Fatigue Is a Warning Sign | Dr. Evan Hirsch

[00:00:00] Dr. Evan Hirsch: I’m glad you brought that up because overwhelm is definitely a big part of this and figuring out a way forward. I tell people that we’re gonna take you by the hand and we’re gonna work we’re gonna support you through a process over the next 12 months. And all they have to do is implement. So we try to take, take care of the overwhelm in that way.

[00:00:18] Other things that we, you know, mindset is a really big part of this. It’s important to remember that, we overestimate the amount we can get done in a day and we underestimate the amount we can get done in a year.

[00:00:32] Dr. Z new: Welcome to the Natural Living Family Podcast, where we help you say no to overwhelm and yes to intentional living so you could take your health back God’s way. We’re Dr. Z and Mama Z bestselling authors, Bible Health Educators, and Parents of Seven. And this show is all about equipping you with simple, low-toxic living and budget friendly health solutions so you can walk in the abundant life you were created for.

[00:00:57] This isn’t about chasing trends or doing it all, it’s about renewing your mind, rejecting toxic systems, and embracing God’s design for healing and wholeness. Because the truth is God has a beautiful plan for your life, and yes, your health matters to him. Are you ready to get started? Awesome. Let’s dive in…. 

[00:01:20] Dr. Z: All right, Dr. Evan, thanks so much, man for being here. I really appreciate you, 

[00:01:24] Dr. Evan Hirsch: Eric. Thanks so much for having me on. 

[00:01:26] Dr. Z: You know, like we were just talking about, we’ve seen each other at conferences for several years and this is the first time that we’ve been able to connect and that’s really one of the main reasons why I love doing this, is to get this intimate one-on-one time.

[00:01:41] And I really appreciate you. I appreciate your work and I’m long overdue, so I apologize. I’m long overdue with not introducing you to my audience. Just for people that haven’t heard of you and your work, give them the short little rundown and we’re gonna run deep.

[00:01:57] We’re gonna go deep, hopefully down the bunny trail of chronic fatigue, chronic illness, toxic five, your four step process. I’m looking at your book behind you, Fixing Your Fatigue. So many people in my audience and just in the world are struggling with fatigue related symptoms regarding cancer, autoimmunity, diabetes, obesity.

[00:02:18] It’s just the symptom that people try to medicate away with caffeine or something else. So thank you again for being here, and why should everyone listen to you? You have some secret powers and tell ’em that. 

[00:02:31] Dr. Evan Hirsch: Yeah, so my name is Evan Hirsch. So I started off as a medical doctor and then transitioned like conventional, then transitioned into functional medicine, environmental medicine.

[00:02:42] I got chronic fatigue syndrome, just about destroyed my life for about five years. I was sleeping underneath my desk at work with my door locked because I was so embarrassed. I couldn’t help out my wife and my new child at home. So I had a lot of shame.

[00:02:55] And I kind of had to go through a process. I was seeing functional medicine doctors and I just wasn’t getting better. They were replacing all the deficiencies. But what I found when I went through a process of figuring out all the potential causes, finding my causes and fixing them, is that the real root causes were what I called The Toxic Five.

[00:03:12] A combination of heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections, and nervous system dysfunction that causes all of chronic fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome, and we’ll talk about today, cancer related fatigue as well.

[00:03:26] So that became my mission. I’m on a mission to help a million people resolve their fatigue. So I appreciate you having me on so we can get the word out. 

[00:03:33] Dr. Z: I mean, let’s go one step. I appreciate that. What was the one thing? Like the one thing that said, you know what, I need to step up. Because ultimately you’ve become a voice, and that’s what I mean.

[00:03:45] Like, you have a superpower. So you’re too humble. I love you. Brag on yourself for just a minute, my friend, because you’ve been able to help so many people and it’s very customized. It’s not one size fits all.

[00:03:58] And I’m guess I’m kind of feeding you a softball pitch here, which I want to. But you know, why did you step up? And what is so impactful and why do you feel what you’re doing is making the impact where you didn’t get the help from all the other folks that you went to? 

[00:04:15] Dr. Evan Hirsch: It was after napping under my desk for like the thousandth day in a row where I just kind of had it, and I realized that I had to step up. I had to go on this journey.

[00:04:24] And you know, it’s every single day in the eyes of the people that I serve where I, I see them struggling and I know that I have a solution that can help them. And we take them by the hand and we walk them through this process and provide them with amazing support, addressing all of the causes that they have so that we leave no stone unturned, right?

[00:04:44] We know that if we’re going to be addressing all the potential causes, that the likelihood of failure is extremely low. So that’s, that just became my mission. 

[00:04:55] Dr. Z: When you’re going through this journey, essentially you’re healing yourself. Give us a couple aha moments. Like you are, “Whoa, I didn’t learn that in school.”

[00:05:05] My doctor didn’t tell me that. My colleagues haven’t told me that. I kind of would love to get a little fringe here and counterculture. Because I know you do things a little bit outside the box, but it’s not like you’re… I mean, this isn’t WOOWOO medicine, y’all. Like, you’re an evidence-based medical doctor for crying out loud.

