Indigenous Wisdom for Living a Healthy Life in Modern Times

Introduction to Jason and the Human Longevity Project 0:00

Hey, it's Nathan Crane, director of the Health and Healing Club and host of the Conquering Cancers Summit. And today, I am honored and excited to welcome you to a very special interview. Jason is a health educator, a practitioner, an author, a speaker, and a filmmaker. In 2018, his independent research and experience led him to create the Human Longevity Project. It's a nine part film series. I highly suggest you go and watch it. It uncovers the true nature of chronic disease in our modern world.

He's currently finishing his first book titled The Longevity Equation, as well as his next film series that we're going to talk about. He's already done some filming for. It's pretty exciting, which is exploring the ancient methods of healing mind, body and soul from indigenous cultures around the world. His website's human longevity film.com. You can go watch the first episode. They're absolutely free of the Human Longevity, nine part series Human Longevity film.com. Jason, thanks for joining us, brother.

Hey, thanks for having me. I was good to see you. Yeah, you too man. I love the work you do. Love reconnecting. I learn something new from you, every time we connect. Because you learn so much from so many amazing people. So, you know, I'm excited to dig right into this. When you were filming for the Human Longevity film series. Like, what was it that helped you determine where you went, who you were going to interview? Like, what was the criteria you were looking for in people for the series that would, you know, really be a great, I don't know what you say.

A great, for me, right. Case study, whatever it may be for human longevity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a good question because, you know, there's been a lot of work done on human longevity that people have studied. The elderly people in their 90s, in 100 people study in labs. And we've got a lot of different ways to study longevity. For us, I wanted to take a little bit of a different perspective on some of the longevity work that's been done. Right. Because I think there's there's a couple key pieces that I think have been missed along the way that I really wanted to tap into.

And this really came from my experience as a practitioner working with people in the US. And what I was typically seeing that was causing health issues. And and that got me thinking, well, if we're doing things wrong in our lifestyle, in our various habits today, how are they doing it? You know, in in 1920, in 1930, you know, so I need to go speak with these people that are in their 80s, 90s, 100. And to be honest, even 60s and 70s, if I can ask them about their parents, right,

How the Longevity Study Was Designed 2:53

and how their parents were raised and how they were raised. And so that was really the how I approached this. And so, we just needed to find people in their 80s, 90 and 100. And, and what I wanted to do is there's been great work done around the blue zones, right? So if you're familiar with these areas around the world, that have been researched by National Geographic, that have a really high population density of people that make it to 100, like it's actually outside of statistical norms. And so they've been sort of labeled as blue zones because, because of that.

And so I thought, okay, well, if I'm going to go find 80, 90, 100 year olds that are healthy and I can actually have an interview and speak with, you know, have decent memory in these type of things, why don't I go there? And the beauty, the beautiful part about that is that there's areas around the world. So you have it, you take different genetics, you take different lifestyles, you take different diets. You take so everything's sort of different. And that that allows you to sort of pass through some of the commonalities and also cut through some of the nonsense.

When it comes to this, food is longevity food, and that food is not right. So when you start seeing that, then you go, okay, well, maybe it's not about the food, maybe about maybe it's about the context. And so this was really what I wanted to get into. And so, so we went to Sardinia, Italy, Ikaria, Greece, Okinawa, just off the coast of Japan, and, and Nicoya Peninsula and Costa Rica. And so we started there and we, we basically hunted down these 100 year old, which is not easy to do. And you don't speak the language, but, you know, the beautiful part is, as many of them are in small villages and so you can go to these areas and kind of just ask around, hey, do you know any people that are in their 80s, 90s and older?

And so, so there's that small town feel and that's that's really how we approached our work. So what were some of the, you know, commonalities? You started going around and interviewing people 80s, 90s, and hundreds different parts of the world, which I thought was really smart because it's not like, oh, you have to live here in this part of the world to to live long and healthy, or you have to do this one thing. It's like, you know, if you can find commonalities among different groups of people, different nationalities, different cultures, but there are similar commonalities.

It gives you a really great framework for understanding what all of these people have in common. Right. So what were some of those commonalities you initially started seeing, like really quickly? Yeah. So there's I will say that there's there's frameworks and mentalities and general principles that are followed in each of the regions. What people almost always ask about is the diets, right? Like what they eat. And it's funny because they they ate all different things. So before I answer your question, I want to go to the other side and tell you that these people ate bread in some locations, like lots of bread, cheeses, tomatoes, lots of beans, rice, chicken, fish, beef, pork eggs.

Like soy. They ate darn near anything and everything in various regions. So, I just wanted to get that out of the way, because that's really interesting. But again, it's contextual. So I think before I really answer more, that I just want to leave that there for you, that there are really important factors, though, when it comes to these various regions and when we and we literally sat down and interviewed many of these people. Right. So really wanted to get a sense for not what they're doing today necessarily.

That was of course, important. We wanted to dive into that. But more importantly, what was life like back in 1934? Ikaria, Greece, in little villages. What how did you, get around to what was, you know, did you have electricity in 1950? Sardinia, you know, and the answer is no, but a lot of these places. So they. So I want to paint a picture. They didn't. Most of these people grew up without refrigeration. They were not born in a hospital. There was wasn't even vaccines and and things like that.

