Finding Freedom from Chronic Pain and Anxiety with Monica Norcross

Chronic pain and anxiety are two common yet debilitating conditions that many people struggle with. My guest today, Monica Norcross, has a unique approach to helping people find freedom from these issues. At timestamp 00:50, Monica shares that she helps people find freedom from chronic pain and anxiety, mainly Christians, through a program she developed called The Still Workout. It's based on Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God" and is designed to retrain your brain, renew your body, and restore your soul. She's finding results similar to physical therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, worship, prayer, weight training all combined into one, and treating the body holistically leads to miraculous results.According to Monica at 03:23, everything is connected - the brain, body and soul. So anxiety isn't just a mental health issue, it's also physical and spiritual. She explains the three components of anxiety: cognitive, physical, and spiritual. The cognitive aspect involves the limbic system which regulates emotional response to stress and trauma. It can become overactive, but the good news is God designed our brains to be renewable resources. Simple techniques can calm the limbic system and retrain it to handle adversity healthier.At 09:45, Monica discusses the physical side of anxiety which relates to the fascia system or connective tissue. When healthy it's smooth and pliable, but when unhealthy it can get tangled, adhered, and constricted causing chronic pain. Fascia weaves through every cell and holds emotions and trauma. The techniques Monica uses help release fascial adhesions to reduce pain and trapped emotions. She shares an amazing story at 12:12 of how working on her feet released pain she was having in her abdomen. Finally, at 15:50 Monica addresses the spiritual component of anxiety. The Bible is meant to be studied in stillness and focus which is difficult with anxiety. It says 365 times "Do not be afraid" - one for every day of the year! When we combine spiritual practices with cognitive and physical techniques it packs a powerful punch against anxiety. A typical class includes 7 components: scripture meditation, breathing, cognitive training, strength training, postural alignment, stretching, and fascia release.At 23:06 Monica emphasizes we are called to be good stewards of our bodies. Physical training is good, and spiritual training is better, but we can't ignore caring for our physical health. Invest in wellness now or pay for illness later. Don't let perfection be the enemy of good - keep moving forward.For low-hanging fruit, Monica at 28:02 suggests belly laughing every day and praying, which releases even more powerful endorphins than morphing. At 31:11, take time for deep breathing which is calming. She offers online classes and memberships at various levels at TheStillWorkout.com, and right now has a 10-day anxiety solution program. Use code NHM20 for 20% off.If you struggle with chronic pain or anxiety, I encourage you to check out Monica's biblical approach to whole body health. You can reach her at info@thestillworkout.com.

David Sandstrom 0:00
The spirit is all about love relationships, love for God, love for others, and love for ourselves, the mind, we want to be our own MVP. M stands for mindset. Fi is victory over limiting beliefs. And P stands for practice emotional intelligence. And then the body. I call it food move and snooze. Nutrition, movement and sleep. So those are the nine focus areas. So we're going to unpack each of those one at a time now. Welcome to the Natural Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential, so that you could look and feel your best at any age. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, Naturopathic Doctor and Biblical Health Coach. And this is episode number 121.

David Sandstrom 0:55
This episode is part two, in a two part series on the natural health matters mission statement explained, the last episode, we talked about the fact that God wants us healthy. And there's quite a bit of biblical evidence for that, but also evidence in our physical design, that points to the idea that God wants us to be healthy. And we also see that there's a lot of glowing promises in Scripture regarding our health. But many of those promises have if then statements attached, they're conditional. So we have a role to play. We can't just claim these promises and live our lives any way we want. We have a role to play we want we need to cooperate with God in that goal of achieving vibrant health and vitality.

David Sandstrom 1:39
And I also talked about allopathic medicine versus nature, apathy, and how the naturopathic approach to health is closely aligned with biblical teaching. And I also talked about the love of God. And if we really understood we can really wrap our minds around the love of God, we wouldn't hesitate to run to Him and to do things his way. And when we do things his way, we can expect better outcomes, no guarantees. But that's just the way things work. So if you haven't listened to Episode 120, I encourage you to go back and listen to that episode. Now, I think you'll get a lot more out of this one if you do that. So I've really been looking forward to doing both of these episodes for quite some time. I've last year, so I've had a lot of guests on and I really appreciate them sharing their wisdom with us with the natural nation. But a lot of times, even though those guests are very, very knowledgeable, very smart people, great practitioners helping people. Sometimes their message is a little convoluted and not really concise. They haven't really taken the time to distill their message down and really refine it and be able to communicate it really well. In 30 or so minutes. It's a very difficult thing to do. And few people actually do that. Well. I'm going to do my best to do that for you here today. You know what I wrote my book, The Christians guide to Holistic Health, I met with an author very successful authors Her name is Shaun T Feld on and she sold over a couple million copies of marriage and relationship books. And she told me, you know, Dave, writing a book is great, but don't underestimate how difficult it's going to be to really refine your message and be able to get that message across in a very short period of time. And I listened, but I really didn't realize how spot on she was until I tried to do it, it really is a difficult thing to do. So here I am 120 episodes into the podcast, and are just now and feeling like I'm starting to really get the message together in an understandable way that people can understand. So I want to take this opportunity to be really unambiguous about my approach to health, and why I recommend the things that I do and when we when it comes to improving our health. But also, I want you to understand what the mission of this podcast is what what I'm trying to accomplish here. And it can't be done in five minutes. That's why I decided to do it in two episodes. And we've got a lot of ground to cover here. So fasten your seat belts, seat backs and tray tables in their upright and locked position. Electronic devices turned on episode 121. Part two of the natural health matters mission statement is ready for takeoff. So I want to help you maximize your health potential so that you can look and feel your best at any age. And we do that by aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind and body. And when I say that I'm well aware that most people don't really understand the depth of what's in that statement. I know that's true because I was a practitioner with a brick and mortar office being paid to do health coaching. And I didn't know what Holistic Health was. So how's laypersons Sanchez? So that's why I want to really kind of clear the air and really define and unpack these words and what that really means. Human beings are spirit

David Sandstrom 5:00
We have a mind it we live in a body, and a spirit connected to God will animate our minds in healthy ways. And a mind animated by a healthy spirit will animate our brains in healthy ways. And the brain runs the body. So each part of who we are is interconnected, and interdependent, which means what affects one part of our being will, by necessity alter the others for good or bad. So that's actually very good thing once we understand it, we start to embrace our makeup. Many years ago, when I was first learning how to fly, my flight instructor taught me to pay attention to three important focus areas in aviation are three pillars to safety. And he told me that if you do those three things, well, you go a long way toward maintaining your safety margin. And those three pillars were aviate, navigate and communicate. aviate means fly the plane. In aeronautical terms, we used to call it, keeping the shiny side up and the greasy side down, keep the wings level, fly the airplane first, that's first and foremost. Second, navigate, know where you are, and know where you're going. And it's very important to pay attention to that. And three, communicate, talk to your support people, first and foremost, aircraft control. And also other members of your crew, of course, is more to flying an airplane and those three things. But if you do those three things, well, you'll go a long way towards maintaining your safety margin and staying alive and having a long, healthy career. So we can apply that same concept to Holistic Health. There's three parts to a human being. And those three parts are complex, but we break each one of those down into three focus areas, or three pillars of health. And we kind of simplify things. And by doing that, we'll be building in health margin, and we'll go it'll go a long way towards improving our health and well being. So there's three parts to human being total of nine focus areas. So I've got I've come up with some mnemonics to help us memorize those. But just as the 35,000 foot view, here's what they are.

David Sandstrom 7:06
The spirit is all about love, relationships, love for God, love for others, and love for ourselves, the mind, we want to be our own MVP. M stands for mindset. Fi is victory over limiting beliefs. And P stands for practice, emotional intelligence. And then the body. I call it food move and snooze. Nutrition, movement and sleep. So those are the nine focus areas. So we're going to unpack each of those one at a time now. So let's start with the spirit because that's the most important. What's God's designed for our spirit? Well, when Jesus was asked, What's the greatest commandment? His reply was, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul. And with all your mind, this is the greatest and foremost commandment. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. That's Matthew 22, verses 37 to 39. So the spirit is all about love relationships. Now I did a 18 part series on the spiritual component of health on this podcast. It starts in episode number 53. And it goes through episode 72. I think I had one or two guest interviews in between there. But it's a two part series. It's really good stuff. It's based around the spiritual section in my book, The Christians guide to holistic health. So if you want to take a deeper dive, I suggest going back listen to those episodes, we're going to hit the highlights here. So the first is love for God. So we need to learn how to surrender to God's loving kindness and his goodness. Matthew 6:33 says, Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. And then Jesus Himself said, and John 14:15 If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Now, I've mentioned this last episode, but it's worth repeating here. God loves us enough that when he gives us an admonition, it's for our benefit. And if it gives us a prohibition, it's for our protection. We've got to hold on to those two truths because God has our well being in mind. Jeremiah 29:11, and many of you know this, For I know the plans I have for you declares the LORD plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope. So we don't follow God out of fear, obligation or guilt. We follow them out of a grateful heart that leads to a loving relationship. God has our well being in mind, and we should respond appropriately. I shared these verses in the last episode as well, but they're worth repeating this so good. Proverbs chapter four, verses 20 and 22. My son, give attention to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart, for their life to those To find them, and health to all their body. So the word of God is designed to bring us health and well being. Then there's Proverbs chapter three, verses seven and eight. Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body, and refreshment to your bones. So there's a spirit mind body connection right there. And again, it's God's desire and its preference that we enjoy vibrant health and vitality.

David Sandstrom 10:31
So we have a role to play here. And obedience to the Word of God produces better health outcomes. I talked about that in the last episode. Again, if you haven't listened Episode 120, go back and listen to that one down, because I break that down a little bit more. I'm not a follower of Jesus Christ for the perks. I don't treat God like a genie in a bottle. I follow him because he's worthy, and vibrant health vitality, are just nice fringe benefits or side effects to following it is just just the way things are. So the second love in the spiritual component of Health Is Love for others. So what's God's designed in loving others? Well, Matthew 22 were admonished to love our neighbors. And John 13:34. Jesus says this, A new commandment I give you that you love one another. Even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all men will know that you my disciples, if you have love for one another, so really is all about love, right? So relational connectedness is really good for our health. The longest study ever conducted on health and wellness is the Harvard study of adult development. And it started in 1938. And it's still ongoing. And the current director of the study, Robert waldinger, has a TED talk with 13 million views. In that talk, he says, loneliness kills. It's as powerful as smoking, or alcoholism. And that's from, you know, close to 100 years worth of research. That was the conclusion. And I referenced this study in my book is a 2011 study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. It's called the rising relative risk of mortality for singles. Now, this was a meta analysis, which means it was a study of studies, it covered 60 years and 500 million people. That's no small study. And they found that under the worst conditions, lifetime, single men died up to 17 years younger than married men. And women didn't do much better. Lifetime, single women died 15 years younger. And that includes all marriages, not just good ones. So there's something very, very health promoting about strong, connected relationships. And then here's another one, a 2010 study published in Harvard Women's Health Watch. It's called the health benefits of strong relationships. These researchers in their summary said this, a lack of strong relationships, increased risk of premature death by 50%. That's roughly equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, and greater than sedentary lifestyle, and obesity. Let me say that, again, a lack of strong relationships increased risk of premature death by 50%. That's roughly equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, and greater than sedentary lifestyle and obesity. That's pretty staggering. And all of those studies were conducted pre COVID. Out here in the post COVID world, we have all kinds of studies coming out on the detrimental effects of social isolation and loneliness. It's a big deal. And you know, it's really heartwarming and encouraging to see science catching up with what the Bible has been teaching for 1000s of years. Bible says in Genesis 2:18, simply put, it is not good that the man be alone. Boy, God really meant that didn't he? He sure did.

David Sandstrom 14:11
The third love is love for ourselves. Now in Matthew 22, when Jesus is talking about the greatest commandment, he says this, you You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So I think this part about loving ourselves, and that that phrase there that Jesus used, often gets overlooked. Self love, is not selfish. It's actually the most selfless thing we can do. It you might be saying right now, Well, Dave, doesn't the Bible teach selflessness? Aren't we supposed to be serving others? Well, yes, it absolutely does. And we should. Philippians chapter two verses three and four says this. Do nothing from selfish your empty conceit. But with humility of mind regard one another as more important than your cells. Do not merely look out for your own personal interest. but also for the interests of others. So again, we mustn't pass over a gloss over this, this statement in here that says, we are to look out for our own personal interest. This passage is simply teaching that while you're doing that, you should be serving others as well. You see, we can only give out of our abundance, we can't give what we don't have, that many of you know, I was an airline pilot for 35 years. And I've heard this pa thousands of times, but it's worth repeating here. In the event of a change in cabin pressure, oxygen mess above your seat will drop. If this happens, grab the basket and pull it to the full extent of the tubing, wrap the elastic band around your head, Place the mask over your nose and mouth and breathe normally, do not worry if the mask doesn't fully inflate, oxygen is flowing. And here's the important part. If you're traveling with a child or someone who needs assistance, put on your mask first, and then assist the child. You see You can't help the child if you're unconscious. If there's a rapid decompression at 35,000 feet, your time of useful consciousness is about 20 seconds. So you've got to get your mask off, or you're not going to be of any use to the child in the same fashion. If we're spent spiritually, physically and emotionally, we're of little use to others.Now, we gotta remember this, the best time to build health is when we're feeling good. Most people don't look at it that way because they don't think about the health when they're feeling good. But what we want to do is build health margin. We want to have more vitality and more metabolic energy than we actually need to get through our days. Because life is going to throw some curveballs, we're going to have illness we're going to have accidents. And we want to have some health margin in there to soak up the bumps in the road like a shock absorber. You know the best way to be cancer is to not get it in the first place. It works every time. I heard John Lee Dumas the the host of the entrepreneurs on fire podcast. He said this the other day when he was interviewing a health expert. He said, a healthy person wants to 1000 things. They want to go paddleboarding, they want to do epic hikes, they want to go snow skiing, play with the grandkids, you name it, healthy person wants to 1,000 things and unhealthy person, they want one thing, they want to get their health back. And I think that's really, to the point that's really profound. Because that is absolutely true. Because I've I've had my health taken from me, and that is all you want. You just want to feel good again. And I'll bet many of you can relate to them. So it's easier to keep up than it is to catch up. So the best time to pursue health is when we're feeling good build health margin, then

David Sandstrom 17:48
Another aspect of self care is self talk. Each of us has an inner narrator. And it's that that voice inside our heads that we talked to ourselves with, and what does the Bible say about that? What's God's preference for our, our self talk? Well, it's pretty clear in Philippians, four, eight, Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence, if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. So that's God's preference for our thought life, that we dwell on pure, noble, excellent things.

