, I don't have enough time to be doing as much of this as I want to right now.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:35:46]: So, Ben, can we talk? Let's talk about the biochemistry. A bit of feeling better, because I'd love to do 95% biochemistry and 5% mind-body. But today we've got happily drawn into kind of the reverse thing, and that's perfect. So. But for the rest of the folks out there, a couple of key things we talked about shine. 8 hours sleep was the average, 8 to 9 hours was the average night's sleep until light bulbs were invented. So if you're wondering, well, an average night's sleep and a very small person's personal, there's no one shoe size fits everybody.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:36:18]: But give yourself a weekend or two where you sleep with no alarm clock, and nothing you have to do in the morning, see how many hours of sleep naturally and what feels best so you know for yourself what your body wants. But I like my 9 hours of sleep.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:32]: A night, which sometimes requires going to bed a little bit earlier. Yeah. This isn't just sleeping in. This is sometimes making a choice to watch a little less TV after dinner.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:36:41]: Well, I walk my talk. I do what feels best. And I moved to Hawaii about 20 years ago with my wife and child. Number five went to college, and we're on the big island of Hawaii. So sleep for 9 hours is about right now. A lot of you, especially if you're hypothalamic. Sleep centers, if you have stress. So the sleep center is not working.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:37:01]: There's melatonin. I like it. The sustained release of melatonin, so you're not waking at 2 in the morning. I like one called EP120 10 mg Sustained Release. That's what I take. There's a mix of herbs and a revitalizing sleep formula.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:37:16]: There are essential oils. Lavender is wonderful. A sleep mask. I mean, Ben, you mentioned the dark room. You understand the value of that. Even little bits of light throw you into the adrenaline part of your mind when you're sleeping. A sleep mask is a $15 investment. Well worth it for many people.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:36]: Should I make a quick comment about the sleep mask, by the way? Because there was a study as recently as about six months ago backing up the efficacy of a sleep mask even in a dark room, thus causing the hypothesis that part of it is the blocking of light. And part of it, similar to a gravity blanket or a gravity pillow, is the calming effect of having something slightly weighted over your eyes. Isn't that interesting? Like a proprioceptive effect.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:38:02]: What's swaddling? Anybody who's had a baby, you swaddled a baby, they calm down. You're swaddling your face. And for those of you with nerve pain or even fibromyalgia pain, a heavy blanket can be helpful. For those of you with nerve pain, you can ask me for the study from my Pain Free 1-2-3 book on nerve pain. When you email me at [email protected], you can ask for the nerve pain section. If you have reflex sympathetic dystrophy currently called CRPS, there are treatments for that. You can email me for that information sheet, but that's a little off-topic. But just know that's available.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:38:40]: These are all three that people can do. But yes, the heavy blanket or that it has the swaddling effect. It calms down the nervous system. Very good. You are way ahead of 99.99% adapt.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:56]: As you know that I get to talk to a lot of smart people like you at least twice a week for a while. That's the majority of my education is just getting a chance to chat about this stuff for a long time and read books. All right, so we've got the sleep component, and what else for the biochemistry piece here?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:39:12]: Hormones. Low thyroid. The blood test missed the majority of people who need thyroid hormone. It's important to understand what the normal range means when you do a blood test. For most tests, it's based on two standard deviations. Blah, blah, blah. You take 100 people, the lowest and highest two people are defined as abnormal. And it's a 95, two-and-a-half to 95% in the middle.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:39:38]: That's called two standard deviations. So, to put it in English, a normal range for shoe sizes would be size five-and-a-half to 13. So if. If you put Ben and I in a size seven shoe to the shoe, the doctor will say it's in the normal range. There's no problem with our shoes.

