Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar taught the most popular course ever at Harvard and is one of the world's top happiness experts. He defines happiness not as temporary pleasure (like going to the beach or eating ice cream), but as "whole person well-being," captured in his SPIRE framework: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Relational, and Emotional.

One of the most powerful studies Dr. Ben-Shahar shares is about janitors, nurses, and doctors working in the same hospitals doing identical work…yet some saw their work as a "job" (something they had to do for a paycheck), others as a "career" (focused on climbing the organizational hierarchy), and others as a "calling" (meaningful work that matters). The janitors who saw their work as facilitating patient healing were happier and performed better than doctors who saw their work as just a job.

Surprisingly, research shows there is NO connection between IQ and happiness. But there IS a strong connection between using your intelligence (being curious, asking questions, and lifelong learning) and happiness. Curious people are not just happier and more successful, they also live longer!

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Alan Christianson, a board-certified naturopathic endocrinologist and the founding president of the Endocrine Association of Naturopathic Physicians and the American College of Thyroidology. We'll discuss his new book, the Hormone Healing Cookbook, and specific foods for resolving pesky symptoms driven by hormonal changes in midlife.

In this episode, I'm speaking with Caroline Alan, the self-proclaimed "Mineral Geek."

She shares her history of serious health problems, including gut inflammation, periodontal disease with bone loss in her teeth, recurring sinus infections, brain fog so bad she left her corporate career, and lifelong insomnia.

But her health completely transformed thanks to a chance suggestion from her business partner to try liquid minerals.

Caroline is now passionate about sharing the connections she's found between mineral depletion, replenishment, and cellular function.

She's also a soon-to-be published author; her book, The Mineral Reset: The Essential Guide to Replenishing Your Body and Restoring Your Health, will be available at the end of April.

Most people think body fat is the problem. If you gain weight, the goal is simple: eat less, burn more, and try to get rid of it.

But what if that way of thinking is fundamentally flawed?

Today, I'm joined by Dr. William Li, a world-renowned physician and scientist who has led the development of more than 30 new medical treatments that impact care for over 70 diseases, including cancer, diabetes, blindness, heart disease, and obesity. Dr. Li has spent decades studying the biology of metabolism, fat, and disease.

In his view, body fat itself is not the enemy. In fact, it plays a critical role in your health. The real problem begins when fat becomes excessive, dysfunctional, and inflammatory, disrupting the systems that regulate metabolism and energy balance.

This shift in perspective changes everything.

In this episode, I'm speaking with Dr. Christopher Pickard, a hypertension expert with decades of expertise studying nutrition and lifestyle on how to get your blood pressure back down into the healthy range.

In this podcast, Dr. Pickard and I discuss:

• The link between high blood pressure and the risk of dying from COVID-19…and how Dr. Pickard is using this knowledge to help his patients

• What high blood pressure is actually trying to tell you—it's not a disease; it's a warning sign of something more

• 3 unexpected causes for hypertension and the problem with simply "fixing it" with a pill

• 7 practical ways you can start addressing high blood pressure NOW

• Why breathing through your nose (versus your mouth) might be the missing piece to solving some people's hypertension

• One amazingly simple step you can take to increase nitric oxide (and decrease blood pressure!)

• Learn the best fruit to eat to support healthy blood pressure levels!

Most people think of chronic illness as something caused by a specific trigger…an infection, a toxin, or even an autoimmune reaction. And the solution is to find and eliminate that one thing.

But what if that's not how it actually works?

Today, I'm excited to have Dr. Eric Gordon back on the podcast. He's built a reputation for doing what most doctors won't, which is looking beyond the diagnosis to find what's actually driving a patient's illness and figuring out the right order to address it. His clinical work spans Lyme disease, ME/CFS, autoimmune conditions, and mitochondrial dysfunction, and many other forms of dysfunction, often all at once in the same patient.