[00:05:20] But I would love to hear some of those aha moments that might be helpful to people listening like, “Ooh, I didn’t think about that.” Or, “Ooh, I gotta look into that.” 

[00:05:29] Dr. Evan Hirsch: I think the biggest one for me initially was to kind of look at my story a little bit differently. You know, oftentimes we have a straw that breaks the camel’s back. Or there’s like a moment in time where we’re like, you know, I moved, into this house, the house had mold and I got sick.

[00:05:43] But the reality is, is that we come out of the womb behind the eight ball. So there’s studies to show that over 300 different chemicals are found in baby’s cord blood. And that’s from a study 10 years ago. So you know, there’s heavy metals and chemicals and infections, all the toxic fiber actually found in mom and then go through the placenta into baby.

[00:06:02] And then we have, we come out of the womb that way, and then it’s all the exposures that we had. I grew up eating a lot of tuna fish and I loved it and unfortunately that gave me a lot of mercury. Every time we bite down on the silver fillings, that was giving me mercury as well. And then there’s the pesticides and the herbicides that I was exposed to in all the food in the eighties.

[00:06:22] You know, we didn’t know about organic food at that time. Right? And the plastics that we used to put into the microwave, you know, and we’re basically just putting plastic into our food. Or the plastics that we then, take our food and put it into the fridge. Right? And it just seeps in. So there’s all these different exposures that were real aha moments that I didn’t realize.

[00:06:39] It was kind of this step from functional medicine that I took into environmental medicine that kind of gave me this bigger picture. And this bigger understanding around the exposures that we have around us. And it really took me going deep into each one of the toxic five.

[00:06:55] Because when I was practicing functional medicine, I could get 90% of the people better who walked in the door just by replacing deficiencies. So when I look at causes, I categorize them into deficiencies and toxicities.

[00:07:08] The deficiencies are things that are not in the body that are supposed to be there. So it’s optimizing hormones like adrenals and thyroid and sex hormones, mitochondrial function, which makes 70 to 90% of our energy, vitamins and minerals, lifestyle habits. Like all of those things you can optimize and you can get so many people better, which is really amazing.

[00:07:30] It was the 10% that I couldn’t get better. And I didn’t really know how, until I got fatigue. I got over my fatigue and then started helping these people with the same thing that ended up helping me. And so that was really these environmental things that unfortunately, you know, functional medicine docs are great, but there’s a very small segment who are addressing all of these.

[00:07:50] Oftentimes they might dabble. They might dip a toe into heavy metals or chemicals or molds or infections, but they’re not generally not addressing all of them, which is usually to the detriment. Because whether somebody’s got chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic fatigue, or cancer, there’s all these different toxins and stressors that need to be addressed.

[00:08:12] Dr. Z: You’re one of the few people that share this, and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted you to explain this to our audience because it all starts in the womb. And then there’s this concept of biochemical accumulation, which is essentially what you’re underscoring here. And like you mentioned, what’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back?

[00:08:33] So to kind of go a little deeper before we, ’cause I want to hear about your four step process and we definitely gotta hear about the toxic five. But through my experience struggling with chronic fatigue and just the thousands of people that have followed us over the years begging for help, like just they don’t know what to do.

[00:08:52] You know, they need that cup of coffee, they… When you need something like that to get through the day and then you become dependent on it. What are some early warning signs? And help people go back, maybe not when they’re five or six years old, because I don’t remember too much in my childhood, but kind of go back a little bit, teenage twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties. What are some of the warning signs that people might be ignoring that could be a sign of like, look, if you don’t fix this, if you don’t look at this environmental medicine concept and functional medicine hybrid that you’re creating here, then you’re gonna be in trouble later on?

[00:09:27] I think that’s something that we do. We just mistakenly excuse symptoms like, “Oh, it’s no big deal.” But it’s like your body’s screaming. Red light. Red light. 

[00:09:37] Dr. Evan Hirsch: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it’s very subtle. the body can accommodate, you know, as humans we’re very accommodating and we can pivot and we can push through. 

[00:09:47] It starts with, I mean, some of the challenges are; a lack of mindfulness or a lack of awareness of what’s kind of like happening to us. But we see all of our friends doing something and so we want to do the same thing. So you know, we start staying up late or going out or whatever it is. And it ends up that then it’s just harder to get out of bed in the morning and that we do need that coffee, and then one cup of coffee becomes two.

[00:10:12] I remember my dad told me this story when he was in graduate school. That he went to go see the doctor because he had a stomach pain or something like that, and the doctor said, how much coffee are you drinking? And he didn’t know because he basically, every single time he was bored or he didn’t, you know, he would get up, he was a chemist, he would go over and he would drink another cup of coffee.