Ben Greenfield [00:39:54]: Yeah. You haven't seen my feet lately.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:39:56]: Yeah. And that, I mean, I'm a twelve myself, so. So that's an exact analogy to what's going on with the testing. And it gets worse from there. So, tired, achy, weight gain, cold, intolerant. Find a holistic doctor who will consider thyroid hormone. Adrenal fatigue. One-quarter of Americans, I think, these days, suffer from that.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:40:18]: If you get irritable when hungry, you get hangry, that's adrenal fatigue. There are 30 other symptoms I can give, but that's at best one. And what I recommend is to let your spouse know. I'm one of those. My former wife was one of those, and I think that doesn't play well together. So, adrenal fatigue, hangry, adrenal support. Simple. There's a product I use called Adrenaplex.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:40:43]: I have like seven things in it that will smooth the trade house full of adaptogens and licorice.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:48]: And for the approach to the thyroid and the adrenals, it sounds to me like you're using a lot of natural support. Not necessarily prescription medication for something like this.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:40:56]: The thyroid, it's best for. You can get the bio-identical, natural thyroid, but it's by prescription in this country, although you can find it. And that's better to have a holistic doctor. The adrenal stuff, you can just get it on your own.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:11]: Yeah, I've been messing around with this. I interviewed Dr. Amy Horniman. She has a product called Thyroid Fixture. It's T2 iodine, selenium, and some other thyroid-supportive compounds. It's just T2, though. There's no T1 or T3.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:41:24]: Well, she's bypassing the regulations by going with the T2 predominantly. How is that working out for folks?

Ben Greenfield [00:41:29]: Seems to be getting really good responses from people, especially people who are doing the home body temperature tests. It seems to make a remarkable dent in the drop in body temperature.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:41:41]: In their labs, you can get the blood tests even without a prescription. So good, so people can start to do this at home. The adrenal is easy to start with. Bioidentical progesterone, estrogen, testosterone. That's a whole another show topic if you want it, but those can be helpful. Infections and for people following.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:01]: We're on the eye now of shines. We've got sleep hormones, infections.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:42:06]: There are many chronic low-grade infections. We just don't have tests for them. Well, we have tests, but I wouldn't spend the money on them. They're not especially reliable. I diagnose candida if you are sugar craving. Not to be confused with sugar craving from the hangry, that's feed me now or I'll kill you. This is more they call The Happy Twinkie hunter going through the cabinets for something sweet. You have nasal congestion, post-nasal drip, sinusitis, irritable bowel syndrome, gas bloating, diarrhea, and constipation.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:42:36]: These sound like you? That's usually going to be candida overgrowth. There's in the book, I talk about the medications, but good probiotics and fermented foods can help. There's the EP 300 Bee Pollen Bee Propolis, I should say not pollen. It's a bee propolis, which has antifungal properties. The herb Berberine 500 milligrams three times a day. For those of you who have long COVID, especially post-vaccine, get the book. You can heal from long COVID and then go through the whole thing.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:43:09]: I don't talk about the Ivermectin much in that either. There's some things that are so politically charged that once you mention the word, half the people in the country won't hear anything. What you have to say.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:19]: Well, bright side is your book wouldn't take that long to burn anyways. It's a nice short read.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:43:23]: Hey, it makes a nice little silver and pink sparks as it burns.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:28]: I haven't read it yet. It's on my books-to-read shelf, the COVID one. So far I've only read From Fatigue to Fantastic. So we've got the infections. And that would include long COVID? Something like that.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:43:37]: It includes long COVID. So post-viral, there are protocols in the book for if you have chronic flu-like symptoms, then just look at the book and look at the post-viral protocols if you suspect Lyme disease. Again, I'm not trusting the Lyme tests very much on either side, positive or negative. But there are symptoms that say, if we have these symptoms, take an antibiotic for six weeks. Doxycycline. Or if you had so many people come to me and I say, well, I've been crippled and bedridden, but I had this dental work, and I got this antibiotic and it went away. And I was healthy for ten days. And I said, so they put you back on the antibiotic? Right.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:44:13]: And I said, no, they wouldn't give it to me. Why? You know as well, they said they can't use long-term antibiotics. Well, if you had acne, they'd give it to you for three years.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:21]: Good point. Yeah, yeah.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:44:23]: You know, so I will go based on symptoms. I will treat for different infections.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:31]: Okay, got it. And by the way, quick rabbit hole. You had long COVID yourself.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:44:36]: I had post-viral Chronic Fatigue Syndrome back in 1975. When I was in med school. I was, you know, rolling through med school quickly again. I was the third youngest in my class, 300. I was working as a nurse in a children's hospital to pay my way through med school. And those three things were the easy parts of my life. I made the mistake of trying to be an arbiter in a psychotic family that had been Auschwitz survivors, mostly, and trying to create peace and rest. There are other things.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:45:09]: And then I got this nasty viral infection. Crash and burn. I found myself homeless and sleeping in parks. That's how I learned about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Fibromyalgia.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:18]: Man, how long did it take you to get over it?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:45:21]: A year to recover enough to go back to med school. I didn't even know I could go back to med school. But I found out after I got myself better that I could, and that was how I started learning and putting together this protocol since 1975.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:37]: Yeah, kind of a blessing in disguise. It happened to you while you were still in your formative education years. Probably a little bit flexible in terms of what you were willing to learn or motivated to learn about.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:45:47]: And, Ben, nothing that's ever happened to me has turned out to be anything but a blessing.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:52]: Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:45:53]: I don't even see them as being in disguise anymore. Half of everything I own, except for our home, went up and cars went up in the Lahaina, Hawaii.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:03]: Oh, man, really?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:46:04]: I didn't realize that we didn't have any money in the account or stuff we held. That was our retirement fund. For we had two Grenada condos. And the funny thing is those buildings are still standing. They're the only ones. Everything else is ash. We haven't even been able to get back in. It's been almost a year now.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:46:25]: I know that that will turn out to be a blessing and a gift. Wow. I see behind as being the Phoenix, and every hundred years it burns down, and decides what it wants to be when it grows up next. And then I get to, along with many other people, help along in that process.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:39]: By the way, has it burned down before? Like, is it actually like phoenix like.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:46:44]: That 100 years before?

