Introduction
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: Well, hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, AKA Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show, which is part two of my mental health journey.
It was not only my mental health journey personally, but the things that I ended up learning to utilize to resolve this, the lifestyle habits I learned, stuff with FDN. Then we’re also talking about the recent news, if you will, and not so good news, about SSRIs. So, if you haven’t listened to part one, I would just pause this immediately and go back to the last podcast episode that we released. That’s what you’re going to want to watch. But if you have, then here’s the continuation.
Where we left off in the story, I was not in a great place. I just had a aha moment of sorts. I was kind of starting to understand the idea that I needed to take personal responsibility for the things in my life, because I’m greatly affecting the people in my life. This is not something I want to be doing. I don’t want to hurt people in my life.
What happened after that is absolute magic. It is something that makes me believe in fate. I’m not imposing that on anyone else. Because I grew up an atheist, I’m very open to all perspectives when it comes to religion or lack of religion. But for me, it’s hard not to look at the things that happened after that, very important day to me in my life, and not say, wow, that doesn’t seem like it was written in stone or something, cause it kind of does. But that’s my opinion.
Mental Health Journey: A Great Group of Mentors/Friends
It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe that. What happened is I ended up going to community college for a little bit. It was something that I had to do basically after I got in trouble. I didn’t really want to go, but I wanted to make everyone happy, and I wanted to try to get myself back on the right track. So, I went to that, and I only met one person there. I’m not saying I didn’t see other people, but I only met one person in terms of someone that I would consider anything close to a friend. His name was Eli.
Eli got me involved in a sales company, basically. He invited me to come out, he was very persistent. It was actually a network marketing company, which I know some people are not for those at all. I am not in a network marketing company now; I’m not promoting network marketing companies. But at the time it was actually exactly what I needed.
Because one thing network marketing companies are great at is pushing self-development, personal development, education. They’re fantastic at that almost universally. This one was no exception. More interestingly, is it had a bunch of young adults in it, which is what I needed.
I met these wonderful people who were all about three and a half to four years older. Some were even older than that. Then some were my age. But in this initial core group, most of them were older and it gave me this sense of looking up to them almost as if they were mentors, but I also respected them enough that we could be friends.
Mental Health Journey: Consuming Lots of Multivitamin Products
Because especially after high school, a few years doesn’t really make that much of a difference even in dating, let alone friendships. These guys, not only are we selling this health and wellness product, now, this is what’s interesting.
I had no interest necessarily in doing the health and wellness product. I kind of knew about like GMOs and stuff at that time, but I wasn’t fully invested in anything. Maybe at around 16, I was taking it more seriously than I remember, but I had so much else going on and I’m abusing substances. The last thing I was thinking about, I guess at that moment, was the organic stuff or the health stuff.
But nonetheless, we’re drinking this product, we’re consuming it. It was a line, a product line of multivitamin based products. The core product was a very high potency multivitamin with other things in it, antioxidants, stuff like that. Then it was formulated into different things. So, they had “healthy energy drinks”, quote/unquote, sports drinks, protein powders, the standalone multivitamin. Everything was built around this multivitamin formula and I’m consuming the crap out of this.
At the same time, I am lucky enough to be around some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, people that are still in my life to this day. If you heard our recent episode with Dr. Ben Torres, he was one of those people that helped me during that very tough time. If you’ve heard me mention the light therapy studio that I own in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. My friend that I met at that time in that thing is my business partner. He was the investor for that.
Mental Health Journey: Consuming Lots of Personal Development Material
So, it’s amazing to see all these things come full circle and just really special time. Really special time despite how much bad had just happened prior to that.
These guys, what they’re doing is, they’re getting me involved in personal development, having me read these books, all this type of wacky stuff that I just wouldn’t have thought twice about at that time. Now I’m looking at a crazy filled bookshelf with a bunch of personal development stuff that I still consume to this day. That was very helpful for my mental health. I can’t discredit that.