[00:10:34] And when he actually calculated it, he was drinking a pot of coffee a day, and that was giving him the gastritis. Right? So. Oftentimes, we don’t necessarily have the awareness of how much of a particular stimulant we’re consuming. It’s just kind of time to go get it right. And we’re not making that calculation.

[00:10:49] But that’s generally the first thing, is that there’s a little bit of a flag of energy, or just things aren’t working quite right. Maybe our sleep is a little bit worse or whatever. And usually this, you know, fortunately I should say the majority of these people, this happens to them when they’re in their forties or fifties, but for some people it does happen in their teens or in their twenties.

[00:11:10] So it really just depends, you know? And for me, I didn’t really notice until I was already practicing medicine. I had come out of residency and residency was really challenging, and so I thought that it was just kind of leftover from residency. But then it just persisted and then it got worse. Right?

[00:11:26] So it was the total, that bioaccumulation that you talk about, and the accumulation of stressors. So big picture is when there are mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, energetic stressors on the human frame, the body is gonna say, “Hey, I need to rest and relax. You know, call me when this is over. I’m gonna take a snooze.”

[00:11:53] And the reality is we can’t do that because we’ve got jobs and responsibilities, and then we have to start pushing through. But it’s at that first moment when you start to feel poorly or you start to feel worse, it’s probably 10 years before somebody actually goes to see a doctor about it.

[00:12:07] That’s really when we have to bring that awareness in and realize, okay, there’s something that I need to do here. The challenge is though, is that, you know, most people need to be unfortunately, hit over the head in order to do something about it.

[00:12:21] It takes way too much time to work on our health and it distracts us from all the other things that we want to do in life. And so, it takes, you need, in order to have the motivation, you kind of have to be suffering, unfortunately. 

[00:12:34] Dr. Z: It’s normalized. I mean, let’s call it for what it is. Everyone’s tired, right? I mean, we’re all overworked. Everyone’s overburdened.

[00:12:40] I mean, on the wake of COVID, just look at just, that’s normal. I mean being, if you’re not overwhelmed, there’s something wrong. I mean, at this point, right? People, I’m not saying that is the sign that something’s wrong. But we’ve normalized this.

[00:12:53] We’ve normalized and I gotta say big, big kudos to commerce for figuring this one out. But big coffee, let’s call it for what it is. They’ve made it, you know, best way of waking up is a Folger’s in your cup and they’ve indoctrinated us since I was a kid. You and I raised in the eighties and nineties, and here we are in our mid forties, getting to be mid age soon. And it’s just what you do.

[00:13:16] Everywhere you go, right? And it’s so cheap and it’s so toxic and everything is around coffee. I mean, coffee breaks, like what did that, you know? That’s part of my world is a coffee break. Like what about a fresh air break? What about a purified reverse osmosis water break?

[00:13:33] So, with that said, let’s, I’m really looking forward to, I got some notes here, diving into the connection between chronic disease somewhat of a mimicking aspect with fibromyalgia. We really want to pick your brain on that, and no one’s talking about the confusion of what chronic fatigue is versus fibro.

[00:13:47] But what are the toxic five? Unpack that for a minute, and how do we make this palatable?

[00:13:54] And I’m gonna preface this right now. I spend a lot of time in Instagram as part of what we do, as part of our Bible health ministry, and people are freaked out. Just let’s call it for what it is. People are overwhelmed and they don’t know what to do.

[00:14:09] Like everyone says everything is toxic, and unless you live in a non-plastic bubble, you’re going to die tomorrow. I mean, that’s basically what’s happened with this non-toxic, low toxic movement. Everything, all the crunchy moms, functional medicine practitioners, every day is another warning.

[00:14:27] And I saw one guy who was mentioning, you know, just one guy made a great comment and said, “what can we eat then?” So I just wanna paint that picture because the last thing I wanna do is overwhelm people. So that’s my challenge to you, my friend.

[00:14:40] How do you highlight the toxic five? And then give people a practical solution without tipping them over to like, forget it. Because ultimately if people are overwhelmed, myself included, I just won’t move forward.

[00:14:53] Dr. Z new: Hey, friend, real quick, if you’ve been listening and thinking, I wanna live this way, but I need help, well, that’s exactly why we created the Bible Health Academy. It’s our monthly mentorship and training hub packed with Bible health solutions, non-toxic living strategies, and the like-minded community.

[00:15:09] You need to walk in the abundant life God designed for you. Whether you’re brand new to natural living or ready to go deeper, this is where transformation happens from the inside out. Visit biblehealthacademy.com to learn more. We hope you’ll join us.

[00:15:25] Dr. Evan Hirsch: I’m glad you brought that up because overwhelm is definitely a big part of this and figuring out a way forward. I tell people that we’re gonna take you by the hand and we’re gonna work we’re gonna support you through a process over the next 12 months. And all they have to do is implement. So we try to take, take care of the overwhelm in that way.

[00:15:44] Other things that we, you know, mindset is a really big part of this. It’s important to remember that, we overestimate the amount we can get done in a day and we underestimate the amount we can get done in a year.

