Fix Your Mitochondria & Dramatically Reduce Your Fatigue

Introduction and Fibromyalgia Background 0:00

Hi. Welcome. I'm doctor Roger Murphy, and I'm the host of freedom from Fibromyalgia Summit. And I want to welcome Laura Ontario here. Laura is a nurse practitioner with many years and thousands of patients that she's taken care of over the years, but over the last several years, she's devoted her her most of her time, not all the time to most of her time in building a telephone or telemedicine type practice. She works with patients all over the world. She's a specialist in mitochondria and energy, and we're going to be talking about that today.

I mean, that's a perfect fit for the fibromyalgia community. She did a wonderful summit that I was just so honored to be a part of. I it was it was just so well done and it was so informative. I hope some of you got to tune in to that, and maybe we can talk a bit more about that. But Laura, so happy to have a have time to, to spend with you and share a little bit about mitochondria and how to get some energy back for these folks that you know, their get up and go has got up and went, right. That's true.

Yeah. That's true. I'm so glad to be, you know, participating and contributing to this event. Roger, you're just such a good guy. And you do such important work in the world. So likewise honored to be a part of this. Well, so there's been a few interviews where we've talked about mitochondria because, I mean, it just it's a big part of fibromyalgia. We know that those are fibromyalgia genetically, just the way God made them oftentimes don't have as many mitochondria and that the mitochondria that they do have have become dysfunctional, decoupled.

And so they're operating under a, a weakened, energy system that really doesn't help in the cause of them being able to overcome their symptoms. But before we really dive into all that, can you explain just something? Basically, what is a mitochondria? What is that thing? Yeah. This is, you know, one of my favorite topics that, you know, I want to share with you that I, I did work in Western medicine for 21 years, and I can remember early in my career, it was the so I started as an MP in 2000, and I can remember people with fibromyalgia showing up in my office, and back then it was kind of like this.

What is it? You know, it was it was a condition that was a was finally kind of accepted by Western medicine as a thing, but nobody really knew what to do with it. And I remember people would come into my office and say they have fibromyalgia on it, and I'd be like, oh, not one of those. Not another one of those, oh my gosh, I'm not going to be able to help this person because we didn't have the tools to help. And oftentimes, you know, I'd write a referral to psychiatry, right. Or you know, that's all we could do.

Like, well, here's some antidepressants and, you know, I really don't know what to do to help you. Could you get out of my office as fast as you can? You know, it's sad. I hear this all the time. I mean, I, you know, obviously that's changed what you do now, but, I hear this still all the time when I'm talking to colleagues and they ask me, you know, what do you do? And I tell him I was specialized in fibromyalgia. I've written a couple books on the subject and speak on the subject and, like, really, why would you want to how would you want to work with those people?

And I'm thinking. I'm thinking really? I mean, I want to work with them because they they need help. I mean, they're looking for help. And I think a lot of people, if they're being honest, in the health profession, they had the same reaction that you had originally. And it's and it's not to step on anybody's toes. It's just that you feel helpless. Yeah. And as a, as a, you know, as a health practitioner, nurse practitioner, you're used to being able somebody comes in, you know, what they you know, you figure out what they got you, you know, this is what you're going to get you better with fibro early on now and and still on conventional medicine, you can't drug your way to fibro.

So they just try to learn to live with it. But in functional medicine the way we practice now, we have the tools. And now we can start to look for the underlying causes. And one of those is a problem with this the slow mitochondria function.

What Mitochondria Do 4:20

Yeah. So yeah it was just it I didn't have the tools to help people back then. All I had was a prescription pad and a referral ability to refer out. But now when people with fibromyalgia come to me, it's exciting. It's like, oh, okay, I've got a tool belt now with all kinds of tools in it that can help you. And so and plus I can always refer to people like you who actually can support, you know, but I remember early on when I first started training fibromyalgia, my initial thought for the first patient is she's a hypochondriac.