David Sandstrom 18:30
Another thing we have to do with our thought life is we have to purge ourselves of any self loathing. Now, that sounds like a strong statement. But many of us use statements or talk to ourselves in a way that we would never do to a friend will say things to ourselves, like, I'm so stupid or ugly, or I'm such a loser. I'm always screwing things up. I'll never amount to anything. We would never say those kinds of things to a friend. But we don't think twice about saying it to ourselves. There's something wrong with that. We've got to stop doing that. Every human being has great value. I'm convinced that if there was only one person on planet Earth, that Jesus still would have been willing to come and die for that person. Jesus didn't die a gruesome bloody death on a cross for pond scum. All human beings have great worth. Every person on this planet has intrinsic value. Genesis 1:27 says God created man in His own image in the image of God, He created him male and female, He created them. So that's what gives us great value is were created in the image of God. So God thinks we have great worth. Why don't we so I'm 139:14 is more evidence of this, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made Wonderful are Your works in my soul knows it very well. So that's the spiritual component to help this more but that's the highlights

David Sandstrom 20:01
So moving on the mind, or the soul, when the Bible uses the term soul or mind, they're synonymous means the same thing. It's, it's who you are. It's, it's you, it's me. And that's what we are inside, right? What's God's designed for our mind or our soul? While we have a pretty clear statement here in Romans 12:2 be no longer conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So I have a mnemonic here that I like to use it's MVP, M stands for mindset. So the first thing you want to do with the proper mindset is to find your why. Because when you find your why you'll find your way, when you have a reason for pursuing health, you're going to be far more motivated to make positive changes. So ask yourself a couple questions to help out with this. Why have I stopped doing that I used to enjoy because of my health challenges. Who would I like to serve? Is there a cause you're passionate about? Do you have a heart for the homeless or single moms or fatherless kids? What are you passionate about? Who would you like to serve? That can help motivate you and go a long way? When you find your why you'll find your way.

David Sandstrom 21:23
Another thing about mindset is there's three really crucial questions that we should all ask ourselves, especially if we're dealing with a major health challenge. The first one is, do I want to be well, in John, chapter five, Jesus meets the invalid at the thirst pool. And he asked him a strange question. He says to him, after talking with him for a while, he says, Do you want to be well? And I think that's kind of a strange question. But Jesus asked it. So there must be something about this. You know, there actually are reasons why someone may not want to be well, it would happen at a subconscious level. They'd never tell you this, but they might believe it inside. Maybe they're receiving a disability check because of their illness. Or maybe they're finally getting the sympathy that they craved as a child. And it actually that sympathy feels good. So we've got to make sure that there's no blocking factors going on here with my desire, our desire to be well. The second question is, do I believe I can be well, now this goes a long way as well. If you believe you, there's no way you can recover from this illness, that's going to be a blocking factor. We all know about the placebo effect. When someone takes a sugar pill or a saline solution, they actually experience the desired outcome that that that drug is purported to elicit. But there's also a no SIBO effect. When someone gets a placebo, they sometimes experience the side effects that that drug is purported to elicit. So there's a real powerful mind body connection here, we shouldn't we can't afford to, to ignore it. So you got to ask yourself a question. If you're dealing with a major health challenge, do I believe I can be well, and again, God has built wellness into our design, our default setting is health. If you woke up breathing this morning, there's hope. Okay, so this is something that's worth spending some time on. And another question is, Do I deserve to be well, no, someone might be overwhelmed with guilt from something they've they did a long time ago. And they might feel unworthy. Or they might feel like God is punishing them with with an illness. So none of that is true, we are worthy. And God is not punishing us. Now he does permit trials. Sometimes he allows a trial in our lives, because that's the only way to get our attention. You know, the there's an old saying that says there's no atheists in a foxhole. So sometimes God needs to get our attention. And he will allow a physical trial, to do just that. Sometimes a trial is what the great physician will use to help us grow and mature. But Romans 828 is true. All things do work together for good for those that love God. And God is our Heavenly Father, we got to hold on to this. And like any loving parent, fathers and mothers would prefer that their kids learn their lessons without the trial. And God would prefer that we learn our lessons without the trial either. So let's not let our poor lifestyle choices bring on a physical trial that God would prefer to spirit from Reverend Jeremiah 29:11. God wants good things for us.

David Sandstrom 24:33
So the V in MVP is victory over limiting beliefs. Now, when I was putting together this mnemonic, I actually struggled with using the term victory. It sounds a little radical, but there actually is a battle going on for our hearts and minds. Ephesians 6:12 says, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers against the powers against the world's forces. of darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places. I wish this weren't the case. But spiritual warfare is real. And Satan has come to steal, kill and destroy John 10:10. He wants to steal our peace. He wants to kill our joy, and he wants to destroy our health. Why does he want to take our health away? Because he knows that without our health, we become ineffective for the kingdom. That's what he wants to do. He wants to deactivate us. That's his mission. John 8:44 forces, Satan is a liar, and the father of lies. So what kind of lies might he be tried to convince us about our health? Well, one of the big ones that I found is genetic determinism. You know, since the since research is mapped out the human genome, we have a tendency to blame everything on our genetic makeup. You know, there's a really cool video, I'm gonna show a clip here, if you're on the if you're watching the video on YouTube, you can see this, it's a clip from the 1930s. And it's a busy street corner in New York City. And this has been color enhanced, and it's really it's kind of like, time traveling and watching people, you know, people watching here on a street corner. But the interesting thing about this video is, these people are all fit. They move gracefully, they have great posture. I didn't see one obese person in this video, and this literally hundreds people here. And it's amazing how healthy they are. And I thought to myself, when I watched this, were all the people with the fat genes? They sure didn't come up that day. And if you haven't, if you if you listen to the audio only, you might want to check out the video version, watch this video, it's pretty cool. So we've been told things like, if you're an alcoholic, you probably have an alcoholism gene. If you have cancer running in your family, you probably have a cancer gene. And then we think we have this time bomb inside of us just ready to go off. Not not a good place to be.

David Sandstrom 27:05
Here's an important point. Genes are not destiny. I believe the significance of our genetic makeup has been overstated when it comes to our health outcomes. Human beings have about 24,000 genes, her fruit fly has not far behind with 14,000 genes. So it's not how many genes we have. It's not how complex they are. What matters to our health outcomes is our genetic expression. So the DNA is a complex set of instructions. And not all of the DNA is turned on at the same time. DNA is found in the nucleus of a cell. And it's the extracellular environment, the environment that the cells live in, that will expose or uncover or cover certain segments of the DNA code. That's called genetic expression. And that's what determines how that gene is expressed at any given moment. So what determines the environment, the extracellular fluid around a cell lifestyle factors, what we're talking about here, which we have a lot of control over. genes do have impact, you know, they do matter. But they matter far less than we've been led to believe. It's lifestyle habits that have far more impact on our health outcomes. If you want to read a great book on this topic, pick up the Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton are really good read. It's not it's not a light read. But man, is it good. He makes a slam dunk argument for the fact that genes are not destiny.

David Sandstrom 28:41
So what are some more limiting beliefs that we need to address? How about this one? Things will never change. I'll never get out of debt, those types of predictions about the future? Who's the one that knows the future? God's the only one that knows the future, not us. So we've got to stop playing God with those kinds of beliefs. How about this one? I'm just unlucky. Well, I believe there's no such thing as luck. Luck doesn't just float through the universe didn't land on some people and not on others. That's not true. If you want to use the term luck, I would define it this way. Luck happens when preparation meets opportunity. That's luck. Other than that, there's no such thing as luck. All right, how about this about this lie? The universe is just conspiring against me. or something similar. The devil made me do it. Phrases like, oh, the bins just happened? Or the chocolate cake got me? Or how about this one and this is a big one. Alcoholism is a disease or drug addiction is a disease. When there's not a shred of evidence that says that either one of those addictions is a disease. I think it's an attractive message that people like to hear be because it absolves them of the personal responsibility. So they put blinders on and believe a lie. So how do we proceed? What are we supposed to do? We balance those untrue thoughts with truth. We replace lies and unproductive thoughts with truthful, productive ones. Jesus himself said in John 14, six, I am the way and the truth, and the life. So when we do things God's way, and we replace lies with truth, we replace unproductive thinking with productive thinking. That's part of aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design. So when we do things God's way, you won't regret it. Second Corinthians 10:5 talks about the spiritual battle, it says, We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And then there's First Corinthians 10:13, No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the wave escape, that you may be able to bear it. So we are sentient beings, we have agency. So as a result, we have some choices to make. And God says we can be victorious. Isn't that a wonderful promise? Yeah, I believe it is.

David Sandstrom 31:31
So how do we identify and correct unhealthy thinking patterns? Well, one of the things I included in my book is a method I came up with it, I call it the ABCDE method. And again, it's another mnemonic to help us remember these things. So A stands for activating event. B stands for beliefs, or self talk. C stands for consequences of thinking that way. D stands for disputing those beliefs. And E stands for enjoying the energy shift. So A activating event, that's when we make a mountain out of a molehill when something happens, or somebody says something, and it pushes our buttons. So if you're having trouble identifying what an activating event is, my advice is ask your spouse, they will probably be able to tell you very easily, they'll be able to spot those things easier than we can, if you're not married, s ask a close friend, they can usually see things that we can't. So a activating event, when you're something that just sets you off. So be the beliefs or self talk that go along with that event. So we've got to have a little look under the hood here, we got to do a little self reflection and say, Why am I reacting that way? What is it about my makeup, the causes me to just, you know, have a hair trigger? Right? So a little self reflection will go a long way. Again, talking this through with your spouse or a close friend will help? And then C? What are the consequences of thinking and believing that way? When I react that way, what happens? Where does it lead me? Where does it? Where does that take me? And how does it affect others. So it's important to explore the consequences. And you'll see when the consequences are undesirable, probably means you're believing some lies. D is disputing those beliefs. So we replace thoughts with more productive ones. Second Corinthians 10:5, we're taking every thought captive. And when we do that, we take the unproductive thought throw it away, replace it with a productive one, or throw away the lie, replace it with truth, then we enjoy the energy shift. So we enjoy more of the third with the Spirit, which is peace. So I've created a PDF that'll help you walk through this process in writing, it really helps to write this down, not just keep it in your head. So I'm going to make that available as a content upgrade a free upgrade, go to davidsandstrom.com /121. And you can pick up a copy of that upgrade. So the P and MVP stands for practice emotional intelligence. Now the first thing we have to do to increase our emotional intelligence is to expand our emotional vocabulary. So I recommend you use an emotion wheel. There's a lot of emotion wheels online, but the one I like to use is put together by all the feelz and that spelled F E E L Z. And you start at the center of the wheel and you work your way out. So you take something like surprised and surprise could be startled or confused and lost you get up level of surprise could be shocked or dismayed and not shaken up even further. It could be frightened or panicked. So there's varying degrees of these emotions so it's good that we can put it's good if we can put words to them. Anger could be mad or frustrated, or could be infuriated or hostile. So there's different levels. And it really helps when you're sorting these things out, to have a name to what you're feeling what you're experiencing. And another thing we want to do is avoid emotional constipation. And I know that sounds a little crude, but it's a pretty good analogy. It's pretty good metaphor. When we eat, we put food in our mouths, we chew on it, we swallow it and take it in, then our body goes to work, digesting it and extracting the useful nutrients from it. And then when it's through doing that, we eliminate the waste. And if we don't eliminate the waste, well, things can get a little smelly. Right? So we want to do the same thing with our emotions, we want to take them in, we want to chew on them, we want to digest them, we want to say to ourselves, what can I get out of this emotion? What is this? What is this emotion telling me about the situation or about myself, extract the usefulness from them, and then let them go. Because if we don't let them go, they're gonna rot. They're gonna they're gonna fester inside. And you know, disappointment can turn into bitterness, and resentment. And those emotions, not good. We don't call those emotions, toxic emotions for nothing.

David Sandstrom 36:21
Another thing we have to do to increase our emotional intelligence is avoid emotional reasoning. Emotional reasoning says, If I feel it, it must be true. Or on the other side of that coin, is, if I don't feel it, it can't be true. So emotions are good to help us explain and make sense of the events in our lives. But they're not good, objective measures of truth. So we've got to be careful of that.

David Sandstrom 36:51
Another important part of emotional intelligence is emotional responding. So this has a little bit of a overlap with loving others. But that's just the nature of who we are. This there's a interconnectedness and interdependence to all three parts of who we are. So this one, this one overlaps with love for others. But Romans : says this rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. So in other words, we want to respond appropriately. If someone is emoting toward us, we want to respond appropriately. So if someone is expressing frustration or disappointment or hurt, the last thing they need is a pep talk or advice. That hurting person needs compassion, empathy support. If their child just got a failing grade on a big test, you wouldn't say something like, well, at least his older sister is a straight A student, it wouldn't be appropriate. If a friend of yours just had a miscarriage. The last thing you want to say is something like, well, at least you can still have children. Or at least you still have two healthy kids. That would just add to the hurt, you want to respond. You want to hurt with those who hurt, okay? You want to weep with those who weep when someone is expressing our hurtful event in their lives, if you're tempted to respond with well, at least keep it to yourself. Don't Don't go there, it's only going to add to their hurt. A better phrase to use in those situations that I just mentioned would be something like this. Man, that's gotta hurt real bad. I can't imagine the pain you're going through. But I want you to know I'm here for you. Sometimes you don't even need words, just a hug, or a mutual shed tear is all this necessary. That's what that person needs that moment. That's the emotional responding. So remember, relational connectedness is extraordinarily good for our health and well being. So emotional responding, can go a long way towards bringing peace for yourself, but also peace and support and connectedness with another human being that needs it.