[00:15:55] And all it takes

[00:15:56] Dr. Z: That’s good.

[00:15:57] Dr. Evan Hirsch: Yeah. And all it takes is baby steps every single day. And so part of the mindset, we’ve got a four step mindset practice that we can get into if you want. But part of the mindset practice is really recognizing this and asking yourself empowering questions.

[00:16:10] So something like, what can I do today to take my health to the next step? What is a baby step that I can do today? Right? It doesn’t have to be a big step. It can just be taking the supplements, you know.

[00:16:22] And every single month, maybe there’s a bigger project around. Okay, I’m gonna look at the chemicals in my life right now and I’m going to start to remove them, right? So it’s definitely a bigger project in our very busy lives, but you just have to realize that you’re gonna get there over the course of the next 12 months, and it doesn’t have to be accomplished today.

[00:16:41] And so many of us are perfectionists and recovering perfectionists, hopefully. And so it’s important to remember that what we’re looking for is good enough. Like there’s no way to be perfect. I think that sometimes also takes care of some of the overwhelm.

[00:16:55] I tell my daughter, who’s 17 tomorrow actually, is that, you know, done is better than perfect. And 80% is really what we’re looking for. We’re not looking for a hundred percent, 110%, like, we’re not. This is not professional athletics.

[00:17:08] Things are like way too stressful at this point in the world and in our lives. Let’s just get through. Let’s do what we need to do. Let’s try to have as much balance as possible. You, you know, speaking to all the people who are watching this right now, you do not have to be perfect.

[00:17:25] You do not have to be perfect. In fact, I challenge you not to be. You know, what would that look like if you weren’t perfect? That’s a really empowering question. You know, what kind of ease and peace could that bring to you in your life?

[00:17:39] So the toxic five are those stressors that we talked about, the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, energetic, et cetera. Where we’re looking specifically at a combination of heavy metals, chemicals, molds infections and nervous system dysfunction, that has accumulated over the course of your life.

[00:18:03] Where the straw that breaks the camel’s back, whether it’s some sort of infection, or exposure, or whatever, really is just that. It’s the straw. But there’s been this accumulation that’s built up in your body over time.

[00:18:16] So people are like, oh, you know, I have this cause. I know that as soon as I got my mercury fillings in or out, all of a sudden I felt worse, and so it’s gotta be the mercury. And it’s like, “Yes, and.” So yes, and it’s these other things as well, ’cause oftentimes, yes, it can be a big inoculation of something. Like you get bitten by a tick, or I have a client who’s bitten by a horsefly and all of a sudden he got all these weird symptoms, right? So there is an inoculation from those infections or some from those pathogens.

[00:18:44] But they can only take hold in the body, they don’t, it doesn’t happen to everybody, but they can only take hold in the body if the immune system is distracted by the heavy metals, chemicals, molds, and nervous system dysfunction, right? The other toxic four. So it’s really important.

[00:18:58] What I’ve found is that all of them have to be addressed. So here’s another aha moment, which is kind of, heretic or heresy, is the fact that I don’t really test for these anymore.

[00:19:12] I just treat, 

[00:19:13] Dr. Z: Uh oh come on.

[00:19:15] Dr. Evan Hirsch: I just treat ’em.

[00:19:16] Dr. Z: Does everyone know that? Because I’m gonna kick you out outta the community. I’m joking. I’m joking. 

[00:19:22] Dr. Evan Hirsch: I’m happy to arm wrestle anybody about it. But you know, the thing is, is that I’ve done this for the last decade and what I found over the course of treating people, over the course of a year, year and a half, two years when I’m with people, is that all of them come out.

[00:19:36] All of the toxic five come out.

[00:19:38] What I found is that it’s just better not to waste their time, energy, money on doing those tests, waiting for those tests to come back. And they’re imperfect tests. Because they’re really tests that are based on your ability to excrete, not your total body burden of a toxin like mold.

[00:19:53] Right? If you show, if you have no mold showing up in your urine, it does not mean you don’t have mold in your body. It just means you’re not able to excrete it. So we just treat people and it works really well.

[00:20:04] So that’s another aha moment that I kind of wanted to work in there. But those are, those are the toxic five.

[00:20:10] Dr. Z: There’s so much freedom in that. And I was just talking to a colleague and a dear friend and we’re discussing a potential health issue that, that he might have. And that exact discussion about, “Well, should I get tested or not?” came up. And he’s like, it doesn’t matter if I’m diagnosed with it because I’m still gonna do the same thing.

[00:20:40] It’s not gonna change my behavior. It’s not gonna change what I’m gonna do. I’m still gonna quote, “treat it” as if it’s there. And he mentioned something about the freedom and the emotional burden that he’s not gonna put on himself.

[00:20:55] Because what ultimately happens is, at least at the subconscious level, we identify with the diagnosis and then we get obsessed with the numbers.

[00:21:04] And so this is to point out for y’all,. Like we’re not saying don’t get your cancer cell counts and don’t go to a cardiologist to get tests if you have hypertension, or something like that. That’s not what we’re talking about. You need to be taking tests if you are having a serious chronic illness, and we wanna be responsible.

