Oct. 15, 2025

The Stress Connection — 20 Years Later

Twenty years ago, Dr. Ava Bell-Taylor and I wrote The Stress Connection after discovering that 75–90% of doctor visits were stress-related. We knew then—if we mastered stress, we could help almost every patient we saw.
Two decades later, science has proven it: stress isn’t just mental, it’s molecular, emotional, and spiritual.
In this new episode, we revisit what started our journey and how it became the foundation of the Ageless Blueprint.
� Listen now: The Stress Connection — 20 Years Later
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Any health related information on the following show provides general

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information only. Content presented on any show by any host

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or guests should not be substituted for a doctor's advice.

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Always consult your physician before beginning any new diet, exercise,

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or treatment program.

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For centuries, ancient cultures new to secrets to longevity like

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tarity and healing. Now modern science is catching up. Ageless

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Blueprint is a podcast that will reveal the modern secrets

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of better health and a better life. Join doctor Eldrick

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Taylor here today and every Wednesday at nine am Eastern

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Time on W FOURHC Radio at W FOURHC dot com

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as together we discover the secrets to better health through

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science and spirituality. A better life with Ageless Blueprint starts now.

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Here's your host, doctor Eldrid Taylors.

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Hello and good Wednesday morning to everyone. This is doctor Taylor.

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I am the hormone Doctor and the Spiritual MD, and

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I as always, I'm so excited to do these podcasts

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on Wednesday because it allows me to convey some information

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that I think is going to help somebody, you know,

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and if one person is helped by this podcast, then

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it's worth the fifty minutes that I sit here and

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talk to you. So today I'm going to kind of

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go back to the future. I'm going to kind of

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give you an idea of how this all started. You know,

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I realized that on social media that hey, not everybody

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has seen every episode of this podcast. So what that

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means is is that sometimes I have to review some

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of some of the things that I've already done. And

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so I've done a podcast on the book that we wrote.

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My wife and I wrote All The Stress Connection, and

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that was over twenty years ago. And what I realized

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is that, hey, you know, twenty years is a generation,

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and over these last twenty years, there's a new crop

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of people who have gotten into their forties and fifties,

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and usually that's when that stress starts to accumulate and

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cause a problem. And then there's a whole new set

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of doctors. I'm actually on this platform called view Maddy,

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where doctors exchange information. So I started to putting information

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up there, and I realized that people haven't been exposed

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to this. And so the lectures that I was doing

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twenty years ago, I lectured all over the world. I've

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been to Australia, I've been to Canada and I've been

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talking about these two books, are Your Hormones Making You

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Sick and The Stress Connection. But that was I really

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stopped that really in twenty sixteen when my sister passed

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away and then COVID hit and I just kind of

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didn't feel like doing it anymore. But now I've kind

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of had a rebirth and I want to start again.

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And what really started me is that I decided that

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I wanted to take a longevity course, primarily because I'm

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getting older. I'm sixty five now, and I said, I'm

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going to get interested in longevity medicine. And so I

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paid for a course and I took the course. But

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when I first started the course, I said, wait a minute.

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One the one who was given the course is somebody

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I had shared the stage with. I knew the person.

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We had talked about the same things. And what I did.

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What I found out is when I was going through

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the course, I'm like, wait a minute, This longevity medicine

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is really what I was talking about twenty years ago.

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They just started calling it longevity medicine is because they're

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talking about stress and even Joe Despenzo, when you talking

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about the system, the sympathetic comparisympathetic nervous system. I'm like,

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that's what I was talking about twenty years ago. I'm like,

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now it's just longevity medicine. It's talking about harmone replacements,

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talking about corts, all in stress. And so I'm going

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to revisit the stress connection twenty years later. You can

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call it longevity medicine, you can call it functional medicine

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or whatever. But this is the basis of health, is

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understanding stress. So that's what I'm going to do. This

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is for the new generation of people who are dealing

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with these issues, with a new generation of doctors who

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you know, they weren't They weren't in medical school twenty

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years ago, all right, and they weren't practice in medicine.

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So I see that I have a new mission. I

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have another I have another mission for the next twenty

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years is I'll just have to teach it all over again.

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But the great thing is as I teach this all

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over again, I'm getting to learn how the new ways

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of measuring stress, the new ways of be connecting with stress.

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So I called my first book The Stress Connection, And

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now I want to talk about stress be connection. But

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we're going to start from the beginning, all right, So

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let's let's go to the slides rebel. All right, all right,

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so here's the book. Your harmlem ham are your hormones

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making you sick? The stress connection, the stress connection. Twenty

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years later, how we knew it was real and while

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we see it more clearly now because this stress connection

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is ageless. That's part of the reason why I called

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it the ageless blueprint, because if you can understand stress,

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and if you can measure it and manage it and

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decrease stress, that's how you become ageless. And this information

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has been around since the beginning of time. You know,

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people knew that if there was stress, it's just you know,

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all about you know, you just talk about the animal kingdom.

