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GUEST EXPERTS
Good Stress vs. Bad Stress - And
Jedi Tricks to Heal from Ari Whitten,
PhD (Cand.), CES, PES
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Breaking the Habit of Being

Yourself to Create a Whole New
Life from Jason Prall
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Magic Water: How to Reduce Ox-

idative Stress and Inflammation
with Hydrogen from Paul Barattiero,
ND, CHS, CNHP
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 1

Good Stress vs. Bad Stress -

And Jedi Tricks to Heal
Ari Whitten, PhD (Cand.), CES, PES

Misty: Hey, everybody. Misty Williams here,
founder of Healing Rosie and your host for Radical
Healing: Detox your Stress & Stressors. And I’m really
excited about this upcoming interview with my
dear friend, Ari Whitten. Many of you guys know
him as the author of the Energy Blueprint.
He has a really awesome podcast. He’s done so
much great work in our space. There’s a lot of
people in the Healing Rosie community who have
learned from Ari, and his work is often talked
about in the Healing Rosie Facebook group. So we
are going to learn a lot today.
Ari approaches this topic of energy, both from his
own experience as being someone who thought
of themselves as athletic, fit, and vital and dealt
with just bottoming out energy in his early,
probably pre-career time, I guess we could say.
And then he has really mastered energy, and he
is able to talk about this idea of energy and even
this topic of stress that we’re going to discuss
on this interview today from a really informed
perspective. I always learn something new and
different from Ari.
He brings a different perspective to a lot of these
conversations that are not only thought-provoking
but it can really inform how you go about charting
your own trajectory with healing and with really
reclaiming the energy in your own life.
So Ari Whitten is the founder of the Energy
Blueprint. He’s been studying and teaching
natural health science for over 25 years. His
passion and obsession is building out the
evidence-based scientific framework of human
energy optimization.
He’s the bestselling author of the most popular
book on the topic of red light therapy and the
host of the Energy Blueprint podcast, which
brings together leading experts on the subject of
understanding fatigue and energy enhancement.
He has a bachelor’s of science in kinesiology from
San Diego State University, holds certifications
from the National Academy of Sports Medicine as
a corrective exercise specialist and performance
enhancement specialist.
He has completed all three years of coursework
for his PhD in clinical psychology and is currently
finishing up his MS in human nutrition and
functional medicine, which he’s doing for fun and
to stay on top of the latest functional medicine
approaches to healing chronic illness.
Together, this has given him an uncommonly
broad understanding of all aspects of optimizing
human health, from nutrition to physical training,
to light science, to psychology, and more. For
the last seven years, he’s been dedicated to
the cutting-edge science of human energy
enhancement. Welcome, Ari.
Ari: Thank you so much for having me. Always a
pleasure to talk to you, my friend.
Misty: Yes. Well, I’m excited for us to dive in
because you have kind of segued into this topic,
talking about hormetic stress, which is a term that

Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass

 2
I have heard of before, but I’m not totally familiar
with. So I’m super excited for us to dive in and
hear your very different perspective on this stress
conversation.
But before we do that, I’d love for you just to
start out with telling us a little bit about your own
experiences with energy because not only are you
a scientist with a broad understanding of not only
the topic of energy and human optimization, just
as we just said here in the intro, but you also have
been someone who struggled at a time in your life
when you really should have been in your prime
and had amazing energy.
So I think it would be helpful for people to
understand this part of your story and what your
work is really rooted in.
Ari: Yeah. Well, the very short summary version
of it, so we don’t spend 20 minutes talking about
this. I want to get into the science and practical
methods for people, but as far as my story,
basically, I’ve been obsessed with studying health
since I was a little kid, since I was 12, 13 years old.
And on top of that, I have some natural proclivities
and talents. One of which is I have very obsessive
tendency. So when I develop an interest in
something, it’s kind of all I think about and all I
want to do and all I want to read about and learn
about. And I’ve also been gifted with scientific sort
of understanding, some scientific talents, I think
naturally. I just as an example, when I was in high
school, I was not a good student.
I was not pushed to excel. I was not driven. I was
totally bored with school and uninterested in it.
I didn’t have parents that pushed me to study
hard or anything like that. I sort of did the least
amount possible to get by. But when I took-- this
is something I actually learned recently looking at
these things. I kind of forgot about it.
But my parents dug up some national
standardized testing scores that the whole
country takes, and then you’re graded in the
percentile across the whole country of the US.
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
And I was in the eighties and the seventies, I think
for like English and math and things like that.
But I was 99th percentile repeatedly in science
throughout my high school years, really without
trying, without any effort.
So I had some natural talents there and then
obsessed with natural health science since I was
12 years old. So that’s kind of been my passion
and my obsession. And then I was an athlete
all my life. I was into bodybuilding when I was
younger. And then, in my mid-twenties, I got
Epstein-Barr virus, and I got mononucleosis, and it
was very severe through a combination of factors.
At the time, I was living on a communal farm
in Israel. I was working extremely hard. I was
partying up till late at night, so I was sleeping
like four hours a night. I was sleeping in a room
with two other roommates right next to me. And
they’re disturbing my sleep. I think the room
was infested with mold, and the combination of
factors, I think, suppressed my immune system.
And then I got hit very hard with mononucleosis,
and I was pretty much out of commission for
several months after that. And then, once I
recovered from the mono symptoms, I was left
with pretty debilitating chronic fatigue for many
more months after that.
And that’s really what shifted my focus from kind
of the fitness world, athletics, body composition,
bodybuilding, fat loss, muscle gain type of stuff,
which had been my forte, my obsession prior
to that. And it shifted my focus more broadly to
natural health and then energy specifically—what
regulates energy.
And then, as I was in the midst of that chronic
fatigue, then I started to seek out conventional
doctors. Pretty much universally, they had nothing
to offer for me as someone who suffered from
chronic fatigue. And we can talk about the details
around that if you want.
And then I was drawn to kind of the natural
health community and the alternative medicine
 3
community, which I had been sort of studying
for many years prior to that. And basically,
everybody in that realm when it comes to fatigue
was obsessed with adrenal fatigue. And so then I
became convinced that I had adrenal fatigue, and
how do I fix my adrenals? And I started reading
everything I could about adrenal fatigue.
And it really irked me to discover that
conventional medicine brushes off the whole
thing of adrenal fatigue, the whole adrenal fatigue
hypothesis, as pseudoscience. And so I kind of set
out to stick it to them. And I was going to dig into
the literature. I was kind of determined to write a
book about adrenal fatigue, proving that it was a
real thing.
At first, I spent just a few weeks digging into the
scientific literature around this. Some studies kind
of maybe seemed to support it a little bit, some
studies didn’t, and then I started digging more and
digging more. And I was kind of baffled by what I
was discovering.
And eventually, I ended up spending about a full
year dedicated to that subject entirely. And at this
point, I’m convinced I probably know that scientific
literature, that body of evidence that’s relevant
to chronic stress and chronic fatigue and adrenal
function, cortisol levels, and HPA axis function,
hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis
function. I think I know that literature probably
better than anyone on the planet, or at least in
the top 0.0001% of people in the world.
Misty: Great.
Ari: So ultimately, what I discovered after reading
all of that literature and studying it very in-
depth, and putting it all together was not what
I expected. And it was that it basically falsified
the adrenal fatigue hypothesis. And the gist of
those studies are basically comparing people with
various kinds of chronic fatigue to normal, healthy
people in terms of their adrenal function, their
cortisol levels, or HPA axis function.
And the majority of those studies find no
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
difference whatsoever in terms of cortisol levels
or adrenal function, or HPA axis function in
people with various kinds of chronic fatigue
versus normal, healthy people.
So the data very clearly falsifies the adrenal
fatigue hypothesis. It’s simply not the case that
adrenal issues or cortisol issues are the main root
cause of chronic fatigue. And that’s like a one-
minute summary of a year of my life.
So once I discovered that and I realized
conventional medicine really doesn’t have
much to offer people with chronic fatigue and
alternative medicine, the natural health functional
medicine community also really was obsessed
with this adrenal fatigue thing that just isn’t true.
[10:00]
That was the catalyst for me to dedicate my life
to energy. What is the real science, if not adrenal
stuff and HPA axis function? What the real science
of what is regulating and controlling human
energy levels? Why are people fatigued, and
how do we fix that? And so that’s what I’ve been
obsessed with for seven, eight years now.
Misty: Yeah. Well, if you guys have had the
privilege of tuning into some of Ari’s webinars or
any of his work when he’s kind of introducing a
new body of not just science, but you are really
great, Ari, about helping people to know what to
do with the science.
Like here’s what the science is saying. So how do
we start incorporating and building some things
in our lifestyle that are going to actually help us
improve our energy? I have so much respect for
you for that because there’s a lot of people in our
space who are really great with the science.
And as a layperson, which I definitely don’t
consider myself to be a scientist, I appreciate
learning from people who really have a grasp
of it. I find that it’s informed my own journey
enough that I can really advocate for myself. And
I’ve learned the drivers that seem to be really
 4
important for a lot of other women too.
But I’m certainly not the person that’s going to be
able to dig in like you and analyze things. So there
are people that are great with the science, but
what I struggle with is sometimes I hear people
talking about the science and how things work at
a scientific level. And I don’t know what to do with
that information.
Like how do I actually take that and make it
practical in my life? And so it’s really wonderful
that we have awesome leaders like you in our
movement who are helping us all to apply this
because so much of us obviously struggle with
the application of things that are oftentimes just
beyond our capability to integrate. So I want
to dive into this topic of stress a little bit more
because you kind of actually did a nice setup.
I think there’s a lot of people who are dealing with
stress and fatigue. It’s a bedrock of a plethora of
issues that come up in the health space, especially
when you start getting into some of the more
advanced disease that people are dealing with.
And a lot of autoimmunities are often
characterized by having issues that stress is a
component of. You were speaking a little bit about
hormetic stress, and I think it would be nice just
to define what stress is. There’s a couple of types
of stress, and that would probably really segue us
into some of this other juicy stuff we’re going to
get into today.
Ari: Yeah, sure. So let’s start by pretending that
we’ve never heard the word stress before. Okay.
Pretending like you know nothing about that word
and the meaning of it.
And the reason I say that is because everybody
does know that word, and everybody has a certain
association with it, of what it means. And it’s a
negative association. Stress is bad, right? I need
to avoid stress. I need to de-stress. I need to relax
and not be so stressed out.
Well, the truth is that the human body needs
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
stress. It needs stress, not just to function
optimally, but to function normally, and without
stress, your body actually dysfunctions. So this
is the first important thing to understand about
stress. The human organism needs stress to
function normally, and without stress in our life,
we become diseased and weak, and fatigued.
Okay. And I’ll explain more about why that is. The
second thing to understand is that stress is not
inherently bad. Obviously, it goes with the first
principle. Every type of stressor has the potential
to be both beneficial or harmful, and whether or
not it turns--
And actually, let me just add to that by saying
that even things like the most toxic substances
you could dream of, like mercury or radioactive
compounds, have actually been shown in
numerous studies to help prevent various
diseases and extend lifespan when they are
administered in the correct dose.
Now that sounds like crazy talk because we’re
used to thinking of those substances as sort of
universally toxic. And the nuance to what I’m
saying is there’s a few important variables that will
determine whether or not a stressor is toxic or
beneficial.
And one of those is the nature of the substance or
the type of stress itself. So every type of stressor
has its own profile, if you will, of the potential for
harm and the potential for benefit.
So if I compare, let’s say mercury or alcohol, which
are stressors to the body and potentially cause
harm and toxic to the body. If I compare that to
sun exposure, which is actually another type of
stressor, UV radiation on the skin also creates
reactive oxygen species and creates a potential
for stress.
Or if I compare it to exercise or like going for a run
or lifting weights, which is also a type of stressor.
Or if I compare it to breath-holding, let’s say, or
going into a sauna. So let’s say mercury exposure
versus exercise, going for a five-mile jog, let’s say.
 5
Each one of those two things creates a degree of
toxicity, a degree of stress at the cellular level, but
they also have differing potentials for harm.
That mercury is toxic neurologically. It’s toxic to
the endocrine glands. It’s toxic to the immune
system. It’s toxic to the gut. It’s toxic in so many
ways. And there’s a potential for actual cell death
and necrosis, immune dysfunction, autoimmunity.
It accumulates in the tissues such that it can lead
your immune system to then attack it into the
tissues.
There’s a potential for benefit there, but there’s
also a very significant potential, many different
potentials for ways that that type of stress can
then create harm and dysfunction.
Whereas exercise, on the other hand, is
something that the human body is incredibly well
adapted to unless you do enormous amounts
of it that are like, you take a sedentary person,
and you force them to go run a marathon. Then
it’s going to absolutely be way more toxic than
beneficial.
Okay. And that’s, again, how the dosage fits
into this. That exercise, yes, it has potential for
harm, but it has enormous potential for benefit
without bioaccumulating in our tissues, leading
to autoimmune disease, or killing off brain cells,
or anything like that. So it’s a much safer form of
stress.
So it has way less potential for harm and way
more potential for benefit. So my point is to
say every type of stress imaginable, whether it’s
psychological stress, whether it’s environmental
toxicants, whether it’s exercise, whether it’s
breath-holding, whether it’s heat, whether it’s
cold, whether it’s fasting, they all have a unique
profile of their potential for harm and their
potential for benefit.
And there is something in the literature and the
literature on hormetic stress called the biphasic
dose-response. And what this means is at a very
low level, if I do, let’s say I want to get benefits of
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
exercise. If I do a bicep curl with this stapler here
in my hand, and I do three reps, and then I put
it down, I haven’t done enough of a dose of that
form of stress to challenge my system enough
that it’s creating any sort of response.
On the other hand, if I go do a three-day
marathon where I don’t sleep and I just run a
hundred miles every day for the next three days,
do some crazy ultra-marathon or something like
that, I’m going to beat my tissues to hell. I’m going
to cause probably stress fractures. I’m going to
cause enormous amounts of muscle damage.
I might calcify my arteries in the process. I might
cause rhabdomyolysis because so much tissue
damage is occurring. Now it’s toxic to my kidneys.
I can cause enormous amounts of harm on that
end of the spectrum. So there is an optimal
dosage, a window of what is the correct amount
of exercise that will challenge my body, not create
a toxic effect.
And this is the important part, and this is really
what hormetic stress is all about. Stimulate my
body to respond to that stressor by making
adaptations that make me more resistant to a
broad range of stressors and ultimately more
resilient in the face of stress and more resistant
to numerous different diseases and enhance
my lifespan and make me more energetic in the
process.
[20:00]
So hormetic stress is basically using stress to
become stronger. So the famous line from
Nietzsche is what doesn’t kill you makes you
stronger. This is what hormetic stress is all about.
It’s about using stress to make you stronger. And
it applies in every domain of stress imaginable.
But again, there are certain stressors that are
better than others because of their unique profile
of potential for harm and potential for benefit.
So like sleep deprivation, it’s potentially a kind
of stressor. They use it in the military to train
Special Forces people how to function well, how to
 6
function in war on sleep deprivation.
I would never recommend sleep deprivation to
somebody who’s trying to improve their health
because it has so much of a toxic effect that it’s
just going to outweigh the beneficial impacts
of whatever you might gain, whatever a soldier
might gain mentally by the confidence knowing
that they can function and still thrive with very
little sleep.
So anyway, that’s a broad overview of hormetic
stress. The last thing I’ll say on it is we need to
reframe our whole understanding of stress so
that we realize that stress is not something that’s
universally harmful to us but is vital for our
health.
And I will go so far as to say that engaging in the
right type of stressors is arguably—may be right
next to a good diet, good nutrition, and sleeping
well—is arguably the single most important factor
in disease prevention and longevity.
Misty: So we’re having lots of conversations about
the bad stress. We’re talking about things like
mold and metals, and there’s a lot of people in
the space, especially that tune into summits like
this, who have had chronic lifelong stress that
has really worn them down. People have a lot of
life stress trauma that’s not been resolved, and
they’re carrying that in their body.
I can almost imagine someone listening to you
talk saying, how do I know the difference? How
do I know what my own stress resilience looks
like? How do I kind of guide myself through this
understanding of stress and managing the stress
in my own life to get the best benefits from it?
Where do I need to be kind of leaning in, and then
where do I really need to be backing off?
Ari: So let me add one more layer to what I was
just explaining. And that is the variable of the
individual. So every stress has the potential to be
harmful or beneficial, and it depends on three
things. One is the unique profile of the stressor
itself, its potential for harm, and its potential for
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
benefit. The second thing is the dose.
So remember that biphasic dose-response.
We need enough of it that we get some effect,
that we challenge/stimulate our body to make
adaptations, but not so much that it’s causing way
more harm than good and negating the benefit.
And the third thing that affects whether a
stressor is going to be harmful or beneficial is
you, the individual, and what I call your resilience
threshold. Now, your resilience threshold is
largely a function of your mitochondrial health.
So to digress into that topic for a moment, we
thought like close to a century that mitochondria
are just sort of these mindless energy generators.
They take in carbs and fats. They pump out
cellular energy in the form of something called
ATP or adenosine triphosphate. And that’s kind
of how we learn about them in high school
and college biology. The mitochondria is the
powerhouse of the cell, the cellular energy
generator, whatever you want to think of them.
And they are that, and that role is extremely
important.
However, there is this other role that has only
been discovered in the last few years, primarily
as a result of the work of Dr. Robert Naviux, who
runs a lab for mitochondrial medicine at the
University of California, San Diego. In my opinion,
one of the most brilliant scientists of the last
century.
And he has basically discovered that the
mitochondria have a second role beyond energy
production that most people are totally unaware
of. And it’s absolutely vital. In his words, the
mitochondria are the central hub of the wheel of
metabolism.
They are the concertmasters of our metabolic
function, our cellular function. And basically,
the second role is that mitochondria, in addition
to energy producers, they are essentially like
canaries in the coal mine. They are exquisitely
sensitive environmental sensors, and their job is
 7
to detect the presence of stress or danger in the
body.
And when there is an amount of stress that
crosses a certain threshold, what I call the
resilience threshold, they deem that to be a threat
to the whole body. And what happens when
mitochondria sense the presence of a significant
threat in the body is they shift out of their role in
energy production and shift towards cell defense.
So, in other words, mitochondria have two roles.
They can either be, and these things are mutually
exclusive. Either be energy producers, producing
lots of energy for you to have abundant energy
and to feel energetic, or they can shift out of
energy mode into cellular defense mode.
And it’s not an on-off switch. It’s more like a
dimmer switch. So there’s lots and lots of shades
of gray. From this paradigm, your energy levels
are essentially a function of the degree to which
your mitochondria are sensing the presence of
stress or danger at a significant level.
Now, the next key thing you need to understand is
that the health of your mitochondrial networks in
your body, whether you have lots of mitochondria
and big, strong mitochondria, or you have weak
shriveled, damaged mitochondria, and very few
of them, and we’ll talk about the reasons why
that happens, that determines your resilience
threshold.
And this is fundamentally the reason why one
person can go run a marathon. And another
person with chronic fatigue syndrome can get up
out of bed and walk a hundred yards down the
road and be wiped out for three days from it.
One of those people has a very high resilience
threshold, and the other one has mitochondria
that are completely shut in defense mode, and
that cannot be challenged by even the slightest
amount of stress because they’re so weak. They’re
so fragile. They’re so locked down into defense
mode. Does that make sense?
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
Misty: Yeah. And so that is primarily happening
through exposure to too much toxic stress? Is that
the correlation we’re making there?
Ari: So your body, your mitochondria, have the
ability to detect basically every type of stressor
imaginable. They can detect psychological stress.
There’s a field of research called mitochondrial
psychobiology.
And they’ve done experiments where they’ve
shown that literally within seconds of exposure
to psychological stress, the mitochondria are
perturbed and are changing their function and
showing signs of mitochondrial damage.
So there’s that psychological stress mitochondria
link. There’s environmental toxicants. We know all
kinds of toxicants can be sensed or directly affect
mitochondria.
Poor diet, sleep deprivation, light toxicities, you
name it. Every type of stressor that you can think
up can directly shut down or lead to the shutdown
of mitochondria. The thing that’s important
to understand is that the reason that our
mitochondria-- well, actually, let me add one layer.
So stress in the modern world is ubiquitous. We
are all exposed to lots and lots of environmental
toxicants. We have psychological stress. We have
demands on us. We can’t eat a perfect diet all the
time. We sometimes don’t have perfect sleep on
and on and on.
The difference between someone who is
overwhelmed by all of that stress and someone
who isn’t, someone who can remain healthy
and energetic in the face of all the stressors of
the modern world, is the degree to which their
mitochondria are remaining in energy mode
instead of defense mode.
And that is determined by how big, and strong
your mitochondria are and how many of them
that you have. And that, in turn, the difference
between someone who has lots of big, healthy
mitochondria versus someone who has very few
 8
of them is primarily determined by their level of
exposure to hormetic stress.
So let me phrase it this way. We have research
showing that between the ages of 20 to 40, most
people’s mitochondrial capacity is cut in about
half.
[30:00]
Between the ages of 40 to 70, it’s cut in half again.
So between the ages of 20 to 70, most people lose
about 75% of their mitochondrial capacity.
Now, what most people listening to this are
probably thinking, whoa, that sucks that we lose
so much of our mitochondria as a natural product
of aging. Here’s the thing: it’s not a natural
product of aging. When you look at 70-year-olds
who are lifelong exercisers, lifelong athletes, for
example, and I cite this because this is the only
form of hormetic stress that this has actually been
tested in.
You look at those 70 years olds, and they have the
same mitochondrial capacity as a young person.
Why? Because of the presence of hormetic stress.
Let me phrase it in a different way.
If you’ve ever broken a bone or you’ve ever had
a child or a friend who’s broken a bone, and you
break an arm or a leg or something like that, have
a cast on for six weeks or eight weeks. And then
what happens when you get that cast off? Have
you ever broken a bone, Misty?
Misty: Well, I have broken a toe. No cast.
Ari: Okay. So it doesn’t apply to you. I’ve broken
many bones, unfortunately. And one of the things
that you see when you get that cast off your
arm or your leg is you look down, first thing you
notice is the arm is unusually hairy. I don’t have
an explanation for that. That’s a side point, but
the main thing you will notice is the arm is half the
size, or the leg is half the size as the other one.
Why? Because all of those muscles atrophy. They
shrunk from disuse. If they’re not being used,
they atrophy. Use it or lose it. We’ve heard that
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
common expression. It’s very true in the body. The
body is always efficiently adapting to whatever
the demands that are on it. And muscle tissue is
very energetically demanding tissue. And if it’s not
being used, the body is not going to maintain it.
It’s going to say, oh, we don’t need that muscle
anymore. Let’s get rid of it. We don’t need to
invest so much resources to maintain all that
muscle tissue if it’s not needed. So literally, within
a month or two, the muscle on your leg will shrink
to half the size if it’s not being used, if it’s not
being stimulated or challenged to do work.
That same exact process happens internally at
the cellular level with our mitochondria. If the
mitochondria are not challenged with hormetic
stress, the body goes, I guess we don’t need those
so much. Let’s get rid of them. We don’t need to
maintain them.
So, as we age, most people, literally, their
mitochondria shrink. They shrivel. They become
weak, and they even die off so that you have
way fewer mitochondria. That is the reason that
someone who’s 70 typically has only 25% of the
mitochondrial capacity of a young person. It’s
through disuse.
It is through living the modern lifestyle, which is
an anti-hormetic lifestyle that doesn’t challenge
the mitochondria. Hormetic stress, whether we’re
talking about exercise, whether we’re talking
about breath-holding practices or fasting, whether
we’re talking about heat, or whether we’re talking
about cold, these represent challenges to the
mitochondria.
And what happens at the cellular, at the
mitochondria level, when they’re exposed to
those challenges is they actually produce a whole
bunch of what are called reactive oxygen species,
or more commonly free radicals or oxidants. And
these are these things that people are taught to
think, oh, free radicals, oxidants, those are bad.
I need to take antioxidants. I need to get rid of
the oxidants. Well, it turns out that that way of
 9
thinking is way overly simplistic and just not true.
It turns out that-- well, let me tell you a funny
story. Many years ago, it was discovered that
exercise has all these benefits. There was all this
research that came out showing that exercise
has amazing benefits, brain health, heart health,
prevention of this and that disease, dozens of
different diseases.
And researchers said that’s great that exercise has
all these benefits, but the problem with it is that it
produces all these reactive oxygen species, these
free radicals. And we know that free radicals are
bad. We know that antioxidants are good.
So what if we could get even more benefits from
exercise and get rid of the harms of exercise by
taking antioxidants before and after exercise? This
is literally I’m telling you how scientific thinking in
this field progressed.
And this study has been done many different
ways over the years, but the first one was done
maybe 15 years, 10 years ago, something like
that. And what they discovered is that when you
take antioxidants next to exercise, it negates the
benefits of exercise.
Misty: What?
Ari: It doesn’t add to them or prevent exercise
from being harmful through creating this burst of
free radicals. The antioxidants actually negate a
lot of the benefits of exercise. The reason why is
hormetic stress works by being a stressor at the
cellular level, by creating a spike of free radicals or
reactive oxygen species.
So if you cancel that out with antioxidants, you
don’t get the adaptive effects of the exercise. You
don’t get the benefits, the adaptations that that
exercise stimulated your body to do in order to
adapt to that stress. So what happens is you could
think of it like imagine like a tug of war. One team
of people on one side, one team of people on the
other side, and the losing side is being pulled.
They’re being pulled towards the other side, and
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
they’re being challenged excessively. And so all
those muscles are being stimulated by being
pulled and sort of losing. And okay, so they lost,
and they lost that battle, but their body was then
challenged through that process to grow just
a little bit stronger. And basically, this is what’s
going on at the mitochondrial level.
So in the process of being challenged through
exposure to stressors, mitochondria produce
these free radicals, and those free radicals they’re
not just these bad guys that create harm. It turns
out they’re vital signaling molecules, and they
signal to other mitochondria to grow bigger and
stronger.
And even they signal something called
mitochondrial biogenesis—the creation of new,
more mitochondria from scratch. So if you cancel
out the reactive oxygen species, you cancel out
the signal for the mitochondria to grow bigger
and stronger.
And that signal, that adaptation to grow bigger
and stronger, is ultimately what creates-- it
ultimately what increases the resilience threshold,
and that’s how you make your body more
resistant to a broad range of other stressors.
This is why exercise doesn’t just make muscles
stronger. It also protects your brain from
neurodegenerative disease. It also protects you
from fatty liver disease. It also protects you from
exposure to radiation. It also makes you more
resilient in the face of psychological stress.
It has numerous benefits on basically every
system of the body because you are literally
building resilience at the cellular level. So
fundamentally from this paradigm, and this is
important, given the nature of the summit that
you’re doing, where everybody’s kind of talking
about stress and the harms of various kinds of
stressors.
The human organism cannot thrive and cannot
be optimally healthy or energetic or resistant to
disease through a paradigm of stress is bad. I

