The Go Earn Your SALT Podcast Episode Transcript- Dr. Chad Woolner- Br

Chad: [00:00:00] shortly after, um, finishing school, my wife really started to struggle even more with some chronic health issues.

Um, dealt with infertility, dealt with, uh, uh. A lot of fatigue and a lot of other kind of, um, hormonal type issues. And I had no idea how to help her other than we were taking her to specialists and they didn't know how to help her. And, uh, and so what wound up happening was just out of sheer frustration, we were just getting nowhere.

Um, I, I, I finally just took it upon myself. Again, this wasn't some sort of an ego thing, it was just, I was frustrated. I was like, no one else is helping her. I'm gonna see what I can do to learn. And so that began kind of my, uh, you know, first steps into getting trained in functional medicine.

[00:01:00]

Chad: . Today I've got friend Chad Woolner

Riley: on here.

Chad: on here.

Doctor, Chad.

Riley: Uh,

Chad: That's what he makes us call

Riley: the

Chad: the jitsu.

Riley: so he won't, he won't even answer to Chad.

You gotta call him doctor at the beginning. I'm only teasing, but

Chad: I,

Riley: I

Chad: invited Chad on basic.

Riley: he's

Chad: got a pretty

Riley: fascinating story

Chad: and Fascinat

Riley: business dealing with

Chad: Brain Health,

Riley: and

Chad: what goes on there.

Riley: part of

Chad: of the, what we talk about today is, uh,

Riley: is, uh, he and his

Chad: wife's story

Riley: dealing

Chad: with

Riley: uh,

Chad: Frank,

Riley: and a brain illness and what

Chad: that looks like, but he had to treat it and all the

Riley: stuff

Chad: he's learned over.

Riley: So, Chad,

Chad: I don't wanna

Riley: welcome you

Chad: to.

Riley: my friend. I. Oh, this is super cool. So, uh, yeah,

Chad: Yeah, give us the intro. Who's Chad? Uh, yeah, so by [00:02:00] training, uh, I'm a chiropractor, um, by practice. I am a really, really mediocre jiujitsu practitioner and, uh, as you know already, um,

Riley: He's a, you're just a 10 year blue belt dude.

that's okay.

Chad: that's right. Hey, I didn't quit. I didn't quit, so,

Riley: That's right.

Chad: but uh, yeah. Love doing Juujitsu. It's been a lot of fun. Uh, you know, I, I, what, what's really funny is, um, my, my, my path in chiropractic and path in juujitsu have a lot to do with each other because right when I first started my practice back in 2009, um, is right when I.

Uh, professor Keith Owen. Um, and the story of how we met is really kind of funny. I was reaching out to him as just part of some grassroots marketing, um, for my practice. I had basically, uh, asked to see if he wanted to do kind of like this joint venture promotion where I was gonna, [00:03:00] uh, have students, uh, like s sell, uh, certificates to come into the, for new patient certificates for a new patient promotion.

And I was like, your school can, all your students can keep a hundred percent of the proceeds. We just get new patients. And so he's like, oh, that, he's like, he's like, yeah, that's cool, but I don't, I don't think we wanna do that. And I'm like, okay. And he's like, but you can come speak at my school. And I'm like, even better.

And so then that was kind of the whole introduction to. To him and the school and everybody. That's where I met Tr and Cody and Matt and, uh, uh, Dylan, Owen and Dustin and the whole OG crew there. And, uh, yeah, that was, that was how we got into it. But, um, but yeah, you know, I've been a chiropractor since, uh, 2008.

Um, so golly, we're getting close to almost 20 years now. Um, started into chiropractic as a result of, uh, an auto accident that, um, uh, injuries that my wife sustained from an auto accident, [00:04:00] um, had really had very minimal exposure to chiropractic prior to that. Um, and we took my wife to see a chiropractor, had such a positive experience with that and was just really impressed with, um, the knowledge and the depth and the detail, and most importantly, the results that my wife was able to get.

And so, um, I was in school at the time to be a dentist, and, um, we shifted, uh, career paths and became a chiropractor. I was like, this is what I wanna do the rest of my life. And, um, so became a chiropractor. Um, shortly after, um, finishing school, my wife really started to struggle even more with some chronic health issues.

Um, [00:05:00] I, I, I finally just took it upon myself. Again, this wasn't some sort of an ego thing, it was just, I was frustrated. I was like, no one else is helping her. I'm gonna see what I can do to learn. And so that began kind of my, uh, you know, first steps into getting trained in functional medicine. And so I started getting some training, went through a whole, um, training course, finish that training course.

Started implementing what I was learning with her, and we started making some, some real significant improvements with her health. And it was just very exciting and eye-opening and new to me. And, uh. I, I was like, I got this brilliant idea of like, Hey, we're gonna start doing functional medicine at my practice as well as, you know, chiropractic.

But I had no sort of systemization of things. I had sort no sort of plan of implementation. It was just. Let's just see what we can do. And it was just a, it was a mess. It was chaos. And so it just never, never took off, never became anything. But all the while it was still frustrating for me because I, I had all these [00:06:00] people that I knew I could help.

We just didn't have a vehicle to be able to help them. And, uh, years later I met, uh, who's now one of my business partners, a a real brilliant systems, uh, guy. He's a, he's a practitioner as well, but that is his powerhouse, is how to systemize things. And so we, we talked together, we developed a kind of a plan of how we might be able to, uh, fix a lot of the problems that were happening with bringing that in.

That became a company that we developed about five years ago called Simplified Functional Medicine. Um, since then, we've, uh, gone on to help, I think at this point, five, 600 practitioners all across the country who've been through our, our systems and training. And, and we, we help practitioners simplify the, the delivery of functional medicine to help patients who are struggling with these same sorts of issues.

That led into, uh, the, the latest path, um, which latest has been about, uh, four years in the making, three, four years. Um, we met a brilliant [00:07:00] practitioner down in Arizona. His name is Dr. Trevor Berry. He's a board certified functional neurologist. And, um, he helps all of the most complex cases. Uh, he gets people traveling from all over the world, coming to see him for all sorts of complex brain related issues.

And one thing led to another and. We began working with him to systemize a lot of the things that, that he has been doing. And ultimately, what, what has happened or what has transpired as a result of that, is our latest, um, business and company that we developed called Brain Restore Centers, where we basically help, um, people who are struggling with today's most common brain health issues, neurodegenerative conditions, things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cognitive decline, um, traumatic brain injuries, post-concussive syndrome, um, balance and vestibular issues, uh, things like post, uh, COVID, long-haul, COVID type issues, people who are struggling with, [00:08:00] uh, things like POTS and, and other kind of similar, pretty common, uh, neurologic issues and disorders.

Um, and so it's been really, really exciting to, to help those people. So, yeah.

Riley: That's pretty awesome man. Will you do me a favor, uh, define. Functional medicine for me.

Chad: Yeah, you're gonna get a ton of different answers to that question, but the way that I would describe it is, uh, a, a natural approach to solving chronic health issues. That's the simplest way that I would say it is a, a natural strategy for helping people who struggle with chronic health issues. Um, you can get into functional lab testing, which is different than conventional lab testing.

Conventional lab testing has these pretty broad, um, reference range windows where it's either basically ruling in or out a pathology, right? You either have, we'll use diabetes as a perfect example, right? Um, you know, somebody who has, you know, you know, a certain blood marker, you either have diabetes or you don't [00:09:00] have diabetes.

It's very black and white. Um, versus, instead of looking at whether you have or don't have that pathology, we're gonna look at. You know, how are things functioning, right? So we're gonna narrow in that reference range window. We're gonna look a lot more narrow. And, and, and we're gonna use that. And then we're gonna look at kind of lifestyle and symptoms and, and, and those different areas.

We're not so concerned as to whether or not we can slap the diagnosis or label on it. But instead, we're more concerned with improving the overall function of number one, the, the, the person, the human in front of us, but also the various systems and metabolic pathways and things like that. And so it's not just about, um, you know, diagnosis and medication.

It's, it's about actually like improving function wherever that may be in that kind of spectrum, rather than this being this binary on off switch. Oh, good news, you don't have diabetes. But they still have all the classic symptoms of somebody who is pre-diabetic, who's moving towards that, you know? So.[00:10:00]

Therefore we don't need to intervene. We don't know, or, or pay lip service to you better clean up your diet or else you'll get diabetes and then you wait and surprise, surprise, you know, where does that go? You know, eventually diabetes, you know what I mean? So, so functional medicine is really focused on that, that the emphasis of, of function.

Right. Um, so, so that's how I would

Riley: you're, for this example of diabetes, you're, you're

Chad: looking at the contributing factor

Riley: them down

Chad: down,

Riley: path more than you are. Do they have it or do they not? You're, and then

Chad: we're

Riley: educating them

Chad: them on cleaning up that.

Riley: that eating or exercise or whatever happens to be, to reverse those effects.

Chad: Yeah, very much so. And, and, and the other thing too that, that's different about the approach that we take is far too often, um, I think that well-intentioned practitioners. Continue to do the classic same thing over and over, expecting a different result. [00:11:00] Um, and, and, and I would lump many conventional functional medicine practitioners in this same boat.

And that is number one our biggest contention, uh, with conventional functional medicine is to a large degree, what we have seen is this, uh, trading of pharmaceuticals for nutraceuticals. It's, it's the same to a large extent, same kind of allopathic model, conventional model, except now instead of prescribing metformin, we're gonna prescribe berberine.

You know, it's better because it's not a medication or whatever, you know, and it's like, great. But, but the thing is, is if you're still thinking in that kind of outside in philosophy that we're gonna supplement our way out of a lifestyle problem, which the vast majority of these, uh, chronic health issues are largely my lifestyle mediated and lifestyle driven.

Um, and so number one. We're not gonna supplement our way out of a chronic health issue. Number two, um, the, the, the way in which we approach addressing those lifestyle issues [00:12:00] can't just be, here's a book, here's a brochure, here's a PDF Printoff guide of what you need to be doing. Go do it. And then when the patient doesn't do it, surprise, surprise, well, it's just 'cause they're lazy and they're not motivated enough and that sort of thing.

And it's like, no, that's not the answer. You're, you, you're, you're grossly oversimplifying a far more complex issue that requires a little bit more critical thinking. And so for us, so much of the conversation of how do we involve lifestyle involves first order principles. Number one, how do we, how do we.

Start with the low hanging fruit and start building some, some real momentum to then work towards. That's like the, I, I would just simply say, we could talk about this for hours, but like to, to tackle head on. If a patient comes to us, let's just continue on with metabolic syndrome and whatnot. To tackle an overhaul diet is probably the hardest thing to start with.

It's like pushing a boulder up a mountain, right? Why would you start there? Like there's, there's way [00:13:00] higher order or, or whatever you wanna call it, easier lower hanging fruit to start with, to start getting some quick wins. First, let's start with some of those easier. Uh. Low level laser therapy is the starting point for just about all of our patients, regardless of where they come to us from, because it addresses things at the most fundamental level, and that is cellular function and cellular energy.

Um, if you look at, um, little exercise for anybody who's listening right now, cool exercise that we do This, I, I speak to doctors all across the country. This is one of my favorite exercises that we do. Google just about any name, name a condition right now. We'll do this live right here on the spot. Name a name, A

Riley: name

a condition

Chad: cr

chronic health condition.

Something that's common fatigue. Oh, that's an easy one.

Riley: Yeah.

Chad: Google fatigue and mitochondrial dysfunction, and see what you'll come up with. It's gonna come up with studies a hundred, I mean, like literally, uh, if I type in right now on Google or whatever, chat, GBT, [00:14:00] fatigue and mitochondrial dysfunction. It is gonna come up with all sorts of published studies, right?

