3 Secrets to Trauma Healing for Sustained Happiness & Longevity

Introduction to Longevity and the Interview 0:00

In other words, we're going to have these chronic ailments that we're seeing so much in the over in the West, and we're going to have these brilliant solutions. But the the solutions are different than the cause. Right. I'm not sick because I'm on the lacking stem cell therapy treatment. Right. Yeah. I'm six because of certain things. Right. That I'm doing that I'm thinking that I'm believing right that that that my environment is not providing. And so when I realized the core of what's really happening, then I can correct that.

And I can use stem cell therapy or whatever the heck it might be down the pike. So it's like when you get this in alignment, your life can be better. You don't fall into chronic ailments as much, and we still can. Hopefully benefit from these really cool technologies and ideas that are coming down the pike. Welcome to Doctor Talks, the podcast where every episode leads to a healthier you. Join us as we navigate the world of optimal health, uncovering groundbreaking strategies to conquer chronic disease.

In each episode, we'll bring you the latest insights from leading health experts, medical innovators, and wellness warriors. If you are seeking to transform your health journey, or if you're looking for answers to burning questions, you've come to the right place. Get ready to unlock the secrets of lifelong health and vitality. This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Welcome to the Longevity Leaders podcast. I'm Doctor Isaac Jones and this episode is part of our exclusive series recorded at the Exponential Longevity Summit, a global gathering of cutting edge health experts exploring the edge of human performance, healthspan, and longevity.

Let's get into it. To this incredible interview. I've got Jason Prall here. He is a world's leading researcher and expert in longevity. We're going to be talking about how to really customize longevity, the conversation of longevity. To you,

Jason Prall's Health Journey and the Human Longevity Project 1:58

we're going to talk about, you know, what are some of the universal truths around longevity? What are, some things that fluctuate and change? And how can we, really apply these, these sort principles and technologies to our own lives to get the best results? And the other thing that we're going to talk about is some core foundational, like definitions and principles that I think are critical to you, you know, really understanding this longevity and quote unquote anti-aging space. You're going to get into that, as well in a second.

But, Jason, why don't you just share a little bit about yourself? You've got an incredible documentary, one of the top longevity, longevity. It's not the top longevity documentaries out there. And and just. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about about how you got to where you're at. Yeah, like like like many of us, you know, my story started off with kind of this pained purpose, you know, scenario. And I suffered from a lot of health, challenges. Right. When I was younger, my. I had chronic knee pain that started at 13.

That lasted, you know, 25 years or so. You know, when the traditional roots went all kinds of all turned around and couldn't really figure out what was at the origin of that. And then I had a skin condition in college that and and these two things weren't I mean, in a way, they were major, but but they weren't, debilitating in a huge sense. But they led me down a path of discovering that the Western medical system is not equipped, to deal with chronic ailments. They don't know how to think about them.

There's just no training involved. Right. So, that in this is, you know, when I was in college, it was the early 2000, right? So the internet was fairly nascent, right? It was like web crawler and Yahoo and there wasn't, you know, social media, which is where we disseminate a lot of our information, good or bad. There was chat rooms, right? Like I was in these deep chat rooms learning from random people around the world about their health. Thoughts. Right. Yeah. And that was I discovered more there and it it they there was more questions posed to me that made me think.

Right. And I had to figure out what was true and what wasn't. Some of it was through self-experimentation. Some of it was through just my own discernment and an ability to, you know, sort of navigate those waters with, you know, logic. Right? But that propelled me into a world of what we call natural health, alternative health and, understanding, really what was kind of going on. Right. And it also led me to the corruption and the deep, evil really. That's runs through a lot of these systems, right?

The people that are in them, are good people. Most of that, most of them. Right. Overwhelming majority. Right. But the systems themselves are so corrupt. They're so, Yeah, they can they, in my opinion, at that, especially at that time, it couldn't be saved, right? In other words, what I saw at that point was, was such deep corruption spread throughout so many different organizations related to food related environment related to medicine, insurance, money. Right. That that the way out. I thought at that time and I kind of still believe this, which is we must extract people from those systems.

We must show them away and, and empower them in order to take care of themselves, in order to find new systems to build. Right. This is kind of the old Buckminster Fuller strategy, right? Yeah. The thing is so corrupt, it's so damaged that we must create new ways. And so that was kind of that propelled me from a career in engineering, into, you know, functional, integrative health. And I don't say medicine, Rex. I never practiced medicine. It was really about, how do I help people get healthy. Right? And so I kind of did that my own way.

But but through functional medicine, through integrative training, through, you know, functional neurology, through Ayurveda, through naturopathy, right through and in some chiropractic, just in terms of the like the, the, the ideology and how to think about the body, this is this all strained my perspective when I was working with clients. Right. So I worked with a lot of people that had cancers and autoimmune conditions and, you know, a wide variety of health concerns, some of them that had, you know, unknown syndromes where they didn't have names and some of them had multiple names but didn't seem to be a correct diagnosis.