need to avoid various stressors. I need to take lots
of antioxidants. I need to detoxify. I need to do all
of those things.
There is a huge element of truth in those things,
particularly when someone is already extremely
ill. Getting better does revolve around removing
a lot of the stressors in your life. However, you
cannot be healthy unless you also build up your
resilience threshold, build up your mitochondria.
You have to build resilience into your body at the
cellular level, and that is what hormetic stress
does.
Misty: So I have a couple of questions coming
up from-- I could talk to you for three hours.
First one is you kind of hinted that you can make
more mitochondria. That your body can rebuild
it. I’d love for you to talk a little bit more about
that because I’m sure that’s intriguing to anyone
who is thinking, gosh, I think I need-- that might
be part of my problem is I actually need more
mitochondria. So that’s number one.
The other question that I have is around
resilience in general. I would suspect since you’re
Ari Whitten, that you have many strategies for
rebuilding resilience. And I think that would be a
really important thing for us to discuss in light of
this conversation.
[40:00]
Ari: Yeah. So I mean, resilience fundamentally
is about hormetic stress, and there’s a couple
of components to it. So as far as mitochondrial
biogenesis, creating more mitochondria,
basically all of the same things that stimulate,
that challenge mitochondria to a significant
level, hormetic stressors, also, they stimulate
mitochondria to grow bigger and potentially to
grow new mitochondria from scratch.
So those two things are essentially synonymous.
In a research setting, you could split them out
and say what’s the degree to which this stressor
just stimulates mitochondria versus actually
stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis.
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But for the most part, things that challenge the
mitochondria and stimulate them to grow bigger
also stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis—the
creation of more mitochondria.
And those include all of the hormetic stressors.
They include exercise and all of the different
subtypes of exercise. So there’s weight training.
There’s steady-state endurance activity. There’s
high-intensity interval training.
And these all create subtly different types of
adaptations in the body, different adaptations
in different systems of the body that are being
challenged differently. There’s also research that
has even tested these different types of exercise
in the context of fasted exercise. So fasted versus
non-fasted exercise. Does one have a superior
effect on bolstering mitochondria?
Arguably there’s a case to be made for fasted
exercise. In particular, fasted high-intensity
interval training or sprint interval training
has been shown to be the most effective in
stimulating mitochondrial biogenesis in muscle
tissue.
Then there’s also research that has even paired
this with different phytochemicals. So what
happens if you do the exercise and you pair it
with curcumin, or you pair it with resveratrol,
or something like that, or cacao? And in
certain cases, you can amplify the effects of
mitochondrial biogenesis by including some of
those compounds.
Many of those compounds are actually acting
on hormetic pathways. In literature, it’s a type of
hormesis called xenohormesis. Xeno with an X.
And they are also called exercise mimetics. Some
of these phytochemicals, these anthocyanins
and flavonoids and things like that because they
stimulate at the cellular level, a lot of the same
pathways as things like exercise.
There’s a pathway called the Nrf2 pathway, and
basically and this relates to what I was describing
earlier. What these stressors do is they create a
 11
big surge of reactive oxygen species or oxidants.
When that happens, this thing called Nrf2 moves
into the cell, and it stimulates-- it triggers a whole
cascade of events that ultimately upregulate the
internal antioxidant response element. Something
called the ARE, antioxidant response element.
And this is our internal antioxidant system packed
with powerful compounds like glutathione,
superoxide dismutase, and catalase. And those
compounds then get upregulated. That system
that internal antioxidant system gets bolstered
and strengthened by exposure to the free
radicals, to the reactive oxygen species.
So we are exposing ourselves to these free
radicals, and then by doing that, we’re building
our internal antioxidant defense system. So these
phytochemicals can do that, can stimulate a lot
of these same pathways to some degree, at least
much like exercise can, or some of the other
hormetic stressors, things like fasting, things like
heat exposure, things like cold exposure, things
like light therapy. Red and near-infrared light
therapy, which I’ve written a book about. UV from
the sun.
These are also hormetic stressors. And breath-
holding practices is another one that I’m a huge
fan of, particularly for people with chronic fatigue.
In my opinion, breath-holding practices is the
single fastest and most powerful way to increase
your energy levels that I’ve ever found, particularly
for people with chronic fatigue.
So all of these types of hormetic stress are
fundamentally working to challenge the
mitochondria, to stimulate them to grow bigger
and stronger, and to stimulate mitochondrial
biogenesis.
And it’s also important to understand that they
all have a unique-- they act in different systems
of the body and in different ways. They have
a unique sort of physiological signature of
what systems they’re creating effects in. So as
an example, breathing holding practices act
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
differently than phytochemicals.
With breath-holding practices, you can get unique,
very specialized effects of hormetic stress that
are being stimulated. Like lung mitochondria are
being challenged in unique ways. You get actually
a structural alteration of the interface between
the lungs and the blood where oxygen gets
dropped off into the bloodstream, and carbon
dioxide gets taken into the lungs from the blood
and removed.
That interface changes such that it becomes
more efficient at extracting oxygen. At the cellular
level, you also get unique adaptations in the
mitochondria where they become more efficient
at utilizing oxygen to produce energy and more
resilient in the face of oxygen deprivation.
So they become uniquely adapted to that type
of stressor that’s different from fasting, that’s
different from heat exposure or cold exposure
or exercise. So each one of these types of things,
there’s a sort of central unifying—
There are certain unifying principles or universal
principles of how hormetic stressors act in the
body that I’ve explained, but they all have their
unique physiological fingerprint of what types
specific adaptations they’re stimulating and which
systems of the body.
So what’s optimal is to create a regimen where
you have many different layers of hormetic stress
built into your life.
Misty: Yeah. So you talked a little bit about
breathwork, specifically holding the breath, which
is a newer one for me. I’ve obviously heard of
breathwork in meditation, but actually holding the
breath, I’d love for you just to unpack that a little
bit more because considering you just gave it your
stamp of approval as the number one way to start
rebuilding. I think that could be really valuable for
people to understand a little bit more about that
particular practice.
Ari: Yeah. Well, one of the nice benefits of it

compared to exercise, let’s say, in the context of
people with chronic fatigue, exercise is a tough
one because many people with serious chronic
fatigue just can’t tolerate exercise.
And part of the reason why is it’s so energetically
demanding. In order to get those benefits from
exercise, you’re putting a lot of energetic strain on
the system. You’re using a lot of energy and taxing
the body to a high degree.
Breath-holding practices are really wonderful
because you can do them sitting still. So the
energetic demand is not huge, but the hormetic
stress can be huge.
So you’re not draining so much of the energy
stores, but you’re stimulating adaptations. And
there’s many different variations of breath-hold
practices. So a lot of what’s been studied in the
literature is the typical free diver sort of breath-
holding practices.
You do some deep breathing, big inhale, and
you hold because that’s what you do if you’re
doing free diving in the ocean or in water. I don’t
recommend-- this is a quick side note. Don’t ever
do breath-holding practices in water unless you
know what you’re doing and you have somebody
there with you, but don’t ever do like just training
or any of the practices I’m recommending
underwater.
You can lose consciousness, and if you lose
consciousness, that’s the end of your life. So do it
on land where the worst thing that can happen is
maybe you fall out of your chair or something, but
if you do it even close to the ground, or if you’re
upright, do it on grass, then you’d be fine. And
passing out is obviously rare, but it’s possible.
So any type of holding the breath can work. The
variations are holding it on the inhale versus
holding it on the exhale, holding it while being
physically active, doing movement, or holding
it while being perfectly still and relaxed. Those
are important variations. They make a huge
difference.
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
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So, for example, I can hold my breath for over
three minutes. If I’m sitting still, I can only hold it
maybe 20 seconds or 30 seconds, depending on
what type of activity I’m doing if I’m doing activity.
So those are going to create different kinds of
adaptations depending on how you that.
[50:00]
If you do it after an exhale as opposed to an
inhale, oxygen levels drop in the body much more
quickly. So you can train low oxygen states, low
blood oxygen saturation, or hyperoxic states
more effectively than if you do it on the inhale in
most cases.
The other nuance that’s important to add
here is in between breath holds, you can do
hyperventilation practices. So the style that Wim
Hof popularized, which is based on Tummo
breathing, which comes out of a Buddhist
tradition like from the Himalayas, is a very strong,
full, intense inhale, and then sort of a relaxed,
halfway exhale.
So you’re not forcing the air out. It’s kind of just
relaxing and letting a bit come out and then
inhaling forcefully again. So it can be done
through the mouth.
Typically, in Wim Hof style approaches, it’s done
through the mouth. You can also do variations of
this, which people call alternatively either DMT
breathing or alkaline breathing through the nose
and out the mouth. You could do only through
the nose, or you could do something called fire
breathing.
Usually, you’ll have to wipe away a little bit of
boogers on the initial first few of those. So those
variations in between can drop carbon dioxide
levels dramatically. And then, by doing that, you
can hold your breath longer. The reason why is a
bit counterintuitive.
Most people assume that when they hold their
breath, that the urge to breathe is coming from
a low oxygen state, the body not having enough

oxygen. Actually, it’s not true. The primary urge
to breathe is actually being driven by the high
levels of CO2 and the brain sensing high levels
of CO2. That causes you to feel the sensation of
suffocating and the urge to breathe.
So a big part of what you’re training here is also
to reset the CO2 sensitivity in the brain, which
actually alters your normal breathing pattern
and has profound effects on many things that we
probably don’t have time to talk about.
But it helps autonomic nervous system balance. It
helps people, especially people who are prone to
anxiety, dramatically reduce their baseline anxiety
levels. And actually, you asked about how to
create more resilience. So this is one of the best
ways to do that.
Apart from the hormetic stress aspect of what’s
going on here of building mitochondria, increasing
that resilience threshold so that you’re becoming
more resilient at the cellular level, another
key aspect of this is learning how to train your
nervous system into a state of relaxation.
Because if you’re stressed all the time, if you’re
always wound up, you got demands on you.
You’re always go, go, go, go, go. It’s really hard to
stay resilient in the face of any more stress.
My wife got food poisoning a couple of days ago,
and she was just out of commission. She was in
bed all day. She was throwing up and just brutally
fatigued to the point where she just couldn’t-- like
she couldn’t move. So I have a five-year-old and a
two-year-old.
So I’m now daddy on kid duty, in charge of dinner,
in charge of bathing the kids, in charge of putting
the kids to bed, in charge of doing all the stuff that
mom normally does. And I’ll tell you, after a day of
like tons of work and interviews and podcasts and
various other projects, writing, and then now I’m
immediately thrust--
In the time that I would normally go into
relaxation and get some time for me to wind
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
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down, now I’m immediately thrust into the chaos
of kid duties and preparing dinner and doing a
whole bunch of stuff that I never really do. So it’s
like out of my wheelhouse.
And normally, when that happens, I usually break.
I usually break under the pressure and the stress
of that. And I usually get overwhelmed, and I get
stressed. And I’ve become a bit more mature, and
I can handle it better now. But when I’m at my
limit, as far as the stressors of the day, and then
there’s something new, my kids want something
from me, my wife wants something from me,
sometimes it’s like, ah, no more. I just need a
break.
But if you build that relaxation time in, or you
use and/or you use methods of training that
actually reset your autonomic nervous system
function so that you’re in a parasympathetic
dominant state, you’re in a relaxed state instead
of in a sympathetic state, your ability to handle
your resilience in the face of any new stressor is
massively increased.
So you can handle that with ease and with grace
instead of with reactivity and irritability, and
overwhelm. So that’s a key aspect. So two things,
as far as keys to resilience.
One is build resilience at the cellular level through
hormetic stress through integrating multiple types
of hormetic stress in your life. The second thing is
you need to build relaxation into your brain and
nervous system so that you’re always coming back
into a state of relaxation and calm.
And you need to be able to consciously control
that. So that’s a skill set that has to be cultivated.
And one of the most powerful ways of doing that
is the intermittent hypoxic training, the breath-
holding practices that I just described, because it
turns out that CO2 in the brain is actually one of
the major drivers of our anxiety levels.
Most people don’t know this, and most people
are in a chronic state of hyperventilation, of over-
breathing. The breath-holding practices retrain

that. So they literally alter your baseline non-
conscious pattern of breathing. So people who
are breathing 15 times per minute or 18 times per
minute, through several months of breathwork
practices, now, all of a sudden, you’re breathing
six to 10 times per minute.
And the CO2 levels and the CO2 threshold in
the brain is dramatically altered such that you’re
not setting off that signal all the time to be in
stress mode. There was a study done in college
kids where they had them do no more than five
minutes of breathing three times a week. So a
total of 15 minutes of breathing practices, and
they had them do a variation of--
It’s related to breath-holding practices, and it’s
called box breathing. It’s these breath retention
practices. And the pattern that they did was, I
believe it was five seconds inhale.
So five-second inhale through the nose, a ten-
second hold, and then a ten-second exhale, and
then a five-second hold after that, something like
that. It might have been a five-second exhale and
then a five-second hold, but it’s along those lines.
So five minutes of just breathing in that pattern.
So five and then holding for ten, five-second
exhale, five-second hold. Just that for five minutes.
And if you do several breaths, you’ll start to feel
what’s called air hunger build up.
You’ll start to feel like you’re holding your breath,
and that’s the CO2 levels rising. And that’s your
brain starting to get that anxiety reaction, that
stress reaction, oh, you need to breathe. You need
to breathe.
So five minutes of that, three times a week, just
that little dramatically reduced their anxiety and
increased energy levels and improved a bunch
of other parameters as well. So I mean, that’s
how easy these things can. One other thing that
I’ll mention with regards to breathing is there’s
something called the physiological sigh.
And this is one of the most important skills to
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
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learn if you want to be able to have that skill
set that I was just describing of being able to
consciously control your autonomic nervousness
and whether you’re in a sympathetic state or
parasympathetic state. This is the single fastest
way that has ever been discovered to take your
brain and your central nervous system out of a
stress state and put it into a relaxed state.
It’s not doing vagal exercises. It’s not doing
anything complex or fancy. It’s super simple. It’s
really fast. And it’s proven by science to work. It’s
called the physiological sigh.
[1:00:00]
And the way that you do it is a double inhale
through the nose and then a long, slow exhale
through the mouth. So it looks like this. There’s a
certain pattern to the double inhale. It’s kind of a
slower, gentle, full inhale.
And then when you get kind of full there, then
you’re doing kind of an explosive little snort at
the end to get just full expansion of the lungs. So
it goes like this. The longer and the slower you
can make that exhale, the better. So again. Doing
that three times, it takes 20 seconds, profoundly
reduces stress in the central nervous system,
and shifts you out of sympathetic mode into
parasympathetic mode.
The reason why is because of what I explained
earlier. It’s related to CO2. Normally the lungs are
retaining lots of CO2. When you do that second
inhale, you fully open all the little air sacs in the
lungs, the alveoli. You fully open them and expand
them. And then, when you do the long, slow
exhale from that position, you breathe out a lot of
CO2.
So you’re putting out a ton more CO2 than you
would with a normal breath. And by virtue of
lowering CO2 levels, you rapidly calm the brain
and the central nervous system. This is not a
pattern of breathing that you want to do all the
time. It’s not ideal to be constantly blowing off too
much CO2.