David Sandstrom 39:05
So you know, there's a lot of research been done on these blue zones around the world, where people have these pockets of people that have a lot of sanitarians people that have lived to 100 years older, more places like Okinawa, Japan, Sardinia, Italy, the Nicoya Peninsula and Costa Rica. And Loma Linda, California is one of them as well. So the researchers are studying their diet and what they like to eat and thinking we're gonna we're gonna find out what it is that keeps these people living so long. But what they found is their diets are all over the place. They're the all kinds of different things. But these people end up enjoying vibrant health well as their later years. But what they do so they don't have much in common with their diets. But what they do have in common is a strong sense of community. And they enjoyed a positive relational connectedness with their neighbors, friends and family. Oh, Ah, that's very, very good for our health. We talked about the studies or studies earlier in this podcast for the body.

David Sandstrom 40:06
What's God's designed for our body? Well, we have nutrition movement in sleep. And the mnemonic for that is food. Move, and snooze. Okay, nutrition. This is a big one, right? We could obviously do a whole podcast on this alone for sure. Right? But if we go to the Bible, and we're looking for nutritional advice, it's a little bit on the vague side, what we have the Levitical dietary laws, but they're not really useful. One of the one of the dietary restrictions in there is don't eat bats. Well, I can tell you this. I'm walking in complete victory on that particular command. I have absolutely no compulsion to eat a bat. Praise, praise God, hallelujah. For that one. Do I have a witness? But anyway, so another thing that that's included in the political law for the dietary restrictions is we're not supposed to eat birds of prey, like eagles are vultures, because they're basically nature's garbage cleaners, and they could have a lot of toxins inside of them. So God says the nation of Israel avoid those kinds of birds. So there are there's some usefulness there, but it's, it's kind of limited. And over in the New Testament, First Corinthians 10:23 says this, everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. First Timothy 4:4 says this one is specifically talking about food sacrifice to idols, it says this, For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude. So don't miss that phrase created by God in nature, not by man in a laboratory.

David Sandstrom 41:48
So that leads us to the number one rule for healthy eating, and that is this eat food as close to its God given natural form as possible. So we want to avoid processed foods. The more man gets his hands on our food supply, the worse it is for us. So food companies are more concerned with their profits than they are with our health. So in the name of profits, they add things like chemical flavoring, MSG, chemical coloring, like red dye number 40. chemical preservatives, texturing agents, anticaking, agents, sugar, usually in the form of cheap, inexpensive, high fructose corn syrup, which is a highly processed food, processed iodized salt, they put harmful fats in there. Processed foods are full of bad oils, hydrogenated oils, excessive amounts of seed oils with lots of alpha linoleic acid. And ALA has been shown to produce some systemic inflammation in the body is responsible for for a lot of illnesses. They put a lot of canola oil, which, by the way, there's no such thing as a canola seed, it's actually a rapeseed, and canola oil is another form of processed oil that used to be used for machinery lubricant, but now they put it in our food cottonseed oil, corn oil, soybean oil, all of those oils are highly processed full of harmful ALA, this, you know, in consumed in high quantities, and we also over consume Omega six fatty acids when we consume too many of those, those oils and processed foods. So also are BPA from packaging. So there's a lot of thought or reasons to get away from packaged foods, packaged processed foods. So we should tend towards single ingredient foods, and when we do will dramatically reduce our sugar intake and dramatically reduce the amount of chemicals that we're ingesting with our food. So here's a good rule of thumb. If it comes in a box, a package or a container or through a window, it's probably not good for us. Right? It's suspect. If you can't pronounce an ingredient on the label, put it back on the shelf, it's probably not good for you. If you can't buy that ingredient, yourself at a local grocery store, probably are well serve, putting that product back on the shelf. Alright, there's one other thing I want to say about about diet right now. And I know there's a lot of disagreement as to what's the world's healthiest diet? You know, is it is it keto? Is it vegetarianism? Is it raw veganism? Is it Mediterranean? You know, is it paleo? What What is it what's best? Well, I believe that God designed human beings to be omnivores, which is to eat both meat and vegetables, and fruits, of course.

David Sandstrom 44:37
So I'd like to talk about the vegetarian carnivore debate for a minute. There are a lot of Bible believing Christians that believe that the Bible teaches vegetarianism. And they would refer you to Genesis 1:29 Where it says this. Then God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, in every tree which has fruit yielding seed. It shall be food for you. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the sky. And to everything that moves, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. So that was Genesis chapter one, when God first created Adam and Eve, and put them in the garden, and it's pretty clear, it sounds like wow, that pretty much does teach vegetarianism, doesn't it? Well, if we move a few pages to the right in Genesis chapter nine, we see this starting in verse one. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth, the fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth, and on every bird of the sky, with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea into your hand they are given, every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you. I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. So after the flood, when Noah and his family emerged from the ark, there was a shift, something happened, it appears as though God's original design was for humans to be vegetarians. But a great shift took place after the flood. And we now see that there's a clear instruction here, that human beings are to eat animal based products. Right, so that I hope that clears the air. There's more to say on this. But I think we can see that the Bible clearly teaches that human beings are designed to be omnivores, were to consume both fruits and vegetables, and meats.

David Sandstrom 46:38
So we have to understand though that there is a metabolic individuality. The exact amount of protein and fat and carbohydrates that we consume is really an individual thing. It varies with the amount of stress level order. It varies with our activity level, our age. And it also varies with how metabolically healthy we are and how many health challenges we're experiencing. The gut microbiome has a great deal to do with this, the level of insulin resistance we're experiencing. Do we have hypothyroidism, the HPA axis, the hypothalamus, pituitary adrenal axis, all of those things play into each person have any metabolic individuality. So anybody that tells you and it's dogmatic about they found the perfect human diet, and this is it, and you need to implement it to be careful of that. Just just be be leery of those types of dogmatic statements, because it's a very individual thing.

David Sandstrom 47:35
But again, I think we can use the Bible as a baseline. And we can also use observable science to back up what we learned from the Bible. So the next part of how we're to treat our bodies is movement or move. So, yes, we need to exercise I think it's pretty clear, I don't have to spend too much time convincing you that our bodies are designed for movement was supposed to exercise was supposed to be experiencing some type of exercise on a daily basis. There's a lot said on that. And I don't think we'd really dive too deep into that on this episode. So another important thing that we have to get moving is our lymph fluid. You know, the blood is pumped through the body with the heart. And it's important to get our heart rate up so that we get blood flow moving, that's pretty simple task. But getting your lymph fluid moving is little more difficult because the lift fluid does not have a pump like the heart, it moves through muscle contraction. Now it's important to make sure our lift is moving because we we carry toxins out of the body with the lymph fluid. And we also carry immune cell components like white blood cells from the bone marrow to the infection site. So it's very important to keep our lymph moving, if we don't, we're going to get very toxic real fast. So the lymph system has one way check valves. So when our muscles contract in, put, apply pressure to those lit veins, it pushes the lymph fluid through this one way check valve and it opens and then closes. So when the muscle has to contract multiple times to get that, that lift, fluid flowing, that's the weight lift fluid moves. So it's important to use body movement to get your lymph fluid going. That's an important discussion. One of the great ways to get your lymph fluid moving is jump on a trampoline that weightlessness moment up in the air and a trampoline helps get that one way check valve exercise. So another thing we have to think about moving is are the food through the alimentary canal. So we want to process our food we want to digest it well. And then we want to eliminate so you want to make sure you're having at least one bulky stool movement per day. If we don't do that, we're going to be happy with toxins are going to be backing up in our system. If you're not eliminating these, there's things you can do. You can drink more water exercise helps with that. There's also some herbal supplements you can take like cascara sagrada bark on A few different things to get get your digestion moving. But if you haven't a little real problem with constipation, you probably have some work to do on the microbiome, you probably have some undesirable microscopic organisms living in there that really don't belong. It might be time to get with a practitioner, and figure out how you can restore the balance to your microbiome in the gut. Very important. So food, move, and snooze.

David Sandstrom 50:26
The last one is sleep here. How do we treat our bodies? What's God's design for sleep? Well, first thing I would say is think of sleep as a nutrient because it is. In episodes of early on of the podcast, I did a deep dive into what happens during sleep, and what we could do for a better night's sleep. And it's episode six and seven. I called the podcasts Holistic Health Matters back then. But it's a sixth and seventh of the natural health matters podcast, you can take a deep dive with me into what happens during sleep, and how to get a better night's sleep. But here's the highlights. So when we sleep, we do all kinds of bodily processes, we process our emotions, we balance hormones, we Detox our major organs and systems. For instance, the large intestine is designed to eliminate somewhere around five and 7am. One of the more important detoxification that goes on is we Detox our brains. There's a system called the glymphatic system that's very active during sleep. And what happens is our brain cells actually shrink. And it allows cerebral spinal fluid to flush through our brains and flush toxins out. This is a very important part of what goes on during sleep. So we really ought to treasure our sleep. And we ought to think of it like a nutrient because it is. So again, Episode Seven, I go into a lot of details on how to get a better night's sleep. One of the suggestions I have for that is try to get to bed by 10, or at the latest 11 Because our adrenal glands will do their recharging before midnight. Also, we experience longer periods of deep sleep before midnight, and deep sleep is where a lot of our rejuvenation takes place. So it's not accurate to say, Well, I'm just going to go to bed at two and get up at 10. And I still get my eight hours asleep, you will not be getting a full night's rest. If you do that. You want to get to bed before midnight, preferably before 11 Even better before 10 Or by 10. Another thing you could do to help with sleep is don't eat within three hours of bedtime. digestion takes a lot of energy. And especially if you have some difficulty just foods like wheat, dairy and those types of things that give a lot of people trouble that can interfere with your nighttime rest as well. And another suggestion I have is to create a spa like atmosphere or sanctuary in your bedroom. You want to remove any clutter. If you have an exercise machine or a desk in your in your bedroom, if you can do it, I suggest taking it out of there. Don't let your bedroom double as a gym or a home office. You want to get in a state of mind of restfulness and relaxation in your bedroom. Another thing you could do to create a spa like atmosphere is get put some houseplants in your bedroom peace lilies philodendron ferns, they make they all make good health plates. Another thing you may want to do is lower the temperature down to about 70 degrees, then a lot of research shown that cooler room provides provides better sleep because our bodies have to lower their core body temperature by about two degrees in order to sleep well. So if you're if you're too hot, that's going to interfere your sleep as well. Also, it's God's designed that we sleep in complete darkness. Ideally, you want to not be able to see your hand when it's directly in front of your face. You want it that darkened room if you can. So to do that, you're going to need some blackout curtains, I recommend a company called nice town. They have some really good quality inexpensive blackout curtains. You put them up with a curved curtain rod that helps fold the curtain around towards the wall. And they really do a pretty good job of making things darkened room even if you have light bright streetlights outside, they do a really good job. I'll put a link to those in the show notes as well. Another thing you could do, if you haven't trouble sleeping, is use progressive muscle relaxation. Now, there's a lot of YouTube videos on this. And basically real quick is you. We all experience we hold on to tension in various parts of our body. Sometimes it's our back, sometimes it's the neck could be legs. So what you do with progressive muscle relaxation is you tense up a portion of your muscles. So I like to start with my calves. And then when you tense up for a few seconds you inhale, maybe maybe 567 seconds, inhale, and then when you exhale, you're inhaling through your nose, exhale through pursed lips through your mouth. And you make sure that your exhale is longer than you're inhale, and you simultaneously relax those muscles. And you'll be telling your body that it's safe. It's okay to relax. And then after you go through it, the cast, move up to the thighs, and then move to the back, and so on and so forth. So you get your whole body done. And it's a really good way. There's been a lot of research done on this. And it's very effective at reducing stress, and reducing sleep latency, how long it takes to fall asleep, and the quality of sleep you get.

David Sandstrom 55:27
Another thing you could do to help with a better night's sleep is to schedule a time to talk with your spouse, ask them about their day. Again, relational connected this right? You can journal, I find find journaling useful, especially at times when I'm really worried about something or I have a big day ahead or a big week ahead. By journaling and writing it down. You put your thoughts on paper, and you give yourself permission to let it go until tomorrow, you putting it down on paper, and you're going to read it later. So you can let it go now. So it's journaling is very useful. Also, of course, you've probably guessed it prayer, you know, meditate on the Word of God. That's an excellent thing to do before sleep, as well as just when you wake up in the morning as well. But especially when you go into sleep. So again, if you want more on this, go to episode seven, and I have a lot of tips for getting a better night's sleep.

David Sandstrom 56:22
All right. So that was a mouthful. So let me summarize a little bit. We maximize our health potential by aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind and body. God's desire for a spirit. It's all about love, relationships, love for God, love for others, and love for ourselves, our mind, we want to be our own MVP. We want to focus on having the proper mindset. We want to experience victory over limiting beliefs, and practice emotional intelligence for the body. We want to address our food move in snooze, nutrition, eat food as close to its God given natural form as possible. Embrace movement, not only exercise, but lift, fluid movement, and digestive movement as well and elimination, as well as good quality sleep. So there you have it. Those are my recommendations. Those are my nine pillars of health, for how we align our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind and body. There's more to it than that. But those are the highlights.

David Sandstrom 57:33
Thanks for hanging in there with me. I know this was a long episode, we covered a lot here. But, you know, I really think that I really needed to do this, I really need to unpack these words, so that you the natural nation will know what I'm talking about what I state the mission statement for the podcast. So thanks for hanging in there. Hey, by the way, if you enjoyed these two episodes, would you share them with your friends? share them on social media spread the word. It's not easy to find a practitioner. That approach is health and wellness with a biblical worldview and his frame of mind of trusting our health outcomes to God. And if you if you're enjoying the podcast, I really appreciate you sharing it with a friend. That's it for now. Thank you for listening. I'll talk to you next time be blessed.