In fact, in my book, what I wrote as the steps to kind of get things on track is, you want to wake up with sunrise every day. While you’re doing that, listen to 15 minutes of something positive, it is so simple. And you’re walking, you’re getting outside cause that’s how you’re catching sunrise. It’s amazing what those simple things can do.
I am not being ridiculous here and acting like this is going to cure the worst case of depression or bipolar. That’s outrageous, I’m not suggesting that at all. But it certainly isn’t going to hurt. I couldn’t believe the profound effect that that had on me at the time. I integrated these things over the years, I shouldn’t say that at that time I was doing it.
But I have had events in my life which tried to knock me back a few steps and it put me in a place where I didn’t really feel so good. I always immediately go right back to that routine, I kind of maintain that anyway.
Mental Health Journey: Feeling Better Mentally
But I’m not necessarily always doing it in the way that I regimented in the book. It’s not always me listening to personal development while walking, while getting sunrise. Maybe I caught sunrise. Maybe I caught sunrise with the windows open while driving, and maybe I had to be on a call. Maybe I do my personal involvement later in the day. It’s just getting those things in the day is really important to me.
But doing those things all at the same time, that’s how you’re starting your day immediately, that’s a strong formula for pretty much anyone let alone someone that is suffering with mental health stuff.
While all this was going on, obviously, I’m consuming this multivitamin, like I said. Over the course of a few months, I started to realize that I wasn’t feeling as depressed. I wasn’t getting panic attacks. I was nervous, but I didn’t feel as anxious as I did before. It seemed like I was making progress.
A lot of that initially got contributed to the environment I was around, and that’s no small detail. I mean, I was around amazing people that are super positive, not judging me for anything I’ve done in my past, trying to encourage me. Yes, that matters for our mental health. But it didn’t seem like it would be able to do some of the things that it seemed to be doing.
Basically, long story short is, thankfully, I still have these friends, but that company kind of fell out. I disagreed with certain things that they were doing before it fell out. So, I kind of got myself uninvolved before the fallout.
Mental Health Journey: A Clear Correlation
They added sucralose basically to their formula. I was like, well, I’m only here for the organic natural stuff at that point cause I had been educated on it over the months. So, when they added sucralose, I’m like, that’s inconsistent, that doesn’t make sense. I backed out after that.
What I noticed is that the symptoms came back, even though I still had the same friends. Then a question kind of floated across my head. It was something along the lines, I didn’t use these exact words at that time, but something along the lines of, can nutraceuticals have an effect on mental health? Sure enough, when you research that, you find that certainly they can. It’s not going to cure most things I wouldn’t think, but for me, it certainly got the needle moving in the right direction.
To be clear, while I’m still hanging out with those friends, once that company added that sucralose in, I stopped consuming the product. I stopped using it. So, I saw this clear correlation between me consuming a ton of this stuff, high potency multivitamin, and better mental health, and then stopping using it, noticing, well now I feel kind of like crap again. This started what has now been, at this point, an eight, nine-year journey of just relentless study, fascination with the subject – what makes us sick and what makes us healthy? What does that? Because it’s all kind of tied in together, physical and mental. If you’re listening to a podcast like this, you probably already know that.
I got a new job; things are going well in life. I’m okay but I definitely still deal with depression. Things are, they’re not great, they’re all right.
Eating Organic: Clearing up Acne in the First Month
My mom gets me involved with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition cause she knew I was super passionate about this now. I was doing experiments.
I had tried an all-organic diet for 30 days and I maintained that. But I tried that at that time to see what it would do. It cleared up my skin like 70% in the first month.
If you’ve never seen my skin pictures, oh my gosh. I’m not being rude to myself, man, but it ain’t pretty, it’s pretty bad. It might be one of the worst cases you’ve ever seen of acne in your life. So yeah, I noticed that was getting better. The mental health seemed to be improving again. It wasn’t perfect, but it seemed to be improving. So, I’m like, okay, I’m onto something here.
I go through IIN, great program. We love them. I think they do wonderful things. I just was looking to take it a step further. I wanted to really get into the nitty gritty, the science, the labs. I wanted to be able to do that. I didn’t have anything like that though.