This is something that you do for a few breaths
at key moments when you’re stressed, when you
are overwhelmed, when you are working out,
for example, is another great time to do it right
after your workout or in between if you’re weight
training in between sets or intervals of your
workout. And also before bed.
So any one of those three times, you can rapidly
calm your nervous system. And again, that skill
set of being able to consciously take control of
what state your nervous system is in and bring it
back into relaxation as your baseline state is one
of the biggest keys to resilience. So those two
things build resilience at the cellular level through
hormetic stress, and they build the skillset of
taking conscious control over your nervous
system.
Misty: I did a really interesting interview with Dr.
Marny Turvill for a sleep event, a sleep challenge
that we did after Your Best Sleep Ever, which is a
summit that I did in the last couple of years.
And we were talking about how do you get your
body to transition to sleep? How do you, doing a
lot of the blue filtering, get your body to transition
from go, go, go to slow so that you can actually
sleep?
And I can’t remember how it came up in the
conversation, but she corrected me on this
idea of parasympathetic. Like instigating the
parasympathetic or transitioning into the
parasympathetic. She was like, Misty, it’s not just
about teaching your body to switch gears, to shift
from sympathetic to parasympathetic. She said,
you really want to build your parasympathetic
tone.
And she started giving examples, and there was
some breath stuff in what she was saying too,
but this idea that we’re not just trying to teach
our body to shift gears. We’re actually trying to
cultivate strength in the relaxed part of our body,
just like we cultivate strength by going to the gym,
going out for a run, taking a hike, whatever it is.
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
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And for me, it was such a great profound
distinction to think of it, not just as we’re
supporting our body in transitioning, but we’re
really strengthening our parasympathetic
nervous system. And there’s a book that she
recommended and several exercises in that book
that are really great, but I just love that you’re
really unpacking this breathwork thing because, in
my own journey, breathwork has been coming up
a lot over the last year.
And I’ve been really curious, like how do people
in our space actually put this into practice? And
another thing I’m realizing, which is already an
awareness that I have. I’ve built a lot of health
practices into my life to take care of myself, but
you’re really helping me to maybe get some new
resolve around adding some of these in as a
practice.
We want to have the resilience when stress
comes, and we want our bodies to be able to
bounce back and handle just the life stress
depending on the phase of life that you’re in. But
a lot of times, we are not really aware of how
we’re not cultivating a body that can be resilient in
the face of stress.
This whole summit is about lots of different
detoxification strategies that, for me,
detoxification has been life-changing, but there’s
a whole different layer and dimension of this
conversation that you’re shining a light on that I
think is really important.
And it’s not just doing the detox things, but it’s
realizing that the way that we’re living and the way
that we’re being in our bodies has a really huge
effect on how resilient we are and how we’re able
to heal and the quality of life that we ultimately
have. So thank you so much for sharing this with
us today. You’re such a great teacher.
Ari: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. And
if I can, just add one more comment. What that
woman, sorry, I forget her name.
Misty: Marny Turvill.
 16
Ari: Yes. What she said about parasympathetic
tone is totally correct. And we train that like
training a muscle by consciously working it, which
is what I was getting at with this conscious skillset
of learning how to relax your nervous system,
how to consciously control it.
So there’s kind of two elements there. One is this
conscious control when you’re in a stressed state,
when you need to relax to work that muscle of
training yourself how to bring yourself into a state
of relaxation. Most people are not in conscious
control of this. They’re going with life, and life’s
throwing stressors at them. So they’re in stress
mode all day. They don’t know how to bring
themselves out of that.
So this skill is like doing exercise for a muscle. It’s
making it stronger. The more you do it, the better
at it you become. And the more you spend time in
a relaxed state, the easier you can identify when
you’re not in a relaxed state. So that’s one layer,
important layer to it. But there’s another critical
layer to this, which is becoming more resilient.
Like you actually have to become more resilient.
Outside of anything you’re doing consciously,
you have to build resilience at the cellular level
and the breathing practice by doing the breath-
holding practices because you’re rewiring your
baseline breathing state, and you’re rewiring the
CO2 threshold in the brain that is actually-- it’s
raising the CO2 threshold. And what that does
is it allows your body a much broader range of
CO2 fluctuation that it can go through without
triggering you into stress mode.
So you’re literally physiologically rewiring your
central nervous system in a way that keeps you
in a relaxed state of nervous system activation, of
parasympathetic activation, as opposed to being
fluctuating easily back into sympathetic mode. So
those two things are critical.
And one other really beautiful tip that I’ll leave
people with is to embrace discomfort. One of the
most powerful ways that you can build resilience
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
into your body and your mind is by embracing
discomfort. Is by the internal attitude, mental,
spiritual attitude that you take into hormetic
stress.
So if I’m doing a cold tub or if I’m doing a sun
exposure, or if I’m doing exercise, I’m doing things
that are uncomfortable. And I can either take an
attitude of-- let’s say I’m doing the cold tub. I can
take an attitude of, oh my God. Oh my God. It’s so
cold. Oh my God. Oh my God. Get me out of here.
Oh my God. It’s so painful. Get me out of this
thing. I want out.
And I can be in that mental state the whole time
I’m in that cold tub for 30 seconds or a minute or
two minutes or whatever, or I can be like zoned
in, calm, controlling my breathing, controlling my
heart rate, controlling my mind and okay. I feel
this comfort on my legs. I’m going into the tub. I
feel my hips going in my butt. I feel my abs. I feel
my chest going under, oh, this is really cold. Oh,
this is really uncomfortable.
Yes. I feel all of that, but I’m also staying calm, and
I’m in a headspace of I know this is not harmful.
This is making me stronger. I can stay calm. I can
stay relaxed. I’m not dying. And so having that
internal attitude that you’re taking into that.
[1:10:00]
Learning how to be calm in the face, in the
experience of very intense discomfort, is one
of the most, absolutely powerful ways to build
resilience in your body and your mind that has
ever been discovered or will ever be discovered.
Probably nothing better than that.
So that’s the one sort of inner mind piece that
you can plug into the hormetic stress to amplify
the benefits even more, particularly in terms of
mental, psychological resilience.
Misty: I’m thinking of the times that I’ve done
cold baths, where I’ve actually done them for 30
minutes to an hour, going into really cold water
and staying for longer periods of time. But there
 17
is no way ever that I could go into it without
hyperventilating. I totally hyperventilate, but it’s a
controlled breathing. It’s actually quite intoxicating
the way that it really gets everything super
activated in your system.
But there is something about-- like when I’m
going into water for the first time, it’s heavy, hard
breathing, but it’s slows down, and my breaths get
deep. And there’s this deep relaxation that comes
just on the other side of that 60 seconds or so
where my body is acclimating that. It’s wonderful.
People have this fear of cold baths that I think if
they would just give themselves the experience a
few times, they would see that there’s really a lot
of benefits.
It’s not as scary and overwhelming as you might
think. People are imagining themselves being in
ice-cold water and just not being able to take it for
a long period of time, but it’s just like jumping into
a pool.
Your body feels cold at first, and then your body
acclimates and adjusts, and there’s massive health
benefits for that. So just for the others that get
into cold, or there will probably be a period of-- or
not all, Ari, but there is an adjustment that can
happen on the other side.
Ari: Cold is rough for me too. Cold has been the
hardest one for me. I love the heat, and I have
a very high heat tolerance, and I can stay in a
220-degree sauna for a lot longer than most
people. But yeah, cold is rough. So mentally, that’s
been the most challenging one for me.
Fasting, long fasting is also arduous, and it’s
because of the time scale of it. It can be very
demanding to deal with hunger pangs for days.
It’s a very challenging form, and it pushes you
mentally to the limit because it’s not just minutes.
It’s hours, days, days, days of having to be in
control of that and not let it run you.
Misty: I think it’s very important that you’re
shining the light on this mental stuff because
there is dealing with life, especially if you have
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
health challenges, there’s definitely a mental
aspect to this game, and I can see. The women
in our community, there’s those that have a
little more resilience mentally that are able to
get honestly, just better results in their healing
journey than those who tend to shy away from
anything that really challenges them.
And I think it’s really important as we’re talking
about resilience and bouncing back and having
what we need that we’re mindful of the fact that
it’s not just an external I’m going for a run, or
I’m going to go to the gym, but we’re also paying
attention to what it’s like on the inside.
I used to run half marathons, and I remember
when I was first training, oh gosh, the first five
minutes of a run would just the I don’t want to be
here, and I don’t want to be doing this would be
so strong. But that’s why when you start running
and training, you start with a mile.
And when I started, I walked for three minutes
and ran a minute and walked three minutes and
ran a minute. But over time, I would be able to go
into these runs, and it would be really effortless.
Discomfort would be there in the very beginning
as your body’s kind of getting warmed up, but it
wasn’t so torturous.
And mentally, I feel like the mental, the pride that I
felt mentally being able to run 13.1 was way more
meaningful to me than my body actually going to
13.1. It’s a very important part of the game, and
we don’t talk about it nearly enough.
Ari: Totally. Yeah. And I think what you said about
people getting results who have more of that
mental toughness is absolutely true. And I grew
up doing martial arts, and I grew up doing weight
training and bodybuilding. My older brother was a
personal trainer and a bodybuilder. And so I grew
up since the time I was very young doing that.
And I think honestly, that type of training has
benefited me enormously in terms of mental
toughness because where else do you four or
five times a week or six times a week go and for
 18

an hour or two hours just subject your body to

pain and discomfort? And you learn. It’s very
interesting to contrast someone who’s been doing
that for a while to someone who’s doing their our
first time in the gym, weight training.
And I’ve taken many people through their first
workout ever because I was a personal trainer
for many years. And what you discover is they go,
oh my God, this is awful. Oh, can you just make it
stop? Oh my God, how do you like this? This is just
terrible.
And it’s really interesting because you can actually
train your brain to love it. You create a different
mental association with physical discomfort and
pain, and you learn to be very comfortable being
uncomfortable. And that is an incredibly useful
skill for building resilience.
So I highly encourage people to find one or
another type of hormetic stressor that you can
engage with that causes that kind of discomfort
and then build in that mindset piece that you’re
taking into that hormetic stress.
Misty: Yeah. Well, this has been awesome. Thank
you so much for sharing with us. We could just go
on and on. And if people are interested in learning
more about you and your work, Ari, where can
they find you online?
Ari: They can go to theenergyblueprint.com.
Misty: Energyblueprint.com. All right. Well, thanks
for tuning in, everyone. We’ll see you soon. Bye
for now.

Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass

 19

Breaking the Habit of

Being Yourself to Create
a Whole New Life
Jason Prall

Misty: Hey, everybody. Misty Williams here,
founder of Healing Rosie and your host for
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress and Stressors.
I’m super excited to have my friend Jason Prall
with us. You guys tuned in to any of our other
events, you’ve heard him just bring a totally
different perspective to the healing conversation.
What’s coming up for me is, in an embodied
way, Jason really understands how your physical
embodiment is affecting your body’s ability to get
well and what you need to do to cultivate a body
that heals itself.
So we’re going to have a fantastic conversation
today. We’re going to talk about trauma and the
sympathetic-parasympathetic nervous system,
how we can really build up parasympathetic
tone, resilience, some really practical strategies
for moving out of a place of being wound up and
stressed and overwhelmed, and learn to cultivate
more peace and tranquility and resilience and
calm in your life. This is going to be really, really
fantastic.
So, Jason Prall is a health educator, practitioner,
author, speaker, and film maker. In 2018, his
independent research and experience led him
to create The Human Longevity Project, a nine-
part film series that uncovers the true nature
of chronic disease in our modern world. He’s
currently finishing his first book on longevity as
well as his next film series that explores ancient
methods of healing mind, body, and soul from the
indigenous cultures around the world. Welcome,
Jason.
Jason: Oh, thank you for having me. It was a nice
intro, and every time we chat I just become more
fond of you. So thank you so much for having me.
Misty: Well, yes. I’m delighted to have you, and
I’m really excited for us to dive into this, because I
am a recovering overachiever. I will raise my hand
and self-identify. I’m one of those people who you
would have heard me say in my 20s, and even
into my 30s, I can’t do meditation.
The idea of slowing down and sitting still for any
length of time just didn’t resonate for me. I was
a go-go-go person. Fun, happy, driven in all the
ways, and I was running half marathons before I
was knocked on my [audio cuts out 02:13] at 35
with all of my health issues. So I’m the oldest of
four children, and achieving is engrained in my
DNA.
And I’ve come to realize over the last decade
of this journey that what my body needs is the
opposite of what I identify myself as, so that I
can heal. I’ve started cultivating a lot of peace,
partnership, shared responsibility. Instead of
taking everything on myself, I’ve learned to ask
for help. I’ve learned to see when I actually need
more help and support. And I’m cultivating a
totally different kind of life now, but it takes so
much intention and awareness.

Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass

 20
And I really want to dive into this area of our
reality, where a lot of us are carrying around
maybe this achiever-doer mindset that…for me,
it was deeply rooted in some childhood trauma
around always needing to be the helper, the giver,
doing too much as a very young child for my
family because my mom was working and she had
a bad relationship with my father. And there was
all of that stress that as the firstborn, I’m trying to
bridge it all and make everything work at home.
And I’ve carried that with me into my adult life,
and I know I’m not alone. I know that lots of
us have those emotional traumas that we’re
carrying with us. Some of us experienced them in
childhood. Surely all of us. But even things we’ve
experienced in adulthood. And I think that’s a
really good kick-off point for this conversation
with you today as we are going to dive into this
really big topic.
Jason: Yeah. There’s so much there that you
shared. And even in your languaging, right? So I
want to first speak to this idea that you said that
is in your DNA. And there’s an aspect of that that
is so true. In other words, you have a constitution,
and your constitution may be faster, may be more
active, may be more of a doer--and that’s okay--
versus somebody else. I have lots of friends that
are more slow, relaxed. They pace their life in
every aspect.
Misty: Yeah. Yeah.
Jason: And that’s their speed. It’s literally baked
in their DNA, so to speak. And yet, each of these
ways of being can get imbalanced. You can get
into hyper, doing hyperdrive, going too fast, doing
too much, too much on your plate, and that will
throw things out of balance. It’ll create suffering
in your life. And just like some of my other friends
who are more of pacers, if they start going too
slow, they don’t do enough, that can create
suffering in their life.
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
So we all have these inherent constitutions and
ways of being. Some people are really social.
Some people a little bit more wallflowers. Now,
just because that’s your constitution, it can still
get imbalanced one way or the other, so that
what we need to learn is, is who am I really, and
what aspects are conditioned? What mask am I
wearing?
So, if you’re wearing this conditioning of
perfectionism, of overachieving, of doing so much,
of giving so much of yourself to others and trying
to provide for everybody, then that’s going to
create suffering and things that you don’t really
want. And you’re always going to be in this mode
of why isn’t anybody helping me?
This is my classic pattern, is literally I’m willing
to give myself over to so many people, which
means that I don’t have enough resource to give
to myself, let alone have other people support me
the way I want them to support me. So this is a
very real aspect.
And what we’re pointing to is this idea of safety.
We have these core needs as human beings, and
it starts when we are children. We need to be safe.
We need to feel loved, ideally unconditionally,
which, of course, never happened one hundred
percent of the time. But we’re looking for
unconditional love, safety, connection, and that
doesn’t just mean I’m being hugged or held,
although that can be a big part of it.
But the connection is a feeling. Even when I’m
in trouble, even when I do something wrong,
can my parents remain connected to me? Can
I feel, as a young being, that this person who I
idolize, who’s essentially like a god to me as a little
infant, do I feel love from them even when I’m
doing something wrong, or even when I’m being
parented?
So these are all elements that create this need

for patterns, protections, ways of operating in the
world that allow us to find these things. Safety,
connection, this unconditional love. So that’s what
we carry with us into our adulthood, is all these
patterns, all these masks, all these conditionings
and ways of being that then we’re continuing to
put out into the world. And yet we look at our
reality and there are some things that are off.
So there’s a lot there that I think we can look
at. And I just want to point out that it’s not
necessarily a trauma as most people would
think of it, but it really is the conditioning that
we experience. I come from a household where
my parents were divorced when I was young,
which essentially, my dad wasn’t around a lot,
and my mom was. But when she was around, she
basically had to take on both responsibilities. She
had to work a ton. So she wasn’t there as often as
I needed emotionally, energetically, physically.
So, as a young being, I can’t rationalize what’s
happening. All I can feel is I don’t have the
support, the love, the connection that I need.
And we’re all different. I may need more than
my brother, for example. But these are perfect
examples of how life sets itself up into a way that
it’s not anybody’s fault, let’s say. I can’t blame my
mom.
She was doing everything she could to get us
through, and she did an amazing job, and yet I
still have these aspects of myself that are coming
through as an adult that basically failed to get
their needs met. And when that happens, we have
a nervous system that starts to get a little…it gets
wired in a certain way.
So we actually lay down this wiring that keeps us
amped up, that keeps us on guard, that keeps us
going and achieving and doing because that’s how
it finds safety. Or it keeps me from having the
social courage to go meet people, because that’s
a scary thing. So there’s all kinds of things that we
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
21
learn when we’re young.
And this happens in school too. I raise my hand. I
give a wrong answer. The teacher makes a slightly
sarcastic, little snide remark when I’m in third
grade. The kids laugh. And now, all of a sudden,
I’m feeling like the outcast. I’m not smart enough.
So what’s my solution?
Well, for somebody like me, you ask my
constitution, it’s to go home, do tons of
homework, learn how to do every math problem
so I never get an answer wrong ever again,
because that resulted in a lot of danger for my
nervous system. So my nervous system spikes…so
you see how this starts to play out.
And if this happens over and over again on the
playground, in the classroom, at home, doesn’t
matter. All of these instances are setting up
circumstances in my life where it’s not only going
to determine my behavior and how I show up
in the world, but it’s going to show up in my
internal system, how my nervous system is now
programmed. If it’s really, really on guard, if it’s
shut down.
But this is guiding all of our physiology. And if you
don’t believe me, I want you to imagine going up
to give a lecture. And imagine your physiology as
you go up and give a public speaking gig in front
of hundreds of people. You can imagine what’s
going to happen. Heart starts to race. You might
get sweaty. Blood pressure might rise. You might
forget what you were going to say. Your entire
nervous system shifts because now it perceives
that you’re in a dangerous situation.
And this is what’s happening not only in various
instances as we go through or life, particularly
when we’re young, but it’s happening…there’s
a baseline level that our nervous system is
essentially resting at.