So that's interesting to just to note, they didn't have again, refrigeration, they didn't have freezers. They, they weren't able to transport foods long distances. They had to walk 30, 40km sometimes to go to the nearest little pantry store, you know. So it was a very different village life. So, so if we can just conceptualize that without electricity you don't have lights. So they didn't have light bulbs, they had little, you know, lanterns. So they lived according to the natural rhythms of, of the, the day and the seasons.

So that's that's important to note. First of all, they lived rhythmically with the day and with the seasons. That means they slept really well. They got up early in the morning with the sun. They worked outside. So they were they're very busy physically. And in fact, that was one of my favorite quotes that I remember hearing, from a gentleman in, believers in, in Ikaria in Greece. He said, you know, when I was young, it's like there's a 98 year old, by the way, who's fully, fully coherent and just hilarious.

So, you know, when I was young, the mind was still and the body was busy. The problem now I see is the mind is busy and the body is still. I thought, wow, that is so brilliant. You know, it's concise as it is, explained so much. So one of the commonalities is that they moved a lot. They didn't work out like we do. They don't even really understand recreation. At least when they were younger, they didn't have time to, to play sports unless they were kids. They didn't go to gym. They didn't run for fun.

Everything was functional. So they were moving functionally all the time. And they did so throughout their life. So this means a lot of walking, you know, some riding bikes, you know, working in, in the gardens, moving things around, in the farms, like, so this is just what they did all the time.

Common Traits of Long-Lived Communities 8:51

So there's a lot of movement. They I mentioned, the rhythmic part of the day, they ate, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner. They didn't eat multiple meals and snack all the time. They ate sufficient amount when they had it, to be honest, some of them, sometimes they actually had had to fast because there wasn't food around, in abundance. But they would eat just enough because you don't want to overeat, because that means you got to then produce more. So if you're eating too much, that means you're just working more.

So there was a real amazing balance between the amount that they ate and the amount that they worked. Let's see what else. They they embraced the simple life. So they and they appreciated the simple life. So, we are so blessed with convenience in the modern world. And that just wasn't their luxury. So they actually really appreciate it. Things. Right? When, when we might turn on the faucet for water. I don't really appreciate that. You know, as much as I would say I'd like to, because I do have awareness that that is a pretty amazing luxury.

Just doesn't cross my mind. But they appreciated everything, so they had a different mentality about their day. They everything was organic when it comes to food, right? They don't even most of these regions didn't have monoculture mono crop farm. So there was no reason to to to add any chemical fertilizers. So the amount of chemicals and metals and, various toxins in the environment were drastically reduced. So, they had a much more biodiverse soil. Their foods, of course, weren't polluted with, with these toxins polluting their, their microbiome directly.

So, so that was there. They had a sense of connection. So this is really important because when I say connection, I don't just mean person to person, human to human. They had a connection to the earth. They had a connection to their food directly. They were growing it. They were producing it. They were harvesting it. They had a connection to the animals. If they use those as food, or if they use those to haul things around, they had connection to to those living creatures, that connection to God or the universe.

You know, and it wasn't always a religious context, actually. An okay, now and they take a different framework sometimes that isn't necessarily religious, but they had a connection to to the greater, greater source. So there was connection to Earth and source and humans and, and, and their food sources. So there's a really, really strong sense of connection. I think right now, one of the biggest challenges we face is a deep sense of, of disconnection, within our own family, within, you know, our social network.

Right. And since we're so online, we just we're not as connected, in, in the real way as, as I think they they were and they seem to be even throughout their lives. And this is a big one, too. As they got older, they were they were still part of the society, you know, as a 70 and 80 and 90 year old. They weren't cast aside, you know, fending for themselves, working with some government system to support them. And they weren't reliant on on themselves to be perfectly physically fit in order to, to, to, to get by.

Although some of them were 97 year old woman. I was talking to, she she was picking she was climbing trees to pick oranges in Okinawa. So I mean, they're very, very capable. But they had a support network as they got older. So I think that's really, really important to be able to be around younger people when they get older. So that was their, they were outside so much, so much more than we are. And that's really, really important for, circadian rhythm function and the light's ability to guide your biological clock.

Right. That's how we operate is through the light. Right? Which is why you get jetlag whenever you move, you know, five, six, time zones, different than yours. And also, the sun itself is able to interact with the skin and eyes and produce hormones and do all kinds of amazing things, not only vitamin D, the thyroid, hormones and cortisol and very, very key aspects to, to our health. So being outside in natural light, just in and of itself is super valuable. Of course, being amongst nature and seeing the trees in Britain, the air and there's something calming about just being in touch with the earth.

Right in, in. Okay. Now they call it Shenron. Yoku. Right. So they have even, names for these things. And of course, in neuroscience, we're studying these things now. But even this background behind me looking at a fake background or picture, a photo of trees or or flowers actually, induces, chemical changes in the brain. So there's really important little things. But when you, when you talk about, you know, making it to 100, you know, I always say, you know, you don't become a centenarian. It takes 100 years to become a centenarian, right?