This is such a crazy story. I was barely 21 and I wanted to go to California. The primary reason I wanted to go to California (I live in Pennsylvania and lived in Pennsylvania at that time), is because I had this idea. This is something very typical of East Coasters. I don’t know if you West Coasters know this, but we believe that the West Coast is where all the hippies are. That’s kind of what we’re thinking.
Now, I wasn’t searching for hippies per se, but I was searching for people that were more involved in the natural side.
Mental Health Journey: Going To California
Because as I’m doing my research, as I’m going through IIN, I’m hearing all these incredible stories. I’m watching people online who have healed. I don’t know, a single person in my life that has done this stuff.
I went to a local professional, who was not Western medicine, and they were great, super kind, but they didn’t get me to where I needed to go either. So, I said, all right, if I can’t find someone here, that’s going to do this, I’m going to go out and do it.
I call up my best friend, Jake, the next day, after this idea sprouted that night. I asked him if he wanted to go. He’s like, dude, we’re just going to pack up everything and go to California without a plan? I’m like, yeah. He said, okay, let me think about it. This is why we’re best friends. I’ve been friends for almost 20 years with this guy. Calls me the next day, he says, yo, I put in my two weeks at Best Buy, we’re going to California. I’m like, yeah, baby. It was really cool.
Now what was not so cool is the fact that when we drove out there, we had $1,200 combined, nowhere to stay, and a Ford Taurus with 90,000 miles on it that he did not get inspected before we left, or the tires changed for. So somehow, we made it out alive to California. What we’re doing out there at that time is trying to work the best that we can, trying to make some money, perfectly legally, just to be clear, even though it was not the most fun stuff. But I was going to health meetups.
Finding the “Why” Behind the California Trip
That was the best I knew I could do. I’m like, I can’t buy any of these services at the time. So, I did exactly what I could do. I just started going to health meetups using the app called Meetup.
I ended up finding a wonderful chiropractic clinic out there and I did some stuff with them. But more importantly, and if you’re a longtime listener, you might have heard this before, I met Jenn Malecha. Jenn Malecha is a wildly successful FDN. She’s been here for years. She is now a strategic partner of FDN just because of how much success she’s had. She’s a wonderfully, brilliant businesswoman.
I saw her in a coffee shop, and she was presenting at one of these meetups. That’s what they were called, these health meetups, biohacking meetups. I don’t know what it was worded as back then. She was presenting on the labs and her story with FDN. I got to see someone who had had skin cancer, dealt with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and yet was standing in front of me, vibrant, healthy, energetic, passionate. That didn’t look like a sick person.
As I’m listening to her story more, I’m finding out, she was actually able to beat this stuff. In that moment, despite how crazy our circumstances were out there, we were sleeping in the car some nights, it was nuts, I knew that was why I came to California. It was just one of those feelings, like bam. Yep. That’s why I’m here.
Doing FDN with Enthusiastic Family Support
I went up to Jenn afterwards, she was ridiculously kind to me. She gave me some tips, even asked if I would like to go to lunch with her, where she bought the lunch for me and gave me all this cool information about FDN. She got me on the phone with Reed. I mean, it was really nice of her.
It was a great first impression of the community and it’s an impression that has lasted throughout the years that I’ve been involved with it because they’ve never done anything to imply that they’re not some of the best people you will ever meet.
We go to that lunch. I find out about FDN, I’m super excited about it. I have no money, so I call up my mom. I’m like, all right, didn’t you guys say you would help me out with college stuff if I ever went? I think she maybe thought I was going to San Diego State University at that time. I’m like, it’s not that. I found this thing, FDN. Just check it out, please look into it.
Once she saw the stuff online and read the page, like, oh my God, this is totally you. My mom helped me out by paying the payments for my FDN stuff and my Institute of Integrated Nutrition stuff. I was very lucky to have someone that could do that.
I went through FDN, and they do like the 30-day money back guarantee with the first module, I think it is. I went through that first module, and I know that this is like the make or break. This is when we decide to commit the money.