Yes, there's no way someone can have this many symptoms and still be walking around. There's no way someone can have this. Me symptoms in her conventional bloodwork look normal, but the more time I spent with her, I realized why. Why would anybody make this stuff up? You know, to go from. She was a, I couldn't have forget what her what what she was a VP for. I think the company. But I mean, she, you know, had a really solid, really good job. Mother of four, really active play tennis. In a tennis league.

I mean, she she had everything to nothing to gain by becoming ill and having to take a leave of absence from work and so when people start to discredit those with fibromyalgia, I little the hair stands up on the back of my head. I just get so angry. But, you know, that's still part of what they're experiencing. Yeah, and they're still experiencing it in the Western world. So I know you brought me on here to talk about mitochondria. Yeah. Let's dive in. Because, you know, people are hearing this thing.

What are these little organelles called mitochondria. Yeah. So my superpower is really taking complex medical information and making it easy to understand. So that's really my goal here because there's nothing more boring than talking about the biochemistry of mitochondria. I can remember this. Fascinating. Well, you've been I do, but but a lot of people just tune out. So we don't want to we don't want people to tune out on this. We want to make it really easy. So you can explain this to, you know, a sixth grader, right?

So, you know, I remember in biology class in high school, it was really fun when we were doing dissecting and we were playing with Bunsen burners, and we were doing all the cool stuff in the day that we started the Krebs cycle and learning about ATP energy production, and was so my, you know, 15 year old brain was like, really? This is awful. This is so boring. I mean, I geek out on it now, but I think most people do. You know, when we start talking about the electron transport chain and all, all, everything it takes to make a unit of energy.

So for mitochondria, they actually have a really important job in the body. And they have a lot of functions. But the most widely researched and understood is their purpose of making most of your body's energy in the form of ATP, adenosine triphosphate. And I promise, that's the only big word that I'm going to use here. But basically, the food that you eat and the oxygen that you breathe in is taken into your cells where your energy is produced by your mitochondria. That's the most simple, explanation of what's happening here.

And your body needs a lot of ATP energy. In fact, there's a few organs that use more energy than almost any other organ. And that's your brain and your heart. And believe it or not, ovaries and women use a lot of ATP energy. So you have all these trillions of cells in your body, and inside of each of those cells are thousands of mitochondria. And you just mentioned that people with fibromyalgia are born with fewer mitochondria, and they may not make new mitochondria as efficiently as others. And the, the way that the environment and oxidative stress damages mitochondria may affect somebody with fibromyalgia more so than somebody without.

So at any point in your day. So you or me, Roger, just sit in here doing our thing, talking on this, you know, interview. Right now, we're making a billion molecules of ATP that gets used up in just minutes. Gone. And a cell can completely turn over its store of ATP in only two minutes. It's really incredible. So the mitochondria are their own little organelles that are inside of your cells. So like I said, I like to make things super easy to understand. So I want you to think of your organs in your body like cities.

So there's your brain, there's your heart, there's your lungs, there's, you know, all these different organs. And that's like a city. So think of that. Like Los Angeles and Los Angeles proper has a population of over around 7 million. I mean, the whole greater area is enormous. But 7 million people in Los Angeles. And now think of the neighborhoods within Los Angeles. So I want you to think of like Hollywood and Westside and Beverly Hills and Santa Monica and Melrose and so on. And those neighborhoods are actually synonymous with your cells.

So within the city, within the organ, you've got cells. Those are the neighborhoods. And within each of those neighborhoods live tens of thousands of people. So think of those people like the mitochondria within each cell. Are you tracking me so far? Right. Oh, I think this is a great explanation. Oh, this is great. So very. Yeah, I'm going to steal it. I think I've already found it. I'm using it on my next podcast. What I do is I sit and I think up stuff like this, you know, you know, who gave me permission to teach like this?