[00:21:26] Yet the tests don’t define you. And what we’re talking about is like this existential reality that we all have been affected by what Dr. Evan’s calling the toxic five. Every one of us. Every one of us, just trust us.

[00:21:42] You’ll find forever chemicals in your blood. You’ll find microplastics in your brain. It’s just the way that it is. If you’ve been alive in this industrial complex for the last 30, 40, 50 years. Don’t freak out about it. And what we’re finding is bondage, and I’m gonna use the word very carefully, a slavery to the test, to the numbers, and it puts people into so much paralyzing fear.

[00:22:11] How about we do what Dr. Evan’s suggesting? This is probably, nothing against your four step process, but I don’t know if there’s anything you could say more powerful than what you just did.

[00:22:20] To bring so much freedom to people is first off, you know, done is better than perfect, looking for good enough. And what would life look like if you weren’t chasing after perfect? And that’s the problem with being obsessed with all these tests all the time.

[00:22:35] And give yourself a minute, give yourself maybe six months to work out some natural, and we will go through your, your process. I just wanna highlight how important that is. Again, this is not to be irresponsible if you have a chronic issue or a chronic disease. If you’re under the guidance of a healthcare professional, of course.

[00:22:51] But you don’t need to be, right now. The last thing in the world you need to do is just take a prophylactic, just because I’m curious what mold test, it’s not gonna help you. You just do what you need to do, live your life. Because this lifestyle doesn’t change. Once you get on this lifestyle, you’re gonna continue to.

[00:23:07] You’re not gonna go back to going on benders and, like me, abusing cocaine and narcotics, and drinking, and smoking and… No, I’m not gonna go back to that. My life has forever changed. I’m not gonna go back to white processed sugar and other things. So anyway, I don’t wanna get preaching, I don’t wanna take over the interview, but you really lit something in my spirit, man.

[00:23:23] So what is your four step process and how have you found that regardless of whatever levels people are at, it’s gonna pretty much help everybody? 

[00:23:34] Dr. Evan Hirsch: I want to just touch on something that you mentioned, you know, is that humans really love certainty and we’re very uncomfortable with uncertainty. And the reality is, is that medicine, healthcare, it’s incredibly uncertain.

[00:23:48] All labs are imperfect, right? And we’re just all trying to do the best we can and relying on them for certainty. I tell doctors when I lecture to them is that if you lean on your labs too hard, you will fall over. Right. They’re just, you’re asking for certainty in a place where there is none.

[00:24:05] So it’s just important for people to remember as kind of like part of this whole process is you do the best you can and you try to hold it all with an open hand, you know? And I am not a cancer expert, and so the labs are gonna be different for cancer, but a lot of this stuff, the stressors, the toxic five, all of that can also play a role into your cancer related fatigue as well.

[00:24:27] So the four step process that I take people through, the first step is to figure out the causes that they have. So for everybody, and then we’re basically gonna match it up with a treatment that actually works. So when we’re looking at these causes, we’re looking at the deficiencies and the toxicities.

[00:24:44] We’re going to, well, I know we’re gonna be addressing all of the toxic five, and we’re, and actually we’re looking at about, we’re looking at over 30 different causes. We’re, we know we’re gonna be addressing the toxic five.

[00:24:56] And then when people have fatigue, you can’t really have fatigue without having adrenal gland dysfunction and mitochondrial dysfunction. So we’re gonna be addressing those two.

[00:25:05] So the questions are, what needs to be adjusted in your lifestyle habits; sleep, movement, water, food, what needs to be addressed? Yeah. If anything, if you’ve got low thyroid, if you’ve got low sex hormones, if you’ve got vitamin mineral deficiencies, and then the mindset work.

[00:25:26] So that’s kind of the deficiencies and then the toxicities of the toxic five. And then also we throw in there looking at structural issues. So if somebody has any sort of, motor vehicle accidents, traumatic brain injuries, we definitely want to help support the physical frame.

[00:25:42] And then also EMFs, electromagnetic frequencies. Incredibly toxic and they kind of, piggyback on top of a number of these other toxins. You know, EMFs plus the toxic five makes everything worse. There’s definitely research to show that.

[00:25:57] So first step is to figure out the causes that an individual has, and then I provide them with a plan for what I think they’re gonna be doing over the next 12 months, so I can give them to them within seven business days.

[00:26:10] And then the second step is replacing deficiencies. So we do this, even though this process is all about step four and removing the toxic five, we have to set the person up for success. So replacing the deficiencies will decrease inflammation, will increase resilience. We’ll just make them feel overall better so that they can get through the process better.

[00:26:35] Step three is then opening up the exit pathways or the drainage pathways. This is liver and kidneys and lymph and neuro lymph, which is in the brain, and intestines and gallbladder. So all those pathways that we use to get things out of the body, we have to start opening them up. And just by doing that, we’re gonna start to mobilize and remove toxins.