Ben Greenfield [00:46:48]: Wow. Interesting. I didn't know that.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:46:49]: Down to the ground.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:50]: Wow. Wow.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:46:52]: So all these things turn out. So sleep hormones, infection for nutrition, cut back sugar, increase salt, avoid junk that they say food-like substances on it. I used to teach the third-grade nutrition class and I lived in Annapolis. Every year I teach it. Basically, the concept was food is food and junk is junk. And look at the ingredients. If you can't read it, don't eat it. You know, if it says corn, you know if it says food.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:47:24]: And the ingredients, if it's hydroxylated, body related, 27 or 6 color dye number, don't eat that crap.

Ben Greenfield [00:47:31]: You know what the number one question, I get that about that though. That's pushback. People will look at the label, let's say like that powdered multivitamin that you brought up earlier. Right? Like people will look at that and be like, why can't brown south this stuff? How could this be good for me? Plus it's processed in order to be extracted. What's your typical response to something like that?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:47:48]: Well, you gotta know who's making this stuff. I'm really, that's the thing about it. It's really hard as a non-expert, it's hard enough as an expert to kind of sort through the vitamin powder. That's one that a company called Terry Naturally is going to be making that. It's called the energy revitalization drink mix. I had made it about 19 years ago, but the company that made it went mostly mass market. They didn't want to bother with the complex product. But it has the perfect amount.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:48:20]: I know this sets me up when I say that, but I have the research showing, here's how each amount of each nutrient was picked and why we picked East Canada. The nutrient, I don't know if I'm going to make any money from that yet. The company, I just got a company to make it so it's available for the public.

Ben Greenfield [00:48:36]: Even though, you know, based on the wisdom of what you just shared. It's best to consume food that doesn't even have a label, right? There's just natural produce, shop the perimeter, the grocery store, etcetera. But there are now some pretty good label scanners. Gosh darn if I can't remember the most popular one off the top of my head. Somebody's just showing to me the other day, and you scan the label and it actually tells you, hey, you might not be able to pronounce this, but it's actually good stuff, or stay away from this. Or it has, like a rank scale for the health aspects of that labeled product. And so there are five, I would imagine there are probably at least half a dozen apps in the app store now that allow you to scan a product, a vitamin, a freaking sunscreen, and actually know. So it's a lot easier now with technology.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:49:17]: Good to know. Cause I didn't even know that. I just go by companies, explore the companies and how good they are or not in terms of trustworthy.