It was one of my instructors that taught me, lab interpretation. He was, so incredible at breaking down everything into stories that I realized. Why am I not doing this with people? It's so much easier. So. So let's take your brain, because with fibromyalgia, a lot of times people have brain fog and slow thinking and they just can't, you know, they're they're ambitious, super wannabe, super productive people. And they got like this list of things they want to accomplish every day. But they they get stuck. They cannot multitask.

They cannot, you know, they can't move from one task to the next in a seamless way that other people can.

How Mitochondrial Dysfunction Affects Fibromyalgia 10:20

So for your brain, you've got about 10,000 mitochondria, Percell. Now, imagine with fibromyalgia, you've got less than that. So stop and think about that for a minute. Just the side what 10,000 means. I want you to imagine a college football stadium that holds 10,000 people, or imagine a small neighborhood in a city, and that neighborhood has a population of 10,000. That's a lot. There's 10,000 in 1 tiny little cell that's already so microscopic we can't even see it without a microscope. Right? We can't see it with the naked eye.

So think of mitochondria like your life force, because they're responsible for 90% of that energy production. I said, we make all that energy every day. So they are called the powerhouse of your cells for a reason. And they create this endless supply of energy. In fact, you make your body weight in ATP energy every day. And when that energy ceases to be created, that's where life ends, right? If we don't have that ATP production, we have a problem. So it would be okay if we talk a little bit about, ATP and the unit of energy made by your mitochondria. And.

Yeah, because I think it's important to point out, you know, once that becomes dysfunctional now you're, you've dramatically reduced the energy production and other forms of energy. Metabolism. Yeah. So I want you to think of ATP again. That's that adenosine triphosphate that, you know, big word that I promise. The only big one we're going to use. This is like currency, like money. So think of it like you have to pay a certain amount of ATP or money to do every function in your body. So if I were to get up from this chair and walk across the room, that takes a different amount of ATP.

Energy costs a different amount than for me to wiggle my finger or to take one breath in and out, or for my heart to pump one time, or for my nerves to fire off a signal and a message to the rest of my body. So just like everything that's going on in your body, a certain amount of ATP is required for your brain to function, for your gut to heal, for you to digest your food, for your immune system to work. And any time that you eat or take supplements, by the way, you need ATP energy to break that stuff down, shuttle it around the body, absorb it, and use it.

And if you're starting off with even less energy, this is why some people with fibromyalgia will say, I'm taking these supplements and are making me feel worse. They're making me feel tired because it's actually requiring energy for you to break that down and move it around your body. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So basically the perfect circumstances inside your body need to happen in order for your mitochondria to make energy every day. They're picky, they're finicky. And, and if you have fibromyalgia, you're kind of already behind the eight ball with that.

And so I didn't know that when I was very first working in Western medicine, we would talk about mitochondria with people with fibromyalgia. So this is such a critical component. And I think if you're working with a practitioner, you know, you want to make sure that they're paying attention to this, that they know that you need a different kind of support than somebody who has, you know, a normal amount or normal functioning mitochondria. Do you think that we're finally getting to the point that mitochondria is a common conversation now?

Certainly, you know, in functional medicine, integrative maybe not unconventional, but it seems to me, and I know you've been talking about mitochondria and health and energy issues for a number of years. So have I not mentioned those in my I don't know what edition, first edition, second edition, I don't know. But certainly some of the beginning of bidding, beginning of my, books. But it seems like more and more people are looking at that as a possibility that could be affecting people with not only fibromyalgia, but autoimmune disease and Alzheimer's and some of these other chronic illness.

We're looking for something that can bring these together. What's the common normality between some of these these conditions where people kind of fall through the cracks? And one of those, I think, is this mitochondria dysfunction. It definitely is becoming a more common conversation, especially in the integrative medicine space. I think in the Western medicine space, it's also becoming more apparent that this needs to be part of a treatment plan. Yeah. Unfortunately, the, you know, in the Western traditional medicine, yeah, we call it traditional medicine because for me, traditional would be what we were doing a thousand years ago.