Mental Health Journey: Learning How to Heal with FDN
I know I’m not the one doing it, but still, I care about my parents’ money and how they use it. I’m either committing to this or not.
I went through that first module. I’m like, this is exactly what I was looking for. I committed right then and there; I flew through the course. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing it the way that I did, now, knowing what I know cause you’re going to end up having to go back and kind of redo certain modules.
But I did get through it, and I did graduate, and I have a decent enough short-term memory that I can kind of buff out stuff pretty quick. But what I was learning, most importantly at the time, was how to heal. I’m finding out on the labs I was in the exhaustive phase of HPA axis dysfunction.
If you’re a trainee or a graduate already, that’s crazy for a 21-year-old male, that was crazy. I got progesterone four or five times higher than the top end of the reference range for a male. It was supposed to be a hundred, I think on that test at that time. Mine was 450 or something. It was crazy.
DHEA was three or four times the reference range, upper end. Gut stuff was messed up. Food sensitivities. I was eating organic, but I didn’t understand at that time really, not to eat gluten. Had a gluten sensitivity. I’m finding out all this stuff I just never knew.
I was on a vegetarian diet, organic, but vegetarian none the less, at the time. I learned about metabolic typing. I switched up my whole lifestyle, my diet around to a more paleo-based thing at that time. I was addressing the food sensitivities.
The FDN System: Making the Biggest Health Progress Ever
I finally had some data that convinced Evan Transue to go to bed on time. I had been a super late-night person, all my life, even in San Diego. I was staying up till five or six in the morning some days. I was working night shift most of the time I was out there doing something called Postmates, which is like a delivery service. It’s kind of similar to DoorDash and it was new at the time.
Jake would go out during the day. I was more of the night owl; I would go out at night. They gave you an automatic bonus since they were new, that you were 1.5x bonus delivery fee for every order after 12:00 AM. So, we racked those up from four, five in the morning, kind of ironic looking back.
I was doing that while doing FDN training during the day, like while Jake was working, it was kind of stupid. We probably overstayed our welcome in California. We didn’t need to be out there that long. But I’m learning about all this stuff.
Within a matter of a couple months, I’m making the biggest progress in my health that I have ever made, it was the system. No one at FDN cared about the cystic acne. No one cared about the mental health issues. And I don’t mean that they didn’t emotionally care. I’m saying that was not important to them in terms of getting me better.
What was important is, okay, what is going on in your lifestyle? What’s going on with all this stuff? Going back to the hormone thing, that was the first thing that got me to go to bed on time.
Mental Health Journey: Actual Steady Progress That Continued
I immediately, first day back from California, I’ll never forget this. I went to bed at 10 pm even though I was going to bed at 6:00 AM California time normally. Big transition! I woke up at six and I went to the YMCA. Now I probably shouldn’t have been pushing the gym so hard at that time, considering my level of dysfunction with the HPA axis stuff. But I didn’t know that at the moment. I hadn’t done my mentor call yet.
I did that for a little bit, but I kept the sleep schedule. That’s still something I maintain to this day, over five years later. It’s one of the biggest things that we can do for our health. I changed all this stuff.
The next few months, like I was saying, I got a lot better. I was losing the acne. My stomach pains were getting better. The headaches I had all the time, they weren’t existent. I didn’t feel drained every second of every day. It was really cool. It was wild to have suffered for that long, 16 years of health issues and then finally see this stuff.
I’m not just getting teased by, I switched to organic and that kind of worked, or I took a multivitamin that kind of worked. No, like actual steady progress that continued on and on and on and on. It was absolutely amazing. So that was huge.
I’m kind of hesitating here because we talk about FDN all the time on this podcast. It’s like, what am I really supposed to do? Talk to you about more about FDN?
Sharing What Worked for Me and My Mom
Like, yes, I did that. And it’s one of the best, if not the best thing, I’ve ever, ever, ever done for my health. That’s not me selling something. I do this because I love FDN. They pay me for this, but I do this because I love FDN. There’s other things I can do for money that would probably pay more. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to share a message of something that actually worked for myself.