Right. So that was really what propelled me into the health world. And in that is where I that's where I cut my teeth. Right? I understood what was working, what wasn't working. Right. Because it's interesting, you know, when we read a lot on the internet and we listen to a lot and we we start to feel like we have a grasp on something, it's an especially with something that works for us. It's really only till you start applying that knowledge or wisdom to other people that you really understand the complexities of what's going on with most people's health.

And I wasn't, you know, there were certain things I was pretty good at, at working out. And there's other things that I had. I was totally ill equipped for. I did not, did not know how to understand or or diagnose, and I didn't diagnose, but but really, describe or or, handle like things like trauma. Right. Deep seated traumas. Right. I didn't at that time that led me into the world of trauma. So I started to uncover so many more layers to this puzzle. Right. And so that was kind of the origins.

And and through those discoveries, I realized that I was teaching people so much of the same stuff that I wanted to instead of working one on one with people, reach a wider audience. So that's kind of why I created the Human Longevity Project to dispel some of these ideas. And to, give people a framework, through which to operate.

Trauma, Nervous System Safety, and Connection 7:31

That's incredible. Well, I mean, what you just talked about is so powerful, and the fact that emotional trauma is also a big deal when it comes to longevity in our health. I remember, you know, I was that sensei, which is this, you know, this this resort in Hawaii. Lani is the island. It's on. And I was getting a treatment, called lotsa, which is like shiatsu, like a flowing kind of massage, but in the water. And, you know, I had broken out in tears in this treatment, and I didn't realize, like, what happened until after where I was, like, in this relaxed, kind of altered state over time.

Like, there's palm trees overtop me. The sun is kind of beating down through the leaves I've got. And then this warm water, I'm doing this treatment and like, these traumas came back. Yeah. And that I didn't even remember if that were serious. And, and I just, I like I, I almost released it in the context of this. What's the treatment. Which is very interesting. But then I, I went back home and started to do deep inner healing and work on this, and that was the start of it. So I and a lot of people, I think we, we don't even realize how much like that trauma can impact our, our health and our lives.

So I would I would love to get into, you know, the human longevity Project. Like what? What are some of the key elements of that? And then like we I think we should talk a little bit about trauma healing as well. And just like what that can look like. As well. Yeah. Yeah, I'll start there because, you know, what you brought up is very interesting, right? Many of us don't think we have traumas or don't think our traumas are that bad or, you know, I had a good childhood and had great parents and all these things.

Yeah. And while that can be a true statement and the whole, reality of coming into this world is this traumatic experience, and I don't just in the birth process, but that in and of itself is a traumatic experience. The reason that we all have trauma is because of the stages of development when we are young, when we were in our youth, when we are babies, when we were so tiny, we don't have the capacity to understand what's happening. We're just going by our feelings. And so, so often if we don't get breastfed, if we get, you know, just neglected in a in a way that wouldn't even seem like neglect other than to an infant, then we are going to react, right?

And we react in the body. Right? So the body is constantly picking up the signals and each individual is different. There are people that are more sensitive to some of these things. So, all of us experienced trauma, right? And then of course, we have our, very well known sort of named traumas, and, and well identifiable, identifiable traumas that, you know, the a study, for example, would, would, would identify and there was ten traumas, I think. Right. Like, parents are arrested, divorce, neglect, abuse.

Right. There's a there's a handful and they only name ten. And they found that all of these traumas had a massive impact on on your health in a very wide variety of ways. So we can name some of these. But then there's there's other things like if you remember back to your school days. Right. Maybe, maybe you got picked on, a little bit or maybe even just, you know, you got called upon. Maybe there's a teacher that was just calling up and you didn't know the answer, and you were there was this fear in the system of of not being accepted by the class, right?

Or that or whatever. So there's all of these things, and then there's this whole other classification that is in this sort of trauma sphere, which is the conditioning aspect. Maybe you had wonderful parents that pushed you. Right. There's certain cultures actually, that are kind of known for this, right? Certain Asian cultures or Indian cultures and others too, that, that really push their, their kids right to excel to succeed. And so even that well, very, can be a very good thing for a lot of a lot of reasons can also be very difficult for a child to handle.

Right. So even these conditionings that we experience that are resulting in very, very positive aspects of our life, for a developing child that doesn't have the awareness, doesn't have the conceptual framework to understand these things at five, at seven, at ten, and 12, the brain isn't even fully developed. Right? So these are all the things that that really create us as adults. And your experience is a perfect example where it wasn't even this deep trauma healing sort of work. And yet when the body is able to find safety and when when it is able to, generally in the presence of another is a good thing, you need another nervous system to kind of hold you a little bit. Yeah.

But when the body can finally find safety in certain circumstances, these things can process and they process through us. Right. So we're just we're holding on. We're gripping on to these things, these experiences. Because the at the time that they were formed, we didn't have the consciousness, we didn't have the awareness, we didn't have the capacity to process those fully. Right. And so we deal with them as best we can as children. But we, we, we can't fully. Right, unless we have another nervous system.