[10:05]
So your nervous system might be resting here,
but my nervous system might be resting here.
And this is all based upon our constitution, the
conditioning in our early life experiences, and how
much some of that has either been resolved and
processed to now hopefully reset my baseline
resting point, or if it’s continued to this day.
Misty: Yeah. I’m really resonating with this idea of
identity as you described it and who we perceive
ourselves to be because around the time that I
turned 40, I started having radical shifts around
the life that I’d created and who I was, and I
decided I didn’t like it. I didn’t like a lot of it. I
created a life where I wasn’t supported in the
ways that I really needed to be supported.
I lived being super independent and not needing
health and support from other people. So I
started seeing…it’s like the scales began to fall
from my eyes, and I saw how I was…I’d created
a world where I wasn’t getting my needs met.
And it was me that was doing it. And even in the
awareness of that, there’s still this how do I create
something different? because I’m so conditioned to
create a certain way. Yes.
Jason: Yes. Yes. So there’s actually a concept that
I like to introduce here called missed experiences.
You’ve ever seen those videos where, let’s say, a
colorblind person is trying on the glasses for the
first time and they’re actually able to see color?
You haven’t seen any of those videos, they’re
amazing.
What inevitably happens, it’s usually a kid, or
sometimes an adult, will put on these glasses that
allows him to see color for the first time, at least
color as it is supposed to be seen or as the rest
of us see it. And when they see purple or green,
they’re shocked. They’re like, “Is that green?”
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
22
And then inevitably what almost always happens
is insane joy, and coupled with tears, sorrow,
sadness. They start crying. I see this all the time
in my clinical practice, which is that when we get
these things, we don’t know what we’re missing. If
you’ve never seen purple, you can’t imagine what
purple looks like. It’s hard for us because we know
what purple looks like, but if you didn’t know what
it looks like, you can’t even comprehend.
Misty: Yeah.
Jason: Somebody could try to tell you, but until
you see it, until you experience it, you can’t
imagine. Until you taste a strawberry, you cannot
imagine what a strawberry tastes like. These are
experiences that we must have.
So the same thing happens in childhood
development. And there’s all these little nuanced
things that occur. If a child, we--almost, well, all
of us--go through childhood and there’s certain
things that we didn’t get, certain experiences that
we didn’t experience, we don’t know what they
are and we don’t know what rest can feel like. I’ve
seen this time and time again.
Somebody who doesn’t know what support truly
feels like. Unconditional love, support, care, to
this point where no agenda…like when I show up
as a therapist-coach in these settings and I show
up in a loving presence, open, with no agenda,
just support, their system starts to melt. All these
processes start to unfold. They’ll cry. They’ll
go through these experiences, these healing
experiences.
And all that’s happening is that their system,
their whole body system--mind, body, soul, every
aspect of themselves that’s involved--when they
get this need met in the way that it needs to be
met…and what I mean is, sometimes there’s a
specific attunement that’s required. It’s like dialing
into a radio station. You have to get it just right.
 23
And when you get it right, their system can start
to unwind, because it finally got what it needed
to process some experience from the past that
wasn’t able to process.
So there’s all these experiences when we’re
young. We need support from generally our
parents and guardians. And I’m talking about
energetic. And when that’s met, then we can
process what’s happening. Perhaps we fell off our
bike. Perhaps my brother smacked my head into a
wall. Whatever the case was.
But I need, oftentimes, depending on how young
in particular, I need another system there to
support me in this experience. And if that’s not
there, if that’s not met, then it gets stuck. It gets
stuck in our system. And it’s hard to describe this,
other than it gets stuck in our mind, our biofield,
our emotional body, our physical body. It can get
stuck anywhere.
And when this missed experience gets essentially
interfaced with this person, all kinds of things
can start to process. So when you said I’d gone
through…I still go through this. But it’s very weird,
I think. The first time I started to experience this,
where it’s like I don’t know how to do it another
way…and one of the things that happens for me is
that, like you, I do everything myself. It’s like, well,
it’s just easier. It’s faster if I just do it.
Well, what ends up happening for somebody like
perhaps us is that we end up working really hard.
And we can get things done, but it takes so much
of our life force to accomplish it. Well, there’s
another way of doing this thing, which is to rest in
this energy of trust, of inviting in support.
And I don’t know about you, but I have friends
that it’s like all they need to do is ask, and all this
support comes out. In fact, they don’t even need
to ask, because their energetic signature is inviting
in support. And they literally can just sit there and
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
people were offering help. And it’s literally…I don’t
know how that is the case.
And until somebody templates that for you
energetically…it can be done in the physical
and you can actually pick up on it intuitively, so
to speak, but there’s actually a mirroring going
on at the nervous system level. You’ve heard of
mirror neurons. This is in a big, big way what’s
happening. It’s not just behavioral mirroring. It is
energetic mirroring. It is facial expressions. It is
energetics. It is body.
It is everything, and our mirror neurons can pick
up these subtle nuances and learn how to be in
a different way. Not to do a different way but to
be in a different way. And when you start to get
these templates…that is why it is so important to
surround yourself with people that you want to be
like, so to speak, because you’re always mirroring
and templating and picking up. So when you can
do that, all of a sudden you start to learn this new
way of being.
And this is a lot of what I do in my practice,
which is essentially model energetically--perhaps
through some language, there’s some other
nuances--but mostly it’s energetically. And as
these processes happen, as this healing happens,
these stuck things start to process, and I model
and template a new way of being. Their system is
so brilliant.
Our systems are amazing. We don’t need this
cognitive brain. It doesn’t need to be this conscious
understanding. Our systems are constantly reading
the environment, and they can pick up and attune
to my system. And it’s unbelievable what happens.
You can learn new ways of being. This is why it’s
so important for us to have mothers, fathers,
grandfathers, teachers, older siblings perhaps,
but people in our environment that we can model
ourselves after, because it’s not just behavior. It’s
actually ways of being.
 24
Misty: Yeah. I have so many thoughts zipping
through my head right now. I’m like, what do I
bring up first? But one of the things that I was
thinking about as you were describing all of this is
some awareness I had around other people more
easily getting their needs met. I started to see
that there was a beingness about them that was
different than my beingness when I would strive
and try to do the pushing. I had a very mixed bag
of results.
So much of the transformation that I experienced
in my own life came from giving things a little
spaciousness and setting back and finding the
way to be. And I remember doing some mirroring
of people that I know. I see energetically how
they’re carrying themselves, their being. I
remember trying to find that place in me, feel into
that ease that they might have that I had really no
idea how to access because I hadn’t used that my
entire life.
I remember getting really present to the
vulnerability of wanting to create something
different for my life, but not really knowing
how. And a big part of my journey was learning
to see myself. Brené Brown’s work was really
transformational. Most people probably at this
point have seen her TED talks on vulnerability,
and she’s done some really great work in this
area. But I remember the first time I heard her
talking about vulnerability, something inside of
me was, yeah, I don’t know how to do that.
Jason: Yeah. And the reason you don’t to know
how to do that--and it’s a really, really brilliant
reason--is because when you were an infant,
when you were young, and you did vulnerability,
you were vulnerability, it wasn’t safe. It didn’t work
out.
Misty: Right.
Jason: And what that means is energetically you
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
didn’t feel safe, connected, and secure.
Misty: Right.
Jason: So you learned, Uh-oh. I better be alert. I
better take care and control my reality, because if I
don’t, I die.
Misty: Yeah. That’s right. That’s exactly how I felt
growing up. There was no…me being vulnerable
meant that I would take more from my mother,
who was already giving so much.
Jason: Ah. That’s an interesting one, and that’s
a totally different one. You’re really hitting on
a beautiful aspect here. This energy that you’re
talking about is really tied to the feminine. And I
don’t mean females, but I mean the feminine in all
of us.
[20:00]
Misty: Yeah. The feminine.
Jason: And it’s this connection piece. It is this
idea of surrendering…I mean, if we want to get
into this…I won’t go into the female, but in the
feminine, the feminine is the surrender. It is this
like, here I am, and it’s a trust that you’re going to
be protected, that you’re going to be guarded.
So there’s a true vulnerability in that. And when
you do that, if you can do that, if you can learn
to do this, then support…literally, this is the
invitation of support. But I, like you, that wasn’t
templated in my system. You brilliantly said it. You
didn’t have access to it. And it’s exactly what it is,
because we can all access all of this stuff, it’s just
we have to learn how to access.
And we have a little bit of innate knowing, but
oftentimes this stuff needs to be shown, needs
to be templated, and then we can learn. So
it’s a huge component, but this is a relational
 25
piece. And if we can get this down, not only are
we inviting in other people’s vulnerabilities…
everything deescalates when we become
vulnerable.
All of a sudden--for my system, let me just put
it to me--my system can get very defensive if
your system starts to be invulnerable and, let’s
say, abrasive, my system will puff up and come
at you again. And this is energetically. And this
is what’s happening, is that in our banter, in our
interaction, there’s this pushing up against.
Now for me, because I didn’t have a lot of
vulnerability…so in other words, I’m sensing
danger because you’re coming at, and so I’m going
to put up my defenses. If you first are able to get
vulnerable, my system says, “Ah, okay.” And then
it can calm. But for many of us, for me, I couldn’t
get vulnerable first. I really didn’t know how
because I felt such a threat, felt like such a danger.
And over time, through a lot of therapy and
other works, I’ve learned how to cultivate a little
bit more vulnerability, allowing in more of this
resource that is always there. This is resource.
We talk about nervous system. There’s a lot of us
that have nervous system, let’s say, imbalances,
whether it be chronic fatigue, stress, HPA axis
stuff, thyroid disorders.
A lot of this has to do with how our body’s
managing energy. If we don’t have access to the
greater energy that is…and this is real. This is the
energy that is tapped into with qi gong. This is the
energy that is tapped into with yoga, with a lot
of these martial arts practices, with even some
meditations, some breathworks. This is the prana,
this is the qi. This is the universal energy that is
here. It doesn’t require us to always be eating
food, so to speak.
There’s another access point to this energy, and if
we can allow that, if we can open ourselves up to
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
that and not run our own system so hard to try to
keep things going, then we have a lot more gas in
the tank. We have a lot more resource.
So for those who have chronic fatigue, for those
who are pushing themselves and dealing with
all kinds of burnout type of syndrome--both
energetically in the body as well as in the mind--
this is one of the key aspects, is figuring out how
to learn to relax, how to learn to open up, how
to learn to be vulnerable and trust and open
ourselves to this greater source.
Misty: Brené talks about her foray into
vulnerability, learning to be vulnerable being a
street fight…in my own way, really identified with
that because it was unbelievably scary for me to
speak my truth.
I actually found old journals of being in college,
and I had a crush on a guy. But I couldn’t be
honest with myself in my own journal about how
I was feeling. I remember reading the page, and
what I said about the situation…and I remember
what I really deeply felt inside, but I could not
even journal my truth in a place where no one
else was going to see it. It’s just me.
But if I can’t see me, and if I can’t see my truth and
give space, then you can bet that people around
me have clue what it is that I really need. I’m
impenetrable as far as connecting with me in a lot
of ways because there’s a fortress here because I
don’t feel safe.
And one of the beautiful gifts of my life is this
segue into my 40s that was actually like getting
dragged behind a truck because I realized so
many things needed to change. And I remember
having this incineration moment in 2016 where
the only thing left for me to do was to let go and
surrender. Literally, I had done everything else
that I could, and I wanted to say a bad word just
then because it was intense.

And the only thing left was letting go. So for
me, this idea of surrendering and letting go and
learning to be vulnerable, it was not something
that some spiritual practice ushered into my life
and it was beautiful and holy. It was really, really
hard, and I literally had to get to the very end of
my own identity and let go of everything, and it’s
when everything changed. Everything about my
life changed.
Jason: Yeah. The thing is, is we all develop
an internal working model. This comes from
psychological study. But essentially, based on how
the world is viewing us…and again, I go back to
youth because this is how we’re learning our place
in the world. This is the entire development of our
nervous system.
We don’t have a fully developed nervous
system until we’re in our early 20s. So we are
literally learning to adapt to the world, both
psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and
biologically. So we develop an internal working
model. So if our parents, in particular, are
viewing us in a certain way, then we start to view
ourselves in that way.
So whatever they’re saying to us--“You’re not
good enough,” “Stop being so emotional,” “You
never do anything right,” “Can’t you be more like
your brother,”--all of these things, they start to
develop this internal dialogue, so to speak, on a
mental level. So, of course, you can’t be honest
with yourself, because if you were honest with
yourself, then you’d be admitting that there was
something going on that was a threat, that was a
danger. So you’re not going to admit that.
So we’re going to protect ourselves at all costs.
And this is the brilliance of our own systems, and
we can’t override it. This is the thing. There’s so
much brilliance built into each one of us that it’s
designed to protect us. We can’t just cognitively
override it. You can sit there and say, “Let go. Let
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
26
go. Let go. Relax. Relax. Relax. Breathe. Breathe.
Breathe.” But your system’s only going to allow
you to do that based on how safe it actually feels.
So a lot of times, what we are actually requiring
is sometimes another being. Another person.
Another therapist. A loved one. Somebody that
can actually hold space and essentially allow us
to…not to lead this into spiritual terms because it’s
not about holding space, so to speak.
It’s actually about borrowing their nervous system.
There’s actually a co-regulation happening. This is
why we feel safe amongst another person, man or
woman. It’s not about the strength or any of that.
This is an emotional energetic quality that we can
feel amongst a group of beings, another person,
that we can tell our stories to and dump all our
stuff to and be vulnerable and let go, or even vent
to.
So this is happening energetically, and it does
require that sometimes. There are other ways
of getting to that, but cognitively you can’t. Your
mind cannot override it. Your mind can observe
it. You can recognize it. It actually requires
something that’s a little bit different than the
cognitive mind, which is awareness.
And if we can use our awareness to locate what’s
going on, both in the body--in the emotional body,
in the physical body--then we can start to work
with it. So if I were to say…here’s the difference.
If I were to say, “How many of those of you who
are watching are actually, right now before I say
it, how many of you are feeling your left foot?”
Probably not many, because awareness is where?
Awareness is here. Awareness is here, looking at
the screen, in the mind, in the head. Most of us
are floating heads 98 percent of the day.
But there’s actually different modes and different
ways of being where we can actually bring
awareness. As I am right now, I’m feeling into my

core while I’m talking to you. While I’m looking at
you, reading your face, I’m also feeling into my
core, feeling into my hips. So we can actually walk
through the world in a totally different way.
And that is the awareness that I’m talking about
that we can learn to cultivate. This is what’s
cultivated in qi gong. This is what’s cultivated in
yoga. In a lot of mindfulness practices, we can
learn to develop this awareness so that we can
direct it. When we direct it into different places in
our body…like right now, I can actually feel a lot of
heat in my chest.
And for those watching and listening, maybe
let’s just slow this down a little bit. So I’m actually
modulating my nervous system. I’m slowing down
my voice and I’m softening my speech. And this
is helping everybody else who’s watching and
listening slow down and listen and tune in. So
when we do this, now we can feel into our bodies.
You feel into your throat. You feel into your chest.
Feel inside into your belly.
So you see what I’m doing here? All of a sudden,
we’re all using our own awareness to now shift
how we’re feeling. So this is what I’m talking
about. The pace before was do-do-do-do. I talk
fast. Now, as I slow down, as I pace, it starts to
modulate all of our nervous systems a little bit.
So if somebody listens to GaryVee--if you’re
familiar with GaryVee--talks a mile a minute. He
gets everybody jacked up. Tony Robbins is really,
really good at getting that energy high. That’s
amping up all of our systems. It’s not bad. It’s just
a technique to get things pumped up. Then we
can do the opposite.
[30:00]
So with this awareness, that’s how we can gain
access to some of these points that we can’t get to
cognitively. And that really is the secret to starting
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
27
to resolve, unwind, this conditioning and operate
in a new way of being.
Misty: Yeah. So I’m thinking about how important
the somatic piece is to this journey in healing, like
learning to really be in our bodies. And I think for
a lot of us, if we’ve had a lot of challenges with our
physical bodies…for women especially, if you’ve
had a lot of challenges around weight or looking
in the mirror and having some body dysmorphia
and not liking what you see, if you’ve felt a lot
of shame around your body the way your body
looks, the way your body feels, there’s a tendency
to almost leave the body in our day-to-day lives,
where we completely aren’t paying attention and
our awareness leaves really our physicality.
And we spend all of our time and our energy up in
our minds, in our heads, and we lose touch. And I
think in a lot of ways, whatever energetic pattern
shaped that experience becomes really stuck in
us. So learning how to come back to our bodies
and to be in our bodies and to be with our bodies
can be a challenging aspect of this journey for
people.
And we can find ourselves stuck in this
sympathetic doing, doing, doing, running,
whatever the patterns are. And because we’re
so dissociated, we don’t even have a sense
or awareness of how to occupy our bodies
differently. I would love for you to talk a little bit
more about that.
Jason: Yeah. This is actually a really sensitive topic
for me. I never really dealt with any major weight
issues, although what’s interesting is that I can
actually put on weight and take it off very easily.
So it must sound nice to take weight off easily,
but I also put it on easily. So it’s interesting, that
relationship that I have.
But for me, I say it’s sensitive because I’ve had
issues with my body my entire life. I had knee
 28
issues that started when I was 13 that continued
for 20 years. And I was an athlete. I was a pretty
successful athlete, looking at professional level
baseball. Couldn’t go that route. I’ve had shoulder
surgeries. I’ve had knee issues, elbow issues, ankle
issues. So I have joint and pain issues throughout
my body most of my life.
I’ve had skin issues that show up. And for anybody
that has eczema, psoriasis, any of these chronic
skin conditions, or even just this sensitive skin
like I have, it can be really frustrating. So the
relationship that starts to develop, at least at the
beginning, often is a combative one.
Misty: Yeah.
Jason: Damn you, knee. What’s wrong with you?
There’s this separation that happens, as if my
knee’s the problem. Something needs to fix my
knee. How do I fix my knee? Well, lest we forget,
my knee is me, on every level. It looks different. It
looks separate from what I feel like to be me. But
all the cells, all the information…I don’t want to get
too out there, but we’re a hologram.
Everything that you are was started in DNA. It’s
all there, all the building blocks. So that is us. At
the macro and at the micro, that’s us. And our
body is a reflection and a storehouse and a library
for all of our experiences. All of our physical
experiences--every time we hit our head, every
time we…let’s say we were a boxer and we got
punched--all of that is being recorded in our
bodies, on the nervous system, on the fascia, in
the skin. Everywhere.
All the traumas and the experiences there, the
emotional aspects that we go through, all being
recorded. All the food that we’ve ever eaten, all
the water we’ve ever drank, is now influencing
and recorded in our tissues somehow, someway.
Fortunately, we have a very fluid system, and we…
well, that’s the idea. We want a fluid system, and
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
if we can keep it fluid and if we can increase it’s
fluidity, so to speak, then we can actually restore
youth. We can actually restore health.
So, what we want is we want this dynamic flow in
the body. When flow ceases, that’s when disease
starts to occur. That’s when death is taking hold.
So we need movement. We need flow. So when
it comes to things like weight, there are half a
million reasons why somebody can be holding
onto weight. And one of them…ayurveda talks
about basically fats and oils--any kind of oils.
Could be vegetable oils, animal fats, whatever
the fat that we have on us--is unctuous. In other
words, it’s loving. It’s like a blanket. It’s like a warm
blanket.
So, if you have somebody that is in dire need of
comfort, dire need of connection, of feeling safety
and security on an emotional relational level,
they can tend to put on extra weight, extra fat, to
serve that purpose energetically in the body. It’s
unctuous. It’s actually serving a role.
So that same person can go on some crazy diet, or
even not-so-crazy diet. Let’s say they’re on a really
healthy weight-loss strategy. They lose the weight.
Falls off over a course of three months, four
months in a healthy time manner, and yet it might
come right back, because the underlying energetic
emotional need has been stripped away. You just
took somebody’s safety blanket away. So now
they essentially feel naked.
So they’re going to subconsciously subvert and
create this pattern of being that’s going to bring
that weight back on. And I’m not saying they’re
going to go eat a bunch of cookies and ice cream.
I mean energetically, their body’s going to shift
it’s metabolism. It’s going to literally change. And,
of course, the habits and the things that come
into play, too, that’s all going to come back in to
provide this necessary safety blanket.