David Sandstrom 0:00
So here's an important statement. Are you ready for it? Drumroll please. It's my contention that God wants us healthy. There. I said, when I say that to some of my Christian friends, I sometimes see some raised eyebrows. And they say, Dave, are you? Are you advocating some type of prosperity gospel or some type of name and claim it theology? No, not at all. And I'm going to have more to say on this later in the episode, but I'm advocating the exact opposite of naming and claim it. And I encourage you again to hang in there to the end of the episode, because I'm going to be touching on that some more a little bit later on down the road. The Bible has a lot to say, on God's desire for health and well being. I'm going to be sharing a lot of verses here. But let's for now, let's just consider this 3d John, one, two, beloved, I pray that in all respects, you may prosper and be in good health. So God wants us healthy. I'm going to have a lot more verses on that later. Welcome to the Natural Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential, so that you can look and feel your best at any age. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, naturopathic doctor, and biblical health coach, and this is episode number 120.

David Sandstrom 1:13
Hello Natural Nation, David Sandstrom here, well, this episode is going to be a little bit different. I've had a lot of guests on over the last year or so. And this is going to be a solo episode. And the guests that I've had on, they've been great. And I really appreciate their contribution to the show. But I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to unpack the mission statement of this show, because no one understands the mission statement of this podcast better than I do. And I thought I just wanted to be take this opportunity to be completely unambiguous about what I'm trying to accomplish with this show. So if you're a regular listener to the show, you know, that here at Natural Health Matters, I want to help you maximize your health potential, so that you can look and feel your best at any age. So that begs the question, how do we maximize our health potential? Well, I believe we maximize our health potential by aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind and body. So God is our designer. And as such, he has preferences as to how we treat each part of who and what we are. And I want to be clear on what those are, and help you move in that direction. So if you bought a new car, and you wanted to know what the intervals were for preventative maintenance, like oil changes, transmission fluid and those kinds of things, you would consult the owner's manual because no one knows better than the manufacturer, to give us direction, those kinds of things. Well, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, and my God is the God of the Bible. And I believe that the Bible is our owner's manual for living. It's God's revelation of Himself to the human race. And second Timothy 3:16, says, All Scripture is inspired by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training and righteousness. So I would say that I would suggest that we do well to consult God's owner's manual for living. That's the Bible. God's designed for us is a holistic one. Human beings are a spirit, we have a mind. And we live in a body, in all three parts to who and what we are, are interconnected, and interdependent, which means what affects one part of our being will, by necessity alter the others. So we want to be careful to take care of all parts of a human being. And that's what God cares about. And First Thessalonians 5:23, we see this, may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, may your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So God cares about all three parts of our being. And Hebrews 4:12 says this, For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two edged sword, and piercing as far as the divisions of soul and spirit. There's their mind and our spirit. In both joints and marrow, there's the body, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and the heart, or the spirit, soul and body, all wrapped up into one. So there again, we have a holistic view of a human being. And that's what God is concerned with. And that's what we should be concerned with. The next episode, I'm gonna go into some more specifics as to what that actually looks like. But I think there's going to be too much for this episode. So I wanted to just lay the groundwork, because if you understand the foundational truths that I'm about to share in this episode, my recommendations for how we treat spirit, mind and body are going to be more meaningful to you. So I encourage you to hang in there to the end this we're going to be sharing. I'm going to be sharing a lot of foundational truths here. So here's an important statement. Are you ready for it? Drumroll please. It's my contention that God wants us healthy. There I said it When I say that to some of my Christian friends, I sometimes see some raised eyebrows. And they say, Dave, are you? Are you advocating some type of prosperity gospel or some type of name and claim it theology? No, not at all. And I'm going to have more to say on this later in the episode, but I'm advocating the exact opposite of name it and claim it. And I encourage you again to hang in there to the end of the episode, because I'm going to be touching on that some more a little bit later on down the road. The Bible has a lot to say, on God's desire for health and well being. I'm going to be sharing a lot of verses here. But let's for now, let's just consider this 1/3 John, one, two, beloved, I pray that at all respects, you may prosper and be in good health. So God wants us healthy. I'm going to have a lot more verses on that later. God's love for us is greater than we can imagine. Jesus himself said in John 15:13, Greater love has no man than this, that he laid down his life for his friends. And then we see in Ephesians, 3:18. Oh, that you may comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth of the love of Christ. So God loves us with an everlasting love, and it's greater than we can fathom. It, we also know that he's faithful and trustworthy. He's the same yesterday, today forever. And he's also our Heavenly Father, Romans 8:15 says, You have received a spirit of adoption by which we cry out Abba, Father. And just as any loving parent wants what's best for the children, God wants what's best for us. Now, unlike earthly parents, God is omniscient. He knows everything. He even knows the future. So he knows the outcome our choices gotta have before we even make them. So with that in mind, we can conclude and I believe rightly so that when God tells us to do something, he gives us an admonition, it's for our benefit. And if he tells us to avoid something gives us some type of prohibition, it's for our protection, you can take those two truths to the bank, there's never a tie when those two truths don't apply. We've got to hold on to that. Now, when you have this understanding, the Bible becomes a plethora, or a treasure trove of information for health and well being. It's everywhere. When I first discovered this, and I started reading the Bible through the different lens, the verses pertaining to our health and well being just started popping up everywhere. And I'm gonna share a few of those in a few minutes. But right now, I want you to understand how we see God is very critical, are the standing of God's nature and character are really, really foundational to what I'm trying to communicate here. Because why would we align our lives more fully with someone that doesn't care about us? Or if he can't be trusted? Why would we surrender to that, but of course, God can be trusted. So I found that there's basically three different ways people see God, in one. And this is really tragic. A lot of people will maybe not a lot, but some people see God as an angry tyrant or vengeful dictator. When I was living in Florida, the guy across the street from me who owned a landscape business, and he was constantly tinkering with his yard and planting a tree or trimming the bushes, and he really had a beautiful yard. So you spent a lot of time out there. So we would talk from time to time out in the street, and I come to find out that he didn't have a home church. So I invited him to come to my church come and visit. And he said, Hold a you don't want me to go to your church. If I walk through those doors, God's gonna send lightning bolts. So he had a very, very distorted view of God's nature and character. Another example of this is we have an eight month old dog at home. And when we brought her home as a puppy, one of the first things I wanted to train into her was to come when I call her because if your dog's ready to run into the street and the cars coming, you want her to listen to you. So I started going online and looking at what how professional trainers trained dogs to come when you call them. And what you need to do is each time they come on command, you make sure that when they get to you, you reward them heavily. You give them their favorite treat, you give them lots of praise and petting. And you know, good girl, good boy, because you want the dog to know when they come on command and they come to you. Something good is about to happen. And that's the same way we want to be with God. When we come to Him, we should expect something good to happen. Right? I think one of the reasons why people look at God this way as a tyrant or dictator is a fundamental misunderstanding about God's law. God's law is very, very different from a man made law. Man made or imperial law is enforced is a set of rules that's enforced with the punishment or some type of obedience that's demanded. And there's a punishment attached to for disobedience. God's law is altogether different. God's law is a natural design law, that he's baked into creation. It's just the way things are. So God's design laws are consistent with the way he made the universe to operate. So again, that's another point that I want to talk to talk to some more in a minute. But that's a that's a fundamental understanding that we need to understand that God's law is not like a man made law. He's not the cosmic policeman in the sky, just waiting to pounce on us when we mess up. That's not the way God operates. A second way that people see God is that he's very distant, somewhat might say, Well, yeah, I believe God exists. And I believe that he loves me. But he's too busy running the universe to be concerned with my little old life. Well, that's an incorrect perception as well. For example, in Luke chapter 12, verses six and seven, we see this, what is the price of five sparrows, two copper coins, yet God does not forget a single one of them. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid, you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.

David Sandstrom 2:11
So the third way to see God in the more accurate way, is as a loving parent, although God is all powerful, he's deeply personal. And he's concerned with every aspect of our lives. If we understand the goodness of God, and we understand the love of God, we wouldn't hesitate to come to him. So what's God's primary nature, although God is forgiving, the Bible doesn't say that God is forgiveness. Although he's all knowing. The Bible doesn't say God is knowledge. Although God is all powerful. The Bible doesn't say God is power. But the Bible does say that God is love. It's his core attribute. It's his fundamental characteristic. And he'll never act in a way that's not in harmony with his most important core identity, which is love. So we've got to learn how to surrender to His loving kindness and goodness, if we were going to go on an African Safari, we would do well to hire a guide. Because the guide knows the way he's been down this path before. He knows where the hazards are, he knows where the cliffs are, he knows where the animals might be hanging out, or a snake, you know where the danger is. So we would do well to stick close to and listen to our guide. In the same way. God is our guide in life. Okay, he's, he knows the path. He knows the way and we do well to stick close to Him, listen to Him, and do what he says. So, again, I want to hit some of the highlights of how we treat how God wants us to treat our spirit, mind and body. But But I want to do the foundational work first, I really want you to understand why I make the recommendations that I do. Right. So one of the things I want you to understand is the difference between the naturopathic approach to health and the allopathic approach to health. l apathy. Allopathic medicine is the way medical doctors are trained. So the A, the prefix A in,al-o pathy stands for opposed to or opposite of, if you are asymptomatic, you have no symptoms. If you're an atheist, you are opposed to theism or the theology, the study of the Bible. And the suffix opathy simply means disease or disorder. So l apathy or allopathic medicine, is opposed to or in opposition to the disease, or the illness. Doctors and hospitals want to treat your tumor. They want to treat your arthritis or you name it anything, anything unless long list of diseases, they're after that they want to relieve your symptoms. So an allopathic practitioner, that trainee will tell them to name it, blame it and tame it. You go to the doctor, you tell him what's going on, he listens to you. It takes your collection of symptoms and he gives it a name and calls it a disease. Then they blame your symptoms on that disease. And then they want to tame it with drugs and surgery. Now, that's a little tongue in cheek, but it's really not too far from the truth. Now, don't misunderstand allopathic medicine has its place. It's great for emergencies. Emergency rooms here in United States, second to none. I get busted up in a car accident, man, roll me into the nearest emergency room. Give me all the drugs and surgery you need to save my life. Absolutely appropriate use of allopathic medicine. But when it comes to long term health challenges, that allopathic model can starts to lose its luster. The truth is what we call health care here in the US, a better term for it will be disease management, because they're going after the disease. The allopathic practitioner is trained to treat the illness that has the person, but naturopathic practitioner is trained to treat the person that has the illness. There is a very, very different approach to health here. Let me say that again, allopathic medicine, trains doctors to treat the illness that has the person but naturopathic model trains the practitioner to treat the person that has the illness. So naturopathy, is that a natural and more holistic approach to health care, which I believe is far more consistent with biblical teaching. So I see a ton of overlap between what the Bible teaches, and the naturopathic approach to health. I've been a follower of Jesus Christ for 31 years, and I've been a naturopath for 15 years. And when I started studying naturopathy, I saw that there was just a ton of overlap. So Well, the Bible teaches that teaches that as well.

David Sandstrom 16:04
So let me explain the six core tenets to naturopathy. The first one is, first do no harm. So we want to treat our bodies like stewards, because our bodies are really not our own, their holy and sacred because they're the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is their first Corinthians 6:19. and 20 says this, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who was in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. So taking care of our bodies is a matter of stewardship. If I owned a Lamborghini, and I was going to go away for a couple of weeks, and I said to you, hey, you know, this car, the engine needs to be run once in a while, it needs to be warmed up, the tires need to be exercised, here's the keys, I want you to run by car for a few times while I'm gone. Well, when you took that car out, you'd want to take care of it, wouldn't you, you'd put premium gasoline in it. You know, if you if you drove through a mud puddle, you make sure you clean it up, when you got home, when you drove it, you'd have the hands, your hands in that tenant to position very alert, right, you would want to take care of that car, you wouldn't want to damage it because it belongs to you. And in the same way, we should treat our bodies with reverence and respect. Because God wants us to treat them like we are like a stewardship. Alright.

David Sandstrom 17:28
So the second naturopathic principle is the healing power of nature. Now God has given our bodies a built in intelligence. And Psalm 139:14 says, I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works it my soul knows it very well. So our bodies are incredibly complex. Most biologists would tell us that the adult human body has something like 75 trillion cells with a T. And that's a lot of cells. And when I do seminars, I'll ask people, How long if I started counting seconds, how long do you think it would take to count 75 trillion seconds. And usually someone raised their hand and say something like 150 years, and someone might might even be as bold to say, 10,000 years or something like that? Well, because I'm a geek, I did the math on this 75 trillion seconds is actually 3.2 million years. That's a lot of cells. And each of our cells is interacting with each other, and they're responding to their environment. And they're communicating with the brain, via our nervous systems, and our hormones. And it's just incredibly complex. To think that we can outsmart our bodies with drugs, over the long haul, is just foolishness, really, we can't do it. So rather than trying to outsmart our bodies with drugs, we should lean on that God given wisdom of the body, in just get the obstacles out of the way, and let our bodies do what they already know how to do, and that is to thrive. You see, our cells know how to do their jobs. Give you an example. If I was preparing dinner, and I cut my finger with a kitchen knife, I don't have to tell my body to dispatch fibrin and other clotting factors to stop the bleeding. I don't have to tell my body to dispatch cholesterol and other cellular repair proteins to start repairing the skin and the arteries and the capillaries around the wound. I didn't have to tell my body to dispatch white blood cells and other immune system components to protect me from any would be infection that might be present. I don't have to tell my body how to form a scab in order to dispatch enzymes when the scab is no longer needed to dissolve the scab to fall off. All of that happens by default. It's automatic. It happens behind the scenes we don't have we don't give it a single conscious thought. That's God's design and that Very, very consistent with the naturopathic principle of the healing power of nature. In nature apathy, we call that vitalism. This God- given built in intelligence to the body that knows how to heal, our default setting is health.

David Sandstrom 20:16
So, naturopathic principle number three, identify and treat the cause, stay going after symptoms, try to go as far down that causal chain as you can, and treat the cause and let the symptoms go away on their own. The Bible once again, it's very, very consistent here. First Samuel 16:7 says this, For God sees not as man sees for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart in a similar fashion. When you go to a doctor and he gives you a diagnosis, he's looking at your symptoms. The symptoms are on the outside, but the root cause is on the inside. Right. So we want to look underneath the surface and go as far down that causal chain as we can.