In 2016, he co-authored a landmark study with Dr. Robert Naviaux, also a former guest on this podcast and a bit of a personal hero of mine, someone who has done some of the most important work in medicine of the last century, with his work on the cell danger response.

In Dr. Gordon's view, chronic illness happens when the body's normal healing cycle gets interrupted and stuck in a persistent inflammatory state.

From that perspective, the problem isn't just the original trigger. It's the state your body has shifted into. And if that's true, it changes how you approach treatment.

That shift in thinking opens the door to very different kinds of interventions. These approaches focus on changing the broader biological environment rather than chasing a single cause.

In this episode, Dr. Gordon and I discuss a therapy that filters and replaces part of your blood plasma and may help remove inflammatory factors circulating in the blood that keep the body stuck.

In this podcast, Dr. Eric Gordon and I discuss:

• Why chronic illness often reflects a body stuck in the wrong healing state; compensations the body makes for stressors are designed to be short-term, not chronic

• What happens when the body's normal repair cycle gets interrupted

• Why the body's response, not the original trigger, can keep people sick

• The surprising role of "old information" in ongoing dysfunction

• Why trying to fix one problem at a time often falls short in people with overlapping conditions

• Dr. Gordon explains why treating the body as a machine will never work - biological reductionism is the fundamental error

• How a fascinating intervention called plasmapheresis works to filter and replace blood plasma and lower inflammatory load

• Why plasmapheresis is gaining attention in chronic illness and longevity

• Dr. Gordon's belief that medicine is faulty because it's hooked on specificity, that the more we can do exactly what we want, the better…but this approach is lacking because we don't know exactly how our bodies work

In this episode of The Energy Blueprint, I'm speaking with neuroscientist and bestselling author Mark Waldman. Mark has been on the podcast multiple times, but I find his information so interesting that I'm excited to have him back today.

Mark is now working in a new field called network neuroscience. During our conversation, he explains the framework of this field and shares some very practical but very effective steps to reduce mind-wandering and improve psychotherapy outcomes.

A 2018 study found that 88% of the population is metabolically unwell. But more recent studies estimate the number is closer to 92%!

My guest today is Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, founder of the Institute of Nutritional Endocrinology. She has 30+ years of clinical experience and sees imbalanced blood sugar and disordered insulin regulation as the underlying cause of so many people's problems.

Her bottom line is that to get fuel into your mitochondria, good insulin and blood sugar control is a non-negotiable.

Most people think of insulin resistance as the diagnosis you get from your doctor, but by that point, there's already been retinopathies (damage to retinas), neuropathies (damage to peripheral nerves), damage to kidneys, and damage to blood vessel linings.

Dr. Loscalzo focuses on "pre-insulin resistance," catching the breakdown decades before diagnosis, when you can actually prevent it.

This episode was initially released in November 2022

Today's podcast guest is Dr. Amie Hornaman, most well-known as The Thyroid Fixer. She was a figure competitor and powerlifter who gained 25 pounds eating chicken, broccoli, and asparagus while hitting the gym twice a day. Biologically, it didn't make sense.

It took seven doctors before she got diagnosed with Hashimoto's, and the sixth one made her cry in her car, praying that something was wrong because, as she told me, "if something was wrong, we could fix it." The seventh doctor gave her Synthroid, and after five months, there was zero change. Not one pound lost, no energy gained, hair still falling out.

In this episode, she explains that nearly all diagnoses of hypothyroidism are Hashimoto's, the autoimmune form, where your body attacks your thyroid gland. The conventional standard of care is to check only TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone), even though TSH doesn't identify an autoimmune disease.

This episode is especially important if you've been struggling with thyroid symptoms and haven't been checked for thyroid autoimmunity.

(This episode was originally released in Dec 2022)

Today's podcast guest, Dr. Sonya Jensen, is a first-generation immigrant who grew up navigating two very different cultures and the rules imposed on her about how she should look, who she should be friends with, and how she should perform in school. Around age 13, she developed anorexia as a way of gaining control of her own life.