This is the primary role of parents or guardians in that sort of scenario is to be able to help the child process, right? So when a child is is crying, an infant, right. They want to they they want to breastfeed. Well, that it's not just because they're hungry, right. Sometimes yes. But sometimes it's literally just to borrow a nervous system to be able to process these things that are coming up in their system. And 100% of us have have gone through life and had experiences that we have yet to be able to process.

And so this sort of trauma work, this ability to process all the backlog of stuff and the conditioning is a part of the nervous system being able to find parasympathetic rest. And so we all have a degree of parasympathetic, capacity that you could say we're all a different level. So even when I feel like I'm totally relaxed and restful and on a beach and just so happy and finance are taken care of, jobs taken, care of, family is taken care of. Everything's good. My my nervous system can only relax to it's sort of baseline set point.

But as I do some of this work, as I started to clear some of this stuff and process some of it, now I find a deeper level of rest, right? So this is critical when it comes to our lifelong health. That is so good because literally, I'd say two months later, like I had went in a I talked to like this, this counselor about like the stuff that came up for me and it just like released so much into like, yeah, it was wild and but the crazy thing that you just mentioned, which was so interesting, is that I started feeling like every day was the best day, and I was like, whoa, I just feel like this is the best day of my life.

Like, I don't know how it could get any better. And and, you know, like, before, like a month before, I'd be like, oh, I need to, you know, push harder, I need to. And there was this, like, release this, like, contentment and joy and love and happiness and like, things were happening more effortlessly. I, I truly hear you on the like, set point of your nervous system and how you can, like, bring it to a new level. Can you share some breakthrough strategies? Like what? What? Like I'm sure like, you know, even even I would say the set point for the parasympathetic is and your nervous system is a set point.

There's also a set point, probably in your longevity as it relates to trauma. So like if you don't address the trauma then you can't live past a certain date and time. Do you know what I'm saying? 100%. Yeah. And then of course, we'll never scientifically prove that that sort of thought. But I guarantee that what you're saying is true. It's it's because every aspect of healing, of regeneration, right? Stem cell production, all the things that we think about, we can we can go down these rabbit holes in the longevity world.

That's all regulated primarily by the nervous system. Right? So the nervous system must be in a parasympathetic state. And then not only can you get there, but can you stay there. Right. So you're and what you were saying is perfect, right. Like and this is what you see with the yogis, with the saints, with the, the great spiritual masters, they have done enough work, spiritual, religious work to be able to rest and relax no matter what storm is around them. So they're literally just resting in the eye of the storm.

And so can we stay there, right? So can we get into a deeper aspect of rest and then can we stay there as we walk through life? Right. This is the art of living. And so, when we do that, then we can heal better. We don't, create as much imbalance in the body. Right. And all the, all of this, by the way, is directly related to your biology, right? It is it is 100% affecting. And I am a good example of this is if, if, if you, have ever spoken on a stage or if you've ever thought about speaking on a stage or giving a presentation in a classroom, right?

Generally, most of us even experienced speakers will get up on a stage and there's some nerves that kick in. Body temperature rises, heart rate increases. You might start sweating a little bit more. You're thinking might get a little foggy. You might get tunnel vision, you might blank out. Right. This is a physiological, biological response to an idea, to a conditioned idea that when you get up on stage, if you make a mistake, if you aren't as smart as, you want to appear, if you have something on your face, whatever the case is, that you're not going to be accepted by the group.

There is there's a lack of safety in that. Right? So we are perceiving a threat based on on our conditioning. Right. There's a survival mechanism that starts to kick in. Right. So this and maybe this is a good sort of, I can tie in here to some of these universal truths, because one of the aspect here that the way I like to look at these universal truths, because there's, there's essentially in order to maintain health, in order to hopefully live a long time, God willing, there are universal truths to, this human meets act, to our biology, to who we are and and it starts I like to look at this in the frame of of development.

Right. And we can use the psychological framework here. Right. The first stage of development, when we're infants, what we need are primary need. We need many things. But the primary need is safety right. So when we can feel safe to this is absolutely critical in the trauma piece as well. So whenever we're working with trauma, whenever we're, trying to process something, we need safety. It is primary. If you don't have safety you there's you cannot process certain things. You cannot process most things.

And of course there's a level. It's not like no safety and safety. There's there's a sort of range. Right. So however safe you feel that gives you the space, the room to be able to process. So that is primary and it is primary for our health and longevity. We need safety. That safety is setting, the bar for our nervous system when we don't feel safe. Right now, I've, I've had many instances I can think of in my life as an adult where my finances were a little sketchy, where I was in certain situations, and it was like, or I was late for, delivering a project.

Whatever the case might be, my nervous system starts to perceive that that the world is not safe. And so it gets jacked up a little bit, right? Sleep might get disturbed. Digestion isn't as good. Detoxification isn't as good, brain isn't clearing as fast, where like all these things that we can think about aren't working as well because my baseline safety levels and my perception aren't there. So first we need safety, right? The next stage of development, the main thing that we need is connection.