[00:26:59] And we want to do this at a rate that the body can tolerate. So this is one of the big concerns that people have, is that when they do a quote unquote detox, that they feel worse. And that’s always because they’re detoxing too quickly. Mm-hmm. And so it’s kind of like if you think about your body like a big rain barrel, and you poke a hole in the bottom and you let it drip out.

[00:27:20] Right. So it’s, it’s important that it’s not coming out too fast, otherwise it kind of overwhelms the system and you feel worse. So it’s gotta be at a rate that the body can tolerate. So we start off by opening the exit pathways in step three, and then we move into step four and we start removing the toxins.

[00:27:36] And so, we generally are introducing supplements about half capsules, half tinctures over the course of about six months, and then they continue on all of those supplements for another six months or longer, depending on how they feel and where they’re at at the end of 12 months. But it really is, this process of addressing all of the causes that somebody has and detoxifying at a rate that their body can tolerate.

[00:28:00] And then they have me in their back pocket for a question. I guarantee a response to any question that people have in our program within two business days. So I answer questions Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to be able to help them pivot, which is a really underrated part of this whole process, right?

[00:28:16] You basically, you need to know what causes you have. You need to have a plan over the next 12 months. And then you need to have somebody in your pocket for when you hit a bump or you feel worse, and then you need to have regular check-ins.

[00:28:27] So that’s kind of how we’ve structured things to help people be successful.

[00:28:33] Dr. Z: So walk us through some things that people can do at home. Of course, highly recommend people consider, reaching out to you and seeing if that fits their budget, that fits their plan. Yet what are some DIY things that people can just, everyone needs to look at these 3, 4, 5, 6 things right now.

[00:28:50] Dr. Evan Hirsch: So you can’t go wrong focusing on the lifestyle habits. This is the best way to get empowered. Doesn’t really cost you anything for the most part. I mean, maybe a little bit if you’re going organic food. But you know, when you’re looking at food, I mean there’s different, there’s different diets that, that people partake in.

[00:29:07] But I just wanna make sure that people are getting protein and they’re getting vegetables and they’re being low on gluten and dairy and sugars and processed foods. That’s like most important in my world.

[00:29:19] And then making sure that you’re getting enough water to drink. Like you said, pure filtered water is really what we’re looking for. And for when you’re going through a process like we recommend, we really want about three liters of water a day, drunk throughout the day.

[00:29:35] And then when we’re looking at sleep, you know, ideally seven to nine hours of sleep a night. Creating a really nice environment. Going to bed earlier than 11 is generally ideal. For some people even less than 10 is ideal, depending on who the person is. But you know, really trying to cultivate an environment of sleep and thinking about sleep from the moment that you finish dinner. Right? How do you create your evening for sleep?

[00:30:00] And then movement. You know, I tell people we’re always looking for your Goldilocks dose of movement. This is basically the dose that doesn’t make you feel worse. So if you’re exerting yourself, if you’re exercising and you feel worse afterwards, or the next day, it’s too much. So, essentially you’re kind of detoxifying or you’re stressing out the body too much.

[00:30:19] Same thing goes for fasting. So again, anything that makes you feel worse is kind of too much for the body, right? You don’t, once again, it’s this… We’re talking about not pushing through, not being perfect, right?

[00:30:29] So listening to your body and the cues that it gives you. If you feel worse, it’s probably not something that you should be doing. You can back off of it. Pivot, try something else. So 

[00:30:40] Dr. Z: That’s so, that’s so wise. Yeah. You should feel jazzed up and energetic after a workout. 

[00:30:44] Dr. Evan Hirsch: Exactly. Yeah. And if not, there’s something going on. Right? Oftentimes there’s a lot of things that are good to do, but unfortunately for people who have fatigue, it just, it stresses out the body, and then it increases the fatigue, unfortunately.

[00:30:58] So those are a lot of the lifestyle habits. And then the mindset is a huge component. So we take people through a four step mindset practice.

[00:31:06] The first step being gratitudes. Right. Three gratitudes a day have been shown in clinical studies to significantly improve people’s moods, decrease their fatigue, et cetera. So that’s a really important part of this. Where gratitude lives, fear and anxiety cannot live. 

[00:31:22] The second step is to visualize. You know, the body doesn’t, and the brain doesn’t know the difference between reality and imagination. And so it’s really important to envision what your ideal health. What you want your ideal health to look like, right? You wake up in the morning and what you want your ideal day to look like.

[00:31:41] So you wake up in the morning with great energy, next to somebody you love, surrounded by pets and kids that you love. A, business or work that you love, right? And you move through your day and you envision all the wonderful things that are happening to you in the world, in your life. 

[00:31:56] And there’s really interesting research on this. There’s been studies on people playing piano where some of them just envisioned it and the other people actually practiced it. And then when they went to go perform, they both did just as well.