All of a sudden, I’ve seen those people…when
you process some of these emotional blocks and
things and traumas and conditionings, once that
gets processed and met, they keep weight off, no
problem. So that’s one example.
Another one that’s more overt is in a trauma
space. Particularly, I’ve seen this with women who
have been sexually abused, or even physically
abused. They will actually subconsciously gain a
lot of weight to repel men or repel the opposite
sex so that they are not abused like that again.
That’s another example.
There’s another example, which is even harder
to identify, but basically, our physical tissues can
get so locked up internally…I’m talking about the
soft tissues. We all have fascia. Fascia is this milky
white connective tissue that if you’ve ever eaten
chicken or seen any kind of animal, they have
this white film that goes across the muscle. That’s
fascia. And that’s all throughout our body. All over
our muscles. And it interweaves with our organs,
and it goes inside and it goes to our bones, and it
interlaces with the nervous system.
That fascia holds a lot of memory. Holds a lot of
information. Holds a lot of trauma. So if you do
something like Rolfing, which is this massage-
like technique that’s designed to loosen up and
re-regulate that fascia, you can actually have
emotional processes come up just by the somatic
experience. And you don’t even know why. You
don’t even know why you’re crying. But some
kind of wave of sadness and tears start coming
because somebody’s twisting the bottom of your
foot and your lower leg, and you’re like, what the
heck? So that’s one example.
There’s another technique that I’d love to
introduce here called Block Therapy. And this is a
therapy where you use a yoga block type of thing.
And you put it on specific areas of your body. And
this isn’t just the bones and in the muscles. This is
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
29
in the soft tissues, in your belly. All over the place.
And you breathe into it.
You’re just using the block and your breath in
certain ways, and you start to loosen up this
fascia. You start to gain movement and flexibility
and softness and flow in the body. And you
can see people who do that for a little bit of
time, some people just lose weight. Just lose
10, 15 pounds. It’s like the body’s just reducing
inflammation. It’s starting to flush everything out.
All the water weight that’s being held, all the other
toxins and metabolic waste that’s there. Just starts
to move through.
So there are a ton of ways that the body is holding
memory. And part of what we want to do…
because especially as we get older, things just
get frozen. Emotional processes get frozen in the
body. I’ve seen this time and time again, where
I’m working with a client and we’re literally just
using awareness to locate aspects of energy or
feelings in their body. We place our energy there,
something starts to process in their body and it
starts to move through.
So it’s like there was a process. There was an
experience that got stuck in their system, and
there’s a body association. In other words,
we’re using the body to pull through emotional
experiences. If we imagine that something
happened when I was seven years old in class and
this one kid did something and what have you,
that can literally be hanging out in our field, so to
speak. And when we have the right scenarios, the
right conditions met and we can actually process
that, what happens is that emotional--if we just
imagine it floating around here--will actually start
to get into our nervous system.
Imagine the nervous system as the interface
between the unseen and the seen in our body. It’s
literally that magical interface. It literally starts to
process through there, and our body processes it.
 30
It’s just like digesting something. We just digested
that experience. We just moved it through. And
when we digest that experience, we can let go
of the challenges, the difficulties, the emotional
complexities, and we process it. And we recognize
the beauty. It’s amazing to see what happens
when you can digest this stuff. So all of these
things are hanging out in our fields, in our bodies,
in our tissues, in our bones, that working with the
body is so, so important.
[40:00]
This is why things like reiki, massage, Rolfing, any
of these bodywork techniques, are truly, truly
amazing. Chiropractic, osteopathy. These things
can really, really unlock things that are stuck in the
body. And you don’t always need to know what
they are, but there’s tons of stuff that are stuck.
Misty: Yeah. So I love the practicality of blocking
that you just described and some of these other
strategies. I’d love for you just to start maybe
sharing with people who are listening to this, like,
“Oh, my God. You’re describing my reality, and
I can feel that I’m stuck and I can feel that I’m
replaying these patterns. And other options, other
ways of being, maybe aren’t accessible to me. And
I’m not sure how to move into a different space,
but I really know I need to.” How do you start
cracking that shell?
Jason: Yeah. So I would say first start using your
intuitive capacities. Everybody’s got them. I know
oftentimes--and I’m the same way--that we want
somebody just to tell us what to do. Go tell me
which modalities are going to be the best. But the
truth is, is that it’s a fool’s game. I can point you to
a lot of different modalities and therapies, which
is what I’m trying to do here. I’m trying to highlight
some.
And the best way to do is to feel through your
own intuition. Perhaps you go research Rolfing.
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
“I never heard of that. Let me go check that
out.” You start reading. You start looking at it.
Maybe there’s a practitioner nearby. “Oh, there’s
one right down the street. Huh. Cool. Oh, and
it’s cheap. Cool. I can afford that.” You start to
use your intuitive guides. You start to use your
faculties and you start to research and look.
It doesn’t mean that you have to read everything
and figure out from here what’s best. You just
start to pick up on what’s resonating right now as
I mention some of these things. This is how yoga
works. Yoga, it’s…yeah, I know we use it as a way
to gain flexibility, perhaps lose weight and slim up
our bodies.
But the real aspect of yoga is to use the breath,
to use the awareness and your breath in a
coupled fashion to start opening up the channels
to increasing flow. And when you do that, your
natural faculties start to arise. You start to show
up in the world in a different way. So all of these
practices, yoga, qi gong…qi gong is a whole
practice about cultivating internal energy, this
prana, this qi. This awareness, particularly at the
dantian, really starts to activate this power center.
So you can start to play with these things. This
isn’t rocket surgery. You can follow teachers
online. So in other words, sit with your awareness
and start to feel into what do you actually need.
Where is your challenge, really? Is it in the
emotional processes? What are you facing over
and over again, so you can start to intuitively
feel where you’re being guided. Block therapy I
mentioned is a fantastic tool.
I just fell in love with Knees over Toes Guy. So if
you haven’t heard of him, he went on Joe Rogan
recently. He’s got a whole program to strengthen
the knees. I mentioned my knees have been
a major problem for my whole life. Well, I just
started his program, and I’m falling in love with it.
And it’s taken me this long to find something that I
 31
really think is going to help me.
But ultimately, it was because somebody said,
“Hey, have you heard of this?” And I listened to it
and then I felt into it, and then I purchased the
program. You know what I mean? So you have to
just follow your intuition with some of this stuff.
Start to figure out where am I really struggling in
life? Perhaps it’s with financial issues. So now you
can start to actually look for what is blocking my
financial success, and you can start to research.
You can start to just go play around in the
internet. You can find these things and let your
intuition guide you.
On a more, let’s say, practical Western way, I
would say you can start to meditate. Get quiet.
And this can be on a pillow. This can be going for
a walk. Get rid of the headphones. Get rid of the
podcast. Get rid of all the stimuli and just spend
some time with yourself. And what you start to
realize in that is that all things start to quiet down.
So these little voices, these little messages, these
little intuitions start to become louder and louder.
You start to get ideas.
So this internal reflection, this self-reflection, I
think is really, really an important tool. As you
start to cultivate that and a better sense of your
own awareness, your own intuition and your
own guidance system, I think this is where this
self-work really comes into play in terms of these
deeper layers. And this is these traumas, these
conditionings.
This aspect I think is invaluable, no matter where
you’re at on your journey. Sometimes it’s about
just healing this physical vessel, and sometimes
it’s about the emotional processes that really start
to heal this vessel. So you might start off here and
you do some good cleanup work, and then you
get as far as you can get.
And then now the next level, you’ve got to go
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
farther and you’ve got to get into the spiritual
aspect of things, the emotional aspect, the self-
development aspect of things. And this is where
things like EMDR is a fantastic therapy. Family
Constellation is a fantastic therapy.
A lot of people now are leaning toward and
opening themselves up to plant medicines, like
ayahuasca in a guided…I would always encourage
indigenous community that you feel comfortable
with. There’s retreat centers in places like Costa
Rica. So there’s things like that that you can open
up to. There’s fantastic teachers, like Joe Dispenza,
that do workshops and all that kind of stuff that
tap into a different level of way of operating.
But it’s starting to follow your intuition and
getting into these aspects of development. And
when you do, when we start to resolve these
developmentally stunted developmental aspects
of ourselves, these processes that fail to process,
that got stuck, our entire reality shifts. Support
starts to show up. Life gets easier. I don’t have to
work so hard.
Money pops up. I’m working with a client, God,
he’s had all these money issues, and I’m just
coaching him on this stuff. This kid gets money
nonstop. He’s a younger kid. Just $25,000 there,
gift from a mentor. Eighteen thousand dollars
here from an old business partner. I’m just like,
“Dude, you’re doing this better than me. This is
amazing. I need to be taking coaching from you,
because you’re really nailing this.”
Misty: Right.
Jason: And it just starts showing up. And this
can happen. This can happen with spontaneous
remission of your healing and your challenges
physically, spontaneous remission, or healing
from money troubles. All of this can happen in the
blink of an eye. So this really is the bigger work.
Part of this, and I think this is why this summit is

so important, is cleaning up the body is the vessel
that’s going to allow this deeper work.
So if we’re stuck with the physical challenges,
oftentimes there’s a foundational, fundamental
physical healing that needs to happen. Detox
practices are essential. Saunas. Getting good
sleep. Drinking lots of really good, clean water.
Getting your diet all aligned in a way that’s
harmonious for you. All of these fundamental,
foundational techniques and strategies. Coffee
enemas can be fantastic for certain people. I love
doing oil enemas that come from auyerveda.
That’s another practice that they teach.
There’s all kinds of these tools that we can bring
in, cleaning up the body, cleaning up the mind,
cleaning up the emotional aspects, and continuing
to go deeper, because I can tell you I’ve been on
this journey for a long time. From what I can tell,
it doesn’t stop. Doesn’t end. But it does get more
fun.
Misty: Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that’s coming
up for me that I see a lot in the Healing Rosie
community--I certainly experienced it in my own
journey--is we are conditioned in the Western
world to give our power to everyone. To give our
power away.
It starts when we are children, giving our power
to our parents, to our teachers, to the principal,
to the policeman, to basically any adult that was
older than us somehow knew better. And we
needed to “yes sir, no sir,” mind, obey. And then
as we get older, it’s professors at school and it
becomes our bosses. And especially for women,
it’s your husbands. But I know lots of husbands
that would say it’s their wives. It’s the President.
Everybody else is responsible for the final
decision, the final say. And we’re living a life
where we’re trying to acquiesce and keep all
these people happy, or where we’re resentful and
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
32
angry, and we’re not making a decision about not
making them happy from an empowered place,
but it’s from a “I’m sticking it to people.”
There’s not a permissiveness for us to really
own our choices, our voice. When I tell women
sometimes in our community, “What does your
gut say?” it is a triggering, overwhelming question
for some, because it’s like my…what does my gut
say? And there’s this cognitive dissonance that
comes up for them. And sometimes they get
gripped by this fear, because whatever their guts
says is at odds with everything external in their
life, everything that people in their world would
tell them they should do, they need to do, they
must do.
Jason: Right.
Misty: So this idea of listening to yourself and
finding…I was raised in an evangelical church
growing up, and we would talk about the holy
spirit or God immanent. What is that still, small
voice inside, and what is it telling you? We are
so often taught to do everything except listen
to that still, small voice, to--as you said opening
this conversation up--to be safe. So I want to say
this out loud, because I know it’s going to be the
reality and the experience of a lot of people when
you say listen to your intuition.
[50:05]
Jason: Yep.
Misty: And I can say from my own experience that
I don’t know that there’s a whole lot we’re going to
say here as we’re chatting about this that’s going
to get everything to shift for you as it relates to
that. But what I hope is that by saying these things
out loud and inviting you to listen to your own
intuition, that you are getting present, maybe,
to this part of you that is your inner wisdom and
your knowing and you’re considering the role that
 33
it might play, or need to play, so that you can get
the breakthroughs that we’ve been talking about
this entire interview.
Jason: Yeah. Well, there’s a lot there. I’m so glad
you highlighted this, because oftentimes in certain
instances, that can feel like being abandoned,
especially when you’re in the care of somebody
else and they say…what it feels like is, “Go figure
it out for yourself.” It’s like, well, wait. So I’m really
glad that you highlighted that, because that’s
really what…it’s actually quite the opposite, which
is really interesting. And what I mean by trust your
intuition and listen to your intuition, it’s really about
cultivating a relationship with your intuition.
Misty: With yourself, yeah.
Jason: For somebody like me, I had virtually no
relationship with my own internal gut feelings
from a cognitive level. This is always happening.
So when we’re not paying attention to our mind,
we’re always following our gut feelings. Do I turn
left? Do I turn right? Do I wait for this? Do I go to
that store or this store? This is always happening.
Misty: Do I say it or do I not say it?
Jason: Exactly. And sometimes, our mind is on
the same wavelength, and sometimes it’s at odds.
But that’s okay too. The mind serves a really,
really important role. And when we learn to have
a dialogue, to tune into our intuition, we’re really
developing a better relationship with it and really
starting to understand it, to get a feel for it, and
also feel for how much I’m really not picking up
the signal.
But when we start to listen into that, it can
actually lead us to the right teacher. So it’s not
saying, “Don’t go get help, don’t go find the
answers, don’t lean on others, don’t invite yourself
up to support.” It’s actually, if we can start to
develop that dialogue and that trust with our
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own intuition, now we’re starting to really, really
get clear with who I should go get support from,
which teacher I should follow, which support
group I should join. Should I buy this program or
buy that program.
I’ve seen people just sit there and wrestle with it,
and they’re reading all the things. “Well, this one’s
got that and this one’s got that.” And it’s like, that’s
fine. That has its place. And if I just ask you to just,
gut feeling, what do you…which one?
Misty: Right.
Jason: But we’ve learned to not trust that and
instead trust our analytical minds. So sometimes,
the analytical mind can say choice A is the clear
winner. Then we go into that program and it just
doesn’t really do much for us.
And if we were to listen to choice B, even
though it wasn’t presented as nice, it didn’t come
across on the outside as something that was
so beneficial, we get in there and we happen to
meet this one person. I got partnered with this
one person in my group, and they introduced me
to this other person who is outside the group,
totally…and that person was the thing I needed.
You see what I’m saying?
Our conscious mind cannot follow these streams.
It can interpret, but the intuition, the awareness,
can actually see 12 steps ahead without even
really seeing what that is. You see what I mean?
Sometimes it’s not the thing. It’s the thing that’s
after the thing, or the thing after the thing after
the thing. And that’s the thing that we really
needed.
So it’s really cultivating that relationship and
taking responsibility. You mentioned that. This is
really important, because it’s not about blame and
it’s not about I did this or he did that or she did
that. I want to tell you a quick story, and I’ll make
 34
it really quick, because I got kicked off a plane just
the other day for mask issues.
And basically what happened, long story short, was
I had my mask on my knee and I was drinking my
coffee. I’m sitting, we’re waiting for the plane to
take off. And the gal comes up and tells me I need
to put the mask on my face and pull it down while
I drink and then put it back up. And there’s some
things that happened in that whole interaction, but
essentially, I got asked to leave the plane.
Even though there was no disruption, there was
no…I didn’t yell. There was no rudeness. I’m skipping
over a lot of the story because it’s quite long. But
at the end of the day, I thought to myself…because
there was no real huge conflict in that scenario,
and yet I got asked to leave. I kept thinking, my
instinct was to go, what did I do wrong? That’s my
conditioning.
That’s my conditioning, to say, Jason, you’re a bad
boy. You did something wrong, because look what
happened. I can feel that in my system. I can feel
that conditioning. It’s still there. But I can also
acknowledge, no, no, no. That’s the old story. And
what’s the new story? The new story is, I played a
role. Some role. So what was my responsibility in
this interaction? How could I have done something
perhaps a little bit differently to get a different
outcome?
And I could have attuned to this person a little bit
differently. Because I made a joking remark, but it
wasn’t ill will. There was no bad thing. But what I…
because I tend to take the mask thing a little bit less
serious than some. And she was working on a plane.
Perhaps she just dealt with somebody who was a
belligerent A-hole that…on a previous flight.
So there’s all kinds of things that could have
happened, and had I been in tune with that and
respected that she has a different process, she has
a different reality that she’s seeing versus me, then
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
perhaps I could have attuned to that and basically
done something differently to not stir her up or get
her concerned. So you see what I’m saying?
So it’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about,
where I’m accepting responsibility, but I’m not also
blaming myself, because I actually didn’t do anything
“wrong.” I wasn’t bad. But I also could have done
something different to get a different outcome.
So it’s a perfect example of being able to…and
I thank God that I’m able to see and hold these
things. In other words, I feel the wrongness, like
the tendency for me to go, what did I do wrong?
but making the distinction of what could I have
done differently. And I take responsibility for this
interaction, because I was involved.
And we do this all the time, with our spouses, with
our children, with our loved ones. And two people
will basically hold the view that I didn’t do anything
wrong. And sometimes that’s the case. Sometimes
the case is neither of you did anything wrong. And
yet, there was a responsibility, because who else is
to blame? Are you going to blame the chair? Are you
going to blame God? You were there. So we can take
responsibility without taking blame.
I just want to make that distinction, because it’s
nuanced and it’s very subtle. And it’s sneaky,
because our conditioning can either have us blame
ourselves or instantly blame the other person. I
could have blamed her. And believe me, there’s
a part of me that wanted to blame the whole
thing on them, like they’re irrational. They’re
uncompromising. They couldn’t even talk to me at
the end. I had my mask on, just like she asked. What
do they want?
That’s a tendency that we all have, to either blame
somebody, and/or blame ourselves. So we can take a
different route, which is to say, I am responsible, but
I’m not a bad person. I didn’t do anything wrong, so to
speak. So this is the same thing with our health.
 35
If we can take responsibility for our health, no
matter if somebody abused us, our childhood
was really messed up, somebody hit me with their
car and gave me really, really traumatic physical
conditions…I was with Terry Wahls this last
weekend, and she had MS. MS. She couldn’t walk.
She was in a wheelchair. And yet she figured out
a way to dig into the research and find a way to
improve her condition, and now she can walk. She
was playing tennis this weekend.
And she could have blamed the medical system
for not having her answers. And yet, she decided
to take responsibility and figure things out for
herself. And granted, she had a lot of help.
So there’s a way that we can empower ourselves
with the responsibility, because when we accept
responsibility for whatever condition we’re in, now
we accept responsibility and we’re willing to take
on that it can get better. I’m stuck in blame and
shame and all that, then it’s really difficult to move
forward. So once I can just put all that behind
me, here I am. Now accept responsibility, now
I’m actually empowered to move forward and get
better, essentially.
Misty: Yeah. I’m thinking about this idea of stress
in general, and a lot of the things that we’ve been
talking about, about just the conditioning that
so many of us have to basically live in a stress-
induced coma all throughout our lives.
Jason: Yeah.
Misty: I feel like I spent the first 20 years of my
adulthood choosing so much stress, as it was just
so deeply conditioned in me. And when we think
about the idea of cultivating a different path, I
think a lot of the things that we’ve talked about
during this interview are so important.
And before we started, I mentioned to you the
idea of parasympathetic tone, because I did a
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whole event on sleep called Your Best Sleep Ever
that maybe those of you who are watching now
were able to catch with Health Talks a couple
years ago. And sleep is a topic that is very near
and dear to my heart because I struggled so much
with sleep. And cultivating great sleep has been
so transformative to my life and my quality of life
and a huge, huge part of my healing.
And I was having a really interesting conversation
with Dr. Marty Turvell about our parasympathetic,
and I was talking about that system as if it’s
controlled by a switch. So we switch from
sympathetic to parasympathetic. And she
corrected me.
[1:00:00]
She was like, “It’s not just a switch. To have a
strong parasympathetic nervous system, you
need to build your parasympathetic tone,” which
you can think of it like muscle tone.
There is a conditioning that happens that allows
us to have a strong parasympathetic response,
allows us to more easily access another way of
being, as we’ve been alluding to throughout this
conversation. And I would love for you just to dive
into this with us a little bit. Because for me, the
concept of the parasympathetic nervous system is
a helpful delineate.
I can wrap my head around this idea that there
are times I can feel I’m in a very sympathetic state,
more stressed state. I’m on. I’m going. And when
I’m in a more parasympathetic place energetically,
it’s the openness. It’s the being instead of the
doing. So understanding this conceptually has
helped me to invite more of this into my life,
and I think it’s a really important part of this
conversation.
Jason: Yeah, it is. And I’m going to talk about the
direct experience for us, because that’s really