The AI overview, mitochondrial dysfunction causes chronic profound fatigue by reducing the production of adenosine tri phosphate, right? So there, there you go. Like, okay, but even something is as seemingly not connected. This is a common one that I teach doctors mitochondrial dysfunction and disc problems.

So if you got like a, a worn out disc or a disc herniation, disc bulge, disc degeneration, Google mitochondrial dysfunction, and disc degeneration, what you're gonna find are studies showing profoundly over and over and over again, mitochondrial dysfunction and Alzheimer's disease, mitochondrial dysfunction, and Parkinson's disease, mitochondrial dysfunction, and.

You know, gut dysbiosis or, uh, digestive or ulcerative colitis or name a condition. And I can almost guarantee you the vast majority of the time lurking in the background, there is gonna be [00:15:00] some level of mitochondrial dysfunction. So what do I mean by mitochondrial dysfunction? Everybody knows mitochondria from biology 1 0 1, this is the battery or the powerhouse of the cell.

Your salt drinks help provide some of the necessary kind of raw ingredients to help with that process in the Krebs cycle, right? We need those vital minerals as part of all the complex reactions involved in that. Right? Um, well, mitochondrial dysfunction is basically the, the grossly oversimplified way of putting it is when the mitochondria cannot keep up with the demands.

Um, so our body is constantly operating at a energetic supply and energetic demand. Um, when, when we have that perfect balance, we call that homeostasis. When our body can, when our mitochondria can keep up with the energetic demands, we have normal health and homeostasis and proper function. But all of a sudden what starts to happen is when the energy demands through chemical, physical, emotional stressors on the body.

What starts to happen is the mitochondrias start to lose that battle. And [00:16:00] that's what's happening. That's what happening, that's what's happening with type two diabetes. Uh, high blood pressure, metabolic dysfunction, all of those obesity, right? The reason why your PE people, uh, get into these weight loss resistance, um, cycles is because the mitochondria do not have the requisite energy to be able to function the way that they need to.

Uh, dudes on on TRT, right? Why are they getting on TRT? Well, 'cause your body either A, is not producing enough testosterone, or B, it's not responding appropriately to the testosterone that we have. And so all of a sudden you've got. You've got enough testosterone that's there, but it's just not responding appropriately because your mitochondria are fricking burnt out and they're not able to produce the, the energy requisite for cells to be able to engage in cellular communication and or chemical reactions and or the enzymatic processes or the coupling and decoupling of binding proteins and dah, dah, dah, dah, all that stuff.

And so, um, getting back to your original [00:17:00] question, what would be an example low level laser therapy? Because it addresses fundamental issues. It, it literally recharges the mitochondria. It improves the efficiency by which mitochondria can output a TP, that energy currency, and the body literally doesn't have to do anything.

It's just a passive form of energy absorption. So we start there with a vast majority of our patients. Low level laser therapy, that's one of the fastest, easiest ways to start leveling up people's energy, um, to help. Um, there's a great book, um, by Dr. Chris Palmer, um, a couple years ago wrote called Brain Energy, and there's a quote in there, I'm gonna paraphrase badly.

People can go and look it up for themselves, but he basically said, you know, the paradox and the irony is that so many of the people that need to engage in the various lifestyle habits that would. Be responsible to a large degree for helping reverse a lot of these chronic health issues. They physiologically lack the requisite energy to engage in those behaviors.

Right? So diet and exercise being the [00:18:00] two biggies, that just about anybody knows, like fundamentally, you don't have to be a functional medicine expert to know people cleaning up their diet and people exercising on a regular basis would make such a huge difference. But the problem is, is that people get mistakenly blamed as being unmotivated or they just don't want it bad enough or whatever.

They, they, they get labeled that when in reality it's not that they're lazy, it's that they physiologically lack the requisite energy because their mitochondria are overburdened and they're not producing the energy that they need. And so that's the, anyways, so

Riley: help this knuckle dragger understand what

Chad: what you're saying, because earlier,

Riley: lower low hanging fruit, right?

Chad: yes.

Riley: why do you start with diet, which is like this hard to make somebody change a habit there when you could do this, basically you're saying this laser therapy is, it's passive, it's easy for 'em to do.

So it kick starts the whole process, but doesn't require them overcoming [00:19:00] this like, um, low

Chad: energy level.

Riley: and trying to just will their way into health. Right? They

Chad: Yes,

Riley: this, it's almost a free pass right at the beginning, right? It's like.

Chad: that's exactly right. Yeah, it's a ca. We call it a catalyst, like it's an energy catalyst. So we start that, but we don't end there. Right? It's not that the laser's gonna magically solve your dietary problems for you or your lack of exercise, but what it will do is it'll give us a window of opportunity and that window of opportunity is typically seen and felt in.

Oh man, I feel more mental clarity. Oh man, I feel less joint pain. Oh man. I feel a little bit more motivated to be able to engage. And it's at that point in time where when they do start to now all of a sudden have this resurgence of. Physiologic energy that's been donated via photons, right? Via light energy.

Um, we can then start to coach them through the process of how do we begin getting, and, and even then when we do that, there's a, there's a, an order of [00:20:00] magnitude by which we go about that process. Largely. If you read books like James Clear's, uh, atomic Habits, right? That's a, a classic book just about everybody in the world has read it at this point in time.

Everybody's familiar with it, right? You start with the small, it's the aggregation of the small nominal gains, right? So for us, so much of what we teach in our functional medicine program and our brain programs is getting people to just tweak just ever so slightly. Their morning and evening routines. Um, getting their biological rhythms reset, um, is one of the most profoundly.

Powerful ways to set someone up for success in all other habits that will, that will that, that these, these two pillars literally bleed into everything else throughout your life. If you can kind of master and develop a really healthy morning and evening routine, um, mentally, physiologically, um, so many other things spring from those [00:21:00] two pillars, um, in that process.

And

Riley: me an example. What's a healthy morning routine?

Chad: uh, immediate sunlight exposure. Dr. Huberman has been preaching this on his podcast, uh, adamantly for the past probably. Two, three years plus, right? Um, getting, getting immediate sunlight in the eyes, uh, is, is one of the fastest, easiest ways to start in training your circadian rhythm. Um, particularly, and specifically cortisol.

The goal in the morning is to try and see if you can get cortisol to get as high as it possibly can, because then what it does is it sets the stage. For the normal kind of tapering off that cortisol does throughout the day. The normal rhythm, uh, the, the, the normal pri kind of master hormone that primes your circadian rhythm, you can almost think about it as, as two opposing forces.

Um, you, you have cortisol which ebbs and flows in that its typically at its highest peak in a normal, healthy person at about six to 8:00 AM somewhere in that window [00:22:00] there. And then it slowly starts to taper down and reaches its lowest kind of valley or, or bottoms out at about 10:00 PM ish. Um, and then it recycles through the night and kind of ebbs back up.

So that again, it's, so that's the kind of normal flow.

Riley: do?

Chad: What doesn't it do? Cortisol does a lot of stuff. So cortisol is gonna be involved in, uh. Normal hormone signaling. It's gonna be involved in, um, blood sugar regulation. It's gonna be involved in, uh, energy. Most, most people, cortisol's gotten a bad rap over the years.

Right? It's, it's most people when they hear,

Riley: right?

Chad: that's exactly right. Yeah. Everybody thinks that cortisol's bad. Uh, the answer to all your problems is you have to lower your cortisol. Not necessarily. And that's one of the areas where a lot of people go wrong completely, is somebody who's already struggling with.

Cortisol rhythm imbalances. Um, the last thing in the world for many of these people that they need to do is suppress cortisol. Um, and, and, and not only that, but that's too [00:23:00] simplistic thinking. It's too binary. Like most people think of cortisol suppression or, or elevation is binary. It's, it's not, it's a dynamic rhythmic hormone.

And, and so really we're not talking about suppressing or elevating cortisol for the sake of suppressing or elevating it. Think of it more dynamically throughout the day. What we have to do is shift the rhythm so that it's, it, it follows a normal ebb and flow. Like it should, it should start in the morning and then taper off in the evening.

But then on the opposite side. Of that, or paradoxically, adenosine should slowly, gradually elevate through the day. So elev, uh, adenosine should start. 'cause adenosine is what drives sleep. That's your sleep driver is by the end. And so what, what caffeine does, um, and here's a plug for salt, uh, drinks instead of caffeine.

Right? Caffeine, uh, it, it suppresses, uh, that, that buildup of adenosine. And so what, what you're doing essentially is you're artificially shunting or blunting that adenosine. Allowing it to build up. And so this is why you don't wanna [00:24:00] take caffeine late in the day because that's gonna interfere with adenosine ability to kind of, uh, create that.

It's, it's like a, it's like a pre, think of it like a pressure cooker. Over time it's building Billy, Billy build until it finally reaches that point of, okay, I'm ready to fall asleep now. And then melatonin kicks in because of light and dark. Um, and then melatonin's what's gonna trigger, uh, you know, kind of the induction or the starting point of the sleep, that's the okay, time to start the, the, the starting gun.

Um, and so, uh, but, but, but be getting back to kind of that whole, whole rhythm there is, if we can, if we can reestablish morning, evening routines, um, that can really, to a large degree, just through your own behavior, start to shift hormonal rhythms and govern something as foundational. And, and that's the thing is if you can get that window right, that, that circadian rhythm window, so many downstream effects.

Come from that, right? When you look at the, the chemical pathway, uh, and I, we go over this with patients all [00:25:00] the time. If you map it out, and this is grossly oversimplified, we're missing tons of little substeps and everything like that. But in essence, you get the gist. The master, uh, the master kind of key hormone is known as pregnenolone.

Pregnenolone gets converted into DHEA, which then further gets broken down into estrogen and testosterone. On the other side of it, it gets converted to progesterone, which is the direct precursor to cortisol. Um, and so you, you think about that, if we, if we can start to master the, those, those hormonal rhythms, those daily circadian rhythms, so many other, um, hormones, all the other kind of key hormones feed into that or, or feed from that one way or another.

And so you, you master that, that that helps. And, and the, the, the issue for us is we start here because so often what happens is people will get on, uh, hormone various. Forms and methods and protocols of hormone replacement therapy. And this isn't to knock or say that there isn't its place for that [00:26:00] hormone replacement.

My, my wife does hormone replacement therapy. But the issue is, is that if you're not addressing these fundamental upstream issues of like your normal circadian rhythm and hormonal rhythm, and you start with the hormone replacement therapy and you still haven't addressed those fundamental issues, you're not gonna get the same types of results or you're still gonna have problems upstream of that, right?

So start with the foundational circadian rhythm and then, and then you can taper in or layer in the, the hormone replacement stuff as well. Um, but, but, and, and, and you no doubt that circadian rhythm plays a role for women's in terms of their normal, um, monthly cycle and normal monthly rhythm as well, you know, so anyways, so

Riley: This, um. So this area of medicine you're talking about, man, I somewhat,

Chad: it's, it's trend.

Riley: With

Chad: Especially kind of the more

Riley: crowd, right? I don't

Chad: Yeah,

Riley: stick in the more natural medicine,

Chad: but what I've seen a lot that

Riley: [00:27:00] is how to put this, how to

Chad: articulate,

Riley: There's

Chad: almost some

Riley: woo

Chad: goes on

Riley: world where it seems like, it seems like, whether it

Chad: it be the practitioner or the lack of understanding of the patient,

Riley: um, they, they tend

Chad: tend to go down. These kind of weird rabbit

Riley: that

Chad: seem to just have no,

Riley: you

Chad: you mentioned systematic

Riley: right?

You got involved with this guy who is like a systems genius

Chad: Yes.

Riley: book too. systemize

Chad: To systemize that and really create something that's repeatable. Yes.

Riley: what I see lacking in that world, right?

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: so, so I want you to. Go into this a little bit on what you guys have done in the systemizing

Chad: Systemizing that. So

Riley: there's, repeatable

progress in

Chad: what's,

Riley: So

Chad: see

Riley: what I'm, what

Chad: what I'm getting at Chad, is.