We must feel connection. Right. And we can think about this, you know, in a variety of ways. A lot of people like to say community, communities are kind of a loaded word, in my opinion, because you can be in a community, quote unquote, and be totally feel totally disconnected from that community. Right. And we have this now with the online world. You can have online communities. And when you feel a connection to that community, that's the that's the main thing and the safety. So what is community provide? It provides connection and safety.

So what we're really needing for safety then connection. Same thing in the trauma world.

Awareness, Stress, and the Foundations of Healing 19:48

We need to find that safety. And so let's imagine we're working with some kind of practitioner. We need to feel safe in what they're doing and who they are. And then what they're doing to me or for me. And then there needs to be some level of connection to the process to the person. But when you feel that connection and this is an embodied sense that you may or may not even fully cognize, right, because there's there's certain defense mechanisms that can come in deep within us that can prevent this, this sort of connection.

And a good analogy here, or something I can point to is like the standard rom com, right? So the prototypical rom com, where you have the female lead and the male lead, and typically they start to come together and there's a relationship that's happening. And then one of them, usually the female lead starts to have like starts to come on pretty strong. Right. And the male lead usually has this, this mechanism where they start pulling away. Right. So these are sort of attachment styles. And but what's happening is generally again I'm really generalizing based off of the movies here.

But the female lead is is so afraid the male lead is going to sort of disconnect or move away from that relationship that they press even harder. Right? So there's this, there's this reaching out. Right. And then the male lead feels that and goes, oh my God, I did. This is there's a perceived threat in this, in this relationship because relationships have generally been unsafe or have created harm. So he's afraid of getting too close. So he backs away. Well then what is the female lead feels that and goes, oh my God.

And chases harder. Right. And then this is this tug of war of like they're just chasing each other in this whole process. Right. So and this happens in our day to day. Right. This can happen with authority figures. This can happen with children. This can happen with loved ones of all kind. Is that we we have these defense mechanisms. And both of those are defensive strategies in this sort of attachment style. So when we don't feel connection. We can't process as well. Right. And here's the cool thing, right.

Here's the really cool thing. And this is what we noticed in the longevity regions around the world, is that they all had this community that was deeply embedded with connection. So there's so much connection, and there was a stake in the community. You know, you think about 70, 80 years ago in Ikaria, Greece, right, which is an island. They didn't have electricity. Right? So they were they were very much dependent on one another. This person is growing these foods. That person is growing these foods.

Yeah. They're all supporting each other in this process. You know, when the weather isn't as good, the famine hits. When war start, whatever the case, whenever some trouble was on the horizon, they had each other's backs. So that provided that safety. But there was a deep, deeply a sense of connection in all of the communities, right? In Okinawa, in Sardinia, in the Guanacaste regions of, of Costa Rica. And so when you have safety, when you have connection, you can process so, so much more. And this becomes critical for all of our health.

Right. So this these two things in the developmental process in the trauma processing world are really important for our everyday life. We need to feel connected. And the cool thing is is it it doesn't necessarily have to be with another human. There is a value in human to human connection in so many ways. So having great friends that you can really rely on, you know, spouses, the core family unit, all of this is great, but and we can have connection with pets, we can have connection with other animals, we can have connection with God.

We can have connection with nature. We can whatever you can feel connected to. I can sit here by myself, in meditation, in prayer, in ultimate connection. Right. And I can point to like the monks, right? I was in the Himalayas. We were working with the Buddhist and bone healers up in the Himalayas, literally. They're sitting, meditating, doing their work like 15 hours a day. Right? And in essence, they're in isolation. You know, when it comes to human to human contact. And there's a few of them and there's their church together in a sense, but they're not, you know, drinking tea together, talking like there's no interpersonal connections.

That's not the big part of what they do. They are connected to all that is. Right. And so we can do this as individuals. We just need to recognize that we are always connected and tap into that. So so these are the sort of two primary characteristics that we we must have if we want to live a long life, if we want to be healthy, if we want to heal, if we want to process trauma. It's all embedded in these main two things. In this, it is part of connection. Physical touch like is 100%. I mean, there's something special about our bodies, right?

And you have this with hands on healers. You might be a massage therapist, a chiropractor might be cranial sacral worker. There's all kinds, but there's something magical about our touch and specifically our hands. Right. So we can get kind of off into some interesting territory with that discussion. But we all know this. Like, if you just feel right, there's something magical when somebody touches you in a certain way. It makes your whole system just melt. Right? This is why we hug. This is why we hold hands.

This is why we touch this. I mean, think about your kids. Like, can you imagine having a loving relationship and not, like touching them? Yeah. Hammer Patel came and spoke at our last longevity event in Austin, and he was talking about, you know, what he calls Heelys, which are people that, like, put their hands on others. And, you know, he was talking about how there's this group of people that had breast cancer and the results of the pre and post of how these people reverse breast cancer, just from having people essentially meditate, visualize and pray over them with their hands to and obviously touching their breast, but like touching their bodies was just like, it's just so amazing to to hear that, that, that that's, you know, that's possible.