Right. But, but in the current landscape, you know, we're reactive. We're not preventive. Truly we are. You know, we're waiting for a problem to happen and then solving it. And, you know, these chronic conditions like Alzheimer's, neurodegenerative disorders, cancer, these are I always say that those, those problems are just basically if you asked, you know, what do we call end stage mitochondria dysfunction? There's a word for that. And the word for end stage mitochondrial dysfunction is cancer.

Is heart disease Alzheimer's. Right. Yeah. Is you know, just the list goes on and on. Yeah. So yeah. Fibromyalgia. Yeah. And that bucket too. Yeah. And so what is it now obviously genetics can play a role. And we see that. And it's not for everybody in fibro. But it's certainly we see that in the in the literature. But what are some of the things that can compromise our mitochondrial function. Let's talk about that. Yeah this is the most important thing. Right. Because if we can not, if we can stop damaging our mitochondria and protect what we have and help the ones we do have reproduce and grow, then then we're doing a good thing for our health.

So there's a few things we don't have control over. And that's our genetics and aging. And genetics is a really fascinating thing. I mean, if you're getting your, your, your DNA tested by a company that actually can interpret it and show you, they can show you the things that are causing, you know, mitochondria decline. So you don't have control over those two things.

What Damages Mitochondria 16:20

But you do have control over lifestyle. And this is a huge bucket of problem. The cause of mitochondrial dysfunction. So some of those things that I think all of your people are coming on here and talking about, so I'll just briefly touch on them. But, you know, lack of moving your body, you know, obviously somebody with, with fibromyalgia cannot move their body in the same way as somebody without fibromyalgia, because if you did a really hard core workout, you're actually going to cause more harm and your body cannot handle the oxidative stress that occurs.

You cannot clear that oxidation, when you have when you have fibromyalgia. So, so there's a way to exercise the fibromyalgia, right? And I know you have people on here talking about that. The the way to move your body that doesn't hurt you. But you know, and then we look about look at food and diet and what we're eating. And so we say, you know, this is one of the biggest things because there's two things. Well, three things we got to drink water to survive. We got to breathe air to survive. And we got to eat food to survive.

So yes, fasting is healthy, but we can't fast forever. And so one thing for certain is that most of us are going to be putting food in our mouth two, three, four times a day. At a minimum. All of us are going to be breathing air all day long, and all of us are going to be drinking water. Without those things, we're not going to last long. So what you eat matters so much. And of course, you know, we are in this era of just destroyed food sources. And every time I turn around, you know, there's I'm just so surprised at what's happening in the world.

I mean, right now there's a whole movement to get rid of animal foods. I mean, are you kidding me? I'm one of the most healthy things we could possibly put in our bodies, especially if you have the DNA of somebody who cannot digest. Well, then you shouldn't be on a raw vegan diet because it's going to kill you. Yeah, you need to be on it, you know? So, so everyone's different, right? You've heard of people who say, I can't eat meat, and there's people say, I can't eat raw, vegan, and it's because we're all made a little different.

But anyway, so the all the processed food, the, you know, non-organic, non-organic food with pesticides and, you know, glyphosate is just kind of destroying our gut microbiomes. It's destroying wildlife, it's destroying bees. It's destroying. It's destroying everything. Conventional meat that's full of hormones, antibiotics and chemicals. And then there's this whole. Yeah, I was going to say, really? It's just toxins. I mean, if you want to just it's just the toxins that we come in contact with on a daily basis.

And sometimes you can't even avoidance toxic air that you breathe, stuff that you come in contact with, you can't control. But yeah, but yeah, but obviously the food that you're eating, you want to do your best to have the cleanest diet that you can. And Terry Walls did a wonderful interview on here where she talked all about her paleo diet. It was protocol after she had a really good job, really looking at it's not about what to avoid. I mean, it's part of it. It's really what you really want to try to increase in your diet what you want to to eat on a daily basis.