what I work with in practice and with clients, is
that it’s really like drinking in well-being. It’s like
some people really can’t drink it. They have to just
taste it. They can only taste it. In other words, I
can give them all the well-being…we can access it,
but their system won’t be able to take it in. It’s like
a sponge. It can only take in a little bit.
Once it’s tasted a little bit and we keep coming
back to this well-being and we keep building this
well-being session after session after session…
in other words, I’m working to get them out of
the stressed state. We’re literally using a variety
of techniques to get them into what is relaxed
for them--but still feels insanely excitable to me--
but they were here and they think this is excited,
stressed. Then they get down to here, and they’re
like, “Ah, finally. I’m at rest.” And I’m like, you think
that’s rest?
Misty: They’re at rest.
Jason: And I know that’s rest for your system.
Comparatively, that does feel like rest, but believe
me, there’s a deeper sense of rest. So as we
cultivate that, as they start to drink in and taste
this well-being, this softness, this slowness, this
relaxation, their system starts to cultivate and get
this deeper sense. And then over time, whereas
before they could only drink in this much rest,
now they can drink in this much. Now they can
drink in this much. And all of a sudden, they’re
drinking from a fire hose.
And then all of a sudden they’re able to cultivate
it on their own. And then they’re starting to rest
in it, and they’re walking through the world with
greater resting well-being until something snaps
them into some sympathetic system, but then
they’re able to get back into it. So this is what I
see. This is the practical aspect.
And what’s really interesting…and it wasn’t until
I first recognized this, but I recognize deeper
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
36
sense of well-being. And what I thought rest was,
was nothing like what I can access now. So I have
greater access. My system can get into it. In other
words, it’s carved a path in the parasympathetic
side of things that allows me to get into that on a
more regular basis and stay there when things get
a little rocky and a little wobbly.
It just allows you to move more toward the eye of
the storm. It doesn’t mean that the world’s going
to get all peaceful and kumbaya. It’s just going to
mean that no matter what’s happening, you’re
in the middle going, well, there’s a lot of crazy
stuff going on and it doesn’t seem to be affecting
me. In other words, I have a ton of compassion
for everybody that’s going through stuff. And
sometimes I get knocked out but I come right
back.
The reason this is important is because if you can
cultivate that, now you can show up for yourself
and you can act as a pillar, a support network, for
other people who may really need your well-being
to get them through difficult times, whether it be
kids, spouses, parents, what have you, friends.
So it’s really, really important. But it really is this
cultivation practice.
So there’s ways that you can do this that are very
practical. And some of them maybe aren’t easy for
some of us. I’ll give you a couple examples. Turn
off as many beeps, pings, notifications, badges.
Whatever’s popping up on your phone, start to
turn those off. Start to get rid of those.
And you might find…this is so interesting about
we all want well-being, rest, relaxation, letting go.
It’s such a beautiful thing we all want. And yet,
we’re not willing to do the things to facilitate that.
And when we do the things, like if I do this, if I tell
you to do this and everybody starts turning off all
their badges and notifications and things, there’s
actually an anxiety that pops up. Like, oh my God,
where’s my notification? You know what I mean?
 37
We’re so conditioned to these bells and pings that
when we turn them off, we get stressed. So that
should tell you right there that you’re actually
conditioned to a higher state of anxiety and
stress about the phone and all the things that are
happening.
If I were to tell you to leave your phone at home
next time you go to the grocery store, the bank,
the wherever, some people have no problem with
that, especially if they’re basically older than my
generation, because I was the last one who went
through high school without cell phone. But for
some of us, especially particularly the younger
generations, there’s no way. “There’s no way I’m
leaving the house without a phone. What are you,
crazy?” That freaks them out.
In other words, it acts as a safety mechanism,
even though it’s the thing that’s actually driving
up stress. So we can turn off all those things.
We can turn off the news. And it doesn’t mean
that we stay uninformed. It just means that we
don’t…we’re not giving into these things that are
paining our nervous system. We can get off of
social media. We can start to put our attention
elsewhere. So these are very, very practical things.
We can basically learn to lower the noise in our
environment. Go for a walk. Spend time outside.
It doesn’t mean that you have to sit on a pillow
and meditate for four hours a day. Not at all. All
it means is start to reduce all the stimulation as
much as you can, whether that’s lights, whether
that’s sounds, whether that’s people, going to loud
events and chaotic places. You just start to get
quiet. So it’s a huge, huge practice to be able to
start to do that. And that is the cultivation, in the
very practical sense, of putting yourself in places
where your nervous system can finally calm down.
Look, we all…I wouldn’t say all. Most of us dream
of or really fantasize about going off to some
cabin in the woods or going to a beach, a nice
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
sandy beach on an island where everything’s
serene and calm. And we go to Costa Rica because
it’s so beautiful in the jungle. You know what I
mean? We all have this, probably because we all
come from nature.
There’s this longing to get back to this slower,
simpler nature-like environment where
everything’s calm and serene. And this is real.
Your environment actually provides that for you.
When you get into these places, your system
starts to calm down. Part of that is because of the
pace of the environment. If you go to Jamaica or
Hawaii or any of these island-type places in the
Caribbean, you start to feel this island vibe. It’s a
very real energy that you’re actually swimming in,
and your system starts to relax.
But the other part to that is that you can cultivate
that in your own home. We can start to put more
plants in our home. We can turn off the TVs. This
is all real stuff. And the challenge is that, again,
we become so conditioned to have all the smart
technologies and the phones and the Alexas
and all this stuff, And it’s really just keeping our
nervous system buzzing at a certain level. And
that’s what we call calm. That’s what we call rest.
But there’s a whole different level. So that’s the
practical aspect.
Now on the more embodied aspect, this is where
doing things like I mentioned before, the yogas,
the breath works…breath work is a fantastic
way to actually stimulate the parasympathetic,
because again, to build up that tone, you actually
need to activate it. And there’s certain things, like
gargling. Singing can do this. It’s a mechanical way,
so to speak, to activate this parasympathetic.
But the more practical way is to actually start to
process some of these things that are keeping you
in the sympathetic. So once you start to process
this junk, so to speak, that’s keeping you stuck
in the sympathetic, now your parasympathetic

actually comes online. So cultivating the
parasympathetic tone and building that up is
often about clearing the system of the thing that’s
getting you stuck, both energetically as well as in
your environment.
So meditation practices are great, but look.
There’s a handful of people out there that
are meditating. They’re meditating and really,
let’s say good meditators, so to speak. They’re
practiced. There’s other people that have been
meditating a while and they’re meditating from
a doing standpoint. In other words, I’m going to
do meditation to get my calm. I’m going to do
meditation to clear my mind. And this is a doing.
This is an outcome-based practice. I’m doing the
meditation to accomplish or to get some result.
That’s the way of our Western world. There’s
always some objective. But the trick is, can you sit
in meditation just because it’s meditation, without
any agenda, no goal, no objective. You’re just
sitting and being, just to be in meditation. That’s a
different way.
And some people try to do meditation, but they
can’t because their mind is going nonstop and
they can’t even relax. And that’s because there’s
so much stuff activated in the system that it takes
a lot to switch that off.
[1:10:00]
So there’s fantastic practices like vipassana
meditation, which is a embodied meditation that
focuses your awareness. There’s so many things
that can help us get there.
But I will say that it’s like so many of us are
carrying around a backpack with a bunch of stuff,
and the easiest way is just to start to unload that
backpack. And then we start to realize that we can
walk through the world in an easier way. That’s
really, really the ticket here. And along with that
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
38
is all the supporting aspects of correcting your
environment to allow for a greater sympathetic or
parasympathetic tone to start to be cultivated.
Misty: Yeah. What just came up for me as you
were saying that is a lot of us need to learn to
say no and to be comfortable with our no. It’s
so challenging sometimes to say no and for it to
be okay for you to say no. When you say no, you
might be inviting a lot of other conflict in your life.
You’re inviting in guilt and shame because you’re
saying no. The fear of being rejected, of losing
connection.
I mean, there’s just so much baggage at times
around the word no, but it’s really the very thing
that will set us free. We find our freedom when
we can say no. And maybe that, for some, is a
spiritual practice that they could sit with and be
with for the next 30 days, is where can I start
practicing saying no so that we’re not inviting so
much clutter into our lives in the first place.
Jason: Well, and there’s another aspect, too, that
I want to be conscious of, which is that there’s a
lot of people walking through life that they can’t
just do these things that I’m talking about. They
might have four kids at home and they’re the only
one taking care of them and they’re working two
jobs, and life is chaos just to be able to hold things
together.
Misty: Right. Yeah.
Jason: I want to honor that. And there’s
something really beautiful about that, as well.
To some of this stuff where we can’t remove
this--let’s call it chaos--if we can’t quiet our
environment, there’s a certain aspect internally
that we can switch to, we can tap into, which is
acceptance. Acceptance that, boy, look at this life.
It’s crazy and it’s full of kids, and there’s so much
love and chaos, and how beautiful.
 39
So a lot of times, this chaos is represented in our
external environment. And it’s another good way.
You can go through your closet. Clean out your
closet. Throw out old shoes, all the old boxes.
Cleaning out the clutter in your house actually
allows for circulation of energy and prana.
We talk about this in feng shui and the vastu,
which is this feng shui of ayurveda that we
actually…all of our objects in our house hold onto
prana, hold onto life force energy. That’s why,
when you go into a room and there’s nothing in
it, it just feels dead and there’s not really…then
you get your couch in there and you get your little
entertainment stand, you get your plant. All of a
sudden, your prana has something to grab onto. It
has something to stick to. So it actually feels lively.
When you get too much stuff in there, now it can’t
breathe. It’s like the prana’s just stuck everywhere
and it just has no flow. There’s no circulation.
There’s no movement. And life, it’s all about flow
and movement. So this is a really cool practice just
to be able to go through your house, see if you
can rearrange things in a more coherent way. See
if you can get rid of old things, especially things
that are broken or what have you. Now you’re
starting to actually enliven the place.
So cleaning things up, cleaning things out, clearing
things, now you’re inviting in new energy. It’s one
of the greatest things to do is get rid of old stuff.
Donate it. Give it to people. Sell it. Whatever you
want to do. Now you’re actually opening life for
new things, and especially if you’ve made a lot of
shifts in your life, and you’re like, “Oh, I’ve done
all this work and where’s the results?” sometimes,
you just need to clear things out and let the new
stuff come in.
So there’s a lot here that we can work with, but
really, again, I want to honor those people that
are caught in the chaos, because I’m still there in
many aspects of my life. Maybe not in some of
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
these classical ways, but very much in other ways.
Certain aspects of my business are really chaotic.
So sometimes, it’s about acceptance of where
you’re at in this stage of life, this period of life.
You might be going through a divorce that’s just a
complete mess. Sometimes it’s just acceptance for
the process that’s unfolding and allowing these
things to sometimes fall apart, sometimes come
together finally.
So, there’s an internal resistance that can really
create more havoc and chaos on the nervous
system level. So it’s not about letting go, but
rather about acceptance. You mentioned religion
before. I didn’t grow up in a religious household,
and yet I’ve turned more towards the religious
practices. Praying. Whatever you want to call it.
Praying, meditating, looking to God for help, but
turning to a greater source. If you want to go
Native American, you can call it the Great Mystery.
There’s all kinds of ways that we can think about
the source of life and basically turning ourselves
over to it and saying, “Oh, I give up. I don’t want
to try so hard in my old ways. Guide me. Help me.
I’m asking for help.” There’s so many things that
we can do to help relieve the burden, relieve the
stress that we’re carrying. And a lot of that has
to do with resistance for what’s happening right
now, for the way things are. If we just relax a little
bit and accept and allow and ask for help, it’s
amazing what unfolds.
Misty: Yeah. I remember the first time…I was
in my 20s, actually, my late 20s, when someone
said to me--a coach that I was working with at the
time--said, “You know why you’re feeling this way,
don’t you?” I was really tense and tightened up
and really anxious about something. I wish I could
actually remember the situation. It would make
the story so much better. But I just remember
the feeling that I was having and him saying,
“You know why you’re feeling that, don’t you?”
 40
And I said, “Why?” And he said, “Because you’re
resisting.”
And I was like, “I’m resisting? What do you mean,
I’m resisting?” I had no concept of resistance
being something that I am doing to whatever is
around me. And I hung up the phone and I started
thinking about resisting. I’m resisting. What does
it mean to resist, and what am I resisting? And just
having the mirror turned so that I could look at
that was really powerful.
Jason: Beautiful.
Misty: And I started seeing so many areas that
I was resisting, and I started playing with the
energy almost like it was a game of, okay, well,
what if I don’t fight that and resist that? And I
would watch things just dissipate. Situations
and circumstances that I would find myself in
that would be drawing me into a lot of drama or
possibly have these really scary, nefarious, fearful,
overwhelming outcomes.
I would look at how I could stop resisting. Where
can I surrender and let go? And I started seeing
how much of a creator I really am with my reality,
just by tuning in to this idea of resistance. Where
am I doing it, and why am I doing it? I mean, just
the why question can be so powerful, because
it’s so subconscious sometimes. Why are you
resisting right now? And I’m, why am I resisting?
And I would get these Aha’s about what was really
going on for me that maybe wasn’t so obvious
upon my first foray into the situation.
So I just want to second the power of resistance
and just becoming aware of it and learning to
let go, because it doesn’t necessarily change the
energetic environment, but it certainly changes
your experience of the environment, which can be
its own gift and really transformative.
Jason: It’s actually everything. So there’s a
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
famous quote, and I just love it. It’s that we don’t
experience the world. We only experience our
own nervous systems.
Misty: Yeah.
Jason: You don’t experience anything except for
your nervous system. All the things that you see
and touch and feel, it’s all being interpreted and
experienced through the nervous system. So, the
point of that is, is that when you can shift the way
your nervous system experiences the world, the
world can actually start to appear differently.
Misty: That’s right.
Jason: You’re pointing to something really, really
powerful, and I want to reflect this back, both on
your…you’re doing a lot of amazing work, and it’s
clear based on the practices. But this is a perfect
example of a really solid takeaway that people can
take away from this interview, this talk, is that it’s
this idea of getting curious.
So a lot of times, we’re programmed to want to
find the answer. And that’s all well and good, but
sometimes, it’s about letting the answer come.
And to start that, it’s just about getting curious.
So it’s the invitation just to get curious and start
to ask questions. Hmm. What am I resisting? And
sometimes you may not figure it out. But just
inviting the question invites the answer.
If you’re caught in resistance, it’s very difficult for
you to see the answer because all you’re doing,
you’re spending so much of your life force, so
much of your awareness, to push against, to
resist what is. And what are you resisting? You’re
resisting reality. And you hear so many times from
people, “Oh, it shouldn’t happen,” or “It shouldn’t
be this way.” Well, it is. That’s the way it is, and this
is where we’re at. So what do we do from here?
Now, we can learn from something. Why did

something happen? What’s going on? Like with my
whole plane incident. I sat there for a minute, like
what happened there? Where could I have done
something different? And it took me a second to
realize, ah, I’m mis-attuned. It took me a moment.
This is the work that I’m steeped in, and it still
took me a moment to recognize she lives her
own reality that is very different than mine. And
something could have happened yesterday. She
could have lost a father to COVID. There’s a million
things that could have impacted her experience
that changed the way she saw what was going on.
This is what’s happening. There’s so many things
that are going on that we can’t really interpret, but
it starts with this investigation, this curiosity.
[1:20:00]
Hmm. What is this? Sometimes you might feel
something in your heart and your solar plexus or
in your throat. And what I always coach clients on
is let’s just get curious. Let’s just see what’s going
on. What does it feel like? What’s going on there?
And it’s not about trying to answer. It’s about
trying to see what’s really here. And this is a
training in popasana as well. Popasana is scanning
your body with your awareness. And I remember
sitting in meditation, and I could only sit on my
knees in meditation for half an hour before I had
to extend my knee, because I told you I had a
bunch of knee issues my entire life. My knee was
in such pain I had to extend my knee.
Well, one of the practices in popasana is not to
actually see it as pain, which then creates a reality
that I need to extend my leg to relieve the pain.
That’s the story. The story is, “My knee is in pain.
The only way I get out of this pain is by extending
my knee.” And sure enough, that works. But the
truth behind that reality that I’ve created is that
I’m sitting there and I’m feeling something. I’m
feeling heat. Hmm. I’m feeling pins. Hmm. It’s
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starting to get numb. Okay, I’m feeling it behind
my knee.
And you just start to examine what’s really here,
letting go of the story, letting go of this narrative
that has unconsciously built up that’s creating…
that’s keeping you stuck in the reality that you’re
in. And once I began seeing that new reality--the
truth--that I was just experiencing sensation and
that my leg wasn’t going to fall off and I wasn’t
going to die, and I didn’t have to move, then I
could start to sit there and experience the pain.
In other words, I’m turning my face to the reality
instead of turning it away. That’s a shadow aspect
of myself that I was turning away from. And you
mentioned it before, these aspects that we don’t
like. Our parts of our body. This extra weight that
I keep carrying around my belly or my thighs, or
this cellulite, or what have you.
We’re turning our awareness away from the
truth. The truth is, I have cellulite. Okay. Let’s get
curious. What’s going on there? Why am I carrying
this cellulite? We started this conversation…I don’t
want to out your story, but you said you were
carrying around weight, and you were just like,
what is this? What’s going on? There’s something
going on here.
Misty: Yep.
Jason: And it’s not because I want to look
different, although I’m sure there was an element
that when you lost the weight it felt really good
to look different, too, but there was a feeling
that something was off, that something wasn’t
balanced. You were already there in the starting
point. You weren’t just going, “I want to lose this
weight.” You were saying, “Something’s off. What’s
going on?”
And that allowed you to get to the ultimate
answer, which was the mold and the things that