So that's one of the reasons why I wanted to ask. I was just I feel like so connected, you know, to my wife when we were like embracing each other, you know, and it's just like it's just a it's a powerful something in my nervous system is like, it's like you said, it's like safety, you know what I'm saying? It's like a primal, unconscious thing that we probably don't even realize all of the power that it. And that's just it. Right? So we all have that capacity inherently without even thinking. And it can be cultivated. Right.

Like we can actually increase. So even when you hug your wife, let's say the normal way, like the the on your day to day and then you hug her in a different way. You bring awareness to your heart, to your to your seat, to your butt. But you know what? You bring yourself into your body. You feel the love and connection. This is. This is how magical we are, right? We have awareness. We can direct this awareness. We have intention, right? So we can do these things. And and it's it can be cultivated. Right.

So something just like saying like exact same person but all like that. But but the difference is your awareness around the hug that completely changes probably changes everything. Neurochemistry, biochemistry of whatever gets released in your body. Like, wow, that's really powerful. Actually hundred percent. Yeah. And and again, the fact that we can cultivate this is it's like, a it's like piano players, right? If I said, if I sat 100 piano players down who never touched a piano, 100 hundred people and they all they all learned at the same time went through six months of training with the same teacher.

There was to be certain individuals that excel that naturally are better from the start. So yes, we have these certain people, this is have a bit more of this gift and we can all cultivate this gift. We can all practice this and this is probably the art of longevity. I think that we can all do more of. I was just about to say, I'm like, we we could talk about all the supplements, all the exercise, biohacking technologies that are out there, all of this and that and this. Like this is what you just shared, as simple as it is, is the most profound.

This is principle based longevity, right? Safety. And then not just community but connection. And then being in this state of awareness around your connection that creates a new like level of of of of health and vitality for you. This, this here. Honestly the key is awareness, right? So this is yeah, we can we can all practice. So if I'm sitting here and I'm and I'm, I'm in my head, I'm in my work, I'm not really paying attention to what's happening in the body, then things are going to be operating in the background.

The body has unbelievable intelligence, wisdom, and if I use my awareness, I can actually start to track, actually feeling a little bit stressed right now. Right. And I can use my awareness to calm that down. Right. So when we start using our awareness, on a minute by minute basis, on a constant basis, we can really start to track. Am I hungry? Right? What do I need? Right? What's lacking right now when we're going through Covid? You know, there was an interesting period where we were all kind of locked inside our houses, some states more than others.

Longevity Lessons from Blue Zones and Slowing Down 28:38

And, you know, I remember thinking at first like, oh, kind of a vacation, right? This will be fun. We can all connect. And then it got to this point of like, oh my God, like, this is horrendous. And I started eating certain foods that I normally don't eat as often and I would I, I started putting on a little weight and I sat with it. I'm like, what's going on here? And what I realized was that I was missing that connection piece. I was missing the ability to interact. I love being in, in, in physical connection with others.

So I like to be around them. Right. And the sort of zoom world that we were living in at the time just wasn't doing it for me. And what I realized with awareness, with with not even a deep meditation, I just kind of sat and said, what, what, what am I feeling? What's happening here and what I realized that's what I was missing. So I was I was looking for the connection in food. Right? Which is not a normal pattern for me. Right? It can be. No, it can be very common for some people. So it's not a normal pattern.

And I realized like, oh my gosh, this, this is what it is. And so once I realized with awareness what was actually happening, then I can come up with the right solution. Right? So so this can be a big tool. And practicing with awareness is it's cultivated. Right. You may not understand what you're doing at first, but you can literally just start tracking, even when you feel hungry using your awareness. What am I, am I hungry, am I thirsty? What am I hungry for? Right? How much of what I'm. How much do I need to feel to to alleviate this hunger?

Right. These type of things, it's so foundational. And so if and and it's not that you must do this stuff right. It's just if you do these things, your life will improve, your health will improve your relationships will improve, your money will improve, your business will improve because you start to really feel into what is where you're being called, what you're being drawn to, and you know, you mentioned the supplements and the there's amazing things coming down the pike with regard to regenerative medicine.

Right? We have a really cool future with longevity. Yeah. And my whole thing with human Longevity Project was like, okay, yes, all that's great, but let's get the foundations in place first, because if we are disregarding that, if we're unaware of it, then we're just going to start chasing these rabbit holes and we're we're going to go round in circles. In other words, we're going to have these chronic ailments that we're seeing so much in the over in the West. And we're going to have these brilliant solutions.

But the, the solutions are different than the cause, right? I'm not sick because I'm, I'm lacking stem cell therapy treatment. Right. Yeah. I'm six because of certain things. Right. That I'm doing that I'm thinking that I'm believing right that that that my environment is not providing. And so when I realized the, the core of what's really happening, then I can correct that, and I can use stem cell therapy or whatever the heck it might be down the pike. So it's like when you get this in alignment, your life can be better.