And that's of course it does. But but that shows you that it's it's literally all the little things along the way that up to healthy life. And one key aspect I just want to touch on here, just because I think it's really, really important is the most important aspect to longevity, in my opinion, is what happens between conception and seven years old, something to that effect. So those are the formative years that our microbiome develops. Our mitochondria, start to, interact with the world. We have, emotional traumas and these family dynamics that take that take shape.

So there was a really, really critical aspect to that. And so there's fundamental differences between how they were raised, how they were burst, you know, the breastfeeding, sometimes they would breastfeed three, four, five, six, seven years. Right. Which is drastically different. And I'm not suggesting that that's plausible or even desirable per se in our, in our modern environment. But these are the differences and, and these differences between their world and our world seem to be pretty consistent throughout all the cultures that we talk to. You, man, I just have to say for a second there, you just like unloaded a manual for a healthy, happy life.

I hope people are taking notes. If not, get the transcript. You know, go back, listen to this again. Because literally, what I find really fascinating about everything you just shared is the first common principle there that that I think we can take away from, you know, all of these people that you interviewed that live long, healthy, happy lives. One is living closer to nature. Yeah, right. As you said, even a fake background, they're bringing more plants into your house. You know, there was a NASA study that was done, you know, cleaning the air in your house, if you can do one plant per 100ft² will help to clean the VOCs and the toxic chemicals that are in your house.

So a plant per 100ft², we have like 20 something. We have more than that. We have like a plant for every two, 50ft². Now, because my wife's on this, you know, kind of, she got really excited about it bringing nature indoors because she grew up in Mexico, off the grid as a child, growing their own food. No, she grew up the same way. And no TV, no electricity, no internet. Just. And she had, like, the most wonderful childhood you could ever imagine, you know, like, go outside and pick mangoes from the fruit tree. And and they didn't know anything else.

They didn't know, you know, television and phones and Facebook. Now my kids are growing up and, you know, they're, you know, learning games on the iPad and and, you know, using the computer at five years old, ten years old. Kids have phones at seven years old. Now, it's one thing I'm not giving my kids yet. I'm going to hold out as long as I possibly can. Is a phone and a social media account. We know that, you know, these kids are more depressed now than ever, and are killing themselves in higher rates than ever.

A lot has to do with this fake status of social media disconnection, right? As you said, like we're lacking connection. They had so much connection back then. Connection to Earth, connection to source, connection to their food, where their food comes from. They grow it, they eat it, they're connected to it. Their hands and feet in the soil, connected to their neighbors and their children. All this connection. And today we have all this fake connection. Yeah, yeah, these Instagrams and TikToks and Facebooks and people are judging, you know, kids are judging other kids.

So they want, you know, makeovers and they want implants. At 12 years old, you know, a girl is is already wanting implants because of the societal norm and the pressure from her peers. You know, it's really sad what's happening. And there are solutions to all of that. Bring more nature inside, spend more time outside of nature. Right. Learn to grow our own food. Yeah. We'll go. Yeah. Sorry. I just want to jump in there because you actually reminded me of a story that when when I was in Costa Rica, I was speaking with, this, tour guide, and he was in his 30s, so he was.

He's relatively young, and but he's that 30 year old, age was actually perfect because when he grew up, was still kind of the last vestige of the old way of doing things. And so he's actually seen the transition and he's become a part of that transition, much like, much like we all have. Right, with technology, which I didn't have a cell phone in high school, and yet it runs my life. Right? So we've we've all kind of done this. Right. So it's it's really not about shaming or even, criticizing our, our modern culture or where we're all at.

It's just it's just important to at least look at these things and realize where we're at. One of the things he was telling me is he, you know, he gets a lot of Americans, Canadians, Europeans come down and and takes them on these various tours. And he he would he noted that he thought was very fascinating was these these kids, these American kids, particularly when they had they couldn't move, said they couldn't move. So they didn't understand. They couldn't get in and out of the truck or in and out of the kayak very well, he said.

It's it was very interesting to him because down there they've got six seven year olds younger than that that are climbing trees, grabbing coconuts and whatever it might be up there and just playing their ability to sort of primal move right, to move their body in ways that we've lost in the Western world, really shocked him. So that was just a really easy contrast for him to see. Simply just the way a child moves. And so, again, these are things that we don't typically look to when it comes to cancer, longevity, Alzheimer's, dementia, whatever these things are we're talking about is sort of these, these progressive, disease states.

But the way that the body is structured, the way it moves, the way it sits, balances, etc. is fundamental to the nervous system. Right? This is kind of the essence of chiropractic care, and other modalities that are more physically based.

Nature, Movement, and Modern Disconnection 19:48

They're they're tremendous. When you can adjust the body, the fascia, and the physical structure and get it into balance, the nervous system calms down. So everybody's talking about adrenal exhaustion, adrenal fatigue, blah, blah, blah, all these adrenal things. And yes, that's true. We do have this over, over stressed kind of environments that we're all in overstimulated environments. But again, this argues for going back outside. Going back outside reduces stimulation. We are all overstimulated.