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When do they have stress? Well, when a predator comes

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after them. And that's what the system is really made for,

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is those acute stressful events. All right, we're all a

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part of nature, and so that's how stress is supposed

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to respond. You supposed to have these acute episodes of stress.

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You either escape the stress or you get consumed by

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the stress. Okay, so just think of a predator. You know,

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if you are lying and you're chasing after the wilder

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beast or whatever. That wilder beast or that zebra will run.

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And I saw this enlive and in perching in person

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when I went to Kenya and went on a safari.

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Is that these animals they you know, they go after

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their prey and one or two things are going to happen.

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They either have to run, a fight. You're gonna have

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to fight off the press, fight off the aggressor are

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you're going to have to run. Both of those need

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an increased amount of energy, and that's what happens. You

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get this increase in energy, you either run or you fight.

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And here's the deal. This stress will end quickly. Either

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you're going to get eaten and then the stress is over.

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Are you're going to run away? You're going to survive,

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And then you just sit and you rest and you

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relax and you recover, and you just wait till the

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next predator comes. But sometimes that's a day, sometimes it's

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a month, sometimes it's a year, So you have all

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of that time to recover and get ready for the

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next stress. Well, that's not how it happens here in

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the modern world. You don't have acute stresses. You have

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these ongoing stressors. You know, you have financial stress, you

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have family stress, you have job stress, you have environmental stress.

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You have the things that you breathe and the things

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that you eat. Those are all causing stressors, you know,

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stress on the body. So that's the stress connection that

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we have to try and disconnect. All right, go to

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the next stread all right, twenty years later. So here's

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what happens. Twenty years ago, we wrote a book about stress,

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not realizing we were documenting the foundation of what would

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become a revolutionary approach to health and aging. This book

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explored the profound impact of chronic stress on the body

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and mind. All right, and so the first chapter we

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began as clinical observations about stress, became the cornerstone of

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the Age's blueprint, a comprehensive framework for understanding how mastering

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our internal environment creates transformation every level of health and vitality.

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Is that when you can manage and measure your stress,

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everything gets better. Okay, your mental outlook on life, physic

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your physical appearance. I mean, we can see clearly when

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somebody has been stressed. We can see if somebody has

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had a lifetime of stress. You can see it on

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their face, you can see it in their eyes, you

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can see it in the way they walk. So when

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you conquer this stress, when you understand it, and the

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first thing is understanding it and what it does to you,

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then you can make those necessary changes. So we've had

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about two decades of research and primarily clinical practice just

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seeing it live and in person. Walk into my office

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every day, and I'm going to show you some of

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the test results of people that I just went to

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my latest test results and I'll show you this, and

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I just picked up let me look at the last

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ten saliva tests we've done for cortisol, and I'm going

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to show them to you, Like nine out of ten

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of them were abnormal, and the only one that was

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close to being normal is one that we had already treated.

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It was bad before and we've treated and it's slowly

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but surely gotten better. So two decades of research, clinical

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practice and patient outcomes have validated that what we in

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what we intuitively thought then that stress is not just

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a symptom to manage, but the master key to unlocking

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lasting health and transformation. And I'll tell you that's what

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you'll see on the Gaya channel. All of these people

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who are kind of the front runners in this longevity medicine.

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They're talking about stress and inflammation and that's what ages people,

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all right. And inflammation is caused by stress because stress

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suppresses the immune system and that allows more inflammation. So

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it all comes back to stress, and you can really

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look at stress as an imbalance, a disharmony. That's what

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stress is is when the system, any system, is out

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of balance. The body sees it as a stress, and

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so it's going to try to increase energy to help

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you with that stress, all right. But the problem is

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is that sometimes you don't need extra energy, but glucose

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is still being provided, and that is where we have

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a dysregulation. The body is gearing up to run and fight,

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but you're not running and you're not fighting. So now

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that disrupts the system, and now this energy has to

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go other places, all right. All right, So then and

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now two decades are proof, perspective, and purpose. So we

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started with the stress connection and then we evolved into

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this ageless blueprint. So today me and my wife we

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continue the mission with deeper understanding and more sophisticated tools

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for transformation. And that's what we talk about in my

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Ageless Blueprint School. I'm coming out with a with a

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whole lesson on how you can better measure things. We

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call it biohacking. But I had some primitive ways to

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measure it. I won't say it's primitive, but some old

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ways to measure it. Now it's become more digital, is

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become more personal. You can self monitor yourself at home.