Riley: is the

Chad: How to really test and diagnose things so it's not, you

Riley: just

Chad: this,[00:28:00]

Riley: um, almost

Chad: aimless, like, we're gonna

Riley: this, and

Chad: try this.

Riley: this. It reminds

Chad: Yes.

Riley: it reminds me of an auto mechanic who just goes, well, you know, it, it says it's an electrical code, so we're just gonna start replacing parts.

Well,

Chad: Right?

Riley: not a way you do it.

Chad: Yes.

Riley: a way to cost a customer

a lot of money and get nowhere.

Chad: yeah.

Riley: how do you, how do you go about that?

Chad: I, I love this question. Um, because literally we were just talking about this the other day. Um, we typically, and conventionally traditionally, whatever you wanna call it, there's, there's kind of these two worlds that, that kind of push on each other a little bit. There's the conventional western medicine.

World and model, and, and you've got, even there, you've got a little bit of a spectrum there. You've got your diehards where, you know, uh, they're extreme on, on one end. And then you've got the other end of that spectrum, uh, in the, in the alternative [00:29:00] crowd. Chiropractors probably being some of the biggest voices in that realm.

And again, you've got a spectrum and you've got, you know, these extreme diehards on one end where natural everything chiropractic fixes everything. You never have to see a medical doctor, in fact don't ever see a medical doctor for any reason whatsoever. Um, and, and if we can kind of eliminate those two voices on the two extremes, right, that would be fantastic for everybody in the middle.

Um, but the thing I would say

Riley: and magic dude, you,

that's

Chad: too, yeah,

Riley: right?

Chad: on the extreme ends there. Um. But, and, and again, it's not just chiropractors, but the thing I would say is this, um, the, the one of the biggest frustrations because it's not an easy answer because there's good and bad to it, and I've, I've wrestled with this for many, many years, is the lack of standardization in, in chiropractic, and we'll just say [00:30:00] alternative medicine in general compared to medicine.

Um, and, and, and there are pros and cons to that, right on, on both sides. The, the, the massive standardization that you have in, in conventional western medicine, there are pros and cons to that. The, the, the cons of, of high standardization in medicine is that to a large degree, once a patient doesn't fit inside of that algorithm, it's like the conventional, uh, the conundrum is, well, we've, we've done everything we can so there's no helping you, you know, scratch the doctors and their teams, scratch their heads.

And, and so that's really where, to a large extent, where alternative medicine can shine to a large degree as they're willing to think outside the box and entertain some of these non-conventional ways of doing things, which oftentimes helps solve a lot of problems for patients. It comes at a price though.

And the price on the, the, the, the kind of, uh, uh, the, the opposite side of that coin or the, uh, [00:31:00] the, the, the, the flip side of that is that lack of standardization can create a very difficult time for people to find solutions and answers, meaning, I've got an issue in my neck, let's just say. And I go to Chiropractor Joe here, and I ask him, what is your treatment recommendation?

He gives me a treatment plan, and then I go to the chiropractor down the street, Dr. Jeff, you know, and he gives me a completely different strategy and, and plan and then go to the other, and, you know, 10 different chiropractors, 10 different plans for the same problem. And I'm like. Re really, you know, like, and, and I'm, I'm being a little bit facetious, it's not that bad, but, but you can, you can have that kind of variance.

And so we were talking with, uh, part of our, in, in, for, for our company, brain Restore Centers. We have a medical advisory board, and one of our medical advisors, a brilliant, uh, neurosurgeon, her name is Dr. Uh Webb, Dr. Sharon Webb outta South Carolina. And she was saying that's one of the things that she, number one, as, as a doctor, [00:32:00] as a neurosurgeon, you could imagine they live and die by protocols because you're talking about life and death in many instances, you know?

And so they need standardization. Um, and, and, and standardization. Love it or hate it. That's the only way that you can truly. Arrive in any sort of a scientific understanding of anything. You have to have a system that's replicatable to, to some degree so that you can measure pre and post and have objective outcomes to determine does this intervention or do these interventions work?

And so that being said, that's one of the things that we've really kind of worked hard on with, with our protocols for Brain Restore centers is number one, the interventions and the tools that we use individually have a lot of research to support them. Gold standard research, you know, multi-site, double-blind, placebo controlled studies.

Um, just lots and lots of good high level peer reviewed [00:33:00] literature to support them. But the way in which we have systemized and integrated things does not yet have a lot of research to support this. Quote unquote methodology. But what we are doing is we're being very meticulous about making sure that we are tracking and aggregating objective data so that we can have, uh, sufficient scientific evidence to support what we're doing.

Um, and all along the way further, one of the things that's unique about our program is we're building it in a fairly structured way so that it's not this kind of wild, wild west. Uh, we've got about 25 clinics across the country. We're not leaving it up to them to just say, okay, here's this kind of suite of tools, guys.

Use them, however you wanna use 'em, just go for it. You know, there's very much a very specific system and process for the protocols. This is what happens when a patient comes through your doors. This is how we evaluate the patient. This is how we interpret, this is how [00:34:00] we then make the recommendations.

This is how we, uh, determine what type of a plan we do for them. What length of that plan is. And this is literally step by step how we incorporate these tools and interventions. First step one, we do this step, and again, not surprising given our initial start, we start with low level laser therapy. That's where we start, you know, and we do it this way and this is the protocol.

And, and so very much a systems based uh, approach, because if we're going to be tracking data, it has to be that way. We can't have all these. Confounding variables all over the place because that's literally the antithesis of science, right? Science is all about trying to limit as many variables as we can so that we can have the clearest understanding and start to arrive at, uh, you know, A, a a a a good understanding.

A solid understanding of is what we're doing working? Is it helping? You know, so does, I hope that answers the question

Riley: I think, I, I think it, it does, um,

Chad: [00:35:00] because one of the things I think I hear you saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that

Riley: You're

Chad: you're tracking all data

Riley: because

Chad: because you've gone into this with

Riley: kind

Chad: kind,

Riley: um, an educated, I don't wanna call it a

Chad: a guess, but

Riley: there's some

Chad: education there, but you're also pioneering. So

Riley: And so

Chad: yeah,

Riley: you're, you're the first of the party in anything, there is some guesswork that goes on. But if you track all the data over time,

Chad: Now you can start to take that data and go, okay, this is what we were doing.

Riley: thought, but let's

Chad: Let's tweak it here, because

Riley: says so.

Chad: the data,

Riley: And then

Chad: yes.

Riley: you really get to develop these systems that, that then become robust

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: time.

'cause

again, you're pioneering this thing, man.

Chad: yeah. And, and I think that's, I think that's fair to say because of the, you know, and, and, and we're willing to kind of stick our necks out there in this process in terms of the claims we're making, because we know that individually, when you separate out the different tools that we're using, take for instance, low level laser therapy, for instance, over 13 thou [00:36:00] at this point, 12, 13,000 peer reviewed studies showing that low level laser therapy are the term that a lot of people will use in the science world is photobiomodulation, um, is an in Yeah.

It's, it's, yeah, a mouthful. It's an incredibly effective tool. And, and they're showing more and more research supporting it for a wide range of different issues. So that tool, right. Plenty of research beyond dispute. We know that this works. We know that it's an effective tool. This tool over here, neurofeedback.

We use neurofeedback, right? We know neurofeedback has a growing body of research supporting it, saying it's a very effective tool. Um, nutrition, big part of it. Like duh, the, the most evidence-based thing for brain health is, is exercise and nutrition, right? So we've we're incorporating that in there. And so it's one of those things where it's like, it's, it's very obvious, it's self-evident that what happens is when we integrate these things together individually, any one of them is gonna do a really, really good job.

But what we're asking is, [00:37:00] but how much better can we do when we start to integrate things together in a meaningful way, in a sequenced, systematic way? And, and the term that we continue to use over and over again. And I don't want it to get lost as a clever soundbite is it's sequential, it's systematic, and it's synergistic.

It's, it's this whole, when we do things in the right order, when we do it in a systemized fashion, uh, and, and when we do 'em together, there, there is, we, I, I believe what what the research will show is it will get a better outcome. Uh, how much better. Not sure yet, but a better outcome than using one individual modality on its own.

And that's the thing that you're gonna find, uh, lots of, is lots of these kind of maverick clinics out there that are doing their thing, their shtick. We are the neurofeedback clinic. We are the laser clinic. We are the VIS tool clinic. We are the nutrition, the functional medicine clinic. We do, you know, and what Brain Restore Centers is doing.

And what's, what's unique [00:38:00] and special about what we're doing is we're the first to, in a. Any sort of a meaningful way, systemize a far more integrated and complete solution as opposed to just trying to hang our hat on one, one individual modality or tool

Riley: Yeah. You know. When,

Chad: we were developing.

Riley: the electrolyte formula for salt, right?

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: keep seeing these, these marketing ploys by other companies in that, in the supplement space, you know, and

Chad: Yes.

Riley: that you see a lot is where they go, the perfect blend

Chad: of blah, blah. Yeah.

Riley: right? And people

Chad: People would ask me,

Riley: the time, like, do you

Chad: do you have an optimal blend of electrolytes?

Riley: And I was

Chad: I was like, I don't know. Uh,

Riley: I

Chad: I might for this exact moment in your life

Riley: but tomorrow your

Chad: your electrolyte balancing your body might be given to my formula, may not.

Riley: for

tomorrow. So

part

Chad: of

Riley: part

Chad: part of

Riley: of

Chad: of my research in that,

Riley: said,

Chad: with the [00:39:00] things we put in our drink.

Riley: as

Chad: As long as we had enough of them,

Riley: they

Chad: they were all components that your body would just slump off the reps.

Riley: So

Chad: So if we could fill all the points of those minerals. Yes.

Riley: then a. You it was, it was gonna be enough.

Now is it the perfect balance? No. And so we never claimed that in our, our literature. Right?

Chad: yeah.

Riley: it's not the perfect balance. We don't know what the perfect balance is. moment to

Chad: It's moment to moment that changes, right? Sure.

Riley: that you

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: there's no methodology to track down what the perfect balance of

that is. And

I hear you saying some of the same thing there, where you're going, we

Chad: You have to use different modalities because every person's situation is

Riley: Now we can start here it, this low

Chad: level life therapy

Riley: talking about, or laser therapy you're talking about is a good

Chad: starting point. There's not a consequence to there. No, no downside here.

Riley: So it

Chad: it has positive effects, but not a lot of negative. And again, correct me if I'm hearing your totally

Riley: totally

Chad: wrong.

Riley: it's a,

Chad: a

Riley: a

Chad: great place to [00:40:00] start, but then

Riley: there's

Chad: there's more work to do.

Chad: Done. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Low, low level laser therapy, exactly what you said.

Probably one of, if not the safest, uh, tools, um, could literally [00:41:00] be used. Um, there's, there's been, I don't know how many millions of, of low level, uh, well, and, and let me give one caveat, um, that depends on the laser you're using and, and how you're defining, right. How you're defining low level laser, because there are a lot of different companies out there that claim to be lasers that aren't true lasers.

Um,

Riley: There's TMU versions. That's what you're

Chad: Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's exactly right though. And that's, and that's the whole point, is like, I'm not gonna say that that's safe. We don't know, you know, um, the company that we work with is a company that has a very, very long history and well-established, uh, not only safety record, but effectiveness record.

They, they, they are the undisputed, um. Champions when it comes to low level laser therapy research. Um, in the world of true low level laser therapy, there has only been a total of 24, maybe 25, uh, it changes every year. FDA clearances that have been ever been granted this company or Coia, they have 22 out of the 25, [00:42:00] 24 25.