This ended up working for my mom too. I eventually sent my mom, not physically, but I sent her to work with, online, Jenn Malecha, who was still based in California. Jenn took her through a nine-month program. My mom has a whole podcast with like three series podcasts on here, I think. It’s all the way back in August of last year. You can check out those. It’s very unprofessional. It’s me and my mom talking back and forth in the same room, but it’s fun. A lot of people actually responded very positively to that episode, and they liked it. It’s wholesome as they say on social media. It’s very wholesome.
So, I did that. Some of the other things that I learned are the catching the sunrise every single day. I did not do that immediately when starting FDN, but I kind of learned eventually, okay, I need to do this light stuff. I’m very big on blocking the blue light at night.
Mental Health Journey: Blocking the Blue Light at Night
I’ve done a few episodes on that. I’ll show you guys my funny glasses, if you’re on the video here. I wear these at night. Night to me is anytime the sun is set. I live in Pennsylvania, at sometimes during the year the sun sets at five o’clock. I do wear these at five o’clock all the way until I go to bed at 9:00, 9:30pm. That’s just what it is. It’s summer right now so sunset will be around, I think, 7:45 tonight. It’s not even really dark till 8:00 pm. I will put those glasses on then, that’s what I will do.
What these do is they’re helping block the 400 to 550 nanometer wavelengths of light. The reason that we do that is because we’ve come to understand in the science that something called melanopsin, which is a receptor, more or less (This can get very complicated, needlessly complicated. Look this stuff up if you want the real explanation for this.) Melanopsin is in the eye. It’s in the IPRGCs, which is the intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells, if you want a mouthful. But we also discovered that it’s on our skin.
So right now, I have this light on because it’s daytime and I’m recording a podcast for you. I want the lighting to be consistent. But I would never, ever, ever, ever try to have needless amounts of blue light on my skin either, because we discovered that melanopsin is also in the skin. So, is it helping to have eye coverage with those glasses? It absolutely is. But we also need to protect our skin as well.
I’m Not Extreme, Everyone Else is Extreme
My screen gets filtered. I use something called Iris, I put it on sleep mode. I’ve got my Himalayan salt lamp over there. It’s not perfect, but it emits a lot less blue light than most things. I am missing my reading thing here. You can buy this for $12 bucks on Amazon. They’re great. Just look up, no blue light reading light. Again, those ones aren’t perfect. Look for the tests that show how much blue light it actually emits, but it’s certainly better than most lights that you’re using, that’s for sure. It’s a clip.
Reed will be proud if he watches this video. This is one of his favorite personal development books. I got The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People here. What I can do is, I can clip it on, and I can have the Amber reading light before bed. I actually use it to completely navigate the house at night.
I know some people will think that’s extreme, but if you’ve been sick like myself or my family members have, then you’ll get why you got to go to what is somehow considered extreme, even though this is natural. Please think about that for a second if you actually think that stuff is extreme. Or if someone argues you about what you’re doing, saying, oh my God, you’re doing that, that’s so crazy.
I’m the one trying to emulate nature. I’m the one that’s living in the dark because it is dark out and human beings were not born with light. I’m the one waking up with sunrise because we wouldn’t have had a choice. I’m the one eating real food because we ate real food. You’re not the extreme one, everyone else is extreme if you ask me.
FDN is a Self-Healing Program and A Certification Program
We’re arrogant to think that we can go so far away from what nature intended and think that we’re just going to get away with it. It’s not going to work. I digress.
So, the sunrise every day was huge for me, blocking blue light at night, absolutely huge. I always have windows open in the car, at home. This is what I do. I don’t use artificial light if I don’t have to, my screen’s filtered even in the daytime. I use that same Iris program when I turn on the health mode. I actually typically do the custom mode and I kind of make it somewhere between health and sleep. I try to block it a little more. That’s what you do.
