Enhance Fertility Through Nervous System Care

Introduction and Dr. Brianu2019s Background 0:00

Dr. Brian Stenzler is here with us today at The Super Fertility Summit. I'm so excited for you to meet this incredible man, author, father, and community builder Dr. Brian You are the author of the bestselling book DREAM Wellness: The 5 Keys to Raising Kids for a Lifetime of Physical and Mental Health, and you are the creator of the DREAM Score, the #1 lifestyle assessment tool. And this is exactly why our worldviews and our work and our missions are so aligned, because we are both really committed to ensuring that we all have the tools to not only set ourselves up for wonderful health and wellness and success, but also our children and future generations.

I love that so much. You, have been in practice for more than 25 years as a pediatric prenatal and family wellness chiropractor. You are president and CEO of DREAM Wellness, and you've owned and operated multiple wellness centers in both New York and San Diego, where you and your team have helped thousands of families avoid becoming patients of the sick care industry while helping others overcome existing health issues without the use of drugs and surgeries. You've also helped support people in their fertility goals.

They've come from all over the world, including Israel and other places to receive your care as they prepare for having their super babies, you're no longer in practice, but you utilize your combined knowledge and expertise of running successful businesses with your passion for helping families get well and stay well. By joining the executive management team of knowing You Well and their daughter company, Natural Awakenings Publishing Corporation, you are the VP of operations. They're very exciting.

We're excited for the fertility community that we're going to be building there and do your work with these companies. You have had the opportunity to help individuals and families achieve their health and wellness goals, while also helping providers and health care experts achieve their goals of serving more people. Welcome to The Super Fertility Summit, Dr. Brian, I'm so happy to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. It's always a pleasure. I always love our conversations.

Brian. I want to ask you to think from the end when we wrap up this interview today. What do you want? The mom, dada, parent of any and all genders, listening to be able to take away from today. There will be a lot, but if I had to really take one thing away, it would be that every mother, father, wannabe mother and father take away the fact that they need to have a chiropractor as part of their health care team, part of their fertility team,

Why Chiropractors Belong on the Fertility Team 3:10

part of their prenatal team for the postnatal team and part of the team of helping them raise their healthy super babies. you know, it's one of those things, what people think of chiropractic as being crackers, car accidents, you know, a bad neck. And, you know, for over 25 years that I practiced, I never want to advertise back pain or neck pain. You know, there was a reason why pregnant moms would come to me all the time. You know, our business called DREAM Wellness. My wife ran a thing called re moms, you know, teaching all about the lifestyle.

And, you know, it's not that it needs a chiropractic adjustment, but it's that. And we'll talk about what it needs to be an adjustment in a little bit. But it said everyone should have a chiropractor on their team to see how the care would possibly benefit them to get checked. And so it is so often overlooked. You know, look, you're a genius when it comes to fertility, you know, infertility issues. And sometimes it's an issue with the mom parts of the dad parts. Right? And sometimes it's more than that.

it's not always a genetic or congenital problem. There are a lot of lifestyle things that can be, you know, changed and avoided. So obviously I want to talk about the lifestyle. But if there were one thing that was going to be a takeaway for parents, it would be have a chiropractor part of a team and get checked, even if everything is going great, even if you can see and have a great pregnancy throughout, you know, the full nine and a half months, that's great. Still have a chiropractor part of your team.

I love how you said nine and a half months, everybody. Let's let's, applaud that because most people do not know that that pregnancy is actually 40 weeks or ten months, not nine months. But the first two of those weeks, you're not actually pregnant. So the the true gestation period is nine and a half months. 38 weeks. I'm so in awe because that just shows you the nuance and care with which Dr. Brian is paying attention to this area of health and wellness and to the the families he's serving. So thank you. Amen to that.

I really appreciate that. So I love that this conversation is about bringing chiropractic care into the fertility discussion, because that is missing from the fertility discussion. And many people listening right now will be thinking, how is it possible that chiropractic care matters for fertility? And yet you've already alluded to this in what you said. But I want to go deeper. So you alluded to the fact that sometimes the challenge is that a person or a couple is facing in getting and or staying pregnant and having their super baby has to do with, you know, as you refer to them, their mom parts or dad person parts, or maybe egg, sperm, uterus.