They're the ones doing all the research. They're the ones who are testing and retesting and checking and rechecking. Um, and so yeah, incredibly safe products. Um, what the, what the leading, most cutting edge research clearly, clearly shows, despite what some laser companies claim and say, um, this is the simplest way to determine if a laser company is legit and if they actually have their finger on the pulse of what research says.

If they equate power to results, they have no idea what they're talking about. They just don't. Um, a lot of these comp.

Riley: power like wattages and that kind of,

Chad: Exactly. Yeah, exact. That's exactly right. So they, a lot of these kind of what they call class four laser companies who they like to refer to themselves as a low level laser, um, that's not a true low level laser.

Um, class four lasers that, that emit heat, um, they'll claim that that, that their lasers are, are more effective because there is a higher degree of penetration that can be achieved [00:43:00] because of how much power they're putting in. That is not what the research shows at all. Um, what the research shows is that the higher the amount of power you put into the laser, the less efficient that laser is at stimulating the mitochondria.

Um, and that lack of efficiency comes about as, and I'm no physicist, so I'm not gonna try and claim to explain this in some. Super deep way, but that lack of efficiency comes in the form of heat. That heat is a representation of a loss of energetic potential. What you're doing is you're essentially heating up water in your tissues, and that water represents where that energy has now gone is it has dissipated, essentially into the form of heat.

What we want in a true low level laser is we want high energy, not high power. We want low power, high energy. There's the difference between power and energy and energy. That energetic potential gets maximized when the [00:44:00] power is low, and when we say low, let, let me put some numbers behind that so people can kind of at least wrap their head around it to some degree.

A lot of these class four laser companies, they typically start at about 20 watts. Maybe a little lower, but, but typically the ones that really tout their. Their power. Um, 20, 30, 40, 50, as many as 60 watts. Um, the AIA lasers range anywhere between seven to 17 milliwatts. So massive difference in power output.

And, and AIA has been like, they've been shouting this from like the rooftops for the longest time. They're like, they get treated by some of these other laser companies as though like, well, your lasers, they're not good enough. 'cause they don't have power. And, and Orcon is like, look, if we wanna produce, we, we know how to produce lasers that can put out a high power output.

We would totally do that if that's where the research was telling us it needed to go. But that's not what the research is showing us. The research is undeniably showing that you are not, and, and here's the difference [00:45:00] why. Um. Because there's two DI mean there's in general, there's two different effects that lasers can have, low level lasers can have on the body.

You can either induce what they call a photothermal effect, where basically light is changing temperature or heat emitting heat. That's what we're ta we just talked about, that you, you're the, the predominant effect that it's gonna have on the body is a photothermal effect. What are conal lasers do? What true low level lasers do is they create a photochemical effect.

What we're doing is we're using light to change the body's biochemistry. That's what we're doing and that's where the real magic starts to happen with these lasers, is you're gonna use specific wavelengths of light that contain inherent in that wavelength. So if you look at the Roy g biv, you know, the whole uh, light, visible light spectrum, um, within that visible light spectrum inherently contained with the specific wavelength, our specific energies, right?

Highest energy being violet, [00:46:00] violet. Or when you start to, and, and what we're looking for is we're looking for the highest level of energy without damaging tissue. 'cause you can get past that sweet spot and all of a sudden you're gonna start, um, getting ionizing radiation to the point where it's gonna damage tissue and damage DNA.

We clearly don't want that. 'cause then all of a sudden that, that's no longer therapeutic, that's detrimental. Right? We're looking for those little windows.

Riley: patients. Yeah.

Chad: That's exactly right. The, what we're looking for is they, they call it a hormetic window, a or hormetic threshold where we're looking for, it needs to be able to have enough energy to induce the chemical changes or shifts.

Right. And this happens when you look at the science, it's wild. It happens that at an atomic level. 'cause essentially what you're doing is, if you could, and again, I, for all the light physicists out there who are listening, 'cause I know there's a ton of 'em, um, they're gonna cringe. They're gonna cringe when they hear my explanation of it.

But the way I understand it is the wavelengths inside of that wavelength, you [00:47:00] have, uh, those wavelengths are made up of photons, right? Photons are forms of light energy inside of those photons. If you were to kind of. Take the little magic school bus and go as small as you can. The, the smallest form of energy is what's called an electron volt.

Those fo photons are made up of electron volts. Those electron volt, you're, you're literally throwing, if you're shining a, a therapeutic laser at somebody, you're literally throwing over a quadrillion, that's an actual word or actual number quadrillion, um, photons that contain in the, the, the electron volts and those electron volts.

Um, you, you have to have a certain number of electron volts to be able to induce the atomic changes, um, within the cellular structures. And so the, the, the high the. The threshold is you have to have, in order to induce that kind of change or shift in electron valent shell, [00:48:00] uh, disbursement or changes or shifts or whatever, you have to have at least 1.7 or 1.8 electron volts.

And if it doesn't have that, and that's inherently connected or directly connected to the wavelength itself, if it doesn't hit that wavelength, you don't have enough electron volts. And if you don't have enough electron volts, you can't shift or change valence of the electrons at the atomic level, thereby inducing the, uh, the, the, the shifts and the changes energetically to be able to induce.

These photochemical effects that we need to affect within the mitochondria and the electron transport chain and all that fun stuff. And so, um, violet has the highest energy. It contains 405 nanometers, uh, contains, I think it's like 3.2 electron volts. Uh, green is the next highest. That's 520 nanometers has 2.7, 2.4, somewhere in there, electron volts.

And then red, uh, is the lowest 635, has 1.8 electron volts. So just enough to be able to create those [00:49:00] changes. And so that's where, um, yeah, so getting, yeah, boy, I'm going down to these different rabbit holes. But yeah, that's what makes lasers so special is be, these lasers in particular is 'cause they're incredibly effective, but also, uh, just as important, incredibly safe.

You can't, you can't harm somebody with these lasers. So.

Riley: it's, it's interesting to me man, 'cause that, um, you know, it

Chad: Sounds like

Riley: there's a

Chad: a lot

Riley: of,

Chad: of words there that I'm trying to sort out. I'm having to find in my head.

Riley: really hard as you're talking 'cause

Chad: yeah, yeah,

Riley: you went full nerd there for a little bit.

Chad: yeah. I know. I get it. Yeah.

Riley: but it's, uh, it, it is interesting to me because finding that balance of, they

Chad: They always stay

Riley: with, uh,

Chad: medication, right?

Riley: More

Chad: Yep,

Riley: necessarily better.

Chad: totally.

Riley: Right?

Chad: Yeah,

Riley: you can have a safe dose and it's comfortable dose and you may feel like, well, it helped a little bit, so maybe if I take twice as much, I, I'll feel even better.

And then you're dead. So

Chad: yeah. Exactly.

Riley: it's,

Chad: effective dose, that's what we're talking about. Yep. [00:50:00] That minimum effective dose. That's exactly right. So

Riley: Yeah. talk about this dude. So I

Chad: I know

Riley: brain health subject came to you after some life experiences, right? You, you started to get really interested in that after some life experiences, and one of

Chad: of those.

Riley: your wife and her battle with cancer. Can you

Chad: Yep.

Riley: talk about that?

Chad: Yeah. Um, my wife, uh, has obviously from the beginning has dealt with a whole host of chronic health issues. Uh, eventually, um, we came to find out she had thyroid cancer. Um, and that was right, yeah, that was like right at the time that I was starting in jiujitsu with you guys. So you guys were probably right alongside us for that journey.

Um, she had a total thyroidectomy, um, did some radiation therapy. Um, and, uh, what, what then happened was this kind of ongoing hormonal battle of trying to find that right balance. And along [00:51:00] the way she started dealing with some really, really bad, uh, sleep issues, insomnia, and, um. Uh, we, we, we did everything.

You know, we were, we were, and, and it was very discouraging for me, both from the standpoint of clearly loving my wife and wanting to help her, but also functional medicine practitioner, like, just unable to help her. And, um, it, it got so bad that finally we just, we broke down and she started, uh, taking Ambien and, um, and she did that for about a year or two years and it, and it became less and less effective.

And so she increased her dosing just a little bit and it, it, and, and she, she knew automatically like, this is not where we want to go because, um, you know, I, I can already see the writing on the wall. This is not how I wanna live. The rest of my life is constantly having to increase, increase, increase. And she just knew it was not gonna be good.

She started doing her own research. Um, we just did not [00:52:00] realize at the time just how harmful ambient is. It's a scary drug.

Riley: horror stories about that

Chad: Yeah, it's, it's, it's nasty, nasty stuff. And so, um, she made the mistake. We made the mistake, uh, she stopped cold Turkey. That's not what you do. Uh, if you've been on Ambien for any length of time, you, you need to taper off.

She didn't. And then that, that basically just made a bad problem worse. And so then that really began kind of a, a multi-year battle with insomnia, that, that really, really, um, royally messed her brain up in a very, very bad way. Um, and that created a whole lot of. Medicinal problems that, you know, that's the bad side of it.

The good side of it is that it, it caused me to start doing a lot of research and reflection. Ultimately that's to a large degree. Uh, it was the combination of, of, uh, our functional medicine program, our integration with low level laser therapy and, uh, [00:53:00] Amber's sleep issues. That kind of led, led me to connect with, uh, Dr.

Trevor Berry, uh, down in Arizona. And that's when our kind of cross paths kind of crossed together. Um, and, uh. He, he, you know, had, he has dealt with these types of issues and stuff, and, um, patients who struggle with similar issues and different issues and the whole gamut. Um, and ultimately it was, it was this plus a combination of other different circumstances and stories that kind of, the, the, the planets aligned the right way and we were able to, um, kind of begin this journey together and start this process.

Because his problem that he had, and I talk about this in the book, is he is this brilliant practi, I mean. Probably one of the top most brilliant practitioners in the world in with regard to neurology and brain health. I mean, just you, you would be very hard pressed to find somebody as as brilliant as this [00:54:00] guy.

I mean, he just, he he's truly gifted. Um, amazing. Um, but his problem is he, he's only one person like you. You, you know, so how do you, how do you help take that information at scale? And, and there's, there's no real way to do that. And that was the problem and frustration he kept having was he would go and he would lecture all over the world, and practitioners would come to him after his lectures and be like, you're amazing.

I wanna do what you do. And he's like, no, you don't. And they're like. No, I, I do. And he is like, no, it, it's taken me literally over nearly three decades to learn what I've learned. I don't have any real system for what I do. I just do what I do because I've done it so long and I've just, I'm good at what I do.

Um, and, and it was this frustration of him. He wants to help practitioners, but he just didn't have a vehicle for doing that. It was, there was no practical, pragmatic way of him extracting what's up here and putting it out into other people's heads short [00:55:00] of, okay, you wanna do what I do? Uh, clear off your schedule for the next 20 years and, uh, let's begin.

You know, that's not a practical answer either. And so it was the kind of combination of, of. My frustrations, his frustrations. Um, Dr. Wells, he's our, um, COO of the company. He was in a, a really bad car accident himself, fractured his neck, had a fusion. His had suffered, uh, concussion and post-concussive symptoms and, and issues.

Um, his son started developing neurological ticks after the car accident. He was on his own kind of journey that led him to Dr. Barry as well. Uh, Dr. Green, our CEO, uh, his father-in-law, uh, was not that long ago, diagnosed with a really aggressive form of dementia and has struggled with that and that he was, and that led Jason on his own journey of frustration.

And so these kind of worlds. Kind of came together in a unique way where, where we all kind of [00:56:00] recognized, look, I, I don't care who you are, anybody who's listening to this podcast right now, I guarantee you your life in one way or another is directly impacted because of a brain health issue, either your own or a loved one, guaranteed everybody.

Um, these are such ubiquitous, it, it is the epidemic of our day and age. And so our whole reason for creating Brain Restore Centers is we don't just wanna make a qualitative difference in people's lives like the one or two or short, small handful of people. We want to make a massive quantitative difference.