I thought, I thought that was really interesting how she presented. Yeah. You know something, Roger that we do need to touch on. And I don't know if you have somebody talking on this, but the with the so toxins. Yes. I'm sure you're beating that up on this summit. We're talking about mold heavy metals I mean it's not these are just triggers that exactly come along. And then next thing you know you start developing symptoms now. Yes. And then something I really want to shed light on is infections.

So viruses, you know, Epstein-Barr, hepatitis, herpes bacteria, chronic bacterial infections, you know, people are colonized with bacteria in their urinary tracks, in their gut, in their gut, in their digestive tracks. They're colonized in their sinuses. They're colonized in their lungs. I remember you did the lung summit and talked a lot about this. You know, people have cavitation in their jawbone. Don't confuse that with a cavity. Cavity is happening in the tooth. The cavitation means that it's an infection in the bone itself.

And then there's fungal infections like Candida and parasitic infections that can be anywhere in the body, including the lungs and sinuses and bloodstream and liver, not just gut. So this is a really huge bucket of problems that is, that is causing harm and decline to the mitochondria and to your energy production. So you've got to solve these things. So people are hearing that and thinking, well, I don't stand a chance because they're there. They know they're exposed to multiple sources of toxins, and they know they probably, you know, have infections.

There's there's all kinds of stuff out there that you can't run away from. It's just part of being alive. So what are some of the steps that people can do? One of them, you know, that I really encourage them to do is to lighten the load. And we've had this conversation about people go through life, they're filling up their bucket with toxins. And if you got a really big bucket genetically the way you know God made you, you're probably going to be okay for many years. But if you have a little bucket that starts to overflow, maybe in your 30s or 40s and something comes along, that's the straw that breaks the camel's back.

And you can if it's just spilling out and you can't fix that with a drug, the only way to fix that is to detox. And you do that with deep restorative sleep and, and healthy, relaxation exercises and, and exercise, if you can. And a lot of people fibro can't because, you know, fibro flares. But there's some steps you can do to start to allow that, that mitochondria to come back on board. Yeah. So obviously detoxing and there's a whole process of pre detoxing. And before you detox and there's all kinds of steps.

But I think something that would be really important to take the time to talk about right here is how to restore mitochondrial function. So let's go. Right. So before I cover the steps to restore it we need to talk about and unpack the concept of autophagy. So the word comes from Greek and it means self eating. And it refers to cellular recycling. So your cells are actually like a recycling plant. So think about it. In your house you've got the waste bin that you put the paper in and the one that you put the compost in and the one that.

And then you've got the mixed bag one. So you're and your cells are off are a lot like a recycling plant. So they actually break down old worn out parts of you and build new healthy cell structures. And autophagy occurs when your cells are exposed to good stressors. So there's all the bad stress that everybody's talking about on this summit. And I want to introduce you to good stress like heat and cold and nutrient depletion. So think of fasting and exercise that's good for you. Exercise that's not damaging to you.

And of course being very careful with fibromyalgia. But when you're exposed to these stressors, your cells break down that old damaged stuff so you can build new cellular structure. And you're doing this in every part of your body, all the time. And this is what supports memory and cognition. And, you know, brain health and your heart beating and your digestive track working and your immune system firing and all of the enzymatic reactions that need to occur in every aspect of your body all day long.

And when this doesn't work, this is part of the development of chronic brain problems and health problems and, and, inflammatory problems.

Autophagy and Ways to Restore Energy 23:50

So so now let's talk about how to promote autophagy. So basically these are the things that are beneficial to you to help heal. So intermittent and extended fasting. It's the most researched and proven method to improve your lifespan. There is no I don't think there's any better way to add days and hours and years to your life than actually intermittent fasting. It's so widely researched, and this really stimulates that autophagy to occur. And so those damaged mitochondria are purged and you just remove a lot of, you know, damaged debris and reactive oxygen species and nitrogen species and unfolded proteins, which are all bad things.