David Sandstrom 21:01
Naturopathic principle number four, the physician is teacher. Again, the Bible is very, very consistent with this that we should be seeking out teachers Ephesians 4:11, it he gave some His apostles, some prophets, some evangelists is some as pastors and teachers. The Latin verb for a doctor is the Docera, which means to teach. So a naturopathic doctor is a teacher of natural health. And that's what I am, I'm a teacher of natural health.

David Sandstrom 21:32
Naturopathic principle number five, treat the whole person. We already talked a little bit about this God's concern with the whole person, First Thessalonians 5:23. May your whole spirit soul and body be preserved complete. Another example of the holism would be in from Genesis to verse seven. Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, there's the body and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and that word breath is spirit. And the man became a living soul. Or mind, soul and mind are synonymous in the Bible. So there's three parts to human being, spirit, mind and body. You know, when I had my health coaching practice, had a brick and mortar business with an office and I, I saw people I did health coaching, I called myself holistic. But the truth of the matter is, I didn't know what the term meant. I was natural, but it wasn't holistic, because I was making the same mistake that a lot of practitioners are making. And that is I was almost 100% focused on the physical and I all but ignored the spiritual and the mental emotional components to a human being. And I now know that's folly. You know what I was a young man living in South Florida, mid 80s. I was a Miami Dolphin fan. And at the time, Dan Marino was the Miami Dolphins quarterback. And the head coach was Don Shula. And one time I heard Don Shula say, you know, when I first saw Dan Marino play, I said to myself, This guy's got the best arm I've ever seen. I'm gonna build my team around this guy's arm. And that's exactly what he did. He hired a couple great wide receivers. The names were Mark Clayton and Mark Cooper, we called on the mark brothers. And they had fast legs and sticky hands. And with Dan Marino's quick release, they had a passing offense that was second to none, arguably the best passing offense that the game has ever seen. But as good as that trio was, and as good as Dan Marino was, he never won a Super Bowl, he doesn't have Super Bowl ring. Why? Because even though they have an unbelievable passing offense, the dolphins ignored the defense. And they didn't have a running game. So they couldn't win a championship with one part of a great team, they needed all three. And the same is true with us. If we want to build a championship vitality, we've got to address the whole person, spirit, mind and body, not just one part the physical. Right. So that's, that's one of the big reasons why I wrote my book, The Christians Guide to Holistic Health, which by the way, is a 325. Page, paperback. And it's, it's, if you want to go deeper here, pick up a copy of my book, it's called the Christians guide to list a cow. If you go to my website, davidsandstrom.com or Amazon, you can find it there. You can If this message is resonating with you, you might enjoy reading my book.

David Sandstrom 24:28
So naturopathic principle number six is prevention. And once again, the Bible is very, very consistent here. Instead of waiting till we get sick and trying to treat the disease, why not? Try to not get sick in the first place? Have our bodies be more resilient to resist disease. And again, the Bible is consistent. Exodus 15:26 If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his sight and give ear to his commandments. I keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I put on the Egyptians for I the Lord, am your healer. So the best way to be cancer is to not get it in the first place, works every time. So the practitioners job is to get the obstacles out of the way, and let these magnificent bodies of ours do what they already know how to do, and that is to thrive. So how does God and the Bible tie in to all this? But what about those verses I was talking about on health. Alright, here we go. Here's a few. Isaiah 58, verses 10 and 11. And if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday. And the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desires and scorched places and give strength to your bones. And you'll be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters Do not fail. Isn't that beautiful poetry? I really love that promise. Or how about Psalm 103. Bless the Lord, oh, my soul and forget none of his benefits, who pardons all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases? Who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion, Who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle. This is one of my favorites right here. Proverbs four verses 20 and 22. My son, give attention to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their body. And here's another great one. Once again, look at Proverbs chapter three, verses seven and eight. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord, in turn away from evil, it will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. So again, we do well to pay attention to these promises. But just because these are promises in the Bible doesn't mean that health is guaranteed. These promises are often conditional. And they're more like principles. Okay? So health is not guaranteed. We can't just claim health and wellness here. We have a role to play. There's many if then or therefore statements attached to these promises. But I can tell you this, we will never regret doing things God's way. vibrant health and vitality are never guaranteed. Jesus said in this world, you will have trouble John 16:33. But there are principles from the Bible that we do well to adopt as lifestyle choices that increase our chances of better health outcomes. We don't follow him for the perks. We follow God because he's worthy in good health is simply a fringe benefit to doing things God's way. It's like a side effect. Right? So it's not the primary reason why we want to follow God, we follow God because He's the source of life. And when we do things his way, we experience better health outcomes. So there's more to say on this. And we'll get into some of that in a bit. Again, we maximize our health potential by aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind and body. So how does God become our healer? Well, John 15:5 says, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, bears much fruit. For apart from me, you could do nothing. It's Jesus speaking. When we align our lives more fully with God's natural design, we're abiding in Christ, and we produce more fruit of the Spirit. And many of you know that fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:23 is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there are there is no law. Now all of the fruit are health promoting. Now I could do an episode all by itself and I think I'll do that down the road. And I want to break down each one of the fruits of the Spirit and show you from the published peer reviewed medical literature how science is catching up with these admonitions that God is giving us. I think that will be a good episode, but for now we're just gonna we're gonna have to put that on the shelf. Consider the second fruit joy. Proverbs 17:22 says a joyful heart is good medicine. But a broken spirit dries the bones. Or how about a third fruit peace. Matthew 11:28 says, Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

David Sandstrom 29:57
Do you think more peace could promote health You bet it would be about the last fruit self control, could a little more self control help out with your new Healthy Eating program? I'll bet it could. You see, God has our well being in mind. When we abide in Him, we produce more fruit of the Spirit, in all of it is health promoting. And by the way, that's also aligning our lives with God's natural design, which is being in harmony with his design laws for nature. More on that in a little bit. So it brings God pleasure to see us filled with his fruit. But there's also a more pragmatic reason that God's desires, health and vitality for us. He wants us to advance his kingdom here on earth, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in the Lord's Prayer. He has assignments for us. He wants us to be productive members of society in service to other human beings, by which we bring a little bit of Heaven down to earth. Ephesians 2:10 says this, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we would walk in them. He wants us to share His love with others. John 13:35, by this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. God's love is beneficent. It's always other centered, that each one of us has unique passions and desires and skill sets. And there's some things that we can do better than anyone else. And we should be doing some of that for our pleasure. That's part of God's design, for sure. But when it comes to your life purpose, or your life mission, it's always going to include service to others, because that's God's design. We see this in Philippians, two, three, and four, do nothing from selfish or empty conceit. But with humility of mind regard one another, as more important than yourselves, did not really look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others. You see, we can only give out of our abundance, I flew as an airline pilot for 35 years, and I got to see a lot of a lot of this, this country in this planet, really. And I would often marvel at the way the rivers flow through the land. And sometimes you'd see an area like, for instance, the Hoover Dam, outside of Las Vegas, you'd see it dammed up in this huge body of water was collected. Well, in order for the for the reservoir to work properly to function, it had to have a constant inflow of water. And that way the reservoir would put in what's filled to the top can give its water without being depleted itself. And the same is true with with our ability to give, we want to be like a reservoir, so filled up with the love of God, so filled up with energy and vitality, that it just spills out onto the people around us. And we can give to others without being depleted ourselves. That's God's design. So, in order to fulfill our purpose, and participate in the good works, God has for us Ephesians 2:10, we need health in spirit, mind and body. In order to be dialed in on our purpose, we need clarity of mind, we need energy, stamina, positive moods, we need to be filled with the Spirit, especially love, joy and peace. It wouldn't make sense for God to put obstacles in our way and hinder us from performing the good works that he has for us. Doesn't make sense at all. He doesn't do that. He wants health for us. That's his desire. So I believe that our obedience sets us up for blessings. We don't follow God for the perks. But good health, again is a fringe benefit or a byproduct of doing things God's way. So obedience to God's word leads to more love, joy and peace and love joy, peace produces better health outcomes. It's just the way it works. It's part of God's design law.

David Sandstrom 34:00
Remember, I told you some people think this is a prosperity gospel or naming claim it? Not at all. It's the exact opposite actually, because our obedience should be born out of a love relationship and a grateful heart. Jesus said in John 14:15 If you love me, you'll do as I say. We can't expect the friends benefit to following God to show up in our lives without obedience to His is clear instructions. Many if not most of the promises in Scripture are conditional. They have if then statements attached. One of the more famous ones is Second Chronicles 7:14. You've probably heard this but it's worth repeating here. If my people who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land. See there's an if then statement in there. Okay. There's something required of God's people. They need to humble themselves. Pray and seek His face, then he will hear from heaven and heal the land. See the if then there. It's a matter of sowing and reaping Galatians six, seven says, Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this, he will also reap. If you plant a tomato seed, you're not gonna see an apple tree grow, we can't plant a cucumber seed and expect a mango tree to grow. In the same fashion. There are consequences attached to the other end of our choices. Andy Stanley wrote a whole book on this, he called it the principle of the path. And basically what it's what it says is there, the path that we choose the road that we put ourselves on lead somewhere. God's ways lead to life, and well being. And when we operate outside of his design laws for life, we don't have those protections, we can't expect the protections. So God has baked into his design laws which govern how creation is designed to operate.

David Sandstrom 36:05
So he has physical laws baked in like the law of gravity, or the laws of thermodynamics and energy. This also a moral laws, do not steal, do not lie, did not commit adultery, all designed with our well being in mind. And then there's also health was, for instance, the law of exertion and rest. You could look at these as rules. But it wouldn't be healthy. So someone might say, well, I don't like rules. So I'm not going to obey this law of exertion at rest. I don't like following rules, so I'm not going to sleep anymore. Well, there's got to be some health consequences that are in pretty short order. Or how about the law of respiration, we breathe and we exhale, co2, carbon dioxide, and it's used by plants. And plants produce oxygen, and that oxygen is used by us. Now what if we were to deviate from that design law and say, I'm, I'm not giving my co2 away, it's my co2, I'm gonna keep it. And we put a plastic bag over our head and duct tape it around our neck. Well, at first, you're not going to experience anything. But after a few minutes, your your fingers are going to start to tingle, your lips are going to start to turn blue, you're going to get dizzy, maybe you may start to hallucinate. And eventually, if that is not that condition is not corrected, you will die. Right. So when we deviate from God's design laws, there's consequences to that donating point in time, that person with the bag over the head, you just removed the bag. And now that consequence has been interrupted. So God doesn't punish us for violating His law. But he doesn't spare us from the consequences of those violations. There were those those poor, those undesirable outcomes are just waiting for us at the other end of our poor choices. So we want to make choices that are in harmony with God's decide laws for life, and heart in harmony with his designs for health, and experience better health outcomes as a result, choices that are not in alignment with God's designed laws for health lead to poor health outcomes. Galatians 6:8 says this, For the one who sews to his own flesh, from the flesh will read corruption. But the one who sews to the spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. reaping what we've sown is an eternal principle or law, like the law of gravity, it doesn't change. It applies to everyone. It doesn't matter if we believe in it or not. If we disobey it, there's going to be consequences. So there are blessings attached to our obedience. But those blessings are conditional. We have a role to play. We shouldn't gloss over those if-then statements in the Bible. A good example of this is Joshua, 1:8 excellent principle here. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night. So that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it, then you will make your right prospers, then you will have success.

David Sandstrom 39:02
So we shouldn't expect prosperity or success without being obedient to the Word of God. Psalm 8:1 says this, all that my people would listen to me that Israel would walk in my ways, I would quickly subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their adversaries, I would feed you with the finest of wheat and with honey from the rock, I would satisfy you. Again, beautiful poetry here. Or how about Psalm 19? The law of the Lord is perfect restoring the soul. The judgments of the Lord are true. They are righteous all together. They are more desirable than gold. Yes, then much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them, your servant is warned. In keeping them there is great reward. So is this name-it-and-claim-it? I don't think so. We want to understand who God is his primary Every characteristic at essence is in his core of his being, God is love. And we should be willing to surrender to His goodness in his loving kindness. Our obedience should be born out of a grateful heart. This puts us in better positions to receive blessings. If we want to enjoy a warm shower, we've got to step inside the shower stall. Alright, we don't want to be outside of it. We want to be inside of God's God's design. So what are the specifics that God wants us to do for our spirit, mind and body? Well, I don't have time to go into them in this episode. So we're just gonna have to wait for the next episode for that. But let me give you a little teaser. There's three parts to a human being. And I like to focus on three pillars of health within each part. So three times three is nine focus areas are nine pillars of health. Our spirit is all about love relationships, or love relationship with God, our love for others, and love for ourselves. The mind is all about having the proper mindset, enjoying victory over limiting beliefs, and practicing emotional intelligence, the body, three focus areas there are nutrition, movement, and sleep. And in the next episode, I'm going to be going to detail on each one of those. And if you do those nine things right, you're going to go a long way towards enjoying vibrant health and vitality. So that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I enjoyed putting it together. I hope you have a better idea and a better feel for what my heart's desire is for you of the National Nation. And what this show is really all about what I'm really trying to accomplish here. Thanks for listening. I'll talk with you next time, be blessed. For more, go to the show notes page at davidsandstrom.com/120. There you can find an audio as well as a video version of the podcast. I always put some type of a content upgrade to help you go deeper with that subject, as well as a full downloadable transcript that you can print out and take with you read it later. If you're joining the show, to share would appreciate you telling a friend about it. Now this information on natural and holistic health from a biblical perspective is pretty hard to come by. And I'll bet it's you're gonna have a hard time finding another show that brings the kind of information that I bring. So if you have like minded friend who's a follower of Jesus Christ, or somebody who's just curious about their health in general, I would appreciate you telling them about the show. Thank you for listening, and I'll talk with you next time. Be blessed.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 0:00
You know, that's where that old adage going to war on cancer. But guess what, when you go to war on cancer, you go to war essentially on the body because this cancer is not some, you know, your futuristic alien, Sigourney Weaver movie implant in you, it, these are your cells. And these cells, though, are a very abnormal form. So if you're going to war on cancer, you're going to war on the body. But what we need to recognize is going to war on the body destroys the immune system. And actually, research has shown especially since 2017, that when you destroy the immune system, you propagate and potentiate how that cancer spreads. So you can shrink a primary tumor. Yay, great, that's fantastic. But if you then set up the strategy for that cancer to spread, now, just putting it mildly, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. Because now you're you're you're taking a localized contained situation in many cases, and you're spreading it all over. And the estimates are that 90% of morbidity, complications and all the poor quality of health and in mortality associated with cancer is when it spreads.