But the the full fertility and pregnancy system is a complex network that involves all of our organs, tissues, systems and glands. And that is so much bigger than what most fertility specialist, reproductive endocrinologist, etc. are looking at. That's one of our zones of genius at FPI in the Primemester protocol, because it does take into account the full network. And so talk to us about how the parts of our structure that chiropractic care helps us to address can be involved in our fertility experiences.

We've had, discussion of fascia, which has been incredible. We know that posture informs so many biochemical processes in the body. So there are so many different pathways. But to tell us what you think is maybe the top or are the top 2 or 3 pathways. Yeah. So the top one, without a doubt is the nervous system, the nervous system as it's it's the most obvious and common sense thing, but nobody thinks about it. The nervous system is the masculine system body. It controls. It coordinates the functions of every system, every organ, every muscle, every gland, every tissue, every single cell.

Nobody knows exactly what to do, what to do, and how to do it. Because the brain cells itself, right. And the reproductive system is no different and the system is no different. The immune systems are different, but especially the reproductive system. So if I were to say to a parent or a wannabe parent, be like, well, if you want to make sure that your reproductive system is working as well as it can, can you think of a system above that

Nervous System Function and Chiropractic Care 7:50

that is equally, if not more important, and you get to the nervous system, of course, right? That's right. Chiropractic people don't think of that. People think chiropractors are backed off with nervous system specialists. We help optimize the communication between the brain and the body through the nervous system. So it's not about walking backs and the parks and all that other stuff. It's about making sure the brain and the body communicate optimally through the neural pathways. And so the big thing that we want to do is chiropractors analyze everything in the nervous system and see.

So one of the big things I really want your viewers and audience to understand is that chiropractors are not treating fertility issues right. In fact, we don't treat any condition, any disease or anything like that. I would say that I'm of the bone. God does the healing, right? Yes. All we do is we maximize the function of the nervous system and whatever disorder or dis ease is being caused by the nervous system not working as well as it could, could be cleared up through a good, proper, specific, precise chiropractic adjustment.

So beautiful. I love that I move the bone and God does the healing. That's so, so beautiful. And it's true that there's that. A chiropractor is not addressing fertility challenges specifically or any one health problem specifically. But when that brain to body communication is working better, that the, the, the entire body and all of its systems are working better. And it's also a difference between treating a problem or, as you referred to it, sick care versus optimization and enhancing our wellness and being in our very best, most aligned, most powerful place so that our reproduction is optimized in everything else that we want to do is optimize.

One of the things I notice almost immediately upon getting having a chiropractic session is just the extent to which my already like, super turned on brain is turned on even more, right? Like, one of the things I have relied upon my entire life is just how robust, powerful, and quick my brain is. When I was young, that was about survival. And as I've gotten older and thankfully don't live in a state of survival anymore. But, you know, in very kind of high pressured, high success, high functioning situations and environments, I'm, I'm able to be like this on my toes.

And I think mentally and I notice that that's enhanced even more with each time I get chiropractic treatment. So I think that that is absolutely a beautiful way of, of putting it, that we're not treating. It's it's not specific, but in treating the whole person, it's optimizing the functions of the body. And reproduction is so intimately tied to the central nervous system. Andi perfectly said. Yeah. So beautiful. So tell us about the key stressors that impact fertility and how to avoid or as you say, neutralize them.

Yeah. So, you know, when we look at life, you know, we have everyone's got stress in their life, right? Stress is not a bad thing. People think of stress is bad, right? It's the inability to adapt to it. Right. And so we need stress. Like if you didn't if you worked out you need stress on your muscles. That tension is what builds muscles or builds part strength and everything else. The inability to adapt to a specific stressor is what leads to dis ease, which eventually leads to disease, right? Dysfunction, disconnect.

And so we like to break the stressors into three different categories chemical, physical and emotional stressors. or as we say in chiropractic toxins, traumas and thoughts. Right. So chemical stressors, you know, my goodness. Especially if you're looking for two you look at pollution that's out there. You look at the the beauty materials that women are using or men are using the colognes, the perfumes, the shampoos. Right. The sprays, everything that we're on, the cleaning supplies in the house.