Ultimately, her experiences with anorexia, processing childhood trauma, and working with patients led her to put the pieces together between emotions, trauma, and physical health.

In this episode, we discuss the deep work she does with women, where she focuses on the well-researched links between emotions and physical health.

In this podcast, Dr. Jensen and I discuss:

• A 66,000-woman study over 16 years found every single woman with a fibroid had childhood abuse, whether physical, sexual, or emotional (this is when Dr. Jensen started piecing together trauma and physical health)

• When progesterone is low, GABA is low - so you may feel anxious - when estrogen is low, dopamine and serotonin are low, so you're not accessing joy as quickly

• Constant production of the stress hormone cortisol creates more pronounced estrogen dominance; one woman manifests tender breasts or cysts, another manifests fibroids, but all have low progesterone

• Fibroids can become worse by pseudo-estrogen from environmental toxins (pesticides, phthalates, plastics)...if your body can't detoxify them, they recirculate and create estrogen dominance

• Dr. Jensen was previously against bioidentical hormones, but she then realized women go into midlife very depleted, and physiological dosing helps them feel like themselves again

• Progesterone dosing is nuanced: One of Dr. Jensen's patients went into psychosis on progesterone because her OB-GYN doubled the dose - not everyone can be on the same dose or same kind of hormone

• Holocaust studies show infants born to survivors have adrenal insufficiency; their ability to adapt to stress isn't as optimal due to generational trauma

• If mom was stressed during pregnancy, her preteen will have more anxiety, if mom had really low cortisol, the child's nervous system regulation isn't as efficient

• Women who use hormones along with lifestyle changes and emotional work thrive on minimal doses, and some can even take breaks; women who only do hormones hit plateaus and cycle back

My guest today, Dr. Wendie Trubow, went to France in 2019 for the trip of a lifetime.

But when she came home, her hair started falling out, she gained weight, and had a rash all over her face. She tested her thyroid (perfect), hormones (perfect), and gut (great).

Ultimately, she realized that when Notre Dame burned, it released 500 tons of lead into the air and soil, and she had slogged through that dust for a week. Testing showed that her lead levels were incredibly high.

Her biggest insight was that all the modern medical issues she treated as a functional MD—obesity, diabetes, cancer, insomnia, endocrine dysfunction, gut dysfunction—could be tracked back to toxic exposures, creating a state of inflammation.

Dr. Trubow believes your particular "soup" (genetics, lifestyle, early childhood, antibiotic use, diet, sleep, stress, relationships, self-talk, movement) determines how inflammation manifests in you.

Wendie's story is really incredible, and I think you'll love this podcast. This episode was first released in Jan 2023

In this podcast, Dr. Trubow and I discuss:

• How toxins are related to stubborn weight: they get stored in fatty tissue when you exceed your body's ability to excrete them

• Studies show that levels of persistent organic pollutants ("forever chemicals") in the bloodstream during weight loss predict weight regain!

• Alcohol is an acute toxin that takes priority in the liver—your body stops all other detox behavior (hormone processing, pesticide excretion) to focus exclusively on processing alcohol

• By the time most women leave the house, they've put over 200 chemicals on their bodies, from shampoo, conditioner, face products, makeup, moisturizers, and perfumes

• Your bed is a hidden toxin if it contains flame retardants—these are endocrine disruptors, mess up your thyroid and female hormones, and raise your risk of estrogen-dependent cancers

• Never ask "What-if?" questions…ruminating about uncontrollable situations sends your body into fight-flight-freeze and shuts down detox

• New cars contain over 300 chemicals, and even new clothes are sprayed with chemicals—wash clothes before you wear them, and shop consciously

• It's more expensive to react to disease than prevent it…if you could avoid cancer by spending $10 extra a day, it would be the right financial move; cancer costs most people over $100,000 per year to treat