And the way that, the only way that we believe that is going to happen is through a systems driven approach, meaning we have to mobilize and empower a much, much higher. Number of practitioners. We have to mobilize an army of practitioners who have the tools and the systems and the resources that don't require them to take three decades to learn that they can be up and running very, very fast, um, and start delivering good results and [00:57:00] outcomes for people as quickly as possible.

And that's, that's what we've done.

Riley: It's interesting 'cause you're kind of bringing that back around to that thing you

Chad: said

Riley: earlier

Chad: about

Riley: starting diet, which is the most difficult thing to change when you have this, this

Chad: inexpensive?

Riley: effective, very easy to do light therapy laser,

Chad: Yes.

Riley: Right?

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: And you know, the same thing as what, what you're saying here is you're taking this subject matter that takes three decades to learn, but there's,

Chad: Is there a way now to that

Riley: into a maybe a

Chad: property?

Riley: 'cause if Yeah,

Chad: that's, that's just too big of a bridge to.

Riley: gap, right? It's

Chad: What we're doing.

Riley: years. Most people don't have it.

Chad: That's exactly, well, and not only that, but this is the problem and the dilemma that we've run into that we try and explain to practitioners and the lay public alike. So, so what ha this, this is what happens far too often.

The conventional approach to teaching practitioners [00:58:00] how to engage in meaningful neurology is they get excited about neurology. They go and they, they start training in neurology, but it's all academic training. And so what happens is they train. There's no real world application. And so they don't get any real world experience.

They don't develop any sort of clinical confidence or competence because it's all theoretical in the, in the realm of academia, textbooks and studies and presentations and notes and everything like that. And if there is any sort of application that does take place in, you know, by chance it's not at any sort of meaningful level, it's one or two people that they're kind of like messing around with.

Yeah. That I think, think I'm learning that. And, and so then what happens is you're back to square one. The practitioner has had no real impact and so then they go back and their answer to it is, okay, I just gotta learn more. So it's this cycle of endlessly looping, looping, looping. And you have so many of these brilliant practitioners who have all of this.

Stuff [00:59:00] floating around up here, but it's never actually getting implemented or applied in the real world. And what we're doing that's massively different, paradoxically, and it almost to some people, would sound and seem and be perceived as almost reckless. Um, but it's not, and I'll explain why. We believe the fastest way to learn is to do it.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna get you in the trenches, doing it as quickly as humanly possible, as safely as possible. And so what makes this different and what makes this doable is that the things that we're teaching you how to do are inherently safe and inherently effective. Right out the box, meaning lasers, perfect example.

You shine lasers on somebody. There is almost virtually no way that you can harm somebody with these lasers, barring, barring you, dropping a laser on their head, right? There's, there's no way that you're gonna harm these people. And so we, we teach you how to start helping people buy. Helping people. [01:00:00] We, we get you in the trenches.

We roll up the sleeves and we say, okay, here is the protocol. Here is the system. You're gonna start doing it. And as you're doing it, the more that you get these reps in the real world, you may not have all of the right academic terminology for every condition, every you know, thing. But the one thing you do have is experience in how to help people.

I don't claim to be a neurologist. I tell patients that. I can't tell you how many times I tell that to patients on a daily basis. I'm not a neurologist. I don't play one on tv. Um, I, you know, but I can tell you that I know how to help people who are dealing with these issues. 'cause I do it and I've seen it and we know the process.

Riley: 'cause you're, you're saying you basically went back to the, the age old apprenticeship program, right? You've

Chad: That's exactly right.

Riley: through it with hands on and rather than this theoretical university kind of modern day way of learning, I.

Chad: And that's the thing. It's funny about it is I think you would, I'm not a medical doctor, so I can't say, but I [01:01:00] think I'm fairly confident that most medical doctors you would ask, they would say that most of their real learning came through, um, their residencies, not from the four years of, you know, academic learning.

And not to say that there, that,

Riley: every subject,

every subject. Engineers say that.

Attorneys say

Chad: it's not to say that there's.

Riley: practitioners.

Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Riley: Yeah. I'll say it.

Chad: that's funny you say that, right? Because I always tell the story, you know, I bought back in the day before I started with Keith and you guys in Jiujitsu. I bought the, the old Hoer Gracie Kid Gro Juujitsu book.

Remember that one? One of the first Juujitsu?

Riley: but

Chad: Yeah. One of the, one of the first Juujitsu textbooks. I bought it and, and, and like, I like read all the diagrams and in my mind academically I'm like, yeah, arm bar triangle. I, yeah, I get this guard pass, uh, shrimp. I, yeah, I know how to do that. And, and in my mind, and then I go and I actually train and.

Get on the mats and I'm like, uh, no, I, I don't know how to do. Literally, I [01:02:00] didn't know how to do anything. And it was like, and that just goes to show you the power of like doing versus theoretical thinking or understanding or whatever. It's like real learning and real understanding comes through the doing.

And that's our whole big contention with this whole process is we're getting practitioners comfortable with, and, and it is, it's a little scary at the beginning 'cause you're gonna get these, these practitioners get these cases that come through their door. We still do too. And I, it's not like, I'm like, oh yeah, I, I can, I'm always like, holy cow.

Like, what do we do? Um, but, but it doesn't stop us or prevent us from at least starting and attempting to try and help these people. And, uh, um, and so that, that's the, the, I I would say the beauty of what we have developed here is a very safe and very effective system by which practitioners can start helping people at a much faster rate.

And that's exactly what is necessary. We believe if we're gonna start actually making some sort of a quantitative [01:03:00] difference in the brain health epidemic that's out there, is that I, I just can't, I, and, and if there's a better way that somebody else, uh, has a, a reasonable, practical, realistic way, I'm all ears for it.

But I just don't see, um, at this, at this rate, um, 'cause 'cause we've seen pharmaceutical era of brain related issues and we'll, we'll, we'll relegate this to cognitive decline and post-concussive stuff. Uh, pharmaceutical industry has come up short time and time and time again. There is no meaningful medication that has been developed.

Um, nor do I think that there ever will be in our lifetime, uh, developed for Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or anything like that. No matter how much they think, no matter how hard they try, um, it's, they continue to fall short time and time and time again. There's just not, and, and I think primarily why is because this is the, the brain is a multimodal system.

It requires a multitude of different inputs from different angles and [01:04:00] different ways and, and different, um. Mediums. Um, and, and the pharmaceutical is just one route of delivery and one medium. And so it's, and, and not only that, but it's one of the least efficient mediums for delivering any sort of, uh, you know, the, the, the, the whole, um, you know, biochemical exchange is not nearly as efficient as the photochemical exchange.

Photochemical exchange is way more efficient, energetically speaking, way less energy from the body is required to get that energy. Um, so many of the therapies that we do are these just low hanging fruit, easy passive consumption strategies, low level laser therapy, various forms of oxygen therapy, hyperbaric, mild hyperbaric therapy, right?

Super easy, uh, way more efficient than, than, uh, pharmaceuticals or even nutraceuticals, right? And so anyways, I.

Riley: Will you do me a favor here and [01:05:00] define

Chad: Brain health, a wide spectrum.

Riley: of stuff, right?

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: kind of what brain health that we're talking about. Because the

Chad: Problem with it's

Riley: is it's invisible.

Chad: Yeah,

Riley: see it. You look at someone who's really struggling with some, you know. Brain stuff and

you can't, again, it's not visible.

You can't see it. They

look just like a normal person,

Chad: yeah.

Riley: it could be. You mentioned concussions, you, um, you mentioned

Chad: Me. Things like insomnia.

Riley: mentioned

Chad: can, all these symptoms of it,

uh,

Riley: concussions would

Chad: will be a cause, I

Riley: But

the,

Chad: uh,

Riley: the define it kind

Chad: kind of wrap it up. Sorry.

Riley: what,

Chad: when you say brain felt Yep.

Riley: what are you talking about?

Chad: Great, great question. Uh, and, and we'll put this in objective terms. Um, what we've done, um, that again, is, is very, very unique and proprietary and really exciting for us, is we have developed what's called a brain score. Um, we call it our Brain Restore score or a brain health score. Um, [01:06:00] this is an aggregate of some of the.

Of the best, most evidence-based, um, objective markers that measure cognitive and or physical function. Um, and so, uh, when we look at Brain Health, the way we look at it is we do a series of different objective evaluations or tests that allow us to get a window into how well the brain is functioning. One of those tests that is, uh, is pretty widely accepted by just about all conventional, um, practitioners out there is what's called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.

It's a standardized test that's administered, that gives a baseline score. Uh, total score is out of 30. Anybody that scores 26 or higher on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment has normal cognitive function. A score of 25 or lower would indicate some degree of co cognitive impairment, so like 25, I think it's like.

[01:07:00] Uh, scores from like 18 to 25 would be considered mild cognitive impairment, uh, 17 or lower. You start getting into more of the moderate, uh, and or severe levels of cognitive impairment. So, so we look at that objective measure, and that's gonna look at things like memory, recall, speech, um, pattern recognition, uh, um, you know, uh, math, things like that.

So, so we, we administer that test as one of the batteries of tests. We do, we do a, what's called A-Q-E-E-G, which is, uh, looking at electrical function of the brain. It's a real time window into how your brain is functioning, looking at areas that are either overactive, underactive, imbalanced, et cetera, et cetera.

So we, we can look at that and that can give us a window into how. Your brain is actually functioning in real time versus compared to, say, your conventional MRI cts. Those are gonna look at structure of the brain. Those are gonna be great for, and essential for if you're suspecting some sort of physical damage or change to the structure or tissue, uh, strokes, [01:08:00] bleeds, uh, you know, uh, tumors, uh, infections, things like that.

That's where ct, but they're not gonna tell you what's actually functionally happening with the brain. So that's where QEG comes in. We look at, uh, what's called, um, computerized Dynamic posty or Digital balance testing. Um, one of the most sensitive tests out there for detecting, uh, early on impairment with the brain and body in terms of how well the brain is communicating with the body, how well the body is communicating with the brain.

It's not going to be a specific test, meaning you're not gonna put somebody on there and say, ah, you have Alzheimer's, or, ah, you have Parkinson's, or whatever. But it will, uh, much, much earlier than a lot of other tests be able to earlier detect, um, mild shifts in, in, uh, in, in neurologic function. Um, and so, so digital balance assessment.

And then we look at, um, uh, we do a, a, a full bedside neurologic evaluation. So head to toe, we [01:09:00] do cranial nerve assessment. We do, uh, sensory and peripheral and motor function, um, uh, of, of the nervous system, um, as well as a couple other different specialty tests we look at and, and, and assess the cerebellum, balance coordination, things like that.

Um,

Riley: do those tests look like? And uh, and again, lots of, lots of, um, words that are too big for this knuckle

Chad: yeah. Yeah.

Riley: to

Chad: yeah.

Riley: but did those tests look like? You said cranial, what?

Chad: Cranial nerve assessment. The, these are gonna be a lot of the nerves. They, they call 'em cranial nerves because they, they are, are largely based in, in the, in the skull and in the head. Right? So these are gonna be things that look at like, simple things like smiling and frowning that's gonna be controlled by your facial nerve.

Your, uh, we'll, we'll use a really practical one. Uh, olfactory. Your, your first cranial nerve is your olfactory. That's your sense of smell. Early changes in smell are, is one of the earliest, most sensitive indicators of neurodegenerative changes in the brain. So if somebody's like. My sense of smell is, is off, or, or [01:10:00] that seems weird.

That's not a trivial thing. And so we test that. That's a really simple but yet very profoundly powerful window into, Hey, this person could be. And so when you say, when you, yeah, I've had memory issues, then all of a sudden you detect on, I can't identify, um, a, a common scent or I'm having, it's, things are smelling weird.