All you need to know is everything I just said is bad. So, the next thing would be cold exposure. So shivering actually recruits mitochondria to generate heat. So there's a lot of popularity right now, you know, with cold showers and cold baths and cryotherapy. I mean, there's a place down the road from my house where you can go get, you know, up to minutes or if you can stand it, of a crypto blast right in a quiet chamber to your whole body. That's another really great way to stimulate, autophagy.

And that region of healthy tissue. Another one is, you know, heat exposure or, sauna, sauna bathing. And it doesn't even have to be red sauna. I mean, everybody's thinking of, oh, I need this infrared. The best studies out there are actually done on traditional heat sauna. The the goal is that you sweat. So that's a mild stress signal that triggers this, you know, adaptive response in the body and gets you to, you know, improve your mitochondrial health. And then there's the concept of phytochemicals.

And, you know, there's a lot of people that have done that have spent their life, you know, PhDs researching phytochemicals in the use of certain nutrients to stimulate homocysteine. So, for example, resveratrol from grapes or sulforaphane from broccoli or curcumin or Allison from garlic. So there's ways that you can use these phytochemicals to actually stimulate, mitochondria, biogenesis and hormones. So biogenesis is the generation of new mitochondria. So really eating a nutrient rich diet. And those are some of the big ones.

I mean, you mentioned, you know, getting good sleep, reducing stress. What else comes to mind? Sunlight, you know, getting outside and getting your circadian rhythms in check. That's critical to mitochondrial function. Turns out vitamin D is pretty important for mitochondrial function. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So those are some good ideas. What do you do, add to that writer? So CoQ10, you know, one of my favorite things. So the spark plug of every cell. So I find that my patients are notoriously deficient in CoQ10.

We got to I don't even test them anymore. I, you know, I don't even do that. Signal l-carnitine is another analogous. And of course, all the B vitamins that there are supplements out there that can certainly help your mitochondria work more effectively, but that what you share, Laura, really didn't cost you anything, just not to eat as much. And, David, your focus was on here. Doctor. Joggers. Yeah, we did a conversation. All that intermittent fasting and fasting. And for those of you who have not seen that interview, you might want to check it out.

But a lot of people get intimidated when they hear fasting. Yeah, it's really not. It's really not that hard of a thing. You might have to take baby steps and go and, you know, you're maybe you go ten hours, you know, you eat at 8 p.m. and then you eat it. But six, 6 a.m. is at the right math anyway. You, you you can do little baby steps just in if you normally eat at 8 a.m., maybe it's going extra hour till 9 a.m., and then 2 or 3 days later you see, you can find, oh, I can go to 10 a.m. before I eat, but eventually you can get to where you can go 14 to 16 hours, you know, a couple of times a week.

It's really not that hard. And it can add a tremendous amount of energy and it can help to reduce inflammation and pain. I think I see my patients who implement this strategy on a routine basis. Dramatically reduce some of the symptoms that they've been battling with fibromyalgia. Yeah, definitely. The the nutrients that you just listed are so important for the electron transport chain, which is really boring thing that when you're making that ATP energy, you need all those cofactors and support.

Yeah. So getting on a good, you know, mitochondrial supplement is going to make a big difference. So some of the medications that that are commonly used, if I remember some of the tricyclic antidepressants from the beta blockers certainly stat medications deplete CoQ10 and people can develop a deficiency over a number of years. And then all it takes is a 25% reduction in CoQ10 to start seeing the symptoms of low CoQ10, which would be brain fog, diffuse achy pain, muscle spasm, muscle pain. I mean, these are low moods.