Ben Greenfield [00:49:27]: Okay, so anything else on the end components?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:49:29]: Yep. Basically there's a smart energy system. It's a mix of ribose, ashwagandha, Rhodiola, green tea extracts, Cassandra, and licorice. So we just did another study on that that I need to be writing up today to submit for publication. The journals are bugging me to get that in. That was increased stamina, 81%. So even for healthy people who just want more healthy energy. So the smart energy system can be. That is one of two products I make myself.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:50:00]: And you can get on Endfatigue.com, everything else I mentioned, and you can go to Amazon. I don't make a penny on it. So this way, because when people are telling me products, it's like, who's making it? So this is my way of keeping it all transparent.

Ben Greenfield [00:50:17]: And what about the E?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:50:19]: E is exercise as able.

Ben Greenfield [00:50:21]: Oh, E is exercise. Okay.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:50:22]: Right. So the thing is, for most of you, with CFS and fibromyalgia, you have what's called post-exertional malaise, where you go ahead and even walk to the mailbox in your bedroom for three days. And because your energy level is so low, you can't condition this overall protocol will increase the energy. And so you can start to condition it, teach you how to go ahead and do the energy when the blood rushes to your legs when you're exercising the pots. So email me for those of you who have that, ask for the exercise information sheet for people with CFS and fibromyalgia, and I'll give you exercise lying down that you can do that won't trigger that drop in blood flow to the brain.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:06]: How does it work exactly? Is it like one of those machines that compresses and relaxes and moves blood around the body like one of those limp circulation boot arm type of setups?

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:51:16]: It's more that horizontal instead of vertical, so the blood doesn't rush. It's really while you're doing it.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:21]: Yeah, that's what I meant was horizontal, because I've done ones like that where it's almost like you look like the Pillsbury doughboy and you zip up the arms and the legs, and there's one for the torso, and it compresses and relaxes. So you're moving lymph and blood, but you're not exhausting your HPA axis with hard exercise or weight training or cardio or something like that.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:51:41]: It's a mix of things. The information sheet will go through the details without. But, Ben, I like to finish with the same thing I started for, which is that if you do this stuff so you can get, well, to go back to a life you hate, I've done nothing for you. We've all wasted our time here. If you get your energy recovering so you can go ahead and figure out who you are and follow your bliss and do a life you love, you will look back and realize that that little, you know, having your car pulled over on the road of life worked out really well for you so you could get a reset to GPS and figure out where you actually want to be going.

Ben Greenfield [00:52:20]: Yeah, I think a lot of people keep driving the car at the same speed and simultaneously via supplements, medications, biohacks, etcetera. Try to figure out how to just, like, squeeze gas in the tank and fix an engine while the car is still going 75 miles an hour down the highway. And what you're saying is, hey, first, slow down the car and do less. And a lot of these things, for example, the shine protocol, it's going to work a lot better if you're not trying to do it while you're still going a million miles an hour.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:52:49]: Well, it's not so much the speed of a million miles an hour, it's that you're going in the right direction. Make that list. It won't take you but 20 minutes, and we start to withdraw energy from the things that don't feel good. You don't have to quit your job. You may just find that, oh, I don't like these parts, but I like these. And I can get my boss to delegate those, or I can delegate those and start to take on the things alike. So sometimes you need to quit. Most of the time, you don't.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:53:17]: Most of the time, you just need to get a sense of what feels good to you and make some adjustments. I'm not recommending quick changes. I'm recommending making that list. See what feels good to you, see what works.

Ben Greenfield [00:53:31]: Yeah. The life satisfaction piece is huge. I used to do adventure racing, and somebody told me during a race once in which I got lost, he says, hey, it doesn't matter how fast you go, Ben. You're going fast in the wrong direction. And you're right. Even if you slow down the car, it might be going northeast. And what your soul wants is southwest. So, yeah, it's really good advice.