We're constantly bombarded with toxic, you know, chemical, toxic alcohol. You know, you're trying to trying to conceive and you're taking alcohol, drugs, medications. Some medications might be lifesaving. You might be taking medication. Right. But there's also understand if there's a chemical stressor with that. So if you're taking medications you've got to find a way to detoxify. Right. To get the body cleaned out. smoking I think I said that nicotine, caffeine. Nobody likes to hear when I talk about caffeine as being a stressor, but I'm sorry. It's chemical stress.

It can. It is a. Stressor. It is? Yeah. then you've got those accounts that you've got physical stressors that could be for posture, sitting cross-legged in a car accident,

Stressors That Affect Fertility 12:40

exercising improperly or not exercising, even yoga. Doing it improperly could be a physical stressor. When yoga could be one of the best things that you can do yourself. Isn't that incredible? That's incredible to think about. And sorry, I want you to keep going, but I just want to say anything that we do repetitively, and especially if we do it in a way that's not healthy for our body and we're doing it repetitively, is going to be a stressor and the stress is going to accumulate over time. I'm so glad you said this because I was thinking, I want to talk to Doctor Brian about how much devices have changed our lives, our posture, and what that means for our fertility, not even just the blue light exposure, because that's a whole other category of stressor, but the way that our bodies have changed and, you know, in a way I am are more closed because of how we're engaging with these devices and what that means for our fertility.

So please continue saying, even if you are doing yoga, which should be amazing for your health and fertility, if you're doing it incorrectly and you're doing that over and over again, that's a stressor. Absolutely. And then you bring up the devices. I should bring this up because it's very important. We talk about how the nervous system needs to communicate with the body optimally all the time for fertility, for digestion, for everything else. Right. So when our spine we get something called forward head possible or devices.

Right. We're bringing our head forward. Imagine if you had a stick right. Like if a good pull and you put a bowling ball on top of that stick right straight on top, no problem. It could hold the pressure right there. Imagine if you bring that that stick that pull, you bring it a little bit. I don't know if you could see it in the camera. So we see it and I could put down 12 pounds of pressure which is what the head weighs. Also start getting all that tension there in the neck. Yeah. Right. And that brings it forward. That could strain the neck.

That's going to and that's going to hurt the nerve. The nerves go into the digestive organs. Reproductive organs, to the brain. You lose clarity. You lose focus. So forward head posture, I mean just one inch of forward head posture can decrease the performance through the nervous system significantly. And there's tons of research I can have in my book some research about how forward head posture impacts the nervous system. I wasn't going to go there at this conversation, but you're absolutely right.

You know, especially when we talk about with children on on all these devices, they're starting out, you know, at three years old on these devices or even younger. And I've seen kids come to my office and they were like, rabbit, I'm like, you kidding me? This kid's five years old and he's all the way forward head posture like that. It's like we're, you know, devolving, right? You say it's true. And I was just going to say it's like we're so rapidly changing the course of evolution. We can't we can't adapt fast enough to that stressor, which means it's a degenerative stressor.

It's a harmful stressor because we don't have enough time to adapt to how profoundly this is changing our posture, the way that our body is able to function. I mean, this is this is a much bigger problem than we could tackle in this conversation, but it is something number one, that matters for fertility on many levels and through many pathways and inputs. But it also matters for our pregnancy outcomes and our our super babies and super grand babies outcomes. So it's something that we really have to be paying attention to.

And look, making a decision about very deliberately and mindfully. So if your decision is this is a reality of my life and I'm going to accept what the whatever, I understand there are consequences and I'm going to accept whatever consequences they are because this is what everybody does now then fine. You've made that decision in an informed, intentional manner. But if you look at it and you're like, oh, I don't care if this is what everybody's doing, this is not what I want for myself or for my family, then yes, it's going to be effortful, but you're going to have to make some different decisions.