David Sandstrom 1:09
Welcome to the Natural Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential, so that you can look and feel your best at any age. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, naturopathic doctor and biblical health coach. This is episode number 117.Today, we're gonna be talking about holistic integrative cancer care, and how that care differs from conventional oncology. We've got on the show, Dr. Nathan Goodyear, Dr. Goodyear is an MD and an MD homeopath. And he's the medical director of Brio medical, a holistic Integrative Cancer Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. Dr. Goodyear, Welcome to Natural Health Matters.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 1:52
It is an honor and a pleasure to be here with you on natural health matters. It's

David Sandstrom 1:57
awesome. Well, thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate it. I know you're a busy guy. And you're gonna love to do you run out of practice, and share this never ending to do list there. And you took the time to be with me. So I appreciate that.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 2:11
Well, you know, it falls into the principle of two things that I want to do heal and teach. And so helping to get the word out there falls into that ladder, so absolutely.

David Sandstrom 2:19
All right, very good. Well, if you could just let's give the natural nation the audience a 35,000 foot view of what it is you do today.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 2:29
Yeah, so I, I'm the medical director at a natural, holistic Integrative Cancer Healing Center in here in Scottsdale, Arizona called Brio medical, as you, as you mentioned, natural meaning most of what we do is natural. Now, what I always tell people there is natural doesn't mean easy. And by sure natural doesn't imply there's no evidence. In fact, the more you're in the scientific evidence, the more I as a physician, and others realize we need to be more natural because it's more consistent with who we are. And the evidence supports that. Also, were holistic. And you know, I find it really interesting when you look throughout, let's look throughout God's creation through nature, where does the strategy exist, that we must destroy, to heal. And that's the way we take from a conventional standpoint, the practice of cancer treatment, we must destroy your body and on the other side, healing will be possible. That just that makes no sense. Healing begets healing. And so there needs to be a paradigm shift in that. And that's where that holistic comes in. We must recognize that if we destroy a tumor, which is obviously a primary goal, but we destroy the body destroy the immune system, in the process, we have really set ourselves back. Yeah, because we've set up a strategy that eventually could lead to the metastatic spread of it. And that's, that's not good. And then we're integrated by integrating these therapies together. And it's not just the therapies for physical healing, we have to bring in the psychology, the emotional and of course, foundationally, the spiritual aspect.

David Sandstrom 4:02
Yes, absolutely. Well, you know, I say this a lot. If you're a regular listener, you've heard me say this before, but it's worth repeating. I believe that we maximize our health potential when we align our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind and body. And there's the holistic approach. You know, I've been a follower of Jesus Christ for about 30 years, and I've been a naturopath for about 15 years and when I started studying neuropathy, I said, you know, the Bible has a lot of consistency here with the naturopathic approach to health, you know, we're going to not try to work against the body systems with with drugs where we block certain bodily processes, but we come alongside the natural processes and encourage the body to do what it already knows how to do and that is to thrive.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 4:48
Absolutely. He doesn't want us to destroy our bodies. Now we talked about this as it relates to gluttony and all the you know, excess drink all these things that destroy the body, and yet this socially acceptable aspect of medicine that destroys the body. Last three years aside, but, you know, we recognize that there are parts of things that destroy the body that's in our culture, but there's others that are more socially acceptable that we ignore. Now, what I tell people is, look, conventional medicine has a role. If you go out and you break a hip, I'm not going to tell you go take more vitamin D. Right? I mean, you know, you got to go surgically repaired that, likewise, you're retired pilot, you know, flying. We've God's given us this knowledge to be able to do great things. The question is, what do we do with it? And that's the key right now, what's happening in medicine, at least from a conventional standpoint, David is that medicine is forgotten whom it serves. Doctors are to serve patients only. Obviously, God is the central role there. But our role in that doctor patient relationship is with the patient. But when you look at what's happening medicine today, it's everything but the patient's profit and power over patients is what I say is, which is what's driving most of why we've lost our way in part.

David Sandstrom 6:09
Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know, I write about that, in my book, The Christians guide to holistic health. But you know, I don't I don't want to trash conventional medicine because it has a place. You know, I just told you earlier before we before we hit record is I had a really bad letter fall and shattered my calcaneus. I needed what foot surgery, and I'm glad I found a good MD in the area. I'm glad I found a good surgeon, but I didn't they literally put Humpty Dumpty back together again. And that surgery, you know,

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 6:42
that's why I proudly say that I am an MD and an MD homeopath, I look at those as equal. I came out of that conventional world, you have to recognize just like I, you know, jokingly mentioned breaking a hip. You know, if you have a heart attack, you need that, er, Doc, you need that EMS to stabilize and focus on that acute setting, right. But in every team and every process, there is a time and a place for that service. And what has happened in medicine is that time and place bad service, basically is dominating everything, whether that be preventative, whether that be healing, etc. And now some aspects of what's happening in the conventional world, is it's really moving away again, from its founding purposes. And that is a that's a concern.

David Sandstrom 7:32
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that kind of leads us into one of the questions I have for you. And that is, do you believe that traditional oncology or traditional medicine and holistic integrative cancer care can coexist? Or should somebody choose one side of the other and take a side?

David Sandstrom 7:53
Yeah, boy, that's a great question. We could spend an hour just talking on that. Yeah. What I actually refer to traditional medicine, as you phrased it is conventional. Because when you actually look at traditional, it's the historical practice of medicine. And when you look at that, you know, Luke in the Bible, who was a doctor, he was, you know, he was practicing more of a naturopathic approach to medicine. So if you look at, you know, the use of traditional, well, that's traditional. And so what your practice was, and currently maybe is, is more traditional. And so what we have right now is more conventional. So let me get to the chase there. Can the two coexist? Absolutely. That's the integration. And in fact, it's when they coexist, I believe that patients actually get the better effect, patients get the better result. Because if you've got say for example, if you have somebody that comes to our clinic and they have breast cancer stage four recurrent and it is spread to the brain, okay. That is a life threatening spread, it must be addressed, it must be addressed quickly, and it must be addressed safely. So you come in, you do very stereotactic very targeted radiation, because if a tumor swells in that closed area, that is the brain, the skull, and that is life threatening. So you do that. But you bring in the integrative, the natural, the vitamin C, the Boswellia, these therapies that reduce inflammation that augment the vitamin C, that protect the healthy cells. That is where the beauty of this integrative combination really shot examples. Yeah, yeah,

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 9:36
excellent. Well, what would you say to someone who says, Well, my oncologist told me that if I take, for instance, antioxidants during my chemotherapy, it's going to work against their approach to healing or their approach to attacking tumor. What would you say to that?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 9:56
Yeah, well, you know, there was an Institute of Medicine article from 2001 And that actually showed that physicians, conventional Doc's are practicing at a level that was 17 years behind the current published evidence. So the point is, Doc's don't read, and the way continuing medical education is set up. Doctors aren't reading beyond just what they're told to read. So to get to your question real quickly, I think it was important to lay that foundation. I hear that all the time, especially when it deals with radiation. So let's take vitamin C that is considered the flagship of integrative movement, and integrative medicine, especially in the treatment of cancer. Of course, there's many other things many other thing, that's just one small piece, right? What we do, but when you use vitamin C, let's use it in conjunction with radiation. When you use vitamin C, you're actually using it pro oxidative Lee. So if we're going to follow the science, we're going to follow the evidence here and use vitamin C in a way that kills the cancer cells, cytotoxicly, metabolically, all of these different ways that vitamin C can, it must be used pro oxidative ly. So the way conventional medicine comes to this, they think Vitamin C is purely an antioxidant. Now, when given orally, research has shown we will never raise that above one millimolar. And at that route, absolutely. It's only anti oxidative, rarely does it achieve 200 micromolar. So getting a little evidence there. You know, I'm getting my geek on so to speak, but we have to

David Sandstrom 11:27
feel free this this is a deep show.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 11:29
Yeah, that's I love to go deep. So if I go too deep, bring me back in, okay. We have to burn via the evidence achieve 20 to 30 millimol, okay, to actually achieve this pro oxidative, anti cancer effect where the vitamin C is achieving a blood vitamin C level that's appropriate. That's reaching the tumor site and the tumor microenvironment, which is very difficult to do, by the way, because of the rapid growth in the hypoxia and all the vessel issues associated with cancer. Not only do we have to reach the tumor, we must penetrate the tumor, and then saturate all aspects of it. So just saying, Well, I'm gonna take vitamin C by mouth and that's going to treat my cancer. Now that vitamin C by mouth in that role research clearly shows it's anti oxidative. But when we give vitamin C IV follow the evidence approach it plasma or blood ascorbic acid level, that's therapeutic, we will achieve a pro oxidative effect, which guess what augments radiation pro oxidatively, and actually protects healthy cells. That actually what recent research over the last couple years has shown take vitamin C, given with radiation, you will augment the two together pro oxidatively, but you will protect the healthy cells. That's the beauty of the dualistic effect that you see with natural therapies.

David Sandstrom 12:53
That is that is just incredible. Well, let me summarize because what you said is a little counterintuitive, I'm sure to most people listening, and that is orally, low dose Vitamin C is an antioxidant. But when you do it IV The way you do it in the office at such high levels, it has a therapeutic value because it becomes an oxidant itself. And it will it will target the tumors, but actually be beneficial to healthy cells. Did I hear you right?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 13:23
That's right. It's what I call the dualistic principle, which is there's there's different environments. So when somebody gets diagnosed with cancer, when they hear that word, first of all, the first thing that overcomes him is fear. But second is there's this embodiment of that word. And so they think their entire body is cancer. And it's not, there are pockets. Now some people there's larger pockets, but in other areas of the body, completely normal function is occurring. So in those two environments, there is different genomics. There's different metabolomics there's different transcript omics, which is this kind of future of medicine of science that's actually coming to the front right now. And so when you introduce therapies, these two environments are going to have different responses. And it's not just vitamin C, that you see that effect. You see that effect with medical cannabis, you see that effect with hyperthermia. So you see that effect with curcumin. These different environments dictate different responses. And the more we're blessed to understand the difference in these environments, the more we can be precision based in our use of natural, holistic and integrative therapies.

David Sandstrom 14:33
Yeah, very good. So just one more question on this topic, and then then we'll move on, but what percentage of your patients are working with a conventional oncologist along with you?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 14:46
I would say probably about 25% when they come to us, okay, the vast majority of our patients I would say 90% or slightly above that, have either an oncologist back home or have worked extensively With an oncologist mostly what happens, David? And this is unfortunate because it shouldn't happen is that patients, they say, look, I want to go try something, quote unquote, integrative and alternative though, that word alternative is just meant to marginalize. The oncologist says, Okay, well, right now I'm just going to step back and not do anything. And you go there, and we'll be here when you when you're done. Because they don't, they don't want to be involved at that point. And that's so sad. Because I love talking, I am an MD, I come out of that field. And I love talking to doctors. And so a lot of that is pressure in their own college or their own home association. So they just can't go there, unfortunately. But, yeah, so probably 25% have an active relationship. And the other they're either on hold or have had a recent prior relationship.

David Sandstrom 15:59
All right, very good. So then there's another question I wanted to ask you. And that is, a lot of people when they hear about, well, I'm going to, I'm going to treat this cancer naturally and holistically, they they have visions of, you know, an eight hour yoga session, you know, singing Kumbaya, or, you know, rehearsing the, The Little Engine That Could I think I can I think I can, you know, think your way into hell. So there's a whole lot more, that's such a simplistic idea, or perception of what natural integrative holistic care looks like. So I'd like to dive into some of the therapies that you do in the office. Now, you already mentioned IV, vitamin C. And I would, I would guess, that you consider that one of the primary therapies that you use with people, is that correct?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 16:46
I'd say there's many primary therapies, it's one of the ones that we do use and David, what we do is we we look as much precision based as we can. So there's typically a general treatment program that we start with based on the type of cancer and the patient's history. But then as we are able to collect more information about how the cancer genomic Lee has changed how the environment has changed how the metabolomics are really affecting the cancer of the cancers affecting the body, we then become very precision based based on that. So we may start off say, high dose vitamin C, curcumin, quercetin, hyperthermia, and then as we get more precision based, we may go, wow, we need to come in here. And we need to bring photodynamic therapy, which is a light wavelength therapy to accompany actually a low dose form of chemo called insulin potentiation therapy, which lifts the immune system, it doesn't destroy it. And then we become more targeted, we may add in melatonin. So as we start to better understand this process, we don't only just start to add therapies and become more precise and accurate in what we're doing. We actually start to become more sequential and better use in combination, because that's really, when I tell people the answer to cancer is never get it, of course, but it

David Sandstrom 18:07
works every time. Right? Yeah. Just don't

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 18:09
get it's like, don't break your car, you know, always change the you always do the right things. But the best answer beyond that is the immune system. And this concept of a magic bullet theory and what causes cancer, and then thus what treats cancer is completely wrong. We have to bring all forces to bear in a targeted and most accurate way to really heal the body. So it's it's much more of a sequential combination of these therapies that really provides the power of healing potential.