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We used to have to do these tests in the office.

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Now you can do it in your home. You can

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have this constant monitoring people, these Apple watches and Android devices,

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and then there's all types of different gadgets that can

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measure very significant information that it can yield from your

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body and tell you exactly how you're doing. And we'll

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talk about a few of these, but I would encourage

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you join my school group. I have all kinds of

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information there that I want to share with you. And

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the reason why I do this podcast is to try

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and get you into a deeper learning atmosphere where we

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can communicate more often. I can really we can dive

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deep into different subjects. I have workbooks there with videos there.

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We have questions and answer, have a live live question

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and answer every Tuesday night. And I would love for

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you to join us there. So that's what we've evolved into.

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Where I was just office based, and now I can

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really expand my reach to more and more people thanks

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to podcasts and social media and Instagram. All of these

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things I am having to learn twenty years later. The

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message is the same. It has more sophisticated devices, but

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the message is the same. But the great thing is

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I'm learning how to how to expose more people to

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that message, trying my best, trying my best to learn

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social media. And I will tell you I am finding

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out that is almost as tough as going through medical school.

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It's just a whole new system of communication. I used

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to have to fly around to different places and get

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invited to conferences and and you know, talk about honorariums

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and all this stuff. But now I can do this,

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and I can do it more freely. All right. So

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those are my links down there. Please copy my links.

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I really want to go deeper with you guys. All right,

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So why we wrote the book. So I'm originally trained

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as an obgyn and my wife is originally trained as

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a family practice doc in psychiatry. All right, So between

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the two of us, we've had exposure to stress in

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different ways, and I'm going to talk to talk to

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you about that. But patients presenting with harmone and balance,

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unexplained fatigue, fertility challenges, and menstal irregular irregularities all pointing

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to a common underlying cause. So let me tell you

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how I even got into harmones. Primarily, it's because my

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wife started having issues that as an obju I knew

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were harmonially based. But I was trying to correct it

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by using the things that I learned in medical school,

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which was, if a woman has a hormone issue, you

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give them birth control pills. It doesn't matter what they

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come in complaining of. And just think about it, people

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who are listening. If you have irregular bleeding, PMS, fiber whatever,

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you're going to get birth control pills, okay. And if

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you're older, you're going to get some kind of hormone replacement.

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And now it's popular pellets and all this, and that's

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a whole nother podcast, and people getting testosterone pellets and

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all that. That's a whole different one. We'll talk about

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and we talk about it in my school group, all right. So,

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and then the other thing that obguans do is that

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when you are complaining that none of this is making

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you feel better, and you have PMS. They give everybody

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anti presence. It was anti depressants. Everybody was on prozac,

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all right. And so what happened is this was not

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working for my wife and she wasn't taking antidepressants, but

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she was miserable two weeks before a period, and it

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was making me miserable two weeks before a period. Because

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I got the blame for the reason why she was

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feeling bad, feeling terribly. It had to be my fault

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because I was the closest one to her.

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Well.

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I had a patient come in and ask me if

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I knew anything about biodentical hormones, and believe it or not,

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I had no idea what she was talking about, all right,

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So that patient gave me an audio tape, a set tape,

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that's how long ago that was, and it talked about

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progesterone and saliva testing, and it's like a light bulb

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went on on the top of my head, and since

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then my life has never been been the same. I

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started using saliva testing and understanding progesterone, and it changed

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the course of my career, and it's changed the course

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of my life, and it's led me to this point

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right here. That was the beginning. So then what happened

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is my wife. After my wife was better, she began

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to notice that in her psychiatry practice that most of

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her patients were women between age forty and sixty, and

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they were all getting diagnosed being bipolar. Well, they want bipolar.

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They were going through perimental pause and those change in

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hormones was changing how they felt about themselves, and they

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were getting depressed, they were anxious, and all of these things.

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And now she realized that hey, they went bipolar, they

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were going through a harmonal change. And also usually between

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forty and sixty is when those stressors start to accumulate. Now,

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you may have gone through a divorce, you may have

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had a sick child, you may be worried about sending

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your kids to college, you may be taking care of

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aging and dying parents. So all of those stressors are

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not short term like a lion chasing after you. These

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are these long term stressors that cause significant problems. So

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the marriage between me being an obijuan and I'm gonna

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show you how I used to measure stress as an

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obijuy n. And then she heard and listened to these

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women primarily talking about the stress they were going going

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through and how their emotions were all over the place.

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That both of these, you know, inputs that we had

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from our patients led us to trying to understand stress.

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So every symptom had the same route stress, disconnection, and imbalance.