That's an early indicator. So that's a cranial nerve. Um, and so,

Riley: I remember that during COVID, right when we all lost our sense of taste and

Chad: yeah,

Riley: things that we, that normally kinda smelled pleasant to us, all of a sudden stunk. And

Chad: yeah,

Riley: my, my

Chad: yeah.

Riley: gosh, a year after she had COVID, said that, uh,

Chad: coffee

Riley: like baby poop. To her,

Chad: just a different thing.

Riley: like, it, like they changed places in our head.

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: very strange.

Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Riley: I.

Chad: Um, but yeah, so, so ba basically the, the punchline is what we're doing is we're administering a battery of different tests to look at from multiple angles, [01:11:00] how the brain is functioning in different ways. So we're looking at memory, we're looking at balance and stability.

We're looking at coordination, we're looking at strength, um, we're looking at sensory, you know, different types of sensation, light touch, sharp sensation, things like that. And then we do, uh, the last piece of the overall puzzle is what we call a symptom index, where it's a, it's a questionnaire, but it's based on kind of day-to-day function.

So we're gonna ask 'em questions about how well they do with. Their, their perceived, uh, their perception of the, of their world, right? How do you perceive you're doing with your memory? How do you do with movement and coordination? How do you do with all these things? And so then what we do is we take all of that data that we've gathered, we aggregate it together, and we put it into a.

What we call a a score. We have a scoring system, and that score represents getting back to your original question. What, what is brain health? What are we talking about? We're talking about, uh, the ability to [01:12:00] utilize your brain consciously and even subconsciously. How is your brain doing with regard to its place in perception of the world around us?

Right? Are you able to, uh, recall words? Are you able to remember things? Are you able to, uh, solve simple math problems? Are you able to stand and walk and balance without interference or problems or significant where fall risk is probably one, it, it's the number one cause of preventable death in the elderly is, is balance and fall risks, right?

So these are not little trivial things we're looking at here. These are significant things. And so brain health is, like you said, it is broad, but it really could be summed up into. How well is your brain functioning across all of these kind of different day-to-day domains? So

Riley: You're, um, in these tests, do they, do you ever involve. The people around the [01:13:00] patient. And

Chad: what I mean by

Riley: that is if you're dealing with something like dementia or Alzheimer's type symptoms or, or

Chad: something much less severe for

Riley: where someone's just having, you know, we call 'em brain farts, right? Where we're just, we're just off.

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: And not always, I think, can the person tell,

Chad: yeah,

Riley: had seasons where like, I feel fine, but

Chad: my wife's going.

Riley: you're kind of off. So

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: do you involve people around them?

Chad: Absolutely. Yeah, that's huge. Um, that's a, in fact, that's one of our requirements in our clinic is that we will not present a plan to a patient unless their spouse is there or significant other is there. And we do this for kind of two practical reasons. Number one, the spouse is always gonna ask questions.

So you go to the doctor, you do the evaluation with the doctor, and then you go home and your spouse, like, what did the doctor say? I don't know, something about this old faction. I think that's what it, you know, or whatever they wanna know that the, the [01:14:00] answers. Um, and, and it's gonna make it easier just to hear it from this horse's mouth, you know, the proverbial horse's mouth.

Um, but more importantly, and a more practical reason is exactly kind of what you honed in on, is that they're gonna be there to kind of help fill in the gaps. They're gonna be there to help support them. We start everything we start with in our clinic and our. Brain restore centers across the country. We start everything with, we wanna get a clear picture of what's going on.

And so spouse or significant other can help fill in those gaps. But number two, most importantly, what their goals are. So what is it that you're here for? And the spouse or significant other's gonna play a huge role 'cause they're involved in that process. They're gonna be in, we had a, um, a couple who just came in today, uh, one of our patients, her mother, she's concerned with her cognitive decline.

There's a history of Alzheimer's in the family, and it was very much the, it was a family affair. The husband was there, the daughter was there, and they were all three kind of chiming in, in terms of like what the [01:15:00] goal is and, and, and what they're after and what they're seeing and their perspective and their perception.

So, absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's huge. And that's, that's not just important. It's, it's essential. It's critical.

Riley: That's, that's a really interesting thing. I remember when my father was still alive. He was, he had been diagnosed with some, some medical stuff that he was dealing

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: habits over the years, you know, and, and, uh, but he was in total denial, man.

Chad: Yeah,

Riley: all

Chad: we had is

Riley: his word

Chad: on what was going on.

Riley: he was,

Chad: Everything's fine.

Riley: was, ah, that, that, the

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: this, the doctor said that, well, after he passed, we found the paperwork of what the doctors were actually saying, where it was written down, stuff that he kept hidden from us. And it was,

Chad: It

Riley: was

Chad: not at

Riley: what we thought he was dealing with because he was giving us bad information.

Right.

[01:16:00]

Chad: all's. That's exactly right. So yeah, we, we just have a hard, fast rule. We, we will not even talk about. Care with you. Uh, and unless spouse or significant other is there, we're not gonna go down that road. It's one of the first things we, we ask them is like, on a scale of zero to 10, in terms of motivation and follow through, where you're gonna be zeros, you're not gonna do [01:17:00] anything we tell you to do.

10 is you'll do whatever it takes to reach your goals. We need to know that number. And if they, if they say like anything less than an eight or above, we're gonna be really clear with them, this may not be the right fit for you. This may because we're gonna ask you to do stuff. One of the things we're gonna ask you to do is bring your spouse or significant other with you on the follow up.

Like, if you can't abide by that and follow that simple task, then this probably isn't gonna be the right fit. And, and, and that's a real easy

Riley: deal,

Chad: Yeah, it is. And it's a really easy litmus test. Like if you can't involve your spouse. We had a gentleman who came in a couple weeks ago, a month ago or so, and said, you know, we want you to bring your spouse.

He's like, no, she's, she's too busy. She's not gonna wanna be involved. And I'm like. Then we're probably not gonna be able to help you. Because if, if we're not, it would be different if you were talking about like, uh, I've got this like, ah, little kink in my neck and it's just a little, you know, it's, oh, this tight muscle.

You know, it would be different with something like that. We're talking about your brain here. This is not [01:18:00] some trivial thing, you know, this

Riley: Yeah.

Chad: this is

Riley: you're not even ca capable of evaluating things correctly at the

Chad: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. Not a trivial thing at all. So

Riley: You, um, you have

Chad: mentioned early.

Riley: that diet was, diet and exercise are two of the biggest factors contribute to brain health. Right.

Chad: Yes.

Riley: wanna explore that a little because you're, again, those are hard things, right?

Chad: Motivated to exercise.

Riley: a certain level of energy. And you alluded to that with the therapy.

Chad: Um,

Riley: What

Chad: else, what other things for

Riley: diet and exercise do

Chad: do you think are probably maybe the top five?

Riley: you know, the, the

Chad: The next three on the list. Yeah. So what's, what's interesting you say that is, um, uh, Dr. Barry, our Chief Clinical Officer, he uses an AI tool called Consensus. It's like, uh, Google, but for, or chat GPT, but specifically for peer reviewed literature.

And [01:19:00] he's done this exercise ad nauseum and so we know exactly according to what the research tells us. Loud and clear what the top five are. We know exactly diet and exercise are the top two. Those are undisputed that the heavy weights. Number three, low level laser therapy. Number four, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, number five, neurorehab, neurofeedback.

Those are, those are the top. Okay.

Riley: sleep? Where does sleep fall in there?

Chad: Well, yeah. And you know what? That's, I, I take that back. Sleep. We're, we're gonna lump sleep into lifestyle exercise. Yeah. I'm, yeah. Sleep is huge. You're exactly right. Lifestyle, we're gonna, 'cause that's, that's, we're gonna kinda lump those together. Sleep is definitely gonna be probably one of the biggest right there.

So, yeah. I, I, my, my bad on that. But yeah, huge sleep would be top five for sure. Yeah. Sleep is, you know, the, uh, the, the main thing that they just learned, uh, I wanna say less than 10 years ago is, uh, [01:20:00] the, the glymphatic waste clearance that takes place during sleep. Not to mention all the other stuff, but basically what essentially happens during sleep is the brain does a brain detox.

Your, your cerebral spinal fluid. Pumps and flushes throughout the night. And what you're doing is it's taking all of those kind of harmful endproducts and byproducts and waste products out of the brain and detoxifying. And if you don't get that full, um, deep restful, restorative sleep, your brain cannot go through that normal cleansing, um, detoxification cycle that is required, uh, among other things, right?

Sleep's huge for, uh, memory consolidation and long-term memory storage and all that fun stuff and all the other things that happen in terms of rebuilding or re replenishing neurotransmitters and all that other fun stuff. And, um, but, but yeah, that probably one of the biggest with sleep is that glymphatic waste clear.

It's just clearing out waste from the brain.

Riley: I brought that up 'cause I, here [01:21:00] months ago, you know, I'd come off this year of dealing with, uh, double pneumonia and I, I don't know if I've talked to you about that, but I got super sick January 25 and ended up with pneumonia and it was just months and months and months of fighting that, trying to get it back and not realizing how bad I was, like what, how bad of condition I was in.

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: But one of the things that I realized is that for like five years I had been running on, you know,

Chad: Four hours sleep.

Riley: maybe five on a good night. But I was just busy. I was doing things and I had my schedule arranged in

Chad: Such way.

Riley: was late nights and early mornings back to back every day, know, and, and. Somewhere around last November I

Chad: I started puzzle.

Riley: I was like, I wonder if I'm just lacking sleep, you know? So I

Chad: I started to,

Riley: uh,

Chad: I rearranged my schedule.

Riley: to

where I would get even on my low nights. I could at least get seven hours. Right? And my goodness, dude,

Chad: Huge difference.

Riley: human,

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: a like a different human.

Like [01:22:00] all

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: exercise was easier. You mentioned you gotta have some energy to be able to do

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: Uh, I, I spent a, you know, almost a year, a year and a half almost, of really not wanting to grapple much. Like, and I love Jiujitsu, but I'd get on the mats, I'd get a

Chad: A couple rounds.

Riley: I was kind of, I'd lose interest 'cause it just wasn't fun.

Chad: Yeah. Yeah,

Riley: But now dude, I'll do 5, 6, 8, 10 rounds and I'm, I'm like, ah, this is just a good, good time.

Chad: yeah,

Riley: My recovery's better. Like, life is different with it.

Chad: yeah. It makes a huge, huge difference. Yeah. Yeah.

Riley: Um, so you wrote this book, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hold it up here and plug your book. 'cause there it is.

Chad: Awesome.

Riley: Storing brain health. Right. I, I've started reading it, and this is where most of these questions came in because I, I, I'm not all the way through. Um, I'm really, that told you probably an eighth of the way through the

Chad: Yeah,

Riley: it's prompted a bunch of questions here, you know, and that's where all this is coming from.

Chad: sure.

Riley: It's a fascinating read, dude, I, I didn't know anything about your personal story, and you kind of, you go through that [01:23:00] in the intro of the book and then you

Chad: Start discussing the same.

Riley: that, that we've been discussing here so

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: today. Um,

Chad: One of the things

Riley: the,

Chad: in the book that I don't even remember what it was that got me question.

Riley: when we feel like we're doing things that are productive Okay. Or, um, like we're excelling or succeeding, how do those, those feelings of success and failure work into the brain health arena?

Chad: Oh boy, that's a, yeah, that's a great question. Um, you know, when we talk about like the, the, the psychological aspects of, of brain health, that's its own obviously clear window and domain. Um, uh, the, the thing that I would say is the, one of the more common conversations that I [01:24:00] have with patients is. I'll pose the, and I, and, and sometimes they think that this is like a loaded question.