You don't fall into chronic ailments as much, and we still can hopefully benefit from these really cool technologies and ideas that are coming down the pike. Oh my gosh, that's incredible. So I would love for you just to share a little bit more about what I mean. This is the core of trauma healing. I as a suspect, but also like you, you know, we'll we'll integrate this into trauma healing. But like what what what did you uncover in the Human Longevity Project that, you know, is, you know, is is is is very interesting.

When you started going around the world learning from all these people that are centurions, centenarians, excuse me. And, you know, that that are, that have lived these long, healthy lives. And it's a culture of it's like their grandkids will live long, healthy lives, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, there were some interesting things, right? Most of what? Most of the stuff I kind of already had a framework for when we were going in. Right. So I was leading sort of the, the production. So I kind of knew what we were going to produce and I knew how they lived.

So I knew a handful of things. I I'd say most of the things that they were doing. I had a good idea of what to expect, but there were a couple of things that caught me off guard. One was in Costa Rica was our first trip, and, we were working. We were down there for ten days. We, I don't I speak a little bit of Spanish, but not great Spanish. And it's not like there's a list of 100 year olds that we can just, you know, look up and, you know, online, you know, database. We had to go down there and just start talking to people.

I'm like, hey, do you know any 100 year olds? Right? And so it was kind of a stressful scenario to be in. Right? We had we were up against the clock. We had all this film gear. We had to find a translator. Right. So it was a whole thing. Right. So theoretically this this should have been a fairly stressful kind of normal work environment. Right. But what I realized when I was down there is because of the environment, the way it's structured and it's not structured in any particularly interesting way.

It's just basic. Right? They're very rural. They're very down to earth, right. They don't have a lot of technology. And and so in that environment and just the way that they behave, my whole system like found a new pace. So this is what I didn't realize it time seemed to expand when I was down there. Right. So we we would get up and we'd have our morning, you know, Costa Rican coffee. Right? And it was just so good. We're sitting there and kind of relaxing them like, oh, man, we probably should start getting to work.

And we would look at the clock and it'd be only like 730, right? And I'm like, oh, we're actually fine. And then we'd walk to the store to get some food or whatever. So it was like the pacing dictated my entire reality. So it's like if, if I'm used to driving 60 miles an hour, right. And then I go down this rural dirt road. Well, if I go 60 miles an hour on this rural road with maybe a couple other cars there too, and they're going 20, that's not a good scenario, right? Like it's actually dangerous to go 60 when everybody else is going 20.

And the roads are only designed for 20, but if I'm used to driving 20 and I now go on to, you know, a four lane highway here in the States and everybody's going 70, well, it's dangerous to go 20. So this is what I realized in this process was that that's where we're at in the Western world, most of the Western world, right. There's still a lot of rural areas and people are going slower. But most of the Western world is going at this breakneck pace, and it's because everybody else is right. Like, and it's it's actually a really a challenge for me knowing this because I've got emails, I've got people calling me, I've got I've got a million things because everybody else is operating at this pace.

Right. So that pace that is surrounding me, right, with my kid and wife and work and the way our whole pace is here in, in the States, that is going to dictate my reality to a large degree. And just being in that, in that environment and going at the pace, and it wasn't even a conscious thing. We just we were operating at the pace that the environment was going at. Right? So that my whole system calmed down. And then we flew back and we landed in Houston Airport. And I immediately felt this like frantic pace.

And that had never really happened to me before. I've been a lot of I've traveled a lot. You know, for whatever reason, there was just something so unique about that. Literally just landing. We hadn't even gone to customs. And excuse me, we haven't gone through customs yet. And I was feeling like I turned on my phone. The ding ding ding ding ding ding, all these things coming through, right? Like so. This was a huge part of this reality that every place we went to, they had this pace and the environment.

Now that pace is changing because of the Westernization of all these places. But but it helped me get a glimpse into the reality that they grew up in. And by the way, this is only a glimpse, because if you're if you know a lot of people. We talked to her 9100 years old. They grew up in a 1930s environment, 1940s environment, right as children. So no electricity, no cars. So, so even what I saw was sped up compared to what they were used to. You go at the you go at the pace of nature, right. Plants grow at the pace of nature. Right.

Everything around you is the seasons, the nature, the days. So you're literally operating at the pace of nature and you can't go fast. You can't really work at night, right? Like you just you operate by what reality's dictating. So that was a huge one. How do you bring that into the Western world? Simply recognizing that. Right. So yeah, something recognizing that is important because then you recognize, okay, I'm actually driving 70 miles an hour here on this road. Now can I slow this down? Do I want to slow this down. That's a different question.