Yeah, yeah, you absolutely have to make change. I mean, there's a simple thing. Like you said, respiration is important during pregnancy or getting pregnant. Yes. And just how, you know, the brain becomes a toxic, you know, you lose oxygen just by having that forward head posture. So yes. But, you know, thinking about change is hard, but making change is actually not that hard. One of my mentors, Eric Plaskett, talks about that all the time, and it's like, make baby steps. It's not hard to make a little bit of a change here and there.

If you're still going to get in. The biases, even just the way you hold a device can make all the difference in the world. Focus on your posture. But that's just one thing. Like you were saying, that's the pattern. That's one thing. And we haven't even gotten to emotional stressors yet. You know, we're talking physical and emotional stressors. I mean, one emotional stressor is even thinking about conceiving, right? Yeah. The whole idea around conception, especially if you've had a hard time conceiving, like every time that mom gets that period again or or the miscarriage, you know, I mean, which is so too devastating realize and it's like, you can't talk about it.

Absolutely. We need to talk about these things. Moms need to know that they're not alone in this. And dads are part of it, too. You know, we've dealt with miscarriages in our home. So many people have dealt with miscarriages. And, you know, that's an emotional stressor, you know, so we have to be resilient. Those stressors that we have on a daily basis, if we can exhibit resilience, we can overcome the tension and not allow it to do damage to us. so everything around fertility can be an emotional stressor.

But your relationships at home, you know, maybe mom and dad aren't getting along that decorate. That's an option. Maybe you already have some kids at home and you know they're having trouble in school, or they're getting bullied or they're the bully. You know, there are some work stressors. You know, how many women have trouble conceiving or men have trouble getting their women pregnant because they're stressed out at work? Well, they're stressed out with money. There are so many factors that go into it.

So we have to recognize that we have chemical, physical and emotional stressors in every aspect of our lives, and we need to figure out the first thing to do is figure out what those stressors are in your life. and then say, what are these stressors can I avoid? And which ones are inevitable, but I can help adapt to them. I can do better. Like I can meditate, I can pray, I can get better sleep. I can, you know, speak different words. So I have a better relationship with so-and-so in my life. We can do things differently to help us adapt and overcome and not allow those stressors that cause damage to us and lead to dis ease.

I love that so much. So I just want to tie this all together. This is a you know I my training my PhD training is in health which is also known as medical psychology and social psychology as well as quantitative psychology and statistics.

The DREAM Lifestyle for Wellness 19:40

And then my postdoctoral change training is in human development, in aging, in social epidemiology and population health. So it's very interdisciplinary. And across all of these disciplines we are looking at these different categories of stressors and also identity related stressors. And asking ourselves. How can we make stress more adaptive and less harmful? And you and you said something really important, which is that the stress in and of itself isn't bad and is actually a part, I could say, a part of living or the very definition of living.

I mean, the very definition of life is having one puzzle or challenge or problem after another to solve. But how we appraise those stressors, how we perceive them and how we approach them and we cope with them, that makes all the difference in the world and determines whether we look. It will be a challenge that we can rise to, or a threat that wears us down, and some of that feels outside of our control, and some of that is outside of our control. But those of us who want to make a good life for ourselves have no choice but to make the decision to have a better relationship with stress because it's not going away.

If you want to be alive, if you want to grow and develop, stress isn't going away. And if you want to teach your super babies how to have a beautiful life, they also have to know from our modeling and from what we teach them. Otherwise, that stress isn't going away. So how do we engage with it in the most functional and adaptive and positive way we possibly can? That doesn't mean toxic positivity, but it does mean understanding that there's never a point at which you're above stress and what determines how beautiful or not beautiful life gets to be for you is ultimately how we choose to engage with stress.

So what's what's our answer? So there is such a great lay up. Like, you didn't even know where I wanted to go with this, but I'm like, okay, this is so perfect because, you know, there are two things that happen at birth, right? And I apologize, that sounds morbid, but not only do you start life, but also death, right? They say there are two things that have a certain in life is death and taxes. Well, you cannot work and ever pay taxes, but you're not getting out of this one alive. And so the lifestyle that I teach about is not necessarily about adding years to your life, although it's very important, but about adding life to your years, because we do have stressors every single moment that we're alive.