I am overstimulated nonstop. All right. But going back outside helps reset that. Getting my feet on the ground helps reset that in me. Learning to move my body in a more primal way. Even in as an adult, there's plenty of primal movement type of programs out there osteopaths use. These are really big fans of these getting the body to be able to move correctly, right. Yoga, qigong I Nathan, I know you're a big fan of qigong. Qigong is a movement practice, on the subtle level and on the gross level.

But these are the types of things that we can start to bring back in to counteract our modern environment. Right. So this is this is how I wanted to go about our film series was it's one thing to look at the commonalities of all these people and understand their world, but I will never go back and society won't go back to living like they did in 1942. Costa Rica and a small village. We're just not going to do it. It's not. It's not possible. Right. And nor would we necessarily want to. So the question I had was not what?

How did they live then? Or even how do they live today? How can I take that information and bring it into the modern world and adapt my modern world and adapt my habits in order to replicate or bring in as much of that, that wisdom as I can. So that to me is the most important thing is find out the nugget and then what do I gotta do to bring that into this crazy, weird, modern world that I live in without chucking the whole modern world aside, saying, this thing sucks, right? So there's a lot of things that we can do.

And this is where breathwork, none of the people in in Okinawa, in any career, none of them, they didn't do any breathwork. This wasn't a thing. They didn't do any pranayama. They didn't do this wasn't a thing that they did. And yet we know breath works helpful. They didn't meditate, they didn't do yoga, they didn't exercise. So it's not to say that these because they didn't do these things, we shouldn't do them. No. In fact it actually argues more for that. So how can I use breathwork to offset this chaotic world?

How can I use certain lighting technologies to help change the way I like my house? How can I use maybe glasses? These blue blocker glasses, right? So there's a modern methods and ways and techniques that we can use. And so so I think it's just it's really important to say, and I'm glad you reminded me of that story, because I had such fond memories talking to, Javier about these things that he was noticing, what was so different from their culture and ours because, again, he was younger. And so he had a very, very keen eye to this, this world.

Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. You know, it's it's really interesting because, living in this modern world, utilizing all of this great technology, we have to do programs like this, get them out to the world to help hundreds of thousands of people learn more about health and healing and longevity and reversing preventing cancer, so on and so forth, like the technology allows us, you know, having a vehicle drive to a gym that's ten miles away and exercise and, you know, stay fit and healthy and being able to go, you know, be in, in a city and have our children go to school to be able to drive outside to community farm, like all these different things we can do while interacting as part of this experiment we live in is the modern society.

It's like we have to do everything we can to shield ourselves from the dangers of this as well. So there's this huge side of pros and positivity of all of it. And then there's this huge side of things that are literally killing us every second. Emfs and pollution in the water and air and chemicals in our food, and the high stress and exposure to too much lights and not enough, you know, balancing our circadian rhythm and so on and so forth. So it's like you have to do everything you possibly can, not out of fear, but out of, you know, proactivity, out of not of reactivity, but out of choosing to want to live a healthier, longer life.

And if we do that, yes, I agree, we can live in modern society, while still being healthy and living a fulfilled life, especially if we have good connections and relationships and doing meaningful work in the world. My dream actually, is to what you said. You know, we'll never go back to 1949. Costa Rica, I don't know, 1949 Costa Rica was like, but I can imagine, you know, it was probably very, you know, off the grid and, people living more in harmony with the land and growing their own food and building their houses by hand, that's actually my dream.

I'm kind of. I'm kind of with you. So there's there's so, so hard about my goal is to actually live that way and then inspire others who want to live that way as well. Well, the whole world live that way. Probably not. But I think we can find, a way for people who do want to live that way. And actually, we're going to go visit an intentional community. And as you know, I did a whole documentary series on sustainability called The Search for sustainability, where I toured the country visiting, you know, eco villages, intentional communities and so forth.

And we're going to go visit one in April. But just to learn and be a part of it. But I think we can find a way of like, okay, if people want to live that way very totally in harmony with nature, how do we do that if we want to live kind of in the middle, like very close to nature, but still a part of society, how do we do that? And we still want, you know, people want to be a part of modern society and all the technology and the gadgets and so forth, but still live long, healthy lives. How do we do that?

And I love that you're, you know, really addressing all of that because how these people live, we can learn from their lifestyle choices and implement them today in all three of these categories. Right, absolutely. And I think, you know, you kind of touched on something that I think is so critical, which is that. There are countless stories out there. I know, I know them personally, and you hear them all the time that especially from people that are over the age of 100, when you really break it down, it I think the most important aspect to maintain or to develop or to foster throughout your life is an amazing mental, emotional and belief system.

So if your mental if you're if you maintain a positive mindset, a healthy emotional balance, which doesn't mean you don't feel the sads and the downs, but you actually move through them instead of instead of getting stuck on them or avoiding them. And your belief system is is such that it fosters health. That is the most powerful thing that you can do. It's, it's it's almost unbelievable, actually. And there's people that have lived a really horrendous lifestyle. When it comes to their habits. And yet, because their mentality is so amazingly positive, their emotional states are so fluid and balanced and and they rest in this sort of well-being state.