So, you do things like FDN, work with an FDN, or go through the program. Right? We include so many labs in the course now. There’s only one lab that you’re missing, and you can buy that extra one of like $200 or something. They’ll send you the labs, you run the labs on yourself while you’re learning this stuff. Then you get to go through the lab results with your mentor over like four different sessions. Actually, the mentors, you’re going to get to talk to multiple people. It’s pretty cool if you ask me, right?
It’s a self-healing program as much as it is a certification program to help other people heal. I don’t think we’re healing anyone else. People make the decisions, and they take the action, but we can’t do anything else other than provide education. Right? I can’t actually heal someone. They heal themselves if they decide to apply the information that is given to them.
Those are the biggest things that I did.
Update on SSRIs
I don’t mean to keep it overly simplified. I know sometimes we do get pretty technical on this podcast, but today I just wanted to share with you the main stuff that I did. You got to get into personal development. I did not have this book here, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I didn’t have that as a cute little prop for this. That’s actually something that sits on my desk cause that’s just what I’m going through right now. Personal development is huge.
To go through something like FDN, it’s amazing for people with mental health issues. Because what did we just see with the SSRI thing, which I knew I was missing something, I hadn’t gotten to that yet.
The SSRI thing, if you haven’t heard the news, studies just came out and basically showed what so many of us suspected anyway. We kind of got duped with this. The SSRIs don’t do exactly what we thought they did. We’re realizing that the neurochemical imbalances are not as causal for mental health issues as we once thought. They are real, they do exist. This is why SSRIs do something. This is why amino acid therapy does something. Amino acid therapy is great, but it’s not the cause.
What appears to be the cause? I don’t think this was said in those studies, I’m going from other studies that I’m now bringing in to be clear. Neuroinflammation.
Reducing Inflammation Provides Depression & Anxiety Relief
There was actually a meta-analysis done, I’ve shared this before, not on this podcast, but in speeches I’ve done for FDN.
[00:22:46] Detective Ev: There was a meta-analysis done that showed, it was basically 30 studies and 26 of them, 26 out of the 30 showed efficacy in dealing with mental health issues, namely anxiety and depression, when people took NSAIDs, which are nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Those are your things like Ibuprofen, Aleve. What’s another one? Naproxen, I think is another one. I’m not recommending them, right? I’m not saying that these are great drugs to be taking, certainly not long term. But 26 out of those 30 studies show that that has a temporary relief and symptoms for mental health. Now, explain that one to me.
If it’s just a neurochemical imbalance, why on earth would something that reduces inflammation in the body lead to temporary improvements in anxiety and depression? Because remember, Ibuprofen, stuff like NSAIDs in general, don’t really last that long. So, if it’s temporary and the main function of that medication is reducing inflammation, either there is a very wacky side effect that we don’t understand and haven’t heard of at all, where it boosts serotonin, unlikely, or more likely, that reduced neuroinflammation for a temporary period of time, provides relief to the patient. How cool is that?
That same study also showed the efficacy of Omega-3s, DHA, and the like, because those are proven to reduce inflammation when they’re in adequate amounts in the body. So, make sure you’re getting plenty of that stuff.
The FDN System is Highly Effective for Mental Health Cases
The reason FDN, then number two, is so important is because at the end of the day, what are we really doing? I mean, we’re reducing the toxic load and the stress on the body. Sure. But we’re reducing inflammation.
If I figure out someone’s food sensitivities, their inflammation goes down. If I help them regulate their hormones, their inflammation goes down. If I work on them with the bacteria and pathogens that are now in their gut and help them digest food more properly so they’re not developing more food sensitivities, their inflammation goes down. If I help get them on the right diet for their metabolic type, you guessed it, their inflammation goes down.
That’s why you’re able to help these people. Not to mention the other things, where there are certain bugs that are associated with mental health conditions. Candida is highly correlated with anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. All right. There’s certain food sensitivities that can lead directly, gluten sensitivities, especially, can lead to that neuroinflammation and can be a direct causal thing, now we know, for mental health issues. So, this is not a small thing.