were keeping you stuck in an inflammatory state.
So the same thing with the cellulite, with my knee
problems. If we just start to get curious, what’s
going on here? and turn my awareness, my
attention, to the reality.
In other words, it’s like a kid that’s crying. You
don’t turn your back on the kid that’s crying and
say, “Oh, God. This kid that’s crying, I’ve just got
to get away from this thing. I don’t like it.” And
believe me, there’s a part of me that wants to say
that every time my little guy, two years old, starts
crying and losing his mind. There’s an aspect
that’s like, “Ah, get me out of here!”
But the solution is for me to go into the crying, is
to go with the crying. “Hey, bud, what’s going on?
Oh, I’m so sorry. Having a rough day. Come here.”
You know what I mean? It’s not for me to even
understand. It’s just for me to show up. And just in
that loving presence, the crying can find a home.
Misty: Yeah.
Jason: It’s the same thing with our own bodies.
The things that we don’t like, the scars, the
eczema, the knee pain, the cellulite, the bloating,
the gas, the anything. We just turn ourselves
toward it. Accept it. It’s part of us. There’s
something within us that is just out of alignment.
That’s it. It could be psychologically, could be
emotionally, could be somatically. Could be toxins.
Could be the way…a lack of sleep. Could be the
relationship with a loved one. Could be a million
things.
But if we turn ourselves toward it, show up for
it, align with it, start to get curious, follow our
intuition, start to find and cultivate this sense of
peace around us by quieting our environment,
looking towards summits like yours and following
great teachers that can show us a path to…a path
where? Path back to ourselves. That’s what this is
all about.
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Every single health issue, if you follow it to its
end, leads you back to yourself. It’s all a journey
back to the self. And I know that sounds like this
big spiritual kind of thing that we landed on, but
it’s been not only my personal experience, I see
it time and time again with every client. It’s just
following them back to themselves in some way.
So the more that we can turn toward the issue,
turn toward the aspect of ourselves that we hate…
and believe me, there’s aspects of myself that I
still don’t like. That’s my shadow elements. That’s
basically me hating on me. So those are elements
that if I can continue to look at them and accept
them and love them…and that’s a practice that
takes some cultivation oftentimes. But as that
starts to happen, then I realize, oh, it’s not bad.
That’s just there. It’s just the way it is.
And it’s actually beautiful. There’s a beautiful
element. One of my patterns is to be in anger.
That’s my hothead, fiery kind of thing. For a long
time I suppressed that, because when I tipped
over into that outburst anger…and you might see
this as the person that gets mad when somebody
cuts them off, or somebody that loses it on the
person at the post office or whatever.
That’s my pattern. That’s one of my prominent
patterns. And I really suppress that, because
I learned that that’s not good. It hurts people,
which I never like to hurt people, and it made me
feel awful. So I learned to just really suppress that.
Well, it’s not that I was saying, okay, that’s a good
thing, let me just do more of it, but I was able to
understand it. Understand to recognize what’s
really going on, that there’s a wounded one in
there that’s trying to find safety, and that’s how
he’s trying to find safety.
Then I can start to love that little four-year-old
that’s doing everything he can to find safety. And
in order to do that, he’s got to just get angry. So
I started to learn to love that aspect of myself,

because it’s a wise, wise, brilliant aspect of me
that I want to get into better harmony with so
that I’m not projecting it outward and hurting
others and hurting myself. So these are aspects
that we can start to turn toward and start to love
ourselves. As we start to do that and cultivate
those practices, they start to resolve, and-or we
become in better relations with those things.
So this is why I have real mixed emotions about
this body positivity movement. Because on one
hand, one hundred percent, stop…we all need to
stop judging ourselves and judging others for the
shape of their body and the way they look. And
on the other hand, it’s not just about this, saying…
there’s a distortion in this movement, which is
that, “Oh, it’s all okay.” No. Let’s get real with
what’s here.
It’s healthy to say, “I don’t like my body,” if I don’t
like my body, because then, now I’m getting real
with what’s here. And through that cultivation,
now I have acceptance so that I can be big or I
can have skin issues or, for me, I’ve got skinny
legs. And I was teased for that. So if I can just say,
“Yeah, I got skinny legs. That’s just me.”
So we start to develop a real relationship with
our body and we start to accept it. If I’m a little bit
bigger, it’s not a bad thing. It’s okay. That’s me.
So we stop getting defensive. We stop turning a
blind eye to the way I really feel. If I don’t like my
body, then I need to acknowledge that, and then I
can start to work through that and figure out why
don’t I like my body. What’s going on there?
Because it is the disliking of the body, whether
it’s the knee, whether it’s the excess weight, or
whatever it is, the nose…we see all this plastic
surgery. If it’s the disliking of a body or a body
part, that’s where the gold is. That’s what I want
to get in touch with, because there’s something in
there that has the opportunity to be healed. It has
the opportunity to be seen, shown light on.
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43
And we don’t want to just correct the thing
cosmetically, so to speak, whether that’s losing
weight or a nose job or me getting knee surgery.
Sure, that seems like a solution, and I tried it. But
at the end of the day, there was an underlying
factor that was still imbalanced, still out of
alignment. Whether it was emotional, whether it
was excess toxicity, whatever the case was, I didn’t
get to the core of what’s really going on. That’s the
opportunity.
So that’s really what I wanted to bring in here, is
that it’s a turning ourselves toward the shadow
elements of ourselves. That’s where the answers
lie. That’s how life gets easier, is when we’re
starting to walk into that fire and really get curious
in a loving way, then we start getting amazing,
amazing results.
Misty: Well, this has been so powerful. I could talk
to you for 2 more hours.
Jason: Likewise.
Misty: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing all
of this. If people are interested in learning more
about you and your work, where can they find you
online?
Jason: Yeah. They can go to awakencollective.
com. Got a lot of stuff there with regard to a lot of
this personal development, this growth, trauma
aspects and really healing on that level. And then
I have The Human Longevity Project. They can go
to humanlongevityfilm.com, and that’s more
mitochondrial, gut support, detoxification on a
physical level. That’s your physical side of the
healing equation. So they can find me in those
two places.
Misty: All right! Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this
as much as I did. And we’ll see you all soon! Bye
for now.
 44

Magic Water: How to Reduce

Oxidative Stress and
Infolammation with Hydrogen
Paul Barattiero, ND, CHS, CNHP

Misty: Hey, everybody, Misty Williams here,
founder of Healing Rosie and your host for Radical
Healing: Detox Your Stress and Stressors. I am
super intrigued about the conversation we are
about to have with Dr. Paul Barattiero. Hopefully I
said that correctly. He can tell us again.
Dr. Barattiero: You did.
Misty: Good, good. Dr. Paul got into his current
line of work and his focus as a naturopathic
doctor because he wanted to help his wife. She
was struggling in the early years of their marriage
and with all sorts of hormonal issues, really.
Thyroid issues, gut issues. She had really heavy
periods, was anemic and losing a lot of blood. And
he wanted to basically save her life. And his love
for her and dedication to their partnership and to
her healing is what really put his whole career on
a different trajectory.
And in helping her find healing, he realized that he
could help a whole lot of other people find healing
too. And it’s connected to a little molecule that
we’ve heard of called hydrogen. So we’re going to
dive into this today. I’m super excited about this
talk. I actually heard a lot a couple of years ago
about what we’re going to dive into today, and
didn’t really get the full education that I know is
coming. So, super excited for this interview.
Dr. Barattiero has lectured across the world
in the last 22 years. Twelve years ago, he set
out to educate the world on the benefits of
hydrogen gas. He covers the critical role of
molecular hydrogen in reducing oxidative stress
and inflammation, which is the leading cause of
disease. He developed the Echo H2 water system
as well as other products to modulate immune
and cognitive function.
Paul has been on national television in the US,
Germany, and Switzerland. He is passionate about
the prevention of pathologies. He founded the
Synergy Science, Inc., in 2001, and developed a
full line of products focused on detoxification,
cognitive increase, increased immune function,
and gut recovery. Welcome, Dr. Paul.
Dr. Barattiero: Thank you so much.
Misty: Well, I’m really excited to dive into this
conversation, obviously as a woman who dealt
with a lot of her own menstrual, hormonal
issues. I’m really interested in learning about this
therapy, really, that you’ve perfected over the last
couple decades. But talk to us a little bit about
your wife and what was happening in her life that
led you to really dig deep and make some pretty
phenomenal discoveries that can be leveraged by
all of us for healing.
Dr. Barattiero: Yeah. I’ll try not to get emotional.
It’s a [crosstalk 02:40] good story.
Misty: A little emotion’s great.

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 45
Dr. Barattiero: Yeah. I’ll tell you, when you start
talking about my wife, I get emotional. But here’s
the deal. We’ve been married 28 years, and the
first 10 years were…she was sick. And I didn’t
know what to do. I was a young man, 21. Let me
get it together here.
Basically, on a monthly cycle, her menstrual cycle,
she would be down for a week to 10 days total,
and not getting out of bed, doubled over in pain,
highly anemic, and to the point where she had
this certain noise she would make. And I knew
she was going down. She would faint and just go
down. So, it was tough. It was tough during that
time.
So I wanted to help that. You want to have a life
together with someone who you love, and travel
the world and do all the stuff you want to do. That
just wasn’t what I saw happening because of the
issue.
So there were a number of things that happened.
The first thing that happened, really, which
introduced me to natural medicine, there was
a doctor in Orlando. We lived in Orlando at the
time. He said--I heard through some friends--and
they said, “Look, we can do a whole analysis of
your wife and her body, and it’ll be a four-hour
process. And at the end of it, you’ll know what is
wrong.”
But he said something different than all the other
doctors. He said, “But I’ll have a plan in what to do,
and it’ll probably be a couple months, but you’ll
get your wife back.” And I was like, “How much?” I
remember him saying, “It’s”--I don’t know if he said
two thousand or four thousand--I said, “Done.
Where do I write the check. If you can help my
wife, let’s do it.”
So, I remember a very special moment. I don’t
know why I’m sharing this. I don’t share this exact
experience very often, but I was about two hours
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
into this process of watching this man diagnose
my wife with all kinds of things that seemed
extremely strange to me, like Ohm meters and all
kinds…he was asking the body questions and he
was getting answers. I’m going, whoa. This is kind
of crazy. Like, what the heck?
And yet, about two hours into this…and mind
you, I had been praying, asking God just to let me
know that this was from a good source, like this
gentleman was coming from a good inspiration,
not a dark…I wanted light. I didn’t want dark. And
I heard a voice that changed my life. And it said,
“I’ve created this body, and I’ve made it possible to
diagnose it without cutting it open.” And I thought,
oh, my gosh. What a concept.
Because I grew up…my father gave me stitches on
the table. He was a PA, and if I got hurt at school,
I knew I’d come home, he stitches me up. So, for
me, medicine was this different process at the
time where you take care of it. You do this. You do
that.
I wasn’t in natural medicine to the degree that I
am today. So it was one of those situations where
I was like, holy cow. That opened my mind up to
a lot of things. If you’re telling me that the body
knows what’s wrong with itself and can tell you or
communicate, or there’s a question and answer
process, holy moly.
And that is really the moment that took my life
into a different place, because I was like, I want to
know without cutting open and removing stuff. So
anyways…I’ve got to stop talking about my wife,
all right? I’ll be normal if I don’t talk about her,
because she truly is my queen. But fast forward.
We had miscarriages because we were trying to
have a child. And after that, we have an amazing
spiritual experience and we had our child.
So it really was wonderful from a perspective of
her healing and changing her, and she began this

journey, but she was still having issues. So fast
forward now to where we went on a cruise with
our friends…and it’s a funny story. And I’m telling
this now because I want to stop crying.
But the reality is we went on this cruise together.
And mind you I’m going to paint a little bit of a
picture. My wife was doubled over in pain in the
back seat of the car. We’re driving down to Fort
Lauderdale. My wife can hardly move. She’s in the
back seat, and I stop off at a pharmacy in…close to
where the ship was.
We go inside because she was going to change
her gear, and she was on her cycle. They were like,
do we need to call an ambulance?” And I’m like,
“For what?” They’re like, “Your wife doesn’t look
like she’s going to make it. Do we need to call an
ambulance?” I’m like, “No, no. This is normal for
her.” And they’re like, “What?” And I’m like, “Yeah,
this is every month.” They’re like, “What? She looks
like she’s gonna fall out right now.” And I’m like,
“No, I know.” So, mind you, we get back in the car.
We go to the cruise ship.
And our friends had said, “Hey, we think we
have something that can help Jacqueline. We’re
bringing this water on the cruise with us.” And I’m
like, “What? You’re bringing water on a cruise?”
This is not what I would ever think to bring on a
cruise. I would think of cameras, bathing suits. All
the normal stuff. And not water.
I’m like, “You know, I’ve been on cruises before.
They have that on the ship. They have water.”
They’re like, “No, no. You don’t want to drink that.”
I’m like, “Okay, whatever. Bring water.” Can you
even do that? Sure enough, I went on the website
to the Carnival Cruise Line, and they’re like, yep.
You can bring water. I don’t think you can today,
but you could then.
So anyways, this was the maiden voyage of the
Carnival Liberty ship, and we were going off for
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46
nine days. It was amazing. So they brought this
suitcase of water, like eight gallons of water. It
was a nine-day cruise. So we get into our cabin.
Jacqueline, of course, is not feeling well, and here
I’m going to art auctions, coming back. What am I
going to do? I’ll just go back and forth.
Well, she says, “Hey, I’m going to drink some of
that water. Can you get me some of that?” “Sure.”
So I give her some of the water. I drink some of
the water too. I felt nothing.
[10:00]
I didn’t levitate off the ground. I didn’t sprout
wings out my back. Nothing happened.
Misty: What a letdown. [Laughs].
Dr. Barattiero: Yeah. I’m like, okay. I don’t see
anything happening here. But she drank the
water, and she came to me and she put her fists
together like this, and she’s like, “I’m craving this
water. My body is craving this water. I can’t stop
drinking it. Can you give me more?” I’m like, “Well,
yeah. I’ll drink the toilet water and you drink that
water.”
Misty: You drink.
Dr. Barattiero: Yeah. I’m like, “Sounds good to
me, babe.” So, sure enough, she’s drinking the
water. Well, in our life, she would have missed
that entire cruise. She maybe would have caught
the last day or two, where we could have been
doing stuff together. But within a couple days,
two or three days of being on the cruise, she was
up and around and normal. And I’m like, what
the heck? And it was wonderful for the cruise,
because we went to Costa Rica. We went to
Panama. I mean, it was a great cruise.
Well, she was up and around and we were having
a blast. So here was me, sitting in the morning

eating lox and bagels with my friend and going,
“Hey, what’s up with this water? Because my wife’s
here eating with us, and she shouldn’t be. She
should be in bed.” And he’s like, “Oh, it’s amazing.”
And they’re telling me all these stories. And I was
like, oh, my gosh. I need to look into this.
So, mind you, we’re done the cruise, we go back
home. I didn’t even know. I was busy doing what
I do every day. My wife’s going back and filling
up a gallon of water at a time at their store. They
had an organic food store, and they had added
these devices to their store to increase revenue.
So I was like, okay. So, a few months went by, and
I’m like, “What’s that gallon of water?” She’s like,
“That’s the water, babe. I’m drinking it.” I’m like,
“You’re still going there to get water?” She’s like,
“Yes. I feel so much better.”
Well, here’s me. I’m skeptical. I’m a guy. We kind of
have it built into our DNA. And I’m going, “You’re
doing better, and I know you. I live with you. I
know what you do. You haven’t changed anything
but that.” And I thought to myself, okay. I need to
do some deep research and figure out what the
heck’s going on.
So a year and a half, two years later, I was like,
whoa. Now I understand. Because everyone at
the time was talking about it--“Oh, it’s the pH. It’s
this. It’s because it’s alkaline.”--and as a medical
professional, I’m like, no, that’s crazy. It can’t
be anything to do with pH in the body, because
pHs in the body don’t change. Every organ has a
different pH. Every system has a different pH. It’s
closely held and you’re not going to affect all that.
So I’m like, what is it?
Well, I had an employee at the time who was
working with me who had a PhD from Emory
University in water, and I said, “Chris, do me a
favor. Here’s 30 studies that this alkaline water
world says is the reason why it helps. Can you
look through all this and tell me if you find
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47
anything, as a PhD, if you can find anything that
is the answer? I’m looking through, too, but you
look. I’ll look. Let’s figure it out.”
Well, he found--wasn’t even me--he found, buried
in a study that was there, this chart showed DH.
And they were showing that they found this
substance. And he came to me. He goes, “I think I
found your answer.” And he goes, “You’re right. All
the rest of these are completely opposite of what
water does, and they’re all nonsensical. They can’t
be true. But this one study, I think we have the
answer.” And I said, “DH?” and he said, “Dissolved
hydrogen.”
And I’ll tell you, Misty, when he said that to me, I
just felt through my whole body the truth of that.
And I was like, oh, my gosh. I’ve got to research
this now. Hydrogen. And see, what was funny is
I already had felt there was hydrogen because it
was electrolysis, and I saw bubbles, but I didn’t
have any concrete evidence that there was
hydrogen until that very moment.
And now it’s a study showing--and a good study,
too--that was showing me dissolved hydrogen.
And I said, “Whoa.” He goes, “What do you
want me to do? Do you want me to continue
researching it, or do want…I’ve got other projects,
but I’m going to have to put them aside.” I’m like,
“No, no, no, no, no. I’ll take it from here.” And I
just went full speed studying hydrogen gas in
everything I could find, which was not a lot at that
time.
Now today, we have 1,140 studies showing
therapeutic effects with over 185 human disease
models. Now it’s very easy to research. But going
back 15 years ago, it was not easy, believe it or
not. So that’s my journey. Hopefully we can have
a little humor out of it and a little fun, a little
whatever.
But it was a huge deliverance for our family. It was

a very life-changing thing for us, and effectively
has set us on our course as a family and as the
business that I started and whatever. That’s
really what got me passionate is watching how it
affected others.
And, of course, after my sweetheart had been
helped, I then said, “Wait a minute. There’s got to
be millions of other people that are suffering. And
they have a husband who doesn’t know what to
do. And they have children who don’t know what
to do. And they have a wife who’s in a situation
where they’re losing a part of their month. There’s
got to be people that need this.” And, guess what?
There is. So that’s what I’ve been doing for all
these years.
Misty: So did you know, whenever your friend
first gave your wife the water, did you know that it
was hydrogen water or that hydrogen was in it?
Dr. Barattiero: Not at all. They were all talking
about alkaline, alkaline, alkaline, its pH. And
there was a lot of other things they were saying
that were completely inaccurate, and not even
possible that they were true from a scientific or
a medical perspective, but that was their story.
And the honest truth was, it was helping people. I
believed them. They were honest people. I knew
them from church. They were honest people.
And I would go to their store after I was seriously
looking at all this, and I’m not exaggerating, Misty.
There would be 50 people in line waiting to fill up.
They had four sinks. They had machines. People
were filling up gallons, and I’m like, people aren’t
dumb. They’re not going to wait in line to fill up
water bottles and pay two dollars a gallon unless
it was seriously helping them.
So I started asking some of the people, “What
are you feeling?” And they were telling me all
kinds of things, and I’m like, oh, my gosh. This
is pretty serious. But I wanted to figure out the
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48
mechanism.
But no one was talking about hydrogen then.
There was not a soul on the planet talking about
hydrogen. So when I started talking about it, they
said, “You’re crazy. You are crazy.” Of course, I
turned from a crazy person to a brilliant person
within a few years and some studies, but that’s
what happened.
Misty: Yeah. So let’s talk about hydrogen and
the benefits of it. Obviously, it created a pretty
miraculous turnaround for your wife, but tell us a
little bit more about this mechanism. What makes
hydrogen so effective at helping with disease?
Dr. Barattiero: So, great question. We first have
to understand that our bodies are designed to
produce and create hydrogen on their own. So
when we really look at the story, the beauty of the
story is that the Creator put a hydrogen generator
in our body, because it’s so critical to health we
are supposed to produce hydrogen on our own.
In fact, if we have proper gut bacteria--and that’s
the big if--if we have proper gut bacteria and we’re
eating fiber-rich foods and foods that are broken
into fatty acids, these amazing bacteria in our
gut called hydrogenotrophs that are part of the
anaerobic microflora family, they will convert fatty
acids and fiber into hydrogen gas.
The reason why is because that reduces oxidation,
or it manages or modulates oxidation in the body
so it never gets too high, and what we call in
medicine is oxidative stress. So oxidation is natural,
and it’s critical for life. You have oxidation and
reduction. There’s two powers in the body. And
when they’re balanced, we call that homeostasis.
But if we get too much oxidation or too much
reduction, we end up having issues with our
cells, with the function of our organs in the body.
Sometimes too much of a good thing is too much.