[00:32:08] There was another study as well on basketball, players, I think this was actually out of East Germany at the time. And there were some that were practicing just visualizing shooting and other ones who were actually shooting, and they both did just as well when it came time to actually do the shooting. So. Really important concept that doesn’t cost you anything to do.

[00:32:28] And then step three in this process is affirmations. And I use these a lot when we’re retraining the nervous system as part of the overall process. And so my favorite right now in terms of affirmations is “I am loved, I’m safe, and I’m enough.”

[00:32:44] So, about a month ago I did a performance. I’m a part-time singer, so that’s kind of like what I do as my hobby. I sing musical theater and I was performing with a group and I completely forgot the words to, a song that I was singing. And I was really struggling and I got prompted by the director to kind of come back in.

[00:33:04] But afterwards, in terms of my processing, I had to remember that I was enough. Like I didn’t have to remember all the words in order to still be enough as a human. Right. I don’t have to be perfect. Which is hard for me as a recovering perfectionist, right? So figuring out what affirmations are going to give you that sense of security. You can borrow mine, but you know, just figuring that out is really important.

[00:33:27] And then the last one is, we talked about before, is asking ourselves empowering questions. Oftentimes we have a leading question that is infiltrating a lot of our life that isn’t, that isn’t supporting us. So this question might be, you know, why do I feel like crap? Why did this happen to me?

[00:33:46] Guess what? Your brain is a goal achieving machine. It’s going to answer the question. You’re not gonna like the answers. So asking yourself a better question, like, how can I love myself even more today? And we stick in “even more” to remind ourselves that we’re already loving ourselves and just to do it more. Right?

[00:34:03] What can I do today to improve my health even more? How can I love my spouse even more? How can I show her that I love her even more? How can I show my kids that I love them? You know, how can I have more fun in my business? You know, how can I support my clients even more? 

[00:34:20] So these are just really powerful tips and tricks that can really transform your life, and you’re not gonna notice it right away. So much of this mindset is also about patience. You know, we talked about how we overestimate the amount we can get done in a day and underestimate the amount we can get done in a year.

[00:34:37] And it’s really, you’re not gonna notice something a week into doing this. Maybe you’ll notice something in a month. But then it starts kicking in and then all of a sudden everything starts to get better in your life, in your world, and in your health.

[00:34:48] So just such an important part of that process. And the mindset work is really top down work. It’s like brain to body. But then there’s also the opposite work that we do in nervous system retraining, which is body to brain or body to mind.

[00:35:02] And so that work is a lot of breath work. You know, doing some breath holds. Where you breathe in for four beats or five beats, hold it for four or five, and then exhale for four or five or sometimes seven, just to kind of get you into your parasympathetic nervous system. And then you can Google polyvagal exercises and you can do a bunch of those.

[00:35:24] You know, whether it’s garling or humming or singing, or a number of these that can be really beneficial at retraining your nervous system. So it really has to be, you know, it’s just a wonderful part of all of this.

[00:35:36] As you’re removing the toxic five, you’re retraining your nervous system. You’re just gonna be a lot more successful.

[00:35:43] Dr. Z: There’s so much ancient wisdom here and you know, as a God-fearing man, I always go back to the Bible and I’m thinking of verses like, “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Essentially how you think is what’s gonna happen. Your actions will always follow your beliefs.

[00:35:56] And “a happy heart does good like medicine.” “We enter God’s gates with Thanksgiving into his courts with praise.” Like these are from the Book of Proverbs and the Book of Psalms. And there are many other, and many other admonishments and encouragement This is something that I’ve been taught to practice as a spiritual endeavor. And once I learned, like you’re suggesting, this needs to be part of your, what we call our natural living protocol. Yeah. This is a game changer. An absolute game changer.

[00:36:23] So I wanna challenge everyone to re-listen to what Dr. Evan just said because these are very simple, practical, and I have to use the word free because it’s absolutely free and it’s not expensive. You don’t need to buy a $5,000 Biohack gadget to feel better all the time.

[00:36:39] Like there’s a time and a place. And one thing you’ll find, and this is essentially what I’m hearing you say. God’s given our body the wonderful, unique ability to heal under the right conditions. We have to do our part, and a lot of it is, quite frankly, in our control, and it’s very much budget friendly.

[00:36:56] So much wisdom to unpack here. I was hoping we’d have a chance to talk about some geeky things, but I know we’re running out of time here. But if there’s anything you wanna share with people that right now that are struggling with a chronic disease. We initially talked about doing this interview in the context of cancer patients and people that are struggling with fatigue or other folks that have chronic illness. That fatigue just appears to be just another side effect.

[00:37:23] But is there any light you could shine on the chronic fatigue, chronic illness, cancer connection, and maybe giving people a guide of what they could do in addition to the things you already mentioned? 

[00:37:35] Dr. Evan Hirsch: Absolutely. Well I think that, you know, from a spiritual perspective, if you look at healing as a spiritual journey and you start asking the question, you know, what can I learn from this illness?