It's not meant to be a loaded question at all. It's a very straightforward question. Uh, I pose the question then what are feelings, right? And they're like, well, how, how do you describe what feelings are? Simple question. I'll pose that to you, and I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but there's a really simple answer to what feelings are.

What, what would you say feelings are.

Riley: Now having never thought about it in that light, um.

Chad: Feelings are our perception of what's going on.

Riley: around us. Right. It's just, just our perception of things is how I would define

Chad: And while that is true, the thing I would simply say cut through the noise is, is your perception reality? Yes it is. Right? So feelings really at the end of the day are physiology. So feelings are not imaginary. That's the point. The punchline is if you feel a certain way, right? And, and I'll, and I'll prove that right now, right?

Let's say that right? All of a sudden, right now I said something on your podcast to offend [01:25:00] you, something deeply offending about your wife or your kids, and you were legitimately angry with me, right? Describe your, what would be happening with your muscles relaxed or tense.

Riley: Yeah,

dude.

Chad: So what happens with the

Riley: Some of it would be, yeah, for sure.

Tense

Chad: what, what happens with blood pressure?

Does it lower or elevate?

Riley: for sure is gonna go

Chad: Yeah. Right.

Riley: Yeah. That

Chad: what yet? Yeah, exactly. So, so you're gonna, your body's gonna release catecholamines, uh, your heart rate's gonna go up, right? And so, so the, the, the thing I would simply say is this, to point into, to, to kind of answer your question in kind of a roundabout way. How we feel influences our physiology and our physiology influences how we feel.

It's this kind of loop, right? And so, um, and, and, and, and the thing too is, and this goes back to, uh, that book, James Clear, uh, wrote, uh, atomic Habits [01:26:00] fantastic book. One of the things he talks about is one of the, one of the ways in which we can influence to a large degree how we feel. And you, you hinted at this already, is perception, right?

Is this, he, he talks about habits and this idea of identity. He says, identity shapes, beliefs, beliefs, shape, identity. And it's this infinite loop, right? And, and, and not only that, but identity influences, uh, it's, it's this, it's this domino effect, right? Is. What you largely believe about yourself and or perceive about yourself is gonna influence your beliefs.

Your beliefs are gonna largely dictate and determine your behaviors, right? Behaviors are gonna then influence the outcome, you know, and then outcome reinforces one way or another for positive or, or neg or or negative, that, that, that kind of cycle or that loop, right? And so, um. To, to a large degree. I would say it, it starts with a, a sense of [01:27:00] identity, um, in terms of, you know, if you're, if you're perceiving that you're this, we, we see this a lot with people who get chronically ill chronically who are sick or chronically dealing with some sort of a health issue.

They, they have to break free of that identity of being a chronically sick person, a chronically ill person. 'cause that will have a massive stranglehold on their outcomes to a large degree. Um, there's another great book that, that I share with patients a lot of times called the Expectation Effect. One of the stories from that book that is just so profound is a gentleman who was, uh, super depressed, he enrolled in this, uh, new antidepressant medication study.

And one, and this is a true story, you can read about it in the book Expectation Effect. Um. This gentleman was super depressed this one day, and he decided, you know what, I've got this bottle of pills. I'm just gonna end it today. And so he just downed his whole bottle of pills that he was, the medication that he was being studied on.

And [01:28:00] all of a sudden, you know, a few minutes later he realized, what have I done? Oh, no, I don't, I I, I do wanna live. And so he calls 9 1 1 and he's like, I just down a freaking bottle of pills. I wanna live. Paramedics get there. By the time they get there and they get him in, he's coding, he's like, heart stopped and everything.

Take him to the hospital. They're trying to get to the bottom of like, okay, well what happened? What medication did he take? They start doing some research. Come to find out, long story short, spoiler alert, sugar pills. He was on the placebo. And, and yet he legitimately coded. He legitimately had, you know, his heart stopped, he legitimately was dying even from taking his placebo medications.

And so the, the, the punchline is most people are, are familiar with the placebo effect. Most people haven't, many people haven't heard of the no SIBO effect. It's the, it's the ugly flip side, other side of the coin of the placebo effect. And so, um, perception influences, reality. Beliefs, you [01:29:00] know. Will, will shape to a large degree.

And so to answer kind of your question, and I don't know if I'm answering it well or not, but, but that's where I go when we talk about this idea of like feeling motivated or feeling a certain way, I think a lot of those feelings are gonna be influenced by our core identity and sense of self. Uh, and then I think what we as human beings want to do, and I'm not a psychologist, so I'm not trying to claim psychologists will probably have nomenclature and names and theories for all the different things, but this is just what I've seen working with people over the years and helping people with various health issues.

Um, we, we, we have an identity and then what we will typically do is try and use various behaviors to try and reinforce or shape that identity to kind of stay in conformity. Right.

Riley: we're, we're, I guess that that is a little different than the mental health we've been talking, or the brain health you've been talking about.

Chad: Right.

Riley: Um, you're, you're, you're now talking, talking more psychology than you are brain [01:30:00] health,

Chad: Yes,

Riley: that overlap is what we're kind of getting to.

Chad: that's exactly right.

Riley: overlap it

Chad: very much so. And we, we have these kinds of conversations. In fact, I was just having a conversation with a patient today. We see a lot of people who have overlapping anxiety depression issues, which not surprising, right? So a lot of that is we have to have some of these kind of headspace question or conversations with them to help them kind of reframe.

And I'm super for if you've got a good counselor that you work with. Work with a mental health counselor help, they'll help in that regard too, with a lot of that, a, a lot of that area and arena. And I don't claim that our program is like the program for mental health issues. That's, I mean, we, we do help people who struggle with depression and anxiety.

Um, 'cause again, not surprisingly, how often do you think depression accompanies neurodegenerative changes and or post-concussive syndrome? It's like you're always gonna get some degree of Yeah. Right. Depression, anxiety, all those things. You know, when you're dealing with chronic health issues of any type, it's, [01:31:00] it's no wonder, you know, so, so we see that a lot too.

Riley: Chad,

Chad: what would you, what would you say would be kind of the big thing that people look

Riley: for you?

Chad: You mentioned this.

Riley: test, it was Montreal something

test you had and it gave the score.

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: what should be the big things people should look for their friends or family or themselves with a, you know, regard to brain health?

Chad: Uh, great question.

Riley: brain

Chad: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I would say, you know, it's one of those things, it's really simple. You don't need to overcomplicate it. Um, if you're asking questions, that's probably the sign, right? This seems, you know, we, we get people who, who it's, uh, it's, um, uh, I, I'm gonna bring up a religious thing real quick and tie it back to it, right?

Because it's, it's, it may not, uh, it may not fit at first, but I think it [01:32:00] will fit the analogy. 'cause we hear this in our, in, in my church. I'm, I'm a person of faith. And, and maybe you've had this dilemma too. Sometimes people, they'll, they'll have a certain feeling or a thought that'll occur to them, and they'll want to know, was this just my own thought or is this something God wants me to know?

Is, is God speaking to me now or is this just a thought on my own? And I've heard. Several leaders in our church who have said, what difference does it make in the sense of like, if it's, is, is it a good prompting? Is it a good thought that came to your head? Like, you know, Riley's been struggling with pneumonia for a while now.

Um, maybe I should bring him some soup. He's been struggling for a little bit, or maybe I should go mow his lawn and he's been pretty tired. Do you think God wants me to do that or do you think I, you know, I should do that? Is that my thoughts? Or either way, whether it's God prompting you to do it or you prompting you, is it a good thing?

Is it gonna help somebody then Yeah, you should probably do it. Similarly, in a similar vein, if you're asking the question of, hi, I wonder if, if [01:33:00] mom, if, if this is some signs of, of early cognitive decline, I wonder, huh? You, I don't think you need a doctor to tell you if it con, if it's concerning to you, if it seems off.

It's one of those things where the worst, the worst thing that can happen in that scenario is you bring them in, they do an evaluation, and you find. That. And, and I'm not talking MI CT because we see these people all the time where they go to the doctors and everything looks fine. What you need is some sort of a functional performance evaluation, like a Montreal cognitive assessment, like A-Q-E-E-G, like a balance assessment.

You know, take them through, uh, MRI, they'll be largely disappointed if they go the conventional route. I wonder if my mom's dealing with a cognitive issue, they take them in and they do an MRI. No, everything looks fine. There's no lesions.

Riley: It's the,

Chad: CC,

Riley: test for that.

Chad: that's exactly right. That's, that's the point. Right. And so if you're feeling, if a family member, a loved one is, is even remotely concerned or wondering, [01:34:00] um, that there's your answer, yeah, get 'em in.

Do an evaluation, have them do the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, even a mini, mini mental status examination or something simple like that can kind of start the conversation. Um, that's, that's my thought.

Riley: Let's, uh,

Chad: Let's switch gears.

Riley: We're an hour and a half in, and I wanna, I wanna start to bring this plane down a little

bit.

Chad: yeah, yeah.

Riley: Um, can we switch to some lighter

Chad: Questions light. Light me up with the light questions.

Riley: Light questions? All right, man. Yeah. This is called the Go Earn

Chad: Yeah. This is called the,

Riley: And, uh, when you heard that term, go earn your salt, what comes to mind?

Chad: um, boy, that's a great question. Um, we, we had had that conversation about salt and soldiers back in the day. You know, um, you know, I, I think, um, my mind immediately goes towards that kind of 1% better. Every [01:35:00] day we hear, uh, Ricky Lde, he's always posting on Instagram, go get 1% better every day. I think earn your salt means at the end of the day.

Um, do you feel good about what you've done that day? Did you feel like you accomplished something good? Um, have you done some good in the world? Um, is the world a better place because of your being in it today? You know, that sort of thing. I think that's, that's where my mind goes when I hear that

Riley: A beautiful answer, man.

Chad: one of the best ones. Yeah.

Riley: it.

Chad: man.

Riley: Uh, Chad, outside of the, your business, what is your favorite pastime?

Chad: Uh, I want to do more camping. I love being outdoors. I, I love spending time with my family. Um, I love, uh, you, you said one favorite, but I'm gonna give you a bunch of favorites, if that's cool. Um,

Riley: Go for it.

Chad: my favorite thing that I've been doing as of late, and I get to do it tomorrow, is what I call Perfect Saturday, where, um, I get to go to the gym early in the morning.[01:36:00]

Um, and, uh, I. I put on whatever long show that I wanna watch on Netflix or whatever, and I go run on the treadmill and I just go nice and slow for, you know, typically four miles or whatever, five miles. Not because I'm an amazing runner, I'm not, I'm a horrible runner. I'm trying to increase my vo O2 max slowly over time.

It's a slow, slow process.

Riley: can run outside? Did you know that's a thing?

Chad: I do, but I can't watch the show that I wanna watch. Like that's my lazy, uh, indulgence.

Riley: man. Okay.

Chad: But, I, I do, I do need to run outside more. So, so, but, but then, um, I'll, I'll typically sauna and then I'll take a cold shower and then I'll be feeling amazing for the day. And then I'll typically, um, if I can get to my clinic and do hyperbaric oxygen therapy and, um, yeah, feel super productive and just feel good.

That's my, and then spend time with the family the rest of the day. That's, that's what I call perfect Saturday. So,

Riley: Saturday. I

Chad: yeah. So.

Riley: I like it. Yeah, man. You talk about running four miles on a treadmill, that would give [01:37:00] me, that would gimme some mental health issues right there.

Chad: Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I get it. I, it's, it's the watching.

Riley: miles, but I wanna do it in the foothills, man.

Chad: No, yeah. I, I like that too. Yeah. Now that weather's getting better. I do need to get more outside for sure.

Riley: sure. For

sure. Um, what is your favorite band?

Chad: uh, Jimmy Eat World, um,

Riley: Cow. Never even heard of it.