Right? So we've got to think about what kind of lifestyle can we live that will help us enjoy that life and have more life in those years that you have? And so that's why I talk about the dream lifestyle, right? Those are the five keys to the wellness lifestyle being diet, relaxation, exercise being an adjustment, and mental wellness, the dream and a dream lifestyle. So diet is everything that goes into the body from the outside world to the inside world. It's everything you eat, drink, taste, touch, smell, feel, hear.

All the movies you watch and all the people you spend time with is just as much party diet as the food you consume. Relaxation is giving your body. Set a chance to set, reset, regenerate a set. Just time out, recuperate, regenerate, and so on and so forth. Exercise is an activity that parts physical or mental exertion work in A for a second. Aims for mental wellness that's connecting your inner purpose and passion to our goals and tasks in all phases of life. Being like we do, self-esteem, self-worth, self values, and so on and so forth.

It's a process of creating a life. What when you wake up in the morning instead of being like, oh God, it's morning, like, oh God, it's morning, I have a strong dream. You should be in a an adjustment which is balanced mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally and have an optimal brain body communication through the nervous system. So whereas a lot of people think that that a dream is about chiropractic, it's about being in adjustment. And one, chiropractors help get you an adjustment and keep you in adjustment.

It's the lifestyle that keeps you in adjustment more than anything else. So if you live a strong dream, you should ultimately stay in adjustment. And it's the dream lifestyle that helps you adapt to and avoid the chemical, physical, and emotional stressors of everyday life. That's what living your dream is all about. Living it. That's what living your dream is all about. I love that so much. So the dream lifestyle is about avoiding those categories of stressors as much as possible, but also for the ones that are inevitable.

Being able to be resilient in the face of them physically, emotionally and otherwise, which is so, so, so critical. I love that so much. Okay, so tell me, community is such an enormous part of our ability to avoid stressors that are unnecessary in the first place, and to be able to cope with the stressors that we aren't able to avoid. In fact, we have mountains of scientific data that everything that we want to do, be, have, achieve in life, overcome becomes more possible when we have support. And yet I think we still look at support is like a nice to have an optional, but actually it's really a matter of life or death for people.

Community, Support, and Knowing Well 25:40

I mean, we are social beings. We are our our survival has depended upon our social environment and the support available to us. And the brain still perceives it that way. And and the reality is that it's still very much is that way. So talk to us about where where do we go? Where do we go for community, especially when we feel like we're struggling in isolation with something, with fertility challenges, with pregnancy loss, which as you, you said, is all too common and far more common than people realize.

Yeah. So you said you nailed on the head. Community is so important. And for the 25 years that I was in practice and I had wellness centers in New York and San Diego are my wellness centers were places of community where people got together. I'd had, you know, husbands and wives meet each other. Now they have their own super babies. through the community that we've been using, we had, we had to think like three moms, you know, and that was really great on a small scale, this holistic moms and other groups like that out there and also really good on a local levels.

But what's out there, you know, globally. Right. And so you look at social media out there like Facebook and Instagram, there are blessings and curses to those it brought communities together in a way that we had not communes before, but it also brings destructive behavior as well, you know, and FOMO and and, you know, authenticity and, you know, people also getting bad information. So yeah, those are reasons why, you know, for the first time in my professional life, I went from being a CEO, being an entrepreneur or a business owner to being part of an executive team of another company.

Where I joined Know Me well is because I love the community aspect of it, that it's a regenerative, whole health community where the best of the best in minds, in science, in health care, natural health care, you know, no, we well, is about bringing individuals, families, employees, employers, organizations together to learn from the brightest minds in natural, regenerative health care. so whether the, you know, you want to connect with a provider, you know, through through a brick and mortar practice to go see them, or maybe it's a virtual practice, what they do, functional medicine, or they have a book, a podcast, a sonnet like we're talking about here.

There are so many different ways that people can engage with these providers. So that's one aspect of knowing well. Another aspect is engaging with each other, where one mom or trying to become mom can engage with another one in a safe environment where you don't have to worry about. I say the government overlooking and saying, you can't talk about vitamin D, you can't talk about this. You know, we're not a censored platform. We want to make sure there's not bad information like just, you know, there's got to be some evidence base, but it's not to the to, you know, to what the way the government has censored things in the past.