David Sandstrom 18:41
Yeah, very good. So I went on your website. And by the way, your website is excellent. It's Brio dash medical.com. And you've got a lot of a lot of information there, videos, blog posts, it's a phenomenal website, encourage everybody to go check that out. And I found what I what I counted was 17 different therapies that you do in the office, we don't have time to go into all of them. But let's let's just hit a couple of highlights you and we already mentioned IV IVC. And you mentioned insulin potentiation therapy IPT can you get into what that actually looks like what what?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 19:15
is that? Yeah, you know, it's it's one of those things that I think so many people are confused about doctors primarily. It's simply saying you know, full dose chemo destroys everybody recognizes that right? Nobody's destroyed Yeah, no, it destroys the the tumor but it destroys the body as well. You know, that's where that old adage going to war on cancer but guess what, when you go to war on cancer, you go to war essentially on the body because this cancer is not some you know, your futuristic aliens Sigourney Weaver movie implant in you, it these are your cells. And these cells, though, are in very abnormal form. So if you're going to war on cancer, you're going to war on the body But what we need to recognize is going to war on the body destroys the immune system. And actually research has shown especially since 2017, that when you destroy the immune system, you propagate and potentiate how that cancer spreads. So you can shrink a primary tumor. Yay, great, that's fantastic. But if you then set up the strategy for that cancer to spread, now, just putting it mildly, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. Because now you're you're you're taking a localized contained situation in many cases, and you're spreading it all over. And the estimates are that 90% of morbidity, complications and all the poor quality of health and in mortality associated with cancer is when it spreads. So what we need to do is take a lower dose here we're talking about five to 10%. Now from the quote unquote, integrative and natural and alternative perspective, we call it insulin potentiation therapy from the conventional they actually have a different name for low dose metronomic chemotherapy. They may you know, your oncologist may say, oh, there's no science for it, is it? Yeah, it's called low dose metronomic chemotherapy. It's just taking a lower dose, giving it more frequently, and monitoring to make sure you're not getting all of that collateral damage. But what we also know about cancer, especially in the cancer types that are growing very fast, is they need to support that rapid growth and rapid metabolic rate. So they overexpressed insulin receptors, those insulin receptors are more receptive. So they're more sensitive, if you will think of it in in terms of a bigger door. But then this insulin also can bind to other receptors, like, you know, IGF insulin growth factor receptor, so these receptors that are on the surface, we can utilize that with a hint of insulin. Yeah, and then target that with the low dose of chemotherapy. Couple that with say, CBD, couple that with some peptides like thymosin Alpha One couple that with photodynamic therapy there maybe a red light IV, then what we do is we're bringing a sequential powerful therapy together. But the great news about this insulin potentiation therapy is a research shows that you lower the dose of the chemotherapy, you can actually increase the stimulation to the immune system, you actually broadened its anti cancer effect, it becomes anti angiogenic still maintain some of its direct cytotoxic healing effects. But it then stimulates the immune system. So you lower the dose, you target it and you broaden its effect. It's just a beauty and then you don't destroy the immune system in the process.

David Sandstrom 22:42
And, and it's just amazing that most MDS are just close minded about this kind of thing. It's just just amazing to me, is it sad, really. But thank you for sharing it. That's that's great stuff. So I know another another therapy that you do you have an hyperbaric oxygen chamber. So Well, let's talk about that getting more oxygen, it's

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 23:03
blood. Yeah. So when you look at what we're really doing, especially as it relates to cancer from a conventional standpoint, hyperbaric oxygen is recognized as an insurance even pays for the use of hyperbaric oxygen in the healing of wounds of all sorts. And so it's because it's pushing oxygen into the tissue and the body's natural immunity, the body's natural healing strategy requires that oxygen, so the healing process really is augmented. Well, when you look at cancer, it's not that everybody talks about how cancer is a hypoxic situation. And it's not that the whole body is hypoxic is that there's pockets within the tumor in the tumor microenvironment are. And so when we flood oxygen into that tissue, force it in there, that's what hyperbaric does under pressure, then we're able to allow that those oxygen molecules to be present, that then when we add in therapies like vitamin C, like curcumin, like these pro oxidative therapies that require oxygen, we're now able to overwhelm the oxidative capacity of that cell. And that cell just gets overwhelmed and it dies.

David Sandstrom 24:13
Yeah, yeah, very good.Yeah. Speaking of oxygen, I know that you do ozone therapy as well as ozone, sauna therapy. So let's talk about how that works.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 24:23
Yeah, so really, when you look at ozone therapy, we use it in a variety of different ways. A lot of people just focus on it from an IV perspective. But and they look at it from an anti cancer perspective, really from a pro oxidative delivery of oxygen because that oh three gets converted to two tubes. And so again, it's a it's a, it's a pro oxidative oxygenating therapy, but it's really interesting that you can give that IV you can give that topically so if we have somebody that comes in with a breast wound that's open from a tumor, that can really propagate the healing there and really I act as a treatment for that cancer. And that wound, which is very important because that's a source of infection. It's also a great treatment for pain. And there's no condition that's more contributing to chronic pain and severe pain that requires opiates, like cancer. So ozone therapy can come in, we can do that rectally. We can do it the tympanic membranes, many different ways that ozone can be delivered to improve symptoms, but also as a way to target the cancer, pro oxidatively, primarily through the delivery of oxygen, and the ozone sauna. And that's really to promote detoxification, because we have to really support the process of detoxification, which is a another term that gets completely misunderstood. Everybody thinks detoxification in a box, but every cell must be toxify. And that's the primary role of the liver is to detoxify, right? So as we're really pushing the body to destroy these cancer cells, there's gonna be a lot of cleanup that's necessary to clean up on our line, there's gonna be a lot of that required. And so we got to really support that body's cleanup mechanism and detoxification is part of that process.

David Sandstrom 26:10
Very good. Yeah. You know, when I was dealing with my, my chronic Lyme disease, ozone therapy was one of the primary reasons I think I was able to overcome that naturally without drugs, and I did ozone inflation, anal insufflation. With with my ozone therapy, and it was it was quite powerful. And I also have an ozone sauna here at the house to and I agree with you, it's, it's a very effective detoxification agent for sure. Speaking of detoxification, and, and cleaning up the mess, what role does intermittent fasting or time restricted eating play in a natural

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 26:46
cancer treatment? Wow. So you know, when you look at cancer, really, the evidence is pointing towards really cancer is a disease of lifestyle. So it's a disease of how we live now, not in just a year, but for a lifetime. And there was a study called the pure epidemic. It's called a pure study or prospective urban rural and epidemiology study was published in Lancet journal in 2019. And they showed that in high income countries, cancer is the number one cause of mortality and adults. CDC data in 2016 shows that cancer is the number one cause of mortality in adults and 23 states in these United States. So this is this is a growing growing problem. And so when we look at what we're after here, in in cancer, we have to recognize that our current system isn't working and that we need a change in paradigm. So gotten a little sidetrack there, David, I forgot your

David Sandstrom 27:47
question was intermittent fasting. What role does that play in in the overall strategy here?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 27:53
Yeah. So if your brains like mine, it's going to, you know, 90 to

David Sandstrom 27:59
50 questions I want to ask, and we're not going to get through them all. But yeah, try to pull those questions out as they Oh, there it goes. Good. Good.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 28:06
So but so lifestyle, and lifestyle begins with what we put in our bodies. And I think we all focus on what we put in our mouth. And sometimes the better focus is what we don't put in our mouth, or what we don't put in our body and fasting is a powerful therapy. And I tell people, it's so powerful that if you're going to water fast before beyond 24 hours, that needs to be under the guidance of a physician. And when you look back through the Bible, which is you know, this is our, this is our foundation. Fasting was a regular part of their life.

David Sandstrom 28:40
That's right. Yeah, Jesus didn't say if you fast, he said, When you fast

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 28:48
fasting, and it's really interesting. You know, my pastor says, you know, the Bible is always timely, because it's timeless. And when you look at that fasting principle throughout the Bible, research is showing that yes, that principle is timeless. And so what research has shown if you take fasting now, mostly, what they're doing here is prolonged fasting, so beyond 24 hours, but intermittent fasting is a great inroads for somebody who that maybe doesn't have experience there, and is a little bit scared to try that. Intermittent Fasting is a great way to do that. Fasting augments chemotherapy, fast in order with radiation. Fasting itself stimulates what's called autophagy. It stimulates this cleaning up of the body and guess what? Cancer is not a necessary thing. So cleaning up this unnecessary areas, in part does clean up some of the cancer. So if you're looking at it from a pure primary treatment, fasting is fantastic. If you look at it from a common combination and integrative treatment, it's fantastic. We use it with all of our patients, all of them, whether that's with vitamin C whether that's with IPT, we are calm combining fasting with that. Now you don't want to take somebody that's still dealing with weight loss and actually muscle loss. And they're 98 pounds, and they were gonna fast. You're 72 hours. Yeah. But if somebody comes in and they're 300 pounds, they're severely insulin resistant, they're diabetic, guess what, we can push that envelope under the guidance of our clinic, and push that for 72 hours, and then bring IPT or vitamin C behind that and really pack a anti cancer, Power Punch, if you will. So fasting, and instrumental, but it's it's a focus that's different. Not on what you put in, but hey, keeping things out.

David Sandstrom 30:40
Yeah, what I hear you saying is that your approach really does need to be customized for the individual, there's not a, okay, come to Dr. Good year, you're going to get this, this, this and this? No, you're going to look at that individually, you're going to see where they're at in their journey, you're gonna see their body size, and you know, their history. And I would assume that you take a detailed intake when you when you get a new patient and customize a plan for them, which is very, very contrary to what conventional medicine does correct? If I mean, I'm not sure about this, but don't they use the same dosage for just about everybody?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 31:16
Well, they'll use the same chemo regimens, they will change the doses based on weight. So if you're talking about it from a chemo perspective, but you know, in patients intuitively know this, you know, you have one, you'll have one patient that's five foot 225 pounds sitting next to a patient that six foot six 330 pounds, and they go, why am I getting the same dose of this therapy? Right? We have different cancers. Intuitively, they recognize this yet, this move of medicine has been on it's one size fits all approach. You know, that kind of cookie cutter recipe medicine group thinking over critical thinking is what I call it, they try to treat everybody the same, and the body just doesn't, it doesn't work that way. I mean, I've got a year at 10:30. I got two patients I'm gonna meet with basically at the same time because the brother in law, they both had stage four prostate cancer interesting. Both have stage four prostate cancer, one's doing okay. And one is doing fabulous. Their treatments different. Yeah, different because of what their tumors are doing, how they're behaving, what testing is shown is different. And then how their bodies are responding. But yet, they're both stage four prostate cancer, they're both men. And yet, we're treating them actually very differently because of what we've discovered about how these tumors are responding, but then also how their body is responding.

David Sandstrom 32:40
Right, how they're presenting clinically, and all that. Yeah, I get it. That's really good stuff. So let's move on to another therapy. Hyperthermia, how do you use hyperthermia in your practice?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 32:50
When I tell people if I was told that I was going to be shipwrecked on an island, of course, this is ridiculous. But and I had to take three therapies with me hyperthermia would be one of those. Okay, and the reason is because hyperthermia is a controlled mechanism to mimic what our inherent body does when threatened. It elevates the temperature, it stimulates the immune system. And so this has been known even in the 19th century, that the immune system was playing a role now was bound kind of backdoor. But it was known that the immune system inducing an infection can actually treat cancer. But this is goes way, way, way back, even into the Middle Ages, where they discovered this process of infection. I mean, even in Egypt, they would put a pulse dust over a tumor and cut through it into the tissue, so as to induce infection. So this goes way, way, way, way, way back. But what we want to do is create a controlled environment. And hyperthermia allows us to mimic that fever, eat the body up the core temperature to 105 106. core temperature, very safe. We use medical cannabis to do that. And it's very effective. A lot of people say, Well, can I do the ozone sauna? And I do infrared sauna. I said, Well, you know, it's going to raise the core temperature, but it's not going to raise it to the level required nor the time duration that you can do that without some form of you know, relaxation or sedation. So hyperthermia, and when the doc who I learned from about four years ago now, he told me I asked him I said what one treatment would hyperthermia really work grateful. He said, Oh easy. When cancer spread to bone bone metastasis, there is no better therapy, then hyperthermia, and then we also combine that with vitamin C or curcumin, melatonin. So we bring all of these two together, because guess what research is know that he was vitamin C equals better effect t plus curcumin equals better effects. And so again, following the evidence, bringing it together to really promote that healing strategy.

David Sandstrom 35:12
Yeah. Wow, that's fantastic. So you use a combination of of tools to get the core body temperature up that high. Oh, absolutely.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 35:21
We do. You know, everybody's eyes always go back our Wow 104 106 I go oh, yeah, they go, Well, what do people do? So the vast majority just sleep right through it?

David Sandstrom 35:30
Yeah. Wow. And how long do you keep them there?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 35:33
I want to keep them there for about two hours. Yeah. And then within a week or once a week? Well, I mean, the whole process of that treatments, about seven hours. So I mean, it's a full day for that patient. That's all they do that day. We have one nurse yoke, specifically designed to follow those patients. We hook them up to a cardiovascular monitor. It was really interesting. Always tell our patients our I love to teach our staff. And I always tell them like, look, a treatment for our arrhythmias is hyperthermia. So they called me a couple of weeks ago, they said you need to come down here. So I got it. So I go running down there. And I go down there and they said, Look, one of our patients who has chronic AFib they said look, normal sinus rhythm, that dolger. So we monitor the cardiovascular system to ensure there's no surprises because what we want in this healing strategy is to make sure that we don't have surprises. We're always looking to what could happen so as to prevent.

David Sandstrom 36:31
Yeah, a lot of people use along with sauna they use niacin to stimulate capillary blood flow. Do you do that?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 36:39
Well, I don't and here's the reason why I think if you're looking at it from a detoxification perspective, so if somebody doesn't have cancer, and they just want to detox nice and before infrared sauna is great. I'm, you know, mitad metabolomicly, one of the things that really separates cancer from healthy cells, that environment, there's three things one is the detoxification capacity, the energy cycle, the metabolism, and then immunologically, those are three key, there's many others, but those are three key differences that set up. And so when you look at niacin, it is can support the NAD pathway and energy production. So when you look at vitamin C research, one of the effects that the different the different effects of vitamin C has cancer cells versus non cancer cells, is the vitamin C depletes that cancer cell on NAD. And this is a shuttling pathway between two pathways supporting rapid energy production that cancer utilizes. But vitamin C depletes it of NAD and that creates a detoxification, a energy crisis in those cancer cells. So what they did is they said, Okay, we prove that positive. Now let's come in and add NAD, or glutathione, NAD into that mix, and it completely countered that vitamin C cancer killing effect. So anything that can support that in a de I work to try to keep that out of that process. So that's why in cancer, I wouldn't add that niacin in but if somebody is just trying to detoxify infrared sauna, ozone sauna, I think it's a great strategy.