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The body was speaking a language we needed to learn

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to interpret. This convergence of evidence from different medical specialties

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revealed a fundamental truth. Stress wasn't just contributing to disease.

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It was the central organizing principle behind most of what

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brought patients through our doors. And that's just true. It

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was true back then, it's been true since you know,

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humans have been on this earth. They were stress, trying

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to find food, trying to build a civilization. It's always

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been a stress to navigate this human life, all right,

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So this is really the statistic that started at all.

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I was actually at another conference talking to talking about

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hormone replacement, because the first book we wrote was all

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your hormones making you sick, And then we realized that

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even if we corrected hormones and it worked for eighty

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to seventy five to eighty percent of the people, is

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that some of those women still had some other issues,

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either fatigue or difficulty sleeping or whatever. So I actually

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read this study, and it was a study in two

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thousand and two, and this is what it says. And

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I can show you the updated stuff. I don't think

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I have it, but anyway, in two thousand and two,

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they said forty three percent of all adults suffered stress

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related adverse health effects, So almost half of the population

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back then, and now the recent statistics is over sixty

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five percent. All right, But then it says seventy five

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to ninety percent of all visits to primary care physicians

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are for stress related complaints or disorders. So just think

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about that seventy five to ninety percent, and now it

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is almost ninety five percent. You just think about the

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difference in stress from two thousand and two to twenty

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twenty five. That is, it's much more than seventy five

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to ninety percent. Is probably ninety to ninety eight percent

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of the people walking through your doors have a stress

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related complaint or disorder. And I'm going to show you

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some quartos of stress testing that'll prove this fact. But anyway,

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so this is what I decided. I was like, look,

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if I become a stress expert, I'm going to be

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able to help almost ninety percent of my patients. So

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if I go in with the assumption that is stressed,

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I'm going to be right ninety percent of the time.

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I'm like, who wouldn't take that bet? Who wouldn't take

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that bet? So why isn't every doctor a stress expert?

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You know, forget being a cancer expert, forget being an

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intercronology expert. I don't care what subspecialty you're in. You

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need to be a stress expert. Okay, So look, oncologists

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one hundred percent of their patients have cancer, but if

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seventy five to ninety percent of it is related to stress,

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the oncologist needs to be a stress expert. The family

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practice doc needs to be a stress expert. So I

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decided twenty years I'm twenty years ago, I'm going to

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be a stress expert, and I believe that's what I am.

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But I'm constantly learning. So that's why I harp on

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this subject over and over and over and over again.

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And that's what I found out. This is what the

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longevity experts were teaching, That's what Joe Despenser is teaching.

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All of this. This starts from right here. Okay. So

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stress has been linked to all the leading causes of death,

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cardiovascular disease, cancer, long ailments, accidents, curosis, and suicide. And

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estimated one million workers are absent each day with stress

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related complaints. So it's it's decreasing our productivity. And now

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we got this government shut down and all these people

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are getting laid off and you know, nobody's getting paid.

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The soldiers aren't getting paid, so they're stress all the time.

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So stress is responsible for more than twenty five billion

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work days lost annually because of absenteeism. This is in

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two thousand and two. The updated statistics show all of

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this going up by twenty or thirty percent. So this

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is why I said, I'm almost every lecture I'm going

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to go back to stress and how important it is

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for us to recognize it, to be able to manage it,

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to be able to disconnect from this constant bombardment of stress,

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and how it affects every organ system in our body.

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That's what we wrote about in the Stress Connection, and

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we show how it affects every organ system in your body,

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from your brain to your toes. It affects everything, So

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rebel am I making myself clear enough here.

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I don't know, Doc, you're stressing me out.

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I know it is, but that is the issue, all right.

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So let me tell you how how this came apart.

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So you know how how it came to fruition to me.

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So I started understanding stress. I started reading about stress,

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you know, twenty years ago or so. And then I'm like,

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wait a minute, I know I've already done this. If

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anybody has had a baby, they know about this fetal

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heart rate tracing trip. Okay. I used to look at

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this at nauseum when I was on labor and delivery,

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and this told me if the baby was stressed or not. Okay,

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So I'm looking at stress in utero and that's how

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we made decisions on who needed a sea section and

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who didn't based on how stressful was the environment that

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the baby was in during labor. So let me show

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you this. So what is looking at is called heart

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rate variability, all right, So what we will look this

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was a fetal heart rate variability, dude. So here's what

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happens when you are under stress. Remember when the lion

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is chasing you. This is a contraction, right, This right

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here is contraction. So this is the pressure that the

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uterus is putting on the baby, trying to squeeze the

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baby out. This contraction. So when you're under stress and

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something's chasing you, what happens your heart rate goes up.

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The Stress Connection — 20 Years Later

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