So we don’t want more oxidation than reduction.
We have to balance those two things, and this
is primarily hydrogen’s role in the body, is to
modulate or regulate oxidation.
Now we produce oxidation naturally through our
autoimmune system, our immune function, our
antioxidant system. In the body, we’re fighting
radicals all the time--reactive oxygen species--that
produces oxidation. So when we manage that
oxidation and keep it in a normal range, we’re
doing great.
The problem is when our gut is not functioning,
or what we call dysfunctioning, then we have
oxidation rise, rise, rise, until we get to what we
call oxidative stress. Once we have oxidative
stress, then we will have inflammation. It is a
result of oxidative stress. Once you have oxidative
stress and chronic inflammation, you will get a
disease. It is a matter of time. And the weakest
part of your body will be affected, and that will be
where you have pathology come.
So, gut damage and the lack of hydrogen is why
we end up with oxidative stress and inflammation.
[20:00]
So hydrogen should be produced, and in fact,
we should produce 10 to 12 liters of hydrogen
gas per day when you have proper gut bacteria
and you have the proper whole-food diet.
But the issue is 97 percent--is what I believe,
personally--97 percent of the population have
some level of gut dysfunction. I think most of
them is a complete dysfunction, but some people
could have less than that.
But I believe most people are walking around
with a gut that’s not functioning. So what we’re
really saying, though, is they’re walking around
with about 30 percent immune function when
they should have a hundred percent. We believe
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
49
in medicine that 70 percent of immune function
is tied to gut health. And what that really means
is it’s tied to the bacteria or the type of bacteria
in the gut. So, when we can’t produce hydrogen
naturally, appropriately, then we end up with
oxidative stress and inflammation.
So when you give someone hydrogen gas,
immediately the body’s like, thank you very much.
I need that in so many compartments of the body,
from everything from HCL…hydrochloric acid in
the stomach is hydrogen to our body. If you break
it down, we’re hydrogen and carbon chain, so
carbon-hydrogen chains is what forms us. So it’s
critical to life, and hydrogen affects every single
aspect of our body function.
Misty: So oxidative stress and inflammation is
the driver of, as you said, basically all disease, all
chronic disease. Pain too. Chronic pain as well.
So, basically when we are taking or consuming
hydrogen, we’re offsetting these processes in the
body?
Dr. Barattiero: Absolutely. And you don’t have
to take my word for it. You can read the 1,140
studies, all of which or most of which start out
saying oxidative stress is responsible for the
formation of cancer. Oxidative stress is in the
formation of diabetes. Oxidative stress. Every one
of these studies start out in the first line saying
oxidative stress and inflammation is the cause of
disease.
So most--90 percent, 95 percent of the studies of
the 1,140 we have--are going to support what I’m
saying, that oxidative stress and inflammation are
the cause of disease. The next sentence in all of
these studies say hydrogen is known to reduce
oxidative stress and inflammation. Now in some
other studies, it’s going to say it also has strong
anti-cancer activity. And it’s going to say other
things based on what the purpose of that study is.
 50
But it is going to absolutely support what I’m
saying, that oxidative stress and inflammation
causes disease, and then it’s going to talk about
hydrogen being a reducer of oxidative stress and
inflammation. Now this also counts for neurologic
issues, whether it’s Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s,
autism, bipolar, schizophrenia.
Whatever neurologically, it’s also a lack of
hydrogen in the system, but it’s not because
hydrogen goes to the brain. It’s because hydrogen
stimulates ghrelin secretions, which go to the
hippocampus, the hypothalamus, and brain
stem, to change cognitive function, plasticity,
normalization of brain.
So, hydrogen doesn’t do a lot, actually. It’s just a
very good coordinator or manager or director to
direct systems in the body to function the way
they were supposed to. So without a director,
without a manager, you’re not going to have those
systems doing what they’re supposed to.
So, just having hydrogen in our system, that
director reappears. That manager reappears to
give direction to systems in our body. Whether
it’s telomeres, whether it’s peptides, whether
it’s electron transport chains, whether it’s
mitochondrial function for energy production,
whether it’s brain, whatever it is, hydrogen is
responsible for all these actions.
Misty: So talk to us about how we can increase
the hydrogen in our diet. You’ve obviously
described this water. I don’t know, are these
hydrogen machines at health food stores
everywhere? Talk to us a little bit about how
we actually therapeutically go about taking in
hydrogen. How much do we need? Get really
practical with us on this.
Dr. Barattiero: Yeah. Sure, sure. That’s great.
Thank you. So, the best thing would always be
if you produced in your gut and I wouldn’t have
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
had to create machines. That would be the best.
If we had proper gut health and all the cascading
benefits that would happen with that and we
would be producing…I’d find something else to
do.
But the reality is, because of heavy metal toxicity
or pesticides or stress and relationships, or
toxicity in relationships, we can change gut
function. So because of lifestyle choice--and I’ll
just leave it at that so we don’t hurt anyone’s
feelings, lifestyle choice--we are not having a gut
that’s functioning properly.
So not only did I develop a machine that
will dissolve hydrogen gas into water…and
understand, we’re getting the hydrogen from
the water molecules themselves. We’re taking
H2O and we’re separating…we’re sending oxygen
back out to the atmosphere and we’re dissolving
the H2 molecule into the water as gas. It’s not
connecting or combining with water molecules.
It’s a gas riding along. And water becomes the
vehicle to get the hydrogen gas into your body.
Now we don’t need a lot of hydrogen on a
regular…unfortunately, there are those people
trying to say you need high amounts of hydrogen.
This is completely false. It doesn’t matter if they
are medical professionals, they don’t know what
they are talking about. You do not need a lot of
hydrogen. And this is not Paul Barattiero saying
this, this is studies saying that ghrelin secretions
to help Parkinson’s, all you needed was 0.1 parts
per million of hydrogen gas. One-tenth of a part
of million.
So it’s not a lot that we need, but we do need it
on a regular basis. We do need to be having it in
our system every day so that we can modulate
all these pathways. So, whether it becomes your
drinking water that you’re drinking 50 or 60
percent of the water you drink per day is having
hydrogen in it or it’s a 16-ounce bottle per day, it’s
 51
going to modulate your system and it’s going to
help your system.
Most people that get our systems are because
they want something that takes out contaminants.
They want something that dissolves hydrogen,
and they can just go up and fill a glass and drink
and be done. And if we really want to mimic the
body, we should be fermenting food three times
a day when we’re eating. We would then be
producing hydrogen gas three times a day.
So we could say I’m going to mimic what my body
should be able to do, and I’m going to drink water
at least three times a day that has hydrogen gas in
it and modulate my system. This would be what I
would recommend, and I would also recommend
people to be hydrated in general, drinking half
their body weight in clean water. Not tap water,
but purified water that has no contaminants in it,
would be what my suggestion would be.
So, in getting water with hydrogen, you don’t need
a ton of hydrogen. It’s only staying in the body
for 20 minutes, half an hour, an hour at most,
and then you’re going to breathe out the unused
hydrogen. But the signal modulation, the effects
of the hydrogen, we show in studies that can
linger three to five days. From one glass of water,
the effects can linger three to five days.
So this is important for people to understand
that you don’t have to freak out if you’re going to
the store, or you’re going away for a few hours
and you’re away from the water. You don’t have
to be stressed out. That’s the whole purpose of
this, right, is to not be stressed. So you don’t want
to stress. But having it regularly in the body is
going to regulate all of our systems and help us to
function with efficiency.
Misty: So a machine, obviously, can help to add
hydrogen to the water. I’m remembering being
at Paleo f(x) in 2019, and there were a couple
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
of companies there that had…that talked about
hydrogen water. And I believe at one of the
booths they had tablets that you dissolve into the
water as an option, or you have the machine. I’m
wondering, is a machine the only way that you can
add hydrogen to water?
Dr. Barattiero: Great question. No. It’s not the
only way. There are several ways. So let’s talk
about those really quickly. There is what’s called
inhalation. That’s where you’re going to put a
canula in your nose or a mask on your face, and
you’re going to breathe in hydrogen gas. There
are definitely benefits to doing this. However, it’s
only two. It’s really blood and lung.
Well, if we use water as the vehicle and we’re
getting hydrogen gas through water consumption,
not only do we get both of those--blood and lung-
-but we also get gut recovery, brain, all of it. So
we don’t just want to get a few benefits. We want
to have everything. So through study, the most
effective method of administration is in water.
So, at least now we know that inhalation can have
benefits, but it’s not the best mechanism. It is
water.
So when it comes to the tablets, these tablets
have elemental magnesium. So they’re reacting
with water to separate water molecules, but
they’re not getting rid of the oxygen out like we do
in our machines.
[30:00]
And tables are also extremely expensive. You’re
talking sometimes a dollar per 16-ounce bottle.
Just to put one tablet in is anywhere from 60
cents to a dollar, depending on the brand that you
choose.
And I used to sell. I was one of the largest
companies in the industry selling tablets years
ago. And we had thousands of bottles always

in stock. Here’s the problem. The taste is not
enjoyable for many people because it tastes like
magnesium because you’re not reacting all of the
magnesium in the water. If you don’t clean out
the container, it will start growing mold because
of that magnesium that’s unreacted can start
growing mold on the inside of the container
you’ve used, and the fact that the cost is too high.
So what I did is we developed the Echo Go. This
is a rechargeable lithium ion battery-operated
unit where you put water in and you just push
a button. And three minutes later, you have 10
ounces of hydrogen water with 1.88 parts per
million. And the cost of this device is the same
cost as two bottles of tablets.
Well, this is obviously going to last you a lot
longer than two bottles of tablets, which is only
two months. This is going to last you a long time.
So I don’t like charging unnecessarily and having
people have to pay for health on a monthly,
monthly, monthly basis. If we can choose a
solution that they can have for years, instead of
having to buy tablets over and over, I went that
route.
And some people may say I’m foolish from a
business perspective, but I’m happy with my
decision because it gives people the ability to
have a solution that’s not just today and then
you’ve got to pay for it again and again and again.
So the tablets will provide benefits, but it is the
most expensive way to get hydrogen in your life.
And there are much less expensive ways to get
therapeutic hydrogen in your life, and that’s what I
advocate. That’s what I promote.
Misty: So inhale, tablets, a device that is adding
hydrogen to your water. Are there other ways that
you can get hydrogen?
Dr. Barattiero: No. Just if you are one of the
very, very rare individuals who has a gut that’s
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52
functioning, you would produce hydrogen on your
own, and you would have what we call farts. It’s a
new thing that’s come out. Flatulence.
Misty: Yeah.
Dr. Barattiero: Yeah. That’s new. We’re trying it.
But the reality is, that gas that’s coming out of you
is hydrogen, methane, you can have some sulfur
depending on diet, but that’s really what is coming
out. I mean, I think we all remember the funny
movies where people in college lit that gas coming
out. There’s a reason why it’s lighting, because
it’s highly flammable. You have methane and
hydrogen. Both are flammable.
So good news is, people ask, “Oh, is hydrogen
flammable?” Not when it’s in water. It’s not any
more flammable. It’s only when you mix it with
oxygen, as we learned from the Hindenburg. By
itself, hydrogen is no issue. It’s just when you
mix it with hydrogen and oxygen you can have a
problem.
But I recommend people getting with water
because they’re hydrating at the same time. One
of the things we’re doing is we’re also changing
the electrical potential of the water, what we
call ORP. Oxidation reduction potential. So when
it goes through our devices, you’re reducing the
electrical, or changing the electrical potential, to a
negative.
Now there’s studies from Russia from way back,
many, many years ago, showing that if we get
the tissue in the gastrointestinal tract itself to a
negative--the actual tissue. I want to make sure
people understand what I’m saying--you want
the actual lining of the intestinal tract to have a
negative electrical potential.
And what would be optimal is anywhere from a
negative 300 to a negative 400 millivolts. When
we get the tissue to that, it selectively stimulates

anaerobic microflora and rehabs the gut. So in
other words, you’re establishing the terrain and
the biome properly so the bacteria will now come
and live there.
Instead of throwing probiotics at the problem
and having to always be taking probiotics, you’re
actually changing the terrain in the biome. That’s
another aspect I’ve added into our water so that
when the water goes through the stomach, the
duodenum, or duodenum, into the small intestine
and the colon, you’re bathing your tissue with
water that has that negative electrical potential,
and it will change your gut within an hour.
And within two weeks, we have people that are
gluten and dairy intolerant eating gluten and
dairy with no inflammation. And this is a beautiful
thing. And I’m not saying you should eat gluten
and dairy. I’m saying you should have the ability
to process it in your gut. We’ve been doing it for
thousands of years.
Misty: Yeah. Well, this sounds really exciting. I
love the practical way that you’re really breaking
this down and making it accessible for all of us
to grasp, to understand. I’ve heard a lot about
alkaline water. I personally never resonated with
the alkaline water thing, but there are people
that are very, very passionate about it, and it’s
interesting to me to hear about the science.
Dr. Barattiero: Yeah.
Misty: And it’s particularly intriguing, because
we’ve been talking throughout this entire event
the role of stress and oxidative stress and
inflammation in driving all of our disease. And
to hear of something that is so easy to integrate
into our lifestyles…feels very exciting to me to
learn about technology like this. And I’m super
grateful that you have dedicated your life to it
and are doing what you can to help people heal
and maintain a healthy inner terrain so that they
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
53
aren’t getting sick in the first place. So, thank you
so much.
Dr. Barattiero: Yeah. Oh, you’re welcome. And
just to make people feel good about the alkaline
thing…some people will start to get depressed,
like, “I bought the machine. Oh, I made a bad
choice.” So, look. We love you. Here’s the deal.
The reason why alkaline water machines affected
people positively, which they do, is because of
hydrogen gas.
So you need to understand, it was nothing to do
with the pH of the water. It always was to do with
the ORP and the hydrogen gas. All I really did is to
create a device that doesn’t change the pH. It just
focuses on why the benefits were there in the first
place. So alkaline water machines had benefits.
I sold hundreds of thousands of them way
back when I helped my wife. We didn’t have the
advancement in technology yet to not produce
the pH. I was producing the pH and making
hydrogen.
It wasn’t until later that we figured out how to
make the hydrogen water without affecting
pH, and that’s what we do today. Understand,
everyone that bought alkaline machines, you
made a good decision at the time, but understand
it was never about the pH. It’s always been about
the hydrogen gas.
And unfortunately, with most alkaline water
machines, if you’re not cleaning them every week
to two weeks, you will have calcium buildup
on the electrodes and you won’t be producing
hydrogen, and so you won’t have the benefits.
This is why I developed the machine, so you
don’t have a constant maintenance cycle, and
you don’t have to send your body balance out
by putting high pH water in your stomach and
forcing your body to produce hydrochloric acid.
It really is about keeping your body balanced and

not putting in things that should never be in the
stomach.
The stomach should never have alkaline anything
in it. There are no such thing as foods that are
alkaline. Your stomach is an acid environment
of four pH. So, we have to support that. That’s
what’s natural and that’s what’s appropriate. So,
I hope that helps people feel better about their
decisions, because they did the best they could at
the time with the knowledge they have.
Misty: Sure. I’m going to get in one last, very self-
serving question here. My father struggles with
GERD, basically. Acid reflux.
Dr. Barattiero: Okay. Yeah.
Misty: And found out that he has been on proton
pump…what are they called?
Dr. Barattiero: Inhibitor? Yep.
Misty: Proton pump inhibitors, yep, for a couple
of years.
Dr. Barattiero: Yep. That’s going to cause that.
Misty: Yes. I’ve been going on deep dives with my
mom, talking, and like, “Here’s all the research
that I’m finding, and this is actually making the
situation worse.” And she told me a story of our
family doctor when we were growing up would
not put my dad on a six-week course of PPIs
because he felt like it would be really adversarial
to my father’s health.
Dr. Barattiero: Okay.
Misty: I’ve sent him digestive enzymes and all the
things that I don’t even know if he remembers to
take, but I’m wondering in a case like this, because
we’re putting something directly in the gut, what
kind of gut conditions…would it be helpful for a
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
54
situation like GERD?
Dr. Barattiero: Yes.
Misty: And are there other gut conditions that
tend to be chronic that hydrogen water, or
hydrogen, period, would be helpful for?
Dr. Barattiero: Yes, and only hydrogen water.
Inhalation isn’t going to get in the gut, so don’t
think you’re going to be able to use inhalation to
help the gut. So here’s the deal. Hydrogen itself
is not going to help the gut. Your gut should be
producing hydrogen. By putting hydrogen into the
gut, you’re not going to help the gut.
What’s going to help the gut is the water with the
negative electrical potential. That will absolutely
restore gut function. And once you restore
the proper biome and terrain and balance of
anaerobic microflora, that’s really the key. We only
should have one to four percent aerobic, 90--up to
96--percent anerobic.
[40:05]
The problem is, with an antibiotic or heavy metals
or other things, we flip that polarity and we end
up with more aerobic bacteria. And it creates food
cravings, anxiety, depression, sugar, carb cravings.
It’s not you. It’s the bacteria in your gut wanting
these things. So when we can change your gut
back, these things go away. Anxiety, depression,
all these kind of things go away. So, it will fix the
gut, almost immediately.
Also, for people that have acid reflux, understand
it’s because they’re having a hard time producing
hydrogen, believe it or not. And HCL, you need
the hydrogen to produce stomach acid properly.
So a lot of doctors are selling HCL tablets and pills
you can take to increase the stomach acid. The
patients that have our water don’t end up needing
that when they’re tested for HCL production. They
 55
produce it on their own. So you have these acid
reflux, almost within the first day are gone.
So if you have someone with acid reflux or any
other issues, strongly recommend they begin
drinking hydrogen water to get hydrogen into
their system and to fix their gut. And you will
fix it. The only individuals that I would be a little
concerned about is overgrowth of bacteria. If
you have a condition--and those of you out there
know who you are--that have an overgrowth of
bacteria in the small intestine--
Misty: SIBO.
Dr. Barattiero: Yes. If you have that, if you start
drinking hydrogen water, you will have some
pain in the gut, in particular, the small intestine,
because you’re throwing hydrogen into the mix,
and it’s going to be a problem. What we’ve got
to do is follow our protocol to get rid of those
bacteria out of the small intestine and then begin
drinking the water to get the colon electrical
potential changed to then support the anerobic
microflora in the colon.
We don’t want hydrogen being produced in
the small intestine. We want hydrogen being
produced in the colon. So yes, it’s helped every
gut condition, but if people don’t want that pain
in the beginning, they may want to go through a
process to strip those bacteria out of their small
intestine and then begin drinking the water to get
the bacteria in the right area of the intestinal tract.
And I hope that helps people. Because some
people start drinking the water and they’re like,
“Oh, my gosh. I’m bloated. I have this problem.”
And I’m like, you’ve got to go easy in the
beginning. You can’t be pounding the water. And
you might want to go--
Misty: Copious amounts.
Radical Healing: Detox Your Stress & Stressors Masterclass
Dr. Barattiero: Yeah. You might want to go
through a process to get rid of the overgrowth
of bacteria in the gut and then start drinking the
water right away so they don’t reinhabit, change
the polarity of the gut. It’s really an electrical issue.
And then they can be highly successful. But that
would be the only condition, SIBO, that I would
use some caution on the protocol.
Misty: Yeah. All righty. Well, Dr. Paul, this has
been awesome. If people are interested in
learning more about you and your work or your
companies, where can they find you online?
Dr. Barattiero: Synergyscience.com, so S-Y-
N-E-R-G-Y, and then science.com. Also, go to
hydrogenstudies--with an S--hydrogenstudies.
com, and we have the best resource available
for studying the hydrogen studies. You can go
and type in any condition, and if it’s in the 1,140
studies, boom. They come up.
So do some research for loved ones. Refer people
that are having issues to go do research on our
site, but synergyscience.com is our main website.
I don’t do much on social media. I am on there. I
have an obligatory relationship with social media.
I am somewhat okay at reaching back when
people reach out.
But really, come to our website. There’s a chat
feature. We have info@synergyscience.com as an
email you can send questions to. But I am always
happy to help. I’m always available. I’m here to
help you and help your families have appropriate
health.
Misty: All righty. Well, this has been fantastic.
Thank you so much, Dr. Paul. Thank you everyone,
for joining us, and we’ll talk to you soon.