David Sandstrom 38:18
Yeah. Okay, are very good. Thank you for that. So here's something I've been looking forward to, to going over with you. One of the one of the points that you have in your website is the mind body emotional wellness. And of course, I'm all about holistic health areas. What that's a National Health Matters is all about is treating the whole person, not just the body, but the spirit and the emotional, mental emotional component as well. So what does that look like in your office? What does bind body emotional wellness counseling look like for you.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 38:50
But what I tell people is when you look at cancer, because that's mostly what we see, but understand that everybody with cancer has diabetes, hypertension, prior strokes, pacemakers, you know, kidney dysfunction. So all of these chronic diseases of aging we see coexist in our patient population. But the physical aspect of cancer is what everybody focuses on. I think the more foundational principles that need to be addressed are number one, the spiritual, and then the psychological and emotional, because and the physical is just a byproduct of that. And everybody has to recognize this a little bit when they said, You know, I always ask them, Well, what happened two to five years before you were diagnosed with cancer, they're always like, Oh my gosh, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. And so that ties into the emotional psychological, but the spiritual aspect, I think, is a very different one. Because I think it really ties into the foundational potential and principles in the healing you know, in the in the Bible that the woman that was believing her faith do yes, she He got in touch, Jesus is close. And he said the power went out of him turned around said, Who healed me, you know, who touched me. And she said I did. He's a woman, Your faith is huge. And in fact, throughout the Scripture, people that he healed and said, Your faith is huge. They were healed according to their faith. And that actually touches on how we bypass three rounds, because they had no faith. My experience, and this is not absolute, but my experience with patients is when they come in, they believe that they can be healed. And it's that tapping into God Jesus in that power, then they they do better doesn't mean they always do heal, but they do better. And so for us, I try to bring that healing capacity. It's like trying to heal, trying to watch a TV without plugging it into the power source, the power sources, Jesus, and if we want to watch that healing, show that healing happen, we have to plug into that. And the better we do that, the more we're going to see that happen. And so for me, I love praying with my patients. I think it should be something that every physician that's a believer does, because I think it enables them to tap into that power source. And honestly brings, you know, everybody talks about marriage being one man, one woman, Jesus in the middle, guess what? doctor patient relationship, one patient, one doctor, Jesus in the middle, I think that same kind of strategy needs to exist. And we need to we want to see that movie that show that's healing we need to tap into source to achieve.

David Sandstrom 41:33
Yeah, absolutely. You know, speaking of people's lack of faith, I was just reading in my devotion this morning, how, when Jesus opened his ministry, he asked to read from the scrolls in the synagogue, and he read Isaiah, He quoted from Isaiah 61, and said, I come to heal the brokenhearted and set the captives free. So he was launching his healing ministry. And the people have reacted violently, and they tried to kill him, they tried to throw Him off a cliff. And then it goes on to say, and Luke that and Jesus was not able to do any more healing in that town, his hometown of Nazareth. And he said, and it says that he was amazed at their lack of faith, and he moved on. But over to corinium after that, so yeah, Jesus wants to he wants to make us whole, he wants to have us living in that abundant life that He promised, right. And I believe that physical vitality is a part of that. And I just have to say this, when you're right with God, when you get right with God, and you believe that his his intentions for you are good, and he's trustworthy, than a healthy spirit, your spirit will be healthier and healthy spirit will animate our minds, our thoughts, emotions, and will in unhealthy ways. And the mind directs the brain and Oregon, and the brain runs the body. So you cannot separate the three. It is so many practitioners and including in the natural health world, that are focused almost exclusively on the physical. And by the way, I did that, too, when I have my practice. It wasn't late to later on that I learned this connection between spirit, mind and body and how powerful it really is it especially if you're dealing with advanced cancer that you just you can't afford to ignore it.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 43:12
Yeah, I want to get my kick on again, because I love words I love to write. I'm just, I'm just a nerd like that people were what do you do on Friday evening? Well, after I have my date with my wife, I'm going to read research and I'm going to write every Saturday morning, Sunday morning because we're going to church on Saturday evening, but I write and I just love it. But you know, hope keeland teach those words integrated. Those words mean something, you'll hope means confidence and expectation for a future. Guess what they call Jesus hope he is hope. He'll the word physician in Hebrew. Rofi means healer. Guess what? Jesus was healer. The word doctor in Latin dossier, teacher, guess what they call Jesus rabbi, teacher, he is teacher, you is healer. And then that word integrative really interesting ties it in and you mentioned this. Now we're integrating integration, integration and integrate, excuse me comes from the Latin word integration them which means to make. So when you look at this hope he'll teach integratively it's to restore the whole but using Jesus through hope, using them through healing, using them through teaching and the principles of natural, holistic and integrative to restore the whole not to destroy it, but to restore.

David Sandstrom 44:30
Yeah, excellent. Thank you for that. That's that's a good word. Here's something else I wanted to talk about. You've mentioned this at the top of the show, and that is when somebody gets the cancer diagnosis. It's scary. There's a lot of fear there. And this is a fear is an emotion that's going to have to be handled well in order to really you know turbocharge their treatment. So because fear will create stress and stress is obviously detrimental to the healing process. So What What would you say to someone who's gotten a diagnosis recently? And they're in that that fear, almost shock? State? What What would you say to that person?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 45:12
The best opportunity is, the best thing you can do in that moment, is to actually take some time. What happens from a conventional mindset is there's rush, rush, rush, rush. So you have diagnosis, we need to cut yesterday, we need to start chemo radiation yesterday. And, and so sometimes I'll hear stories from patients, they'll say, you know, I woke up and I was, you know, three months into chemo. And my body was just torn. And unlike what happened, they've actually done research on this looking at colo patients with colorectal cancer. And they found that patients that take 30 days to stop and think about what they do actually do better. So in that time, people can really push away fear can coalesce hopefully, with their creator here, their healer, their family, and make the decisions and the choices that are consistent with who they are, and what they're called to do. And so taking that time, to actually not let fear control you. But push fear aside, because fear comes on all of us, right? That's what my pastor said, fear comes on all of us. But we can choose to let fear control us. Yeah, and taking that time to not let fear control us, but actually turn to hope. The direct contrast, right fear, hope, direct contrast, spiritual and everything that can allow fear to just come on us, but not controllers, Let Hope control us real hope not false hope now. But But allow hope to drive us. So that's what I would say is the best strategy been informed. Unfortunately, the strategy is right now is, you know, go go, go, go, go push, push, push, push, push, and there's no chance to really allow hope, to rain. It's to allow fear to dominate.

David Sandstrom 47:06
Yeah. Well, you know, there's, there's a saying that says that courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to persevere in the face of fear. So I love the way you said there just to let let the fear push you towards hope. And I think one of the things that may be useful, I don't know, maybe you do this. And that is put that person in touch with someone who's had the same cancer they have, and has survived, and has and has gotten through and that can that can bring a bring a great deal of hope, to a person in an otherwise dreadful situation.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 47:40
Yeah, when you look at people that come in with, you know, terrible pain, and you know, so bone metastasis and pain associated with that is some of the worst pain that people can experience. But when some, because we see a lot of patients, women with breast cancer, be honest, I've seen a lot of men with breast cancer, strangely enough, but women with breast cancer when they when they come in, and they're in pain, and it's difficult to walk, and it's difficult to sit, sit and sleep and they may be even wheelchair bound or using, you know, a walking a walker. And then they see some of our patients who they've seen the videos on our website, they've heard him on a podcast, where they came in, and that same situation, and now they're pain free, and they're walking, and their cancer is either gone or on its way out. It shows them firsthand what they want the hope, the confidence, it allows them to obtain that confidence and expectation, because guess what? They see it in somebody else. Right? And that is what is best going to help them to see the potential because if you just stay in the conventional medicine, all you're gonna get is, you know, your terminal. Once like, Yeah, guess what, Doc? Last time I checked, you are two worlds. Don't tell me something? I don't know. Right? I watch. And I guess there's not none of that's in medical school. I don't think there's a naturopathic medical school either. There is nothing that says you play God with a little g and tell somebody how long they're going to live. Sorry, I don't know the number of sands of grain on the beach, and I don't know the number of hairs on your head. My job is to get you hoping to heal you to your fullest potential. That's it. Let's see how far your body will go. And so you're exactly right, that experience. But sometimes, you know, because we'll see some very, very rare tumors. And so in those cases, it's not like there's 20 people out there that they can go talk to. And so you have to give them your kind of side examples of you know, here's somebody with similar issues. Here's somebody with other issues. So maybe if somebody has renal cancer and their kidneys aren't working well, well, I can let him talk to one of my past patients, Eric, who actually was in renal failure when he came to me with Hodgkin's lymphoma, actually ended up in ICU for four weeks on dialysis. And then afterwards, I can remember three months afterwards. had to call the nephrologist or the natural, the nurse practitioner to actually get the nephrology office and said, Look, we need to taper this patient off of dialysis. And guess what? He's off of dialysis now for two years, and he's been Hodgkins free limb, free for now. I think it's three years. So you can not necessarily have somebody that has that exact same situation, but you can connect pieces together.

David Sandstrom 50:25
Yeah. Yeah, that's great. That's, that's great stuff. So, so we're kind of pushing up against the clock here. But I want to give you the opportunity to just kind of summarize what you believe is the most important part of what we talked about today. What would you like people to take with them

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 50:41
from this conversation? Yeah, you know, for me, um, you talked about taking deep dives, my new podcast just launched practicing with Dr. Nathan Goodyear. That's you can find it on all all the different places you find podcasts. And you can also find it on my personal website, Drgoodyear.com. You'll so I do deep dives there. I love deep dives. I think the evidence is God's signature. I'm here, this is mine. But I think we need to step back for that for a lot of people and say, Look, hope is possible, because healing is possible. And in this arena of cancer and other conditions or diseases, I think understanding that hope, healing, and teaching and leading a movement, a change in perspective, that restores the practice of medicine, to its original purpose, which is that patient sitting in front of you, but really going to bring Jesus in that mix. But hope and healing are possible. But we must teach and lead to help people understand that geekness side, you know, that deep dive, it's there to support it. Not burn bridges, not call one side names. Because if you're in an argument, and you're calling people names, you've lost the grounds for the argument. Yeah, if they engage them and say, hey, look, conventionally you're doing this, this is great, we can come in and help this and reduce the side effects of that. And so it's about, it's about bridging that gap gap, and helping patients reach and achieve their fullest healing potential. But it's hope you teach, and lead. Those are the principles that I think patients, and people with cancer or other diseases need to take from this the deep dive, it shows you the evidence, but it's those principles that drive me, it's those principles that drive my spirit. Because that's like what you're called to do. That's my calling. That's my calling, it's taken many decades to achieve this time, and a lot of probably me not listening. But I finally recognize that that is my calling. And to give people hope, where there isn't any gap. Jesus did that. To heal people when there was none. He did that. To teach people, that's what I want to do. The lead Well, there's no better leader than am I'm just following his footsteps.

David Sandstrom 53:03
I love it. That's, that is so great. You know, one of the things I often tell people is that, you know, the, the doctor should be part of your team. But ultimately, you're the one in charge, right? And, and we we should use everything at our disposal. When we use holistic methods, we can experience we take our health to the next level, we can experience a synergy from from the holism, the the integrative methods that could not be achieved otherwise, and the doctor is part of your team. And it's his job, or the nurse practitioner, whoever else, the nutritional counselor to help you identify the obstacles that are preventing your body from doing what it wants to do. And that is heal. So the doctor is just there to help you in that process. Point out some of those obstacles, get those logs off the path and make it easier for your body to heal.

David Sandstrom 53:56
Yeah, when I, when I tell I think that's, you know, we're so enlightened in how we approach our practices. But I tell patients, look, you're the star quarterback. I'm just the coach, when I want to do as the coach is actually puts you and the team around you, but put you in the best position for success. Yeah, that's our goal. If I design a play, that doesn't fit your best skills, that doesn't help you achieve that victory. I have not done my job. And I need to recognize that it's not me that's the classical, you know, kind of conventional approach. But it's YOU the focus is you. You're the objective, your healing is the purpose. And so in that I've got to create a system a game plan, if you will. Sorry for all the sports analogies. I love college football, but I got to create a game plan that that helps your skills and you achieve success. And that's what it's all about. Yeah,

David Sandstrom 54:56
love it. That that's a great place to wind up. So Doctor good year. If someone is resonating with this message and they'd like to get ahold you what's the best way to do that?

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 55:04
Yeah, several different places. Of course, they can go to the Brio dash medical WWW.Briomedical website, which is where I am the medical director, but they can also find me on the personal branding Drgoodyear.com. And then also our new my new pod podcast to help lead and teach the practicing with Dr. Nathan good. your.com. Practicing with Dr. Nathan goodyear. You're not .com you can find. Yeah, you can find that wherever you find your podcast,

David Sandstrom 55:35
I'll make sure to put links to all that in the show notes. Dr. Good Year, I thank you so much for the time, God bless you. And I really appreciate what you're doing.

Dr. Nathan Goodyear 55:43
God bless you. And I appreciate people that are willing to get out there and actually speak truth. And that's really what you're doing your David. So hats off to you, Lord will bless you for doing that.

David Sandstrom 55:56
Thank you. For more, go to the show notes page at davidsandstrom.com/117. There you can find a full transcript, as well as links to all the resources that we mentioned. And I always put a content upgrade to help you go deeper with that subject. Thank you for listening, if you're enjoying the show, which tell a friend about it, because this information from a holistic health from a faith based perspective is pretty hard to come by. And if you have a like minded friend who's a follower of Jesus Christ and is cares about their health in a holistic fashion, I'll bet they would appreciate you telling him about the show. Thank you in advance for doing that. I appreciate you. Thank you again for listening, and I'll talk with you next time. Be blessed.