I mean, again, going to school qigong is kind of in this mental it's developing this well-being in your system. And so that I think is it's not to be understated. And so I don't want to put an overemphasis on the things because you can do everything right. And if your belief system is that it's so hard to heal and this is so much work and I, I'll never get there. And there is these mental and emotional blocks that are there, even if they're subconscious and you can't even recognize them then then to be honest, some of the things aren't going to move the needle like you think that they should or they would.

And this is why I there's a lot of reasons, but you can look around you and say, well, gosh, he or she's not doing live such a horrible lifestyle. Why don't they have any of the problems? Right? So I really want to highlight this a lot of this does come from the things that happen in our childhood, the the emotional mental frameworks that we wind up developing, these

Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Roots of Healing 28:38

character structures, these personalities that we develop as a means to survive. Really. They actually determine your nervous system, the state of your nervous system, which really guides the function of everything. It's it's it's going to, at a baseline level, operate in such a way that's going to undermine healthy function. You know, and when we look into traditional Chinese medicine, we get into our Veda. We actually see that, emotions can be held in various parts of the body and, and their systems that can be affected due to anger or due to sadness or what have you.

And so, again, it's not that these things are bad, but when they are not, when they're not addressed and when they get, when we're stuck in it essentially, again, a lot of this is subconscious, but that is going to be a huge, huge driver of health. And so I think it's just important to at least recognize that because it's often understated. And you see some cancers that literally vanish, like it's it's hard to really understand that from a Western medical standpoint. But in medical qigong, in, implant medicine ceremonies, shamanism, other, other areas that we don't really understand super well from the Western medical perspective, these things heal in a matter of an instant.

So these are hard to explain. But there's something there keeping it in place that is not only on the physical level. So I think it's I just want to stress the idea of this nonphysical aspect of healing and health that is so critical. And again, going back to the longevity communities, this is what we saw. We saw these people that were in such amazing state of mind. They were happy, happy go lucky. They weren't obsessed with how long they were living or when they were going to die. It was all in God's hands, you know, it was this.

It was this fluidity with life that they were able to, to move through. And so that that really struck me was their amazing, demeanors their, their, their, they were so comical. They were so funny. And they were so welcoming. So that was probably the biggest thing that I noticed. Between what I see in our cultures, the way I am personally, and what I saw in these amazing beings is that they were there. They were the type of people that I wanted to become. Right. And so and I don't think that all of them became that they actually were raised that way.

That's how they were when they were young. That's what you got. I got the impression was that this is how they were throughout life. So it's it's really important that and it's and again, this is actually something you can develop. This is actually something you can work toward. I'm working towards it all the time, working on my childhood traumas and these developmental things that happened with me to me, for me, I'm working with those two to develop more well-being in my system, so that my nervous system can actually be in a balanced state, can rest in the parasympathetic, which is where all the healing happens, right, is in this parasympathetic state.

So, I think it's really important to note that. Yeah. Thank you for mentioning that. You know, I'm reminded of, the interview I did with Kelly Turner, who's a part of this symposium. Encourage everyone. Make sure to go listen to that interview because she has, read and analyze over 1500 cases, of of what are called radical remission. People have healed chronic chronic diseases like cancer, outside either when conventional medicine has failed them or completely outside of conventional medicine all together.

And over these 1500 cases, she found ten commonalities very similar to a lot of things you have found pretty much almost identical in a lot of ways to, what you've been sharing and what you found through the Human Longevity Project. But what's really fascinating, and is 100% in alignment with everything you just said is seven of those ten things. So 70% of those things people did on a regular basis, and these are all scientifically backed, evidence based as well, are mental, emotional, spiritual things.

Yeah. 30% were physical things like diet and nutrition. Herbs and exercise doesn't mean these are not important. It just means that 70% of healing and longevity and health and vitality actually lies in the unseen realm. And, you know, we're learning, you know, our ancient ancestors. You mentioned qigong. You know, I study and have worked with master meantime, GU, a qigong master. I've studied, yoga for many years, and Buddhism and Zen, you name it. And, you know, our ancient ancestors and indigenous cultures have known these things for thousands of years.

It's just our modern science is finally understanding it from a scientific level, which is also helpful to our left analytical brain. Right. But not to, you know, exercise. Like one of the things people forget about, especially in dealing with a cancer diagnosis, is, I'm actually I've done a massive amount of research recently specifically on what types of exercise, how much exercise, what's the right amount, what are we supposed to do specifically for my next book about healing cancer, and what's really fascinating in in the recommended amounts and types of exercise that we should be doing specifically at any age for preventing reversing cancer, almost nobody I met.

Yeah, I mean, very I should say very, very few percent of people I've met, interviewed, talked to, and just who I see on a day to day basis do even half the amount of the recommended exercise that's needed. And unfortunately, these are people still dealing with chronic diseases today, people who are doing a lot more exercise, who are doing, you know, up to 60 minutes a day, both high intensity, low intensity cardiovascular training, you know, even weight trainings. Highly recommended making your muscles strong.