This is why it’s a huge system that looks at all these different things, and it can be a very effective plan for even the trickiest of mental health cases. Again, I dealt with this for 16 years, five years old to 21, basically, before I got it under control fully with FDN.
Sleep is Huge for Mental Health Stability
I have not had a panic attack in over five and a half, six years. I have not dealt with legitimate depression in over five and a half, six years. I say legitimate because I think it would be unfair to say that I don’t have bad days, or the pandemic didn’t affect me. I think it did, but it’s not the same stuff that I used to deal with. It’s not clinical. It’s depressed, it’s not depression. There’s a difference.
Third would be, the light thing. That includes sunrise. That includes blocking blue light at night.
You want to get someone really sick and screw up their mental health as quick as possible? Take away their sleep. Let them eat organic. Let them do everything else right. Make them stay up all night. Make them go to bed at seven in the morning and wake up at one in the afternoon. Watch how fast you destroy that person’s health, either physical or mental or both. Fastest way to do it is to screw up their sleep.
Remember, this is not advice to do this, technically, you can fast for a long time. I mean, it wouldn’t be fun, but you could fast for 30, 40 days. An American, who’s actually overweight, could fast way longer than that. The longest recorded one that we know of right now, it was medically supervised with vitamins to be clear, but that was 382 days. I know it was 380 something, 382 or 384, I believe it was. So, we can all fast. How long can you go without sleep? Not that long!
The Fastest Way to Heal
Just one night of sleep that is disrupted has been shown to have blood sugar imbalances. If you’re up for past 16 hours, I think it’s at 17 or 18 hours, you start to have impairments in your driving, basically, that are the equivalent to someone that is just pushing the legal level of alcohol in America, which is a 0.08. Just something to think about.
I hope this helps. This is actually where I’m going to finish today, this is a shorter podcast. I don’t always like to give things that are super complex. I enjoy talking about it. Obviously, you guys know that from the podcast, but that’s not what the point of today is. I know that the people that would’ve clicked on this episode, would’ve had to make it through the first.
And if you made it through the first, you’re not just doing that because you like me or think that I look pretty on camera. I am not that pretty. I’m not nearly pretty at all, to be honest. What you’re listening for is because you probably really care about the mental health thing because it’s affecting you or it’s affecting someone that you care about.
So, I want to give you steps that are conceptually simple. Get outside in the morning. Block blue light at night. Block the stuff on your computer. Work with an FDN practitioner or go through this course immediately. If you’re considering doing it anyway, go through it immediately. You will get the lab tests; you’ll get the information. It is the fastest way to get your life back on track and heal. Then do the personal development.
Personal Development Material Switched the Mindset
Everything that you will do to heal your mental health issues is only going to come from one of two things: lifestyle changes, changing something in the lifestyle, or working through something in the mindset.
Personal development helps with both of those. It makes us better action takers. It helps us develop habits, that’s the lifestyle stuff, but it also changes our perspective, that’s the mindset shift. I know people who have been through incredibly traumatic things, I’m sure you do as well, maybe you’ve been through them yourself.
What they were able to do is absorb the strength from people in these books and the things that they’ve been through. That’s why it worked so well for me. I know this might not make a lot of sense to an adult, but this was my perception at the time. 18 years old when I got kicked out of high school, even though I’m living with my parents, it’s not like I’m totally screwed looking back. My life was over in my head.
I’m thinking I can’t go to college. I’ve made a fool out of myself. Everyone thinks I’m crazy. I’m a drug addict. What is going on? It wasn’t good. It really was not good. My life was over in my head.
But then I read these stories and that’s why I still read them to this day. I would read these crazy journeys that people went on, the things that they overcame. I would hear about that. I’m thinking, well, son of a gun, if they could do that, maybe I could figure this out. It switched the mindset for me.
Look At Your Situation from a Different Perspective
Maybe right now I’m just thinking that I’m a loser, I hurt people, I’m a drug abuser slash addict, whatever you want to call it. I’m never going to go anywhere in my life because that’s all I know, maybe that’s why I think those things. But what if I switched that around? What if I looked at it for what it was?