I mean, this is some of the common things we've seen fibromyalgia totally. So mitochondria, these power plants. One of the things I think is really interesting is this thing called cell danger theory or Isaac Elias talks about the survival paradox. There's a lot of similarity between these, but it makes sense to me that something comes along that's the stressor. That is the straw that breaks the camel's back. The by thinks it's being attacked, goes into hyper alert mode. Kind of like we see with with Covid. Yeah.

And it turn off. And so the mitochondria instead of their job as being part of the immune system and releasing inflammatory chemicals to help with this. They just shut down. They don't they quit working. And that's where people really start to see this low energy states. So the things that we can do to nurture ourselves, to allow ourselves to realize, you know, you're you're going to be it's all going to be okay. I remember when Isaac was explaining, you know, all this detail. He's got this, Israeli accent and he's, you know, it's really, really interesting to hear him and try to really try to understand what he's saying.

And so I've got this southern accent, he's got this Israeli accent, and we're having this conversation and, you know, but I actually after a little while, what I, what do people need to do? They just go, tell me, what do they need to do to turn this survival paradox off? And you know, it was like, Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer and he was Deepak and I was Wayne Dyer and he said, just meditate and just meditate, you know, and really, you know, it sounds so simplistic, but what it is, it's a way to give your body the opportunity to realize that you're not under attack, you're going to be okay.

And and the supplements can help. The diet certainly can help. But making that time to really nurture yourself is really important as well. Right? Totally. Yeah. Isaac's amazing. I love I've had him on my summits and, he's he he's kind of one of those genius kind of guys. Yeah. Like and a scientist and a and a medical doctor all at the same time. Right? Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well tell me, d what are some of the relaxation techniques that you recommend for your clients? For your patients?

Yeah. You know, I really like to. So there are people if, if you tell me I have to meditate one more time, I'm going to stab you. Right? Okay. People like some people just don't. I have patients like that. They get. They just. They can't. They. I start to bring it up and I can just. I can see their eyes rolling. Yeah. Yeah. So I empathize because I'm one of those people understand my brain never stops. And so when I try to meditate, I'm thinking I cannot stop myself. I literally have to have tricks to like.

So my trick is I put myself next to a river that's flowing, and I just sit next to the river and watch the water in my mind. So then when I start thinking about my grocery list and the people I forgot to get back to today

Relaxation, Mindset, and Practical Takeaways 31:50

and my daughter's teacher at school that I need to connect with, I'm like, I'm I'm at the river. I'm at the river. I'm watching the water go by. I need to. So meditation for me is actually really stressful. Oh, I haven't mastered it. Yeah. And and everybody's shaking their head. They're going yeah me too. Oh my gosh. So I mean, even if you can do it for two minutes that's good right. So so you get to have a little wind. I mean I have meditation goals if, if there is like, beating drums or something like that, I can get in a meditative state.

I absolutely can, but I have to have some kind of distraction from my brain. So, I mean, meditation, my whole point is meditation doesn't have to look or relaxation state doesn't have to look the same for everyone you need to get away from unhook your brain from the stressors, right? So for me, what it looks like is, every day when I get up in the morning, I sit down in front of my red light and I am usually reading, a couple of different books. Usually a science book of some sort and some kind of business book.

And then I have scripture that I like to read and a devotional. So I start my day with my devotional and scripture. I sit there and read that, and then I'll read whatever else I happen to be reading and I'll give myself, you know, on a busy day, I get ten minutes of that on a luxurious day. Maybe I get to do that for an hour, right? And so for me, that's that is way more effective for me than trying to go meditate. But obviously yoga is something. And gentle pose yoga, the most important piece of that is breathing, right?

It's it's the breathing that really helps people. So I just invite our audience here to not have their, you know, relaxation time and downtime have to look a certain way or look like somebody else's. I mean, getting out in nature for some people, it's taking a walk in nature. For some people, that's the best thing they can do. For some people, you know, it's family time, it's playing with your it's time for joy and playing with your kids and grandkids and unplugging and making time for that. Yeah.