You know, and as you're saying, back in the day, if you will, you know, centuries ago, people were walking everywhere and biking and squatting and climbing trees and doing all kinds of things that require the use of their muscles and strength and, you know, adaptation of the body. And so, again, I just I don't want to under emphasize the importance of exercise and nutrition and diet, but 70% of it lies between the ears, right? It's in and around us, our mind, our emotions, our our spirituality. And I know you've been doing a lot of work.

With your next project around indigenous cultures. And, you know, you're doing a whole series on exploring the ancient methods of, of indigenous cultures who live, you know, healthy and happy and close to the earth. What what are some of the things you've already learned, and what are some of the things you're hoping to learn as you continue this series? Yeah. And, I want to I want to mention something about exercise that, that, that you sparked there. Because when I was really seeing a lot of, of, clients, as a practitioner with, you know, was working with autoimmune cases and cancers and all the sort of functional medicine type stuff that was that was the meat that I was practicing.

One of the things I noticed was that the people that I worked with, that exercise frequently, they were athletes or military perhaps, or whatever it was they, for whatever reason, their blood work was always better. Like everything, their microbiome, their blood work, like they could live a really crappy lifestyle. And it's like exercise could actually make up for such a huge portion of that. And so it's it's almost like, yeah, they got crappy sleep. They didn't eat very good diets. They, they all this stuff and, but they exercise regularly and it's like it's almost like it didn't make a difference.

I don't want to say that's the case, but it was always shocking to me when I was looking at labs. And I'm like, how is it so good? Meanwhile, this person over here is doing all the other things, right? But they don't exercise frequently and their labs are a mess. And so it's I just want to hammer that exercise so, so critical. I think what your your book sounds amazing because, it can make such a huge difference. And also on that point when your nervous system is not recovered, then exercise can actually be very detrimental.

In other words, it it pushes you over the top so that good exercise goes hand in hand with good rest and good sleep. Right. And I know you agree with that. And so it's just something to really, really look at is how much sleep am I getting when that that happens too. So but again they got great sleep in, in, in the blue zones. And the people we spoke with, when it comes to this new film series that working on, we're working with, a variety of different traditions. Right. We went to the Himalayas in Nepal to work with the Buddhist and bone healers up there.

We worked with, one of the foremost masters of our Veda. And after the lab, we went to India to work with him. And we've been to Peru to work with the shaman there, and we're, we're scheduled to go to Colombia to work with a different kind of shaman. And then we're also it got canceled. We were scheduled to go to New Zealand to work with the Maori there. And just to learn about the way that they think about health, because this is a big curiosity for me. You know, I have a natural, inkling to go work with these people.

So I've done some, you know, ceremonies and been involved in the shamanic worlds. And our Vedas, always attracted me. So I've got a little bit of experience, and they've just drawn me in. And so then I thought, what if I went deeper with that and looked at a variety of traditions? Would I find the same types of things? You know, what would I find? Of course, the practices are very different around the globe, but but it turns out that you do find a lot of the same things and they don't think about health like we do.

So it's almost like you have to throw away everything you think you know about health and come in like a child, completely blank mind. Right? Which, in and of itself is, is, a common philosophy in a lot of these practices, the child's mind, the beginner's mind. And that's how with that genuine curiosity, you actually can learn. But, that was really what I was curious about. And you find that they think about health and it drastically different way. One of the things that they, they focus on is, essentially the the connection with the natural world, the rhythms of the day.

Right? Veda is all about the rhythms, the times of day, the cycles, the food cycles, the, the in the seasonal cycles. Everything's in cycles and they really operate. And they use that as a framework for how they guide their whole philosophy about health. Same thing in the jungle when you're working with shamans, right. There's they're they're always in tune with the natural world. They make homes, plant spirits and, and animal spirits and these type of things, but they think about them in a different way, and they're always.

They have such a keen eye with the natural world that they're always learning from it. And this is what allows them to figure out which plants to use, for which ailments, how to, treat certain issues. The real cause of your cancer might be something emotional. And they have a really good way of of figuring that out. And it all stems from not only operating in the physical world. Sure. The physical world, we have to pay attention to these things. But but beyond that, what are the thoughts? What are the emotions?

What's the psycho spiritual context? What your spirit and your soul, involvement in all this? And a lot of the shamanic cultures, they, they believe that there's the soul can split that the that you have a soul, first of all, and second of all, the souls multidimensional. And it may not all be here that when you experience traumas, perhaps it's a birth trauma. Perhaps it's in childhood may have fallen off the bed. There's a million different things, and your soul actually kind of bounces out or gets fractured, and it sort of gets lost, so to speak, in a different dimension, a different different realm, so to speak.

And so we lose parts of ourself on that level. And so one of the practices is actually to call back in the soul. And so there's very interesting practices. And it's easy to deny these things. It's easy to dismiss them because they're not scientific. And we can't validate them the way that we understand science. However, when you go to work with these people and when you again, you go in with the beginner's mind without this, you know, having discernment is critical. Always bring discernment. But with that discernment comes an open mind, right?

So, so, that's really what I went in with. And as I studied more and more, you just start to find these things that don't make sense when it comes to how we think about them in the Western world. And it doesn't mean, you know, there's a lot of times I didn't have answers.

Indigenous Healing Traditions and Subtle Energy 41:48

I couldn't explain what was happening to me or to somebody else, or what I witnessed or but they happened and they continue to happen. And so, so again, sometimes when we work with those, those traditions, there's a little bit of a language barrier. And I don't mean actual speaking language. I mean how they think about things and speak again, they say plant spirit, camomile has a spirit. Well, I might say, okay, camomile has a certain scent and a certain flavor, and it does certain things to my neurochemistry.

And so, so we can think about them in a different way. But vanilla is different than camomile and they have a different spirit. Tobacco has a has its own, spirit and, and coca and so there's these, these different ways that they think about these things and they apply them differently. But nonetheless, they, they it's like they produce magic. It's like it's like they're working on a different realm, a different level of reality. That is not one that you can traditionally see or that we're not trained to see.

In our Western world. And so same thing with these traditions, right? Again, I bring up qigong, I Veda and the Vedic, philosophies. They're working on the subtle level so often. Right. The subtle body or the, so, so it's it's a different realm. They talk about Qi, right. So it's like where the Chee goes, the energy flows. Well, how does that make sense in in a Western model it doesn't. Right. So it's like so we're talking about blood. Well she guides the energy. Energy guides the blood. Right. And actually I may be wrong with that.

You might be able to correct me, but there's something to that degree. Right. So they're working on different levels. Correct me if I'm wrong, maybe help me out with that. Nathan. Yeah, that's more understood in TCM. Traditional Chinese medicine or acupuncture, right. Is is, yes. No, you're right. She guides the blood and, and then blood guides the energy. But really, you know, in qigong, I guess it depends who you talk to. Because in qigong, from the the from what I study wisdom healing qigong.

She the basic understanding is just energy. She is energy. It's lifeforce energy. Lifeforce energy. Today we call it energy. There the you know here we call energy. They're they call it chi. You know, gong is the practice of or the cultivation of. So it's like the cultivation of lifeforce energy or another translation could be like the mastery of lifeforce energy. And what you said where energy goes, or where where would you say where she goes, where she goes, energy flows. Or where thoughts go, energy flows.

Yes, it's true. Energy is everything, right? Everything is energy. Our thoughts, our emotions, our intentions, our physical body, even the nonphysical that we can't see we. Everything is energy. And so anyway, I'll let you keep. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. And it actually reminds me there was a time, you know, they speak about the tien of the lower Dan Tien. Right. And this is something I didn't have a concept for. I was doing qigong and I was putting my hands and in the lower Dan tian and I'm.

And I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Right. And and I was following instructions and I'm placing my awareness in my sort of lower belly area, and I'm trying to sort of build the tree and all these things and, and I'm like, okay, I, I, I just don't feel it. And then at one time, one point I felt the chai and I'm like, oh my God, there's my Tien, there's my lower down Tien. And I felt it. And we talked about chakras and in various Vedic and elevated traditions. This I felt it. So forget the philosophies, forget the teachings, forget the anything, I felt it.

And so this is this is what's interesting. And so the question that I asked myself at the time was, has this always been there? And I just didn't have the subtle awareness to be able to feel it or did something happen? And I built something up and my conclusion was both right. So in other words, I was able to help move energy there, and, and create and foster the energy and really, my, my skills and the ability to, to move the energy there and my awareness and focus it and my ability to feel that very, very subtle thing that at first became first it was undetectable, then it became subtle and it became more gross.

And I'm like, oh, there it is. Whoa, whoa. And all of a sudden it's not it's not illusory. It's like it all makes sense. And then so these are the things that I noticed as I practiced as I worked with these things. Same thing with with various meditation practice, Buddhist meditation practices. I started to feel things. I could actually feel vibration of somebody's voice. I'd never been able to feel that in this way. It was almost like I was standing at a concert next to a huge loudspeaker, and it was booming, the bass.

But this was just like somebody speaking across the room, and it was shaking my whole being. So these were things that I was experiencing that then turned me on to this idea that there's a lot that I don't know, and there's a lot happening on the nonphysical level that I can become aware of that is that is affecting my physical body. Right. So, this is what I think this is where and and here's the important thing. This is where we're going, right? The Western world is going there. We're just going there in a different way.

We're starting to understand how light is affecting us and what you can see. There's all kinds of technologies out there using infrared and UV and blue and green and all these things that we're now finding out. So what is that? What are we talking about? We're just talking about frequency, talking about electromagnet frequencies. It's affecting our physical being. Right. Red light. Infrared light affects mitochondria. We know that now affects the water in our body. We know how UV light affects us.

We have all these porphyrin and proteins in our skin that that absorb these UV lights and transduced it and turn it into other frequencies of light that then conduct electrical energy throughout the body. We're learning these things, and all we're talking about is visible and actually non-visible light, UV and infrared is invisible to the human eye. And yet it affects us. Right. And so so this is what's interesting is we're moving that way sound frequencies that affect us. Well they they've known this forever in our data.