Okay. Yeah, man, you screwed up, you made some really bad decisions. You had some things that were your fault, you had some things that weren’t your fault. But if you realized you’re only 18, you got plenty of time left on this earth to make things right. We always have time. If you’re listening to this right now, you got some time to make something right, that’s for sure.
Have you ever thought that maybe you could use this thing as strength and passion and fuel to go do something positive? Have you ever thought about the fact that maybe this happened to you for a reason, and you don’t have to believe that from a spiritual perspective? It’s the same thing either way. You say, well, how can that be the same?
Here’s how it’s the same. If I believe everything happens for a reason and I actually believe that from a spiritual sense, then what am I going to do? I’m going to start reflecting on my situations differently. If I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason, but I’m willing to accept that I’m going to act as if everything in my life does, it serves the same purpose. It changes the way that we perceive the things that happened to us.
For Every Action There is an Equal and Opposite Reaction
So, I said, all right, this sucks. This is terrible. I messed up. I have lost people I’ve loved; I’ve hurt people I’ve loved. What can I do now though, to change it?
I’ve actually been given the best gift in the world. I didn’t realize this specific thing at that moment, but I’ve been given the best gift in the world. My story, and the things that I’ve been through, have the power to change and save lives through simply telling it. Forget the FDN stuff for a second. Simply telling the story when I go to a school and talk to kids, has the ability to change or even save a life right then and there.
There are some people, who, because they never would’ve gotten exposed to that personal development stuff and those good people, would’ve spent the rest of their life in and out of jail using and abusing drugs til the day that they died. Or eventually, just died early, because they never realized that with all that pain, with all that stuff that they went through, with all that stuff that maybe you went through, and that’s why you’re listening to this, there was something on the opposite side of that.
Obviously, one of the laws of the universe, if you will, is that for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Clearly, that seems to be true on our macro level physical world. But hear me out because you might not buy it, but that’s okay, I think it’s still worth saying. There seems to be this idea that everything we put out energetically comes back too. Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill talks about that in that book.
Failures Provide the Seeds of Opportunity
He said for every failure is the seed of an equivalent opportunity. For every failure comes the seed of an equivalent opportunity. And boy was he right! Because a normal person’s life’s right here, and for those listening on audio, I just have my hand up kind of in what’s going to be a middle range.
Then my life was all the way over here on the bad, far left from the center. Well, remember it brought with it, the equivalent of something positive. It brought with it the seed of opportunity. So, once you recognize that, then you’re able to switch to over here.
I wouldn’t change a thing other than the way that I hurt people in my life. I would change that. But how I affected myself and what I did to myself, I wouldn’t change a thing because it gave me something that most people will never be able to experience.
The reason I’m sharing that with you is not to be bragging or something. It’s the opposite. I’m saying, because if you’re listening to this, by definition, you’re probably that person too, you have to be. You’ve been through some stuff. So, when are you going to take the action to get it under control? When are you going to go out there and help people?
When are you going to realize that all those things that were given to you that suck and hurt and are painful, brought with them the gift of a seed of an equal opportunity for something positive. That’s why the personal development thing is important.
Conclusion
Sunrise and light stuff, FDN all day, every day, baby, and personal development.
If you guys have any questions, you know where to find us, evantransue.com, fdntraining.com/tryfdn, functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com.
You can reach out to us on our podcast platform. We don’t really recommend that much. We like to use Apple podcasts for listening, but we submit things there and that’s where you can comment to me directly if you have any questions at all. So, feel free to go there. It’s Podbean, and then search for the Health Detective Podcast.
But thank you guys so much for listening. I genuinely hope that this helps you. And if you’re someone out there suffering with mental health stuff, especially, I get it. It’s real. It sucks. But there is something so amazing on the other side of that, if you’re willing to take the steps necessary to get that under control. I promise you, there’s something there where you will be able to look back one day if you’re not already, and say, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Talk to you guys again soon.
You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com.
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