Ben Greenfield [00:53:51]: And honestly, I'm kind of glad that our podcast took the direction of some of that wisdom from you, because, frankly, there's no way that in the time allotted, we could go through. Hold up the book here. All of the deep biochemical science in the book. I mean, it addresses andropause and heart function and Jacob's approach to migraines, and he mentioned low-dose naltrexone, and he goes through his approach for that, his approach for optimizing heart function or optimizing methylation. So it's kind of like, you know, an encyclopedia of knowledge, almost like a cookbook for fatigue. So definitely pair the book with some of the lessons that you've just learned. It was my intention today to introduce you to this guy and to his mind and his work, because it's certainly one that I'm going to keep on my shelf for people who come to me, which happens pretty frequently with fatigue issues, with pain, with fibromyalgia. So, Jacob, I'm very, very honored to have met you and to have been able to have this discussion with you.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:54:50]: Ben, likewise. And again, guys, get a life you love. It's not that hard. Just make that list and start to, like, follow what feels good, and you're gonna look back and realize holy shit, I got this place. That's awesome. I looked there. I did that, and here I am in Hawaii. So enjoy.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:55:11]: This is meant to be a fun ride. Life is not a problem to be solved. It's not that. You know, I asked my cat what he needed to do to be worthy of food and all the things, and he just looked at me like, feed me, you stupid kid.

Ben Greenfield [00:55:24]: You know, I was born worthy, baby. All right, that's a cap for you. I'll put the show notes at BenGreenfieldlife.com/fantastic. Including the email that Jacob shared, the link to his cures phone app, and his books, not just this one, but also the new one on long COVID. And I definitely plan to read that and we might wind up doing a two-parter. But in the meantime, folks, check out his book. Check out the show notes again at BenGreenfieldlife.com.

Ben Greenfield [00:55:50]: fantastic. Jacob, thank you so much for coming on the show, man.

Jacob Teitelbaum [00:55:54]: You're welcome, man. My honor and pleasure.

Ben Greenfield [00:55:56]: All right, see you later. I finished my podcast with Dr. Teitelbaum. I took off my shirt and started my red light therapy and started bouncing around in my office. Then I realized I forgot to tell you about the app that I was going to follow up on for food labels. Jacob just hung up. So I just pressed record again. And the app is Yuka. Y u k a.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:21]: And then there's another one that's called Think Dirty. Think Dirty. So Y u k a and Think Dirty. And then, you know, again, I want to emphasize that podcast with Jacob. I actually had anticipated, taken a much deeper dive, deeper dive into the medicine and the biochemical aspects. But a lot of what we talked about on this show actually isn't in his book in quite as practical way as we described. So I thought it was a great discussion. I hope it helped you out and you weren't bored just hearing a couple of dudes talk about their emotions and choosing a life that you love.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:56]: But I would love to hear your comments, your questions and your feedbacks. Go to BenGreenfieldlife.com/fantastic. That is your shirtless, nipple-filled addendum. Thanks for listening.

Ben Greenfield [00:57:07]: Do you want free access to comprehensive show notes? My weekly Roundup newsletter, cutting edge research and articles, top recommendations from me for everything that you need to hack your life, and a whole lot more, check out BenGreenfieldlife.com.

Ben Greenfield [00:57:25]: It'S all there.

Ben Greenfield [00:57:26]: BenGreenfieldlife.com, see you over there.

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Ben Greenfield

Ben Greenfield is a health consultant, speaker, and New York Times bestselling author of a wide variety of books.

What's Blocking You From Living Boundless?

Thoughts on Want To FIX FATIGUE & Feel FANTASTIC? Begin By Choosing the Life You Love (& These SIMPLE Biochemical Principles): “SHINE” With Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum

One Response

Bob says:

August 29, 2024 at 7:00 am

Thank you for taking my advice and getting doctor Teitelbaum on. One of your best guests ever I would say ever given how much he’s done for the pain and fatigue communities.

Reply

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