[00:37:47] It really changes your frame, that you’re reframing it basically. And you know, there’s a common phrase in the cancer community where can, they’ll say, cancer saved my life. And oftentimes it’s because it’s a reckoning, and that you’re forced to confront certain things that aren’t working in your life.

[00:38:05] And you kind of start to search out other things like this event, and you’re able to then start to implement some of these things, and they do in fact change your life if you use it as such, use it as a motivator. As an impetus for, for making these changes. And I would just encourage people to, you know, slow and steady wins the race.

[00:38:24] Do the lifestyle habits and the mindset and focus on the toxic five. You know, when you go to interview a practitioner or you’re working on things, ask them what their experience is in each of the toxic five components. Because that’s really the place to get to the finish line.

[00:38:39] You know, whether you’ve got cancer related fatigue and you’ve got toxin in your body, from from chemotherapy and radiation, or you have the toxins that all those toxic five, uh, have been shown to contribute to cancer as well.

[00:38:54] And then you also have the mental and the emotional, the spiritual stress that you went under while going through a cancer journey or whatever, chronic illness you have. Really important to then focus on working on the mental and the emotional and the spiritual support as well.

[00:39:09] Like we’ve talked about today, but it’s baby steps, you know? So you know, mark it in your calendar when you’re gonna do it every day. You know, If you schedule it, it’s gonna happen. Part of success is really scheduling things in your calendar that you know are gonna be supportive for you and doing them.

[00:39:26] You know, having non-negotiables. Like every single morning when I wake up, I do my mindset work and I do my breath work and I do my meditation. Having that protected time and letting your family know this is protected time. Do not come ask me questions about what’s for dinner when I’m in this time.

[00:39:45] So just making it very sacred time so that you can make sure that you’re going to be successful at whatever you want to do in life. Schedule it, do it, and you’re gonna be successful.

[00:39:55] And then you can kind of program some of these things in, where, okay, next month I’m gonna look at the chemicals that are in my life and I’m going to address those. And now we have ai. And so you can ask, ChatGPT, or whoever your favorite AI is of the moment, these questions. Like, tell me about all the toxic chemicals that I potentially have in my home, and give me a checklist on how I can go through it, right?

[00:40:18] So there’s, there’s really great tools that can support you in this process.

[00:40:24] And you schedule that, you do that, and no doubt you’re gonna be successful. 

[00:40:28] Dr. Z: This is wonderful, wonderful. Folks, I wanna encourage you go to EnergyMDMethod.com. Dr. Evan’s got a free masterclass. He’s got a wonderful podcast, YouTube channel, great resources, a lot of free resources, things that you could do on your own.

[00:40:43] Prayerfully consider working with someone like Dr. Evan who can really be that support and guide ’cause ultimately, it could be hard. It could be hard to do this alone. And we understand that. and we banged our head against the wall for years.

[00:40:57] You know, I could speak for Dr. Evan. I can imagine, when he was taking naps under his desk. Like it’s hard to be alone sometimes, and it’s hard not to have that, that guide, that wisdom. And of course, I believe that God is our guide and everything that you’re sharing here, I am just… just so blessed that we finally made this happen.

[00:41:15] Because this brings us back to just a peace, just a center, a place where I do have control over my health. I do have control over my symptoms. And there are ways of remedying things that don’t cost a ton of money, that isn’t going to be potentially harmful for me. And might actually and will work.

[00:41:37] So I love it, man. Any other last words of wisdom or encouragement you wanna share with that moment before we go?

[00:41:44] Dr. Evan Hirsch: I think you know, just baby steps. Do, do something today that you can implement and try to make it as easy as possible. You know, if you want to get more exercise, combine it with something fun. Like, just try to make things as fun as possible, ’cause that’s where you’re gonna be more successful.

[00:41:59] So if you want to get more exercise, just listen to your favorite song from when you were a 15-year-old, and dance around the kitchen.

[00:42:08] Dr. Z: That’s fun. I love it. I love it.

[00:42:11] Done is better than perfect. Looking for good enough. Just do it. Just start, give yourself six to 12 months for an absolute life transforming experience. I drop it down to six months just because I know that taste buds change and metabolism changes. But if you’re willing to give something a year, you’ll look back and you’ll be like, wow. It’ll set you up for the rest of your life.

[00:42:37] Dr. Evan, thank you so much for sharing this. Everyone, you gotta listen to this one again. Wonderful, wonderful conversation and puts things into a beautiful, beautiful perspective. As always, this is Dr. Eric Zielinski, my hope and prayer is that you and your family truly experience the abundant life.

[00:42:52] We’ll talk soon. God bless.

[00:42:57] Dr. Z new: Thanks for joining us on the Natural Living Family Podcast. If today’s episode encouraged you, please take a moment and leave a review and share it with a friend. Your voice helps us reach more families with a message of hope and healing God’s way. Remember, Jesus came to give you life and to have it more abundantly!

[00:43:16] For show notes, transcripts, and resources from today’s episode, visit naturallivingfamilypodcast.com and until next time, stay healthy, stay rooted in truth, and keep choosing the abundant life.