Right? I look at somebody like, I don't Garyvee might be a good example. Right. For me is a fairly well known. The guy goes a million miles an hour, he's doing a million things, and you just won't stop. Now. To me, that's horrendous. I could never live like that. Right. And there certain people, they spin up companies, they start a new venture, spin up another company, and I'm like, oh my God, that's just way too fast for me. I don't I don't want to live their life. Right. But they may. So there's there's a choice point, like when you start to recognize what's actually happening, then you can make the informed choice.

So if you're saying you said that because I follow these people that have built a few billion dollar companies in this part, this podcasting group, I don't know about them, but you know, I've followed them for like three years now.

Practical Trauma Healing Strategies 37:38

So three years ago I'm watching their podcasts on YouTube and they're they're billionaires. They look like, you know, these young guys and, and and then three years later, I saw them, you know, doing an interview with Elon Musk, like a couple weeks ago. And, and and I kid you not, they looked like they aged ten years or 20 years in three. And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, that guy's hair's turned white and he's lost a lot of the hair on the top of his head. That guy's got wrinkles like big huge bags under his eyes.

It's like they live in Silicon Valley, you know? It's it's so yeah, I mean, it is it was very interesting to to just recognize that. And and there's a cost. The, there's the cost if. Yeah if you want to push your it's kind of like that, that that movie clip with Adam Sandler where he just wanted to fast forward his life to the end. But it's like, if you want to live at 70 miles an hour, 100 miles an hour, then your life is going to be shrunk down kind of thing 100%. And and this is the thing, like, if we can recognize these things, we can we can make a choice.

Some of these people, most of us, most of my life, I was just caught up in this, this reality. I didn't I wasn't aware of any of this. Right. I just I was operating. Yeah. You're just operating at the pace at which your environment sort of tells you to operate. Right. And this is the other thing about trauma is that we are conditionally we're conditioned by our environments. We're conditioned by our culture. Right. So this is one of the reasons why culture is actually important, because it conditions us and the ability to disassociate with from culture when it doesn't agree with, with your core values and what you're who you are, right?

So we get conditioned, we get we start operating, we start driving 70 miles an hour, and we don't even know that we're driving a car. Right. So that that's part of it is just recognizing. And then once you figure out who you are, you may be somebody who who thrives, who truly thrives. Some people just think they thrive. But who truly thrives in that environment. And it is what they love. They love going at this breakneck pace. Now, if that's the case, then the sort of, the fulfillment that you gain, the meaning that you have right?

The happiness that comes from it can actually be a benefit. Right? But many of us are not operating in that way consciously. Now, if we if we recognize what we truly desire from our core, then we can make these choices, right? So for me, and I don't even remember when I did this, but I'm off social media, I don't I don't even have I don't have Instagram on my phone. I don't have Facebook. I mean, I do, but I don't use it, right? So I don't use TikTok rings. Other things. Yeah. No, I'm not demeaning those. Right.

Those are fantastic marketing tools. They're great for people to get a message out. They're fantastic in so many ways if use correctly, but for me it's not what I wanted. So at some point in the past, I don't even remember how long ago I just got rid of that stuff because I realized it's actually not doing something for me that that I feel is good. So you can make those. You can simply turn off notifications on your phone. You can organize your email inbox in a certain way. You can organize your calendar in a certain way. Right.

So there's just there's just a more conscious way that you can walk through the world. Granted, I'm still operating in this sort of Western way, but I get to start to analyze and figure out where my values are and what I truly want once I have this recognition. Oh my gosh, this is this is so powerful. I mean, this is like the core, truly the foundation of longevity, living a long, healthy life. What are we've got like a few minutes left here. What what would you say the best trauma healing strategies.

Solutions are technologies. You know, like, obviously I wasn't expecting lot so to do that for my nervous system, but like, what would you say that that they are. Yeah, I would say there's a couple of things that you can do on your own. Right. So, I would say prayer and meditation, those two things. And they're a little different. Right. So, you know, it's funny because I have some friends that are that are religious and they're like, I don't want to meditate. You know, it's not it's not doesn't agree with my religion.

And I have some people who are like, I'm not in the religion. I'm not going to pray. Right? And I'm like, there are two different things, right? So what will you pray to me? May be a personal choice, that's fine. But prayer is something is to something higher, right? So you're you're asking you're connecting with your you're communing with the divine right or and that can be nature if that's your thing. But but connecting and and communing and having a relationship with something bigger than yourself.

And that's how I would sort of define prayer. And so that is really, really powerful because what you're telling your system, what you're telling your body is that I'm not alone, that I have something greater than myself that's actually got my back. Right. So that's really powerful, right? And when you do that again, that promotes safety, that promotes the connection. And when you provide safety in connection, things can process. And the beautiful part about trauma processing is that it most of that is not conscious.

Right. The conscious part I would say is more like the reprograming. And that's a fantastic tool. But but when we want to process things that we're not even aware of, we can't actually take control that we actually have to let we have to rest and let the things just naturally happen. And there's great gifts. Just like your experience. You weren't expecting that. You weren't going in for that. You just happened. And then once it happened, you can actually have realizations about what process or about the things that you were missing because that hadn't been processed. Right.