Chad: FA favorite song is 23 by Jimmy Eat World. I can say that quickly. Yeah. Jim Eat World, amazing band. They've been around since the nineties. They're like one of the og like emo rock bands. They're, they're awesome. Love Jim. Eat World.

Riley: I'm gonna have to check it out.

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: to check it out. is, uh, what's something quirky about you that people don't know?

Chad: I, uh, quirky about me. Um, I hold a Guinness Book of World Records record. I I'm a Guinness book of record record holder, and I can show you my certificate.

Riley: Shoot.

Chad: I'll show you. Hang tight.

Riley: Yeah, show it. Bring it.[01:38:00]

Chad: I was, I was,

Riley: like held a blue belt longer than anyone else? Is that what it is?

Chad: oh, you doc. You're throwing me under the bus there, buddy. That's bad. That's, that's a low blow. Uh, I was a participant in the world's largest bubble soccer game, held on the Boise State, um, football field back in 2000, uh, 17, September 15th, 2017. Uh, my buddy Russell Brunson, you know, you, you know Russell, uh, ClickFunnels.

Riley: him. Yeah, I know of him.

Chad: Yeah. So, so he, uh, he invited me to come and

Riley: the foreword in

Chad: join.

Riley: he?

Chad: He did? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah. Um,

Riley: Oh yes. It says right there on top. Look at

Chad: yeah. Forward by Russell Brunson. Yeah. Um, so he, uh, he invited me to be a participant and I got a Guinness. Record. I am a Guinness record record holder. So that's, there you go. There's something quirky about me. So[01:39:00]

Riley: you. you the first record

Chad: Guinness Record Holder. I wish the record was a little bit more. Yeah, I wish the record was a little bit more impressive, but it's still fun to say that, uh, that I hold a Guinness record.

Riley: you see that?

Chad: The Cessna.

Riley: He ate an airplane. Dude, he, one little bite at a time and yeah, you could, you could just eat a bigger airplane.

Chad: Wow. That is, I think the craziest thing I've heard in a long time.

Riley: yeah, I mean, if you wanna set a cool record,

Chad: I

Riley: I

Chad: yeah,

Riley: but,

Chad: hit a Cessna Wowzers.

Riley: that's awesome, man. Um, your favorite food,

Chad: Oh, favorite food, man. I, I, I could do just about any type of Asian food. I love good Thai food. I love good Vietnamese food. I will say, quick shout out for locals. I went to that, uh, Kaci Sicilian, if I'm pronouncing it right, the CACI down there on State Street. They had the best lasagna the other night. Uh, I [01:40:00] went there first time best lasagna, so, so good.

Um, but in, in gen in general, love, good Asian food, Vietnamese and Thai food. Phenomenal.

Riley: That's, um, where's the best place to get Thai food here in Boise or the Boise area?

Chad: Yeah. Uh, uh, uh, Thai Basil, hands down, uh, on the corner of, corner of Fairview and Eagle. Um, they have a sister company. Same one, uh, pad, Thai house. Both, uh, phenomenal. Just excellent Thai food. Yeah.

Riley: They, uh, I would concur. Those are both very good.

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: Yeah. Uh, Chad, what, what was the, the scariest moment of your life?

Chad: Oh gosh. Um, scariest moment of my life was when I almost died. I almost, uh, drowned. I was, uh, in chiropractic college. Long story short, stupid dare I swam in this bay in my clothes, um, for 30 bucks. I thought 30 [01:41:00] bucks was worth it because it would've bought me dinner 'cause I was a poor college student. And, uh, I almost drowned.

It was scary. It was really, really horrific and almost died.

Riley: Was it

Riptide situation? What was going on?

Chad: No, it was like, I suck at swimming. It was, uh, it was, it was, I, I overestimated my swimming capabilities and I got too far out and just, man, I, it was just frightening. I, uh, I had this irrational thought that occurred to me, I guess not totally irrational that, that there were sharks in the bay.

And I was like, there's sharks in the ocean. Bays connect to oceans. This is, sharks come into bays all the time. There's sharks in here. And so I started panicking and freaking out, and that just burned me out. And then I was, uh, treading water for my life. And then, yeah, I was, I started sinking and it was like miraculously this, uh, father and son, we were on a kayak and I didn't even see them.

And they were right next to me and they pulled me out and it was crazy, crazy experience. That [01:42:00] was probably the scariest.

Riley: wild, man. 'cause that's, that's back to what we were talking about earlier, right? With the, uh, the feelings of success or failure and how they in interact with brain health

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: and that, uh, you know, at that, at that moment, it wasn't exactly irrational that you were thinking there were sharks in there.

'cause there very possibly could have

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: but there was no indication there was and there

was no imminent threat,

Chad: right.

Riley: Except in your head

Chad: Yeah. Yeah. And it completely changed my physiology. Completely changed my physiology. Yeah. Yeah. It's

Riley: So you,

Chad: crazy.

Riley: uh, how did you word it? You said feelings are. Based on reality because they affect our physiology, they're only based on it. They don't actually dictate what is real. Right.

Chad: Totally. Yeah, that's exactly right.

Riley: Yeah. That's a, that's an interesting tie together there.

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: what's the, the best advice you've ever received?

Chad: Oh man.

Riley: Hmm.

Chad: Ian, you know, that's such a good question. I'm sure there are multiple answers. I, [01:43:00] I love that stoic saying this too, shall pass. I think that has served me very well over the past few years. I've been through some really difficult challenges and I find that the best way through any sort of difficult situation is, and good situations too, to stay grounded, to stay present, to know that things pass good or bad.

And it just, it's, I think it's such a beautiful way to think and to live, um, in terms of advice is just to always remember like, moments are fleeting. Right? Be, be as present as you can. This too shall pass. Good or bad.

Riley: It's funny, man, 'cause I've mentioned that on this podcast before.

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: phrase, you know, I, I, I felt like that with, uh, going through that pneumonia was, was that way for me. It

Chad: yeah.

Riley: I, I started to wonder if it was a new normal, if maybe I'd done permanent damage to my lungs, if

Chad: Yeah.

Riley: back.

But it was like, it'll, it'll pass or it won't. And in that situation, I, you know, the, if I did damage, it's been [01:44:00] done and I gotta learn how to live with it. If not, we'll progress over time

Chad: Yep.

Riley: here's the thing that I can do to help that

possibly. But,

Chad: yep.

Riley: um, in turn, what would be some advice you would give out?

Chad: Um, I would say the advice that I tend to give practitioners, um, and entrepreneurs and just people who are trying to accomplish good and great things in their lives. The thing that I have learned in my life is that the margin of error is often far greater than people think it is. And so let that, uh, bolster that thought or feeling inside of you, of wanting to.

Take action on something. A good friend of mine, um, he had a saying that he always tried to live his life by, that I just love too. That kind of fits with this. As he says, anytime he's scared to make a decision, he would always pose the question [01:45:00] to himself, the rhetorical, if not me, who, if not now when. And I love that thought and that idea of just taking action because, um, nine times outta 10, the vast majority of the time, you know, when you go and look back on your life, as cliche as it might sound, you're not gonna look back on the, the, the adventurous decisions that you made.

You're gonna look back on the, the far more with regret of the things you didn't do versus the things you did do in terms of actions and risks that are taken.

Riley: That's true. so true, dude.

Chad: Good.

Riley: stuff. Uh, Chad, what is an item on your bucket list? Something you want to do before you cash it all in?

Chad: My wife and I are doing this next year, at least this is the tentative plan. We're gonna be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. We just saw this thing that you can do where you go to England and you can hire these companies that will go that it's basically a 100 mile hike [01:46:00] walk where you break it up into like chunks of like 14 miles a day.

You walk through like the hills of kind of the rural England, uh, it's like from like Oxford area, I think all the way down to like Bath, England. And every day you stop at a new, uh, like bed and breakfast or whatever. And then you have a company that will take all your luggage and take it to the next place for you.

And so you just, all you have to do is get your day pack and walk and uh, you get to enjoy time. And so I'm like, to me. There is nothing that I would want to do more with my wife than just be with her for the day and just every day, just the new adventure, see new areas, her and I get to talk and hang out, and we're like, that is what we're gonna do.

So that's the plan for our 25th wedding anniversary. Looks fun,

Riley: That's really cool. I've never heard of that sort of a thing, but you know, Dan Goggins from our,

Chad: huh? Yeah.

Riley: our, uh, juujitsu school, right? He does a lot of that 200 mile, 300 mile hikes

and they camps with his family

Chad: yeah.

Riley: camp their way through that sort of a

Chad: Amazing.

Riley: that's amazing. [01:47:00] what, what is your favorite book of all time

Chad: Besides,

Riley: uh, restoring Brain Health by Dr.

Chad

Chad: I would say probably most profound effect for me book that I've read is Obstacle is The Way By Ryan Holiday.

Love that book.

Riley: An Obstacle is the Way

Chad: Yeah, the obstacle is the way one of the best books ever. It's, it's like, should be required reading for high school students. It's so good.

Riley: What, um, give us kind of a

Chad: Summary of it. Uh, very grounded in stoic philosophy and stoicism. The idea of people shifting their perception and perspective on trials and difficulties in life. And shifting the, the, the perception of these things as why did this happen to me? To, um, what can I learn from this experience? And it's in that shift that real growth occurs.

Like the, the, the, the reality of our existence is that trials are inevitable. Like. [01:48:00] But the suffering attached to those things or the perception of suffering is voluntary. You can choose to either suffer or learn through those things, and depending upon how you choose to perceive, you know, we talked about perception and feelings.

How we choose to perceive those things will determine to a large degree, the outcomes that we experience from those things. Uh, it goes kind of hand in hand with Viktor Frankl in his book, man, search For Meaning, right? You have two people going through the, literally the exact same experience, two completely different outcomes, and what determined the, the outcomes was the perception of the experience.

So,

Riley: That is interesting. Um, I interviewed a guy last week and that was the book he, he cited

Chad: man, search for me. Yeah, it's a great book.

Riley: Yep.

Chad: Great book.

Riley: Yeah.

Chad: So

Riley: a, that's a fascinating concept, man. And it's, it's something I think we all kind of inherently understand, but sometimes don't want to admit, especially if we're on the victim side of that.

Chad: Yeah, yeah,

Riley: It's,[01:49:00]

Chad: for sure.

Riley: um, what's the next challenge for you, man? Where, where, where are you going from here?

Chad: The goal for us is to grow brain restore centers, um, where right now we're 25 clinics strong across the country, and the goal is to get to a hundred clinics, uh, and continue on from there. But, but that's kind of the next big hurdle for me and my mind's eye, is we want to bring this to as many people as possible across the world and across the country.

And so the next big kind of, uh, benchmark for me that we're putting into is, is a hundred clinics. Then of course, my clinic here locally, helping more people here in our community as well. So,

Riley: It's, that's fantastic, dude.

Chad: um.

Riley: Chad, where can, where can you be found? What's your social media?

Chad: Um, if you go to, um, well, brain restore centers.com is our, is our main URL for our company. Uh, me personally, Dr. Chad Walner, uh, at Dr. Chad Walner on Instagram. Um, [01:50:00] um, trying to think what else. Yeah, Facebook, Chad Wener, Dr. Chad Warner. Um, yeah, pretty, pretty easy to be found.

Riley: Cool man. We'll stick all that in the, in the description. So if you need Dr. Chad's services, you can find it. dude, this was an honor to have you on, man. I, I

Chad: Thank you.

Riley: a little bit of a long time coming here and we try to align schedules up and that sort of a thing, but, uh, it's been a pleasure.

It's been very informative and I'm excited you came on.

Chad: Likewise, brother. Appreciate you.

Riley: Alright, man, as always Dr. Chad, go earn your salt, my friend.

[01:51:00]

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The Go Earn Your SALT Podcast Episode Transcript- Dr. Chad Woolner- Brain Restore Center