And Chinese medicine and everything. They this is why they do these chants. This is why they do these these practices and these prayers and, and but even in the, in the Abrahamic traditions, they, they do these, these prayers and these chants that sing. And so it's fascinating when you start to take a historical look at all these traditions in shamanism, they do the same thing. They have Ikaros, they sing these songs during these, these ayahuasca ceremonies that are affecting the energy of the person.

So you just start to realize, wow, it's actually not that separate from the Western science. Getting into quantum technology and, and, and basic physics and how it's affecting the body and what the shamans do and what the, the TCM practitioners practitioners do and the and the Vedic do and, and so like, we're actually right there together working on the same problems and, and we're just doing it in a little bit different way and finally coming together to sort of build that bridge of understanding.

I think that's, you know, the perfect place to end. This is is where you just said that's the future of medicine. Like, that's exactly that's the future of where we're going. Is this nonphysical world understanding, connecting to cultivating all the beauty and benefits and healing capacity and deeper connections of this nonphysical world that, you know, many some people see, many people don't see. I do want to mention this because she keeps coming to mind. As you've been talking about this, I interviewed Bobby Vogel, as part of this symposium.

Encourage people to go listen to that interview. She's an incredible medical intuitive. That is work. Love them. Yeah, yeah. And so she sees energy. She sees the the bio field. She sees your your energy field. She can see she's working with this child with cancer. And and the girl has, a brain tumor right here. And and the tumor made her go blind. She lost her vision. Well, Bob, you can see the energy she saw that she actually had a hole in her energy field right here. So she started doing. She's guided by, you know, invisible beings and, you know, I don't know how how how extreme this is for some people tuning in, it might be, you know, beyond your comfort level, but this is what's happening today.

And she's not the only one. There are lots thousands of people that that, are tuning into these higher human capacities. But she started doing this work, this invisible, energetic work. And within a short period of time, the young girl got her vision back. She went from having to learn to read Braille, to actually being able to read a book again. So you know what? What you're talking about here is incredible. And yes, our science is catching up and learning more about it. And I also agree it's the future of where we're going is that 70% of we're focusing on healing our mind.

Our emotions are our childhood traumas and learning to be happier and more connected and have good relationships and practice meditation and breathwork and, you know, all these different aspects of what it means to be healthy and happy. You know, we can, truly change our lives and the future of our children, who I'm certainly concerned about and thinking about all the time. What kind of world, you know, are they going to grow up in in 20, 30, 40 or 50 years? And by implementing these things that we're talking about, you know, I think we have a bright future ahead.

Certainly, if we make some serious changes now, and moving forward. So, yeah, I just want to leave people with one last thought here that is that your body is electrical, right? It's movement. It's it's using electrical, current to to to do all its things. Right. We have thyroid, we have microbiomes. We have all these things. Fundamentally, it's it's really an electrical machine, so to speak. And it's a very, very intelligent one. So anything that's going to affect the electrical nature of your body will impact your health.

So this is the chemistry that we put into the body. Right. And all the things that we do there and how we move and all the metabolic activity that's happening there. But but to this point, it's the thoughts, it's the emotions, it's the beliefs. So this is the thing I think is so critical for everybody that has something that they're working through. Look at your beliefs, look at your thoughts and look at your emotions. What are these things doing on a regular basis? Analyze those. Look at those.

Help get somebody else to help you. Look at those. Because it's hard to hard for us to see ourselves sometimes. And so if you can get a better grip on that and you can start to realize where those are coming from, what, what's what's impacting those, then you can start to change those. And that's the most important thing, because those thoughts, those emotions, those beliefs are the invisible aspect that is affecting our physical body. So, so bring that back around. It's it's where I keep going too, because when I was at Health Practitioner, I kept getting stuck with some, some patients and clients.

I couldn't get them beyond a certain point. And it finally hit me, oh my God, there's this trauma. There's these things in there, their psyche, in their psycho spiritual world that is affecting them, that I can't get to on this physical level, changing their habits and working with supplements and these things. So, it's such a huge part. And I think if you can get down to that piece, you're really, really, on your way to to living a happier and healthier life. Jason, I can't wait for your next project to come out.

You know, we'll definitely let, our community know about it when it is. I can't wait for your book to come out as well. I know that's going to be, exciting. Hopefully you can start, traveling and filming again. But I love the work you do, man. I love, you know, the wisdom you bring, the context you bring. And I do want to encourage people. You can go watch the Human Longevity film at Human Longevity Film Dot kami watch first episode for free. They have the whole nine part docu series there. Go check that out.

Human longevity film.com Jason brother thank you so much man. Appreciate you. Thanks for having me on and keep me posted with all your work as well. And I want to thank everyone for tuning in to the Conquering Cancer Summit. Please share this with friends and family. Together we truly can make a difference for the future of humanity in ending the cancer pandemic. Thank you and I wish you ultimate health and happiness. Be well.