So that's the gift on the other side of trauma healing. So it doesn't even have to be painful. It can be totally beautiful. And then the other thing I would say, on a solo mission is, is the meditation and meditation. There's a lot of forms, but but at its basic level, it's just quieting the mind, getting out of the monkey mind and resting in the body in the awareness. So you can use awareness in a variety of ways. And again, there's so many different meditation techniques and you can find one that works for you.

I did, I did, the person in meditation, which is, not connected to any deities. It's not connected to anything. It's just scanning the body with your awareness. And it was provided so many benefits. Right. So there's all kinds of different things you can do, but if you do those two on your own and make it a regular practice, because this is a big part of it is, is, is is doing it on a, on a regular basis and being consistent with this. And it doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be every day, but just maintaining some kind of consistency and developing habit out of that.

Those are huge. There's some most of the really deep trauma work will involve another being involved, another human. Right. So one of my favorites is called the adult attachment repair model. This is yeah, it's hard to even explain, but there's really not much that's happening like in, in sort of human to human world. But you connect through a stick oftentimes or some other mechanism, so you don't even have to touch the other person. But there's a connection point that you can feel. And this actually provides a somatic safety mechanism.

And eventually if the practitioner is good, your body will start recognizing deeper and deeper levels of safety and trust and connection. And again, those are the foundation. So if you're developing greater levels of safety, greater levels of connection, and more and more can be processed and usually with, with trauma healing. It's a it's an incremental approach, gradual approach. And there can be some big explosions along the way which are fantastic. But usually it's this kind of peeling back the onion and you continue to go deeper and deeper, and there's no end to this, this game.

We just keep going and going and every time you do, you, you get deeper levels of realization. You get deeper levels of well-being. You get deeper levels of of of body health. Right? So I don't care if you're if you've got liver issues, you know, if you've got blood sugar issues, if you've got autoimmune conditions, skin issue, whatever the case is, when the body is able to find safety in the nervous system, is able to relax into parasympathetic, everything can heal. Right. So and again longevity we're talking about is the ability to regenerate, the ability for the system to find coherence, to find stability, to find balance.

Right. And of course this dynamic this balance is dynamic. Right. But but it's able to sort of come back into neutrality. And so that's, that's really the key. There's also things like I'm totally blanking. Brain tries back and forth, back and forth, rapid eye movement like the, I can't believe that there's a tall brain fart. I know Tunisia is. I don't know, it'll come to me, but another great one is dynamic. No retraining system. And this is more of a conscious process where retraining, the brain and the nervous system so we can have limbic injuries, essentially.

And these are sort of like you say, traumas, but the brain is caught in this, in this fight or flight mechanism or even shut down mechanism where, it's it's it's hypervigilant. It's so used to threat and danger in the environment. And this could be due to mold toxicity. It can be due to financial issues. You can get anything, but the body is is kind of stuck in this threat response. And so we can actually recondition that we can retrain that. So that can be a very effective tool.

Closing Remarks and Where to Learn More 46:38

I mean, there's so many there's so many don't even have names, to be honest. And, and so many that have been developed by individuals and that's their unique modality that's kind of borrowed from a handful of different sort of thoughts and ideas. But really, I think the key with any trauma healing is to find a practitioner that you fully trust. And in a, in a system or a process that you believe in, because belief is a huge, huge part of healing. And if you don't believe in what's happening, you're going to limit yourself as to what's really possible.

Wow. Gosh. Jason, Jason, you're amazing. And, thank you so much for today's knowledge, wisdom and insights. I mean, you've literally traveled the world, met with the oldest people in the world, and and gleaned these these insights that are really, like, very simple, but but profound. And so, you know, we've we've interview I interviewed Ben Greenfield yesterday. So you're going to get like all of the biohacking strategies and technologies. And yeah, when you combine these two things like when you combine those like that's really where the magic is.

It's the universal truths of what makes a human healthy. And then what can I do in this individual body knowing that I'm unique from every other person? How can I try biohacking my own physiology, my own brain, my own ideas, my own consciousness? How can I do that in a way that's going to exhibit the most health out of me? So good. Jason, thank you so much. Where can they learn more about you? Where where can they, they get access to all of your wisdom and knowledge? Yeah. I mean, probably find me on on various forms, social media, YouTube and that kind of thing.

For anything else I've done. You can go to, Awakened Health academy.com. That's where I have a lot of my, the work that I've done and continue to do with regard to films and summits and other interviews and courses and that kind of thing. And you can also find my book on Amazon, called Beyond Longevity. And it kind of gets into some of these things. It's kind of the core of what we talk about is, is what really creates, health, you know, and it's and some of it's foundational, some of it's, pretty, pretty interesting.

So, yeah, that's kind of the best place. Jason Prall everyone, thank you so much, Jason. Appreciate you brother. Absolutely. Going to see Isaac. See you too. Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website w ww di doctor Talksport.com. Stay connected. Stay healthy and join us next time on Doctor Talks.

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