We want free flow of information. We want opportunities for people to be able by these courses, to be able to communicate with one another. and so knowing well is a really great platform where providers and non providers alike can get together, get on common ground. We have over 150, 200 different topic groups based on conditions, body parts, professions and so on and so forth, much like Facebook is, but again much more precise. And all of our providers are trusted that Prudential. Yeah we know who is giving advice.

So obviously, you know one mom and one dad could give advice to another mom or dad. That's fine. We're not stopping that flow of information, but they're not going to have a doctor or a health care provider name in front of it, or screen back and you'll know where you're getting information from. And sometimes getting information from another person. You know, it's not a provider who's gone through something could be more beneficial than anything else in the world. And so having a safe, trusted environment, for this community is what I really love about knowing.

Well. Yes. I'm just it's it's an amazing platform for so many reasons. And and you you talked about some of them. But another thing is that as we've talked about fertility and all other aspects of health and well-being are multifaceted and multi-layered, and it happens to be a place where you can go and access information about such a diverse range of topics and problems and conditions and systems that you don't feel like you have to run here and there and all over town to find the different experts that you need.

And that to me is an incredible aspect of knowing well. So thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you so much, for your contributions and for being a part of that initiative, which I think is going to be a game changer for people. And we're excited to really help bring a very strong fertility representation that is evidence based and wholehearted, just like we are at FPI there to that community so that people have access to that information on an even broader level and scope. tell me if there were just I know that the DREAM lifestyle consists of a lot of things and encompasses a lot of things, but if there were just one thing, if somebody could only do one thing to take care of their fertility and their future super babies, what would that one thing be in your mind?

One Key Step for Fertility and Super Babies 31:00

I know that's a hard, hard question, right? Okay. I'm just going to go back to again, get your nervous system checked by the car park. That does a really good analysis, you know, that will help determine the communication between the brain and the body. And it doesn't even have to relate to the reproductive organs. But anywhere that there's what we refer to as subtle oxygen, which is basically when the brain, the body aren't communicating optimally through the nervous system, typically through misaligned vertebrae.

So have a good chiropractor do an analysis. I loved using certain technology called surface electromyography, thermography, heart rate variability, posture analysis, motion, static palpation. Sometimes we use that. Right. There's a lot of different tools, but whatever it is that you do, you find a chiropractor and you ask what form of analysis do you use, to help detect and correct subluxation. So did you find a alteration and did you help protect it? I love that would be. The number one thing. And I'll take the DREAM score.

Okay, I love that. Take the DREAM score. And, last question. What does super what does the term super baby mean to you? Like, what do you what do you think of when you hear super Baby? When I think of a super baby, I think about my son. You know, when he was born, you know, he was born at home. No medical intervention. You know, we had midwives, duels and all that other great stuff. a super baby is a baby that has a fully functioning nervous system. They're well adjusted in every aspect of their life and their resilience, that they are able to overcome and identify stressors in life and even even in a young age.

And they start they just know. And you look at them and you see in their eyes that there's something different about them. I love that so much. You look at them and you just see in their eyes that there's something different about them. And, I'm going to say that that sparkle comes from their ability to roll with and flow with the stressors, the the stimuli, the inputs, the challenges that they face in life. They've been able to do it. It hasn't worn them down, and they feel capable of doing it in the future.

And when we possess that, we possess a greater safety, right? Because if we're so fearful of everything that has happened and could happen, and unsure about our ability to cope with things that come up in the future, that's that's when we live in a constant state of stress and emergency. So I love that definition of a super baby so much that you look in their eyes and you see something different because they are uniquely at home in the world. Yeah. So beautiful. And congratulations on your beautiful super baby boy.

We we get to see the his his baby photo in the background behind you. Thank you so much for this incredible conversation. I have loved it and I'm so excited for everything that's ahead. Thank you for being here with us today, Dr. Brian, and thank you to you here with us listening from home or wherever you are right now. And be sure to join me for the next interview for our Super Fertility Summit. See you there!