So I mean, that's really my approach to that kind of downtime. If you struggle with meditation, of course, meditation is amazing. If you can do it. Yeah, I advocate the hour power. And if you can't do an hour, you can do half an hour. And most people you can find an hour. You can. I mean, you can, you can do it to where you you give yourself permission just for quiet time. And that's for me is to read it's, you know, scripture or Joyce Meyers or or our spiritual, material like Wayne Dyer, or motivational things like Zig Zag on these kind of things.

Joe Olson. Yeah. And then digital, you know. Yeah. And then just a journal. But just to have that quiet time and I do meditate, but I totally understand it's not for everybody. But like you said, Laura could be just getting out every day and, you know, getting a 20 minute walk in. I mean, something that you can do to kind of detach from this being in the maze is what I call it, where you can't get out, where you just have this stinking thinking that Zig Ziglar used to say, you just can't get out of that. You just got this black cloud.

Like a lot of us, the guy Linus and Linus and, who, who was who and peanuts with Charlie Brown, who was with the black cloud, or you know that. Oh, yeah, that's the thing. I can't think of his name, but Nick pin picks it. Yeah. You know, but I think the first step is, is making a pledge to try this and get in a habit of finding some quiet time every day. I think that's the most important. You know, the important step is just deciding you're going to do this. Otherwise, you wake up every day and you just you're you're reacting to whatever happens to you all day long because you're not, you know, attempting to control your thoughts.

And I know that can be intimidating, you know, but it's really the first step to that is realizing that you can control your reaction. You know, you can, you can, you can have it, preset up that you're going to when you get pushed or you get squeezed, if you're if you're an orange, when you get squeeze, you orange juice comes out. What happens when you get squeezed? Anger, irritability, you lash out or whatever. But I think once you start doing this quiet time, you can start thinking about how you want to react to a certain situation that day or something that's coming up on the calendar, and then you're much more prepared.

When you're faced with that situation. You can take a step back. And, as one of my mentors, Wayne Dyer, used to say, I can I can choose peace over this. You know, you don't you don't have to be right. You don't have to get an argument. You know, you can just just choose peace for sure. Well, we've had we've had quite the conversation. We go we've been we've gone all over the place. Hope that you were taking some notes because we mentioned some supplements I think could be really helpful for some of you.

And we've mentioned some lifestyle changes that I would encourage you to learn more about intermittent fasting. You can go online, you can read anything you want it to your heart's content about that. It's really not that complicated. And it's really not that hard to do. You just, you know, get started and take a little baby steps. Exercise is something that, for many of you is probably out of reach, at least in the beginning. But even five minutes a day, and then you build on that five minutes of walking or stretching, even that is going to help build that mitochondria.

Yeah. Thank you so much for doing this, Roger. This project is so important. And, you know, as someone who overlooked people with fibromyalgia for, you know, a long time in, in the Western medicine world, I'm so glad that I went down the functional medicine wormhole and actually was able to open my eyes and learn and see that there is hope. And there is a tool toolbox for fibromyalgia. And, so, so for those of you watching this, you're in fantastic hands with Roger. I mean, this is the place to be.

So thank you for the work that you're doing. I wish I knew you 20 years ago, Roger. Really? Well, I really appreciate that's that's quite the compliment coming from you, because I really highly respect your work and your brain and really appreciate all that you're doing to in the functional medicine space. Thank you so, so very much for being a part of this. And for those of you want to know more about, doctor Laura's, Laura, nurse practitioner about her practice, and about, some of her programs.

What's the best website for them to go to to learn more about your work, let's go to Laura frontier hero. Com. You can you can probably see the spelling of my name right here on this little, little zoom. Yeah. We have it on there. Yeah. Yep. Go to Laura friend tarot.com. You can find me on Instagram at Laura dot Ontario. I'm on Facebook. Best thing to do is just go there to find me. Great. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye.