How to Reduce Stress and Boost Brain Health Naturally with Dr. Teralyn Sell

Host: [00:00:00] This is the fit mess conversations with world-class experts in the fields of mental, physical, and emotional health. And 

this episode, looking at blood sugar regulation in people with depression and anxiety and it's, it's, it's so easy. There's so many things we can do that are so easy to help people that we just don't.

Now, here are your hosts. 

Zach and Jeremy, 

Jeremy: [00:00:26] I can hear a lot about in the self-development world is biohacking, but what is it really? Sometimes it's as easy as just changing part of your routine, just to see how it makes you feel this week, we learn and share some incredibly simple tips that may make a big difference in the way you feel and function.

Our guest is Dr. Terrillon cell. She is a psychotherapist and a brain health expert. All right. Well, I'm excited to share this interview this week, Zach, because we talk all the time about essentially biohacking. And that's a term that I've never liked because I feel like it, it complicates the concept of basically just taking care of your trying things and seeing what works I get, why it's popular.

I get why it works. But the thing I'm excited about with this interview is that there are some really simple things you can do to improve your mental health, your brain health and your physical health. And you don't have to have a lot of crazy restrictions and a lot of crazy rules. I think I've 

Zach: [00:01:21] said this before, but I, you know, I don't like the word biohacking either, mostly because hacking in the traditional sense of it is making something do it's something that shouldn't do right.

Whereas what we're doing is, is encouraging the body to keep doing what it's supposed to do with, with some help. So I don't, I don't like that word either, but it's, you know, it's what all the cool kids are saying. So I guess we gotta 

Jeremy: [00:01:45] use it. Uh, you know, when you hear it, you know exactly what it means, and it's what we encourage here.

We encourage you every week to try something, try something new, try something different. And pay attention to what it does to your health, whether that's, what, if you're working on your mental health, your physical health, whatever it is. And there are some nuggets in this interview that you're about to hear that are shocking, are going to terrify you to your core.

They did, for me, it terrified me as I immediately implemented them. And. Overnight, that's our huge differences. So I can't wait to share those with you. I really liked 

Zach: [00:02:22] about this. This interview was a tip that she was giving us something that I naturally fell into. And we'll hear about that in a minute, but it was so heartening to hear something I'm actually doing something that 

Jeremy: [00:02:33] she recommends, just say, yeah, that, that is interesting.

And even since last week, I feel like this conversation is a natural spinoff from the last conversation that we had. But I have been sort of looking at what am I doing every day to the things that I'm doing. We talked last week about all of the things that have stuck with me over the many years that I've been on this path and the many things that have ended up in the garbage.

And so I've been taking a closer look every day at what I'm doing really out of habit at this point, without. A lot of intention and today's one of them, just one of the guests that we had on the show several weeks ago was, uh, Brooke Albert with daily habits CBD. I've been having that in my coffee almost every day.

And I I've had one near encounter with a depressive episode, which is far fewer than I used to before implementing a lot of these changes. But the one run in that I did almost have. I used another tool from our playbook here. From another interview, we did, I went and jumped into cold lake for half an hour and that cold within a minute, I felt my body relax.

I felt a lot of the stuff in my head, sort of unravel. I came back to my house, uh, from the lake just at peace and relaxed. And so it's. You know, again, we preach, pay attention to how your body responds to the things you try. And the more I've done that really just even since the last interview that we did last week, I've noticed that those tools and those tricks are helping me in ways that I sort of forget because it's become habit.

Yeah. Yeah. You don't always 

Zach: [00:04:05] notice right away that something has made a difference. You don't know it. It's not earth shattering. And sometimes it takes a little while to get used to, but for me, Boy, I really, I really pay attention and find out when I stopped doing whatever it is. Right. That's when I really know.

That, that it was working. It was having an impact. It was keeping me stable. And in my case I stopped three or four things at the same time. Which one was it? Which one do I start again? Oh, I guess I'll just have to start all three 

Jeremy: [00:04:36] of them. It's a house of cards for me. If I, if I stop any one of them, the rest of them collapse.

And then it's. You know, back to square one and time to rebuild the house of cards. So, all right. Well, I don't want to, 

Zach: [00:04:46] I don't want to keep us talking any longer. I want to get into the interview 

Jeremy: [00:04:49] because it was really, really good. Our guests, there's Dr. Terrell and CEL. She is a psychologist with an emphasis on brain health, and she's also the author of kickoff, your damn heels, how to quit anxiety and live a bad-ass life, fascinating conversation with so many very actionable steps that we're about to share with you.

And it began with what set her on a path to wanting to help others. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:05:10] You know, I, I wished that I had like the world's craziest story or the best story about how I became a therapist. Um, but honest to God, I've been a business owner my entire life, and I was a daycare owner for my kids, and I knew that my kids.

We're going to be, you know, graduating out of the daycare so that we had owned, we had three of them and I thought, what's my next move? What am I, what am I going to do? And I really enjoyed still helping people, wanting to feel part of, you know, community and making things better. And. I was like, I'm going to become a therapist, you know?

And it, it was, it was the weirdest thing. And it was, I, this is probably my third career in my life. Like I constantly morph my, so this is it though. This is like, this is me floating into retirement now. But, um, the morphing into. You know, from psychology, like standard psychology to brain health, that was a more profound move for me than just becoming a therapist.

Because you know, when you're a young therapist, it's all about the books and it's all about that. And then all of a sudden you have these experiences and you're like, wait a minute. Some things aren't just like standard operating procedure. Like why are people feeling worse and worse? You know? But they're on medication.

They're seeing therapists, like why? So I really started digging into the why and the what now. And that was about six years ago. And that was a time of my life that I was struggling with my own anxiety. That's when my stuff came in, I was like, okay. If I'm struggling with anxiety type a driven person, then how many other women are.

And they were showing up on my couch the same way. And I was like, all right, I got to do something about it. So that's when I started studying, you know, neuro-transmitters and brain and nutrition and how these other things play a big role and decided as a traditional therapist, I was really missing the mark 

Jeremy: [00:07:06] as a traditional therapist.

How did you make the connection that it was a brain health thing and not more of a. Societal impact thing. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:07:15] Well, it's both. I mean, it's not, it's not just one thing. It's the constellation of things, but this is where my story gets weird. So I worked in a prison for awhile, um, as a new therapist because you know, all therapists needs some licensure hours and that was the place that offered it up to me.

And I was like, all right, I'll do it best experience in my life. Most extreme experience of my life. You know, you come into private practice and people are like, oh, I'm probably going to be the hardest client you've ever talked to him. I have no idea. You have none. None, no, none. But I distinctly remember, um, I was, my position was psychological associates and I distinctly remember being a psych associate and, um, I was doing a lot of research at that time.

I was in my dissertation process and all these things. And so I had tons of research at my fingertips and I saw a research article about omega-3 fatty acids and aggression in inmates. And I thought I have stumbled upon something here because we're trying to figure out why a particular inmate was always fighting and things like that.

And to be honest, inmates don't have a whole lot of options when it comes to food. Like for extra protein, they would order peanut butter, you know, like that's how they got their extra protein sources. It's really kind of dismal if you asked me. But anyway, so I came across this research article that. Said that they did a study and omega-3 fatty acids actually reduced the amount of times inmates went into segregation for fighting.

And I was like, this is fascinating. So, you know, as a new therapist, I printed out and I take it to a treatment planning meeting and I was met with the worst resistance of my life. And I was like, okay, I'll just, I'll just put this back in the folder and I'll just go back, you know? And it's to this day, I remember that because I'm like, yeah, you guys missed out.

Like you, there are so medication focused, you know, and I think because nutrition was something that they. You couldn't really change that, you know, including more fish and things like that in a diet or even prescribing omega-3, it's just wasn't going to happen. So I think it wasn't for lack of maybe not wanting, but I think resources were so slim that they couldn't follow through with something like that.

But that was my first, you know, silly little research article. But from that point, I just kept going forward and looking at blood sugar regulation in people with depression and anxiety. And it's, it's, it's so easy. There's so many things we can do that are so easy to help people that we just don't. And so many therapists don't even talk about food because there's such a, you know, well, you're not a dietician.

You're not this. You're not that you don't have to be a dietician to talk about, you know, sugar. Or blood sugar or caffeine, you know, things like that. So 

Jeremy: [00:10:05] can we 

Zach: [00:10:05] dive in a little bit more? I have a lot of experience trying medications to manage anxiety and depression over the years, and I've never felt as good as I do feel when I'm.

Eating the things that I know are good for me. And I'm exercising regularly. I mean, who knew eating right and exercising regularly is kind of the answer. So tell me more about that. Like what kinds of foods should we be eating? What kind of food should we be avoiding? And, and how do we tailor that to our individual selves?

Say more about all of them. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:10:38] So what I know is this, like when I bring up food with mental health, The, the deep amount of struggle that people have. They're like, yeah, right now you're expecting me to go out and change everything about how I eat. You know, when I feel like garbage anyway, I have no motivation to exercise.

They have no motivation to eat better. So my philosophy is this like start very small, right? So start small. One of the first things to do, like if you have that depressive energy, especially in the morning time, things like that is delay caffeine. I saved delay because I'll get resistance on people wanting to eliminate cats.

Jeremy: [00:11:20] You just talk me to my core, 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:11:24] somebody I'm on Tik TOK too. And I get funny people commenting and I just did a video about delaying caffeine and they're like, Ha ha what are you smoking? You know, nothing but really delaying caffeine might help. 

Jeremy: [00:11:38] Well, I can, 

Zach: [00:11:38] I can actually speak to that. So I have been for the last three years, waking up and going right to the coffee pot.

And over the last two months I've been doing early morning CrossFit and yoga instead. And. Rather than, you know, drinking coffee, which has a whole bunch of effects on my body that I don't want to come out when I'm doing yoga and CrossFit. Right. I've been skipping the coffee, doing the workout and then drinking the coffee afterwards.

And I actually am just now putting it together that since I've been doing that, I feel so much better in the morning. 

Jeremy: [00:12:14] Yeah. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:12:15] So I mean, coffee has this way of dampening. Our adrenals and our adrenals are what gives us energy. And your cortisol is supposed to be the highest when you wake up. But if you're constantly throwing stimulants, caffeine, things like that on them, they don't wake up.

So when you wake up in the morning, that's the first thing you do is like slamming coffee. You know, you are falsely providing yourself energy. You know, you're not allowing your body to physiological physiologically, do the job for you. You know, so that would be one thing. And I tell people this like replace it with you.

Don't have to do high intensity cardio or whatever, but replace it with three minutes of jumping jacks. Instead within the first 10 minutes of waking up, you're going to get that energy. Or if you can't do jumping jacks, squats, marching around the house, waving your arms in the air. I don't care what you do.

Just do it for a couple of minutes. Um, because if I ask somebody to go full on into a, you know, big. Physical program or go to the gym or make these huge changes. Nobody's going to do it because they're in the state of, you know, and complete stress right now, too. 

Jeremy: [00:13:23] So not to put too much of a, of an emphasis on this, because again, I'm terrified by the notion of delaying my coffee.

Am I just delaying until after those jumping jacks or do I have to wait until like noon? 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:13:33] I mean, the object is two hours, two hours. That's like the goal, but I, you know, I'm like start with 15 minutes, like just do something different than you're doing right now. Right. And if you can't hit the two hour mark, so be it.

If you only hit the hour, hour and a half mark, you're doing great. You know, to two hours would be gold standard. Well, nothing would be gold standard, but I love coffee too. So it's kind of a treat, right? Yeah. I don't want to eliminate everything that I enjoy either, you know, but started doing that and just pulling it back by increments of 15 and see how you feel.

Because if you go into it and you pull it all out for two hours, you're going to feel like garbage you're. You're going to feel. Fatigued and headachy and things like that. And you'd be like, she's not, I'm not getting rid of my coffee, you know? 

Jeremy: [00:14:18] Yeah. The other thing we hear a lot from various diet books and, and dieticians and all this is, there's always a list of here's the 37 vegetables.

You should be eating in the 45 fruits and these meats. And, and then, you know, if you're like me, you don't know how to cook anything without a very 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:14:32] strict guy. Oh yeah. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. So 

Jeremy: [00:14:34] what is just something, you know, I've been banging my head against the wall. I don't know how to eat.

Right. I don't know how to get things on track. What, what are like three things I can do today to set me up to keep going on, improving my diet. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:14:47] Okay. So the first one is super easy. It's just protein. So improving your protein intake throughout the day, you'd be surprised at how little protein people eat.

Number one, protein fuels your brain chemistry. So protein fuels your serotonin, your dopamine, your adrenaline system, all that, that is a basic fuel on the top of the, the neuro-transmitter chain. So that'll do that. Number two, it'll stabilize your blood sugar. Now if blood sugar is unstable, that's a stress response.

We don't need any more stress responses in our bodies. You know? And number two, like, you know, when you're in low blood sugar, you feel kind of right. You feel kind of shitty. And if you're in high blood sugar, you might feel kind of jittery. So a lot of people with anxiety actually when, especially anxiety, when I stabilize blood sugar, like.

Eat protein, every two to three hours, just a little something. It doesn't mean you have to eat an entire chicken. You know, just a little something will do the trick to stabilize it. They're like my, my anxiety is so reduced. I'm like right now we can get to the real anxiety. You know, now we're just not having physiological responses.

We are now we can uncover why you have anxiety in the first place. 

Jeremy: [00:15:56] And what is the general rule for the amount of protein? I've always heard that so much per body. No 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:16:01] rules, no rules, no rules. Because most people that's gold standard. Again, most people are just like improve it a little bit. Every two to three hours, take in a little bit of protein.

That is it. Interesting. I hate rules like that because they feel like weird diets and you know, all, everyone wants to box things in like that. And I'm like, no, I'm just asking you to do a little bit different. That's it. And you're going to find benefit from just doing a little bit different. Okay. Without, without rules and weight and blah measures and all that stuff.

Sure. Just a little different. 

Zach: [00:16:37] That makes sense. I. Consistently, you know, get frustrated and say, okay, tomorrow I'm going to start tracking all my macro shows. I'm going to do this. I'm an E specific this, and then my wife is like, why don't you just stop eating ice cream every night? 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:16:53] Well, okay. I want to say this for one second too, because you hit on something that's pretty major when it comes to sleep.

If you eat sugary foods, carb loaded foods before bed, your sleep is going to be awful. Yeah. You will wake up at two o'clock in the morning because eventually your blood sugar is going to spike and fall, and now adrenaline is going to kick in. And it doesn't matter if it's one o'clock or two o'clock in the morning, all of that, because of that bowl of ice cream before bed, you know, or glass of alcohol or, you know, alcohol is 

Jeremy: [00:17:24] terrible before.

Yeah. Yeah. Zach and I have both been off the booze for a few years. Um, we're also big fans of fasting we between 12 and 16 hours. Where do you come down on fasting? 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:17:36] Um, good for some not good for all. Okay. That's where I come. I mean, I'm, I'm middle line here. I mean, if you're coming into my office, you have to understand the people that come in are struggling pretty good.

So they're already not eating and fasting. Right. So, but the harder part about all of these diets. We're talking about fasting and things like that. We have such a strong diet culture, weight loss culture, that if I tell you to eat more protein, especially with women, what's the first thing they're going to say.

Will I gain weight? Yeah. And I'm like, we've traded off mental health for weight loss all the time. And I'm like, you probably will not, it'll be fine. Let's just stabilize you and see where you're at when we're done. Like give it a try, you know, put down the bowl of ice cream before bed. See if it helps you sleep.

Yeah. You know, protein, every two, three hours, the little bits isn't going to cause weight gain now big, big bits might, you know? 

Jeremy: [00:18:31] Right. 

Zach: [00:18:32] So what you're saying is I can eat ice cream in the morning 

Jeremy: [00:18:35] instead, and that's okay. If you 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:18:37] throw in a little bit of protein to help stabilize that or a little fiber, then maybe you're good.

Yeah. Listen, I, you know, we have to live life too. And food is out there as, as a point of pleasure. So we can't just eliminate pleasure from our life for something else. Like, you know, so if you like that ice cream and I love ice cream, just eat it at the time. That's not going to interfere with your life.

We'll say that. 

Zach: [00:19:05] All right. So what, uh, what else, you know, from a food perspective, I just, I love hearing this perspective. I think a lot of people that we talk to it's like Jeremy said, it's eat this. Eat these foods, do these things explicitly and you'll be better, but your approach is very, very different.

So what, what are some of the other improvements or slight changes people can make? 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:19:29] So we talked about caffeine. We've talked a little bit about protein, um, you know, one easy thing. And I also said I hate to cook. Like I am not cook hated. Um, but leafy greens, um, I love leafy greens. They're they're chock full of nutrients.

Um, they're very good for you. And so literally I've been trying to do more with leafy greens and I go to w w. Are grocery stores called festival foods. Like the big one that's got the best produce in it. You know, I will literally look at all the leafy greens and just be like, I have no idea what bok choy is, but I'm going to go ahead and grab some of that and saute it in a pan and see what happens, you know?

And it's actually pretty good. So, or you can throw it in the blender. You can make smoothie. It's, it's a pretty versatile. I think not just Bach Troy, but leafy greens in general. So find some leafy green that you like and just start experimenting with how to use it and look beyond like a salad with dressing.

Cause that's boring. You know, nobody wants to keep eating cold salads with dressing, you know, don't be afraid to grab leafy greens and just. Eat them figure out what to do with them. Search the internet for an easy recipe. But leafy greens are probably one of the easiest vegetables to throw into your diet, in my opinion.

Jeremy: [00:20:47] Yeah. What are the things that, uh, that I've been wrestling with actually the last few days, and it's trying to box in, I keep hearing all these people drinking a gallon of water a day. And so I've been trying to drink a gallon of water. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I've been filling this thing up four times a day, counting it, and then I'm in the bathroom.

Every six seconds. Does that stabilize, like if somebody does decide water's the missing ingredient because so many of us are dehydrated. Cause all we do is drink coffee all day. Is there, is there an amount, is it just more will our body adapt as we increased water? That sort of thing. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:21:25] Well, again, look at what you're already doing, or look at what you're not doing.

I think we don't know how dehydrated, how dehydrated we are until we know how dehydrated we are. So if I start drinking water more water than usual, I'll feel drier. If I don't have that same amount. Do you know what I mean? Like once you start drinking, but if you're not a water drinker, you don't notice.

The dehydration is much, you know, until you start hydrating yourself and then, then you're not, um, what is the rule of thumb? Um, take your body, weight and half. And that's how many ounces that you need to drink is that the, and I believe it's two, two more additional cups for every cup of caffeine. You have, I think that's the rule of thumb, but again, I think the rule of thumb is look at what you're doing now.

And improve on it, you know, a cup of day and just keep going up from there. Yeah. Again, if you're, I'm a huge water drinker. Anyway, I bought this because I thought it was fun. It's like the most ridiculous, but I'm in like this weird. So it has like. Time's on the side. I shouldn't have, I'm in a weird competition with my water bottle daily.

Like I have to beat the water bottle, but you know, whatever works. So I get it in most days I do get it in, but you know, by 7:00 PM I'm like almost finished. Yeah. Right. 9:00 PM. I'm like, if I drink water till 9:00 PM, I'm going to be up all night in the bathroom. So you have to kind of like. Turn that off when it's right for you.

But yeah, I'm more about like this, this sounds cliche, but really intuitively tuning in. You know, knowing what you need as a person, what makes you feel good? I think most people intuitively know that when you eat a lot of sugars or, um, processed foods that you don't feel as good as you do when you eat better food, I think most people know that, but pulling yourself out of that, Is the difficult part because psychologically, you know, we have, you know, what is it, angel devil, good cop, bad cop on your shoulder, whatever telling you that, um, it's just easier.

Like this is just easier to do this pre-packaged food than it is to grab, you know, bok choy off the, of the thing and not know what to do with it. You know, I, I have this example of this. This is so silly, but it is a great example. Cliff bars. Years ago. I, my addiction was cliff bars. I was like, oh, cliff bars are so good.

I'm like,

sorry, cliff. Anyway. Um, but I would literally be like, I need some fruit and there'd be bananas on the counter and I'd be like, I really want a cliff bar. Like I really, I wanted the sugar. Right? Yeah. Which told me I really needed to stabilize my blood sugar anyway, but my devil bad cop on my shoulder, whatever it was saying, it's just easier to get a cliff bar.

So I'd go get the cliff bar out of the cabinet. It is the same mechanism of action to open a cliff bar with a rapper as it is a banana, but in my brain, it was easier. Well, you know, I mean, this is, this is the warfare that we play all the time. 

Jeremy: [00:24:48] Get out, get out of my kitchen. You're I'm I'm doing this. I do literally, literally my kids, we have these, the Z bars for the kids.

And they, they are crack. They are just 

Host: [00:24:59] there. 

Jeremy: [00:24:59] So I like their cookies. They're not healthy by any 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:25:03] means. Yeah. And I mean, sugar wanting sugar is a real thing. Like desiring sugar is a real thing. So you're going to pick the sugar, most sugar thing. If you have a choice, likely it's a dopamine rush. We love dopamine.

Of 

Jeremy: [00:25:18] course. Yes. Yes I do. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:25:20] Yeah, I do too. Who doesn't love dopamine. 

Jeremy: [00:25:23] I know, model that stuff. Yeah, 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:25:26] exactly. I do. 

Jeremy: [00:25:29] I should mention it.

Interesting. Let's say more about that. I'd like to hear more about that. You could see the bottles behind me. I can ask about them. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:25:43] It's like bottled a dopamine back here. Um, yeah, so. Because I do brain health and I happened to stumble across amino acids and most people know amino acids, like, um, bodybuilders know, amino acids a lot.

Like they go to, you know, the big box retailers where you get all your supplements from, and there's amino acids, like glutamine, tyrasine all that building. So we can take some cues is from the bodybuilding community. And in some respects, because they know how to use amino acids to build muscle. Right.

But it also builds motivation and energy and things like that. So like tyrasine is a, an immuno acid that helps to build a dopamine. Um, your dopamine pathway. So your dopamine, your adrenaline, your noradrenaline that's tyrasine. So, um, what I've done is I've partnered with a wonderful lab and I have my own products now that are called pro recovery RX.

And initially when we did pro recovery RX, you can see this red box right there. So I, I actually formulated. Uh, red label was our very first product and it's in packets. Right. But this is designed for people in opiate recovery. So to rebuild their dopamine pathway, and it is a fantastic product. And it's like, it's my baby.

It's like my crown Juul. I was like, this is so good. This is so good. But then people wanted bottles too. So I'm like, okay, we'll do that too. But this is the best. Yes, yes. But I found that a lot of people, not just people in recovery from opiates. Um, really love the benefit of red label. Like people with ADHD or people who have just like this fatigued.

You know, low energy read labels. Great. 

Jeremy: [00:27:32] Yeah. I have to try that. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:27:34] You might have to try that or I could hook you up with one of the other ones too, and then you can build on 

Jeremy: [00:27:38] that. Yeah. I'd be open to it. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:27:41] Yes. Yes. Pro recovery RX, but I said I wasn't going to promote anything. And now here it, sorry. That's all right.

Wait, 

Jeremy: [00:27:46] I led us down that path. I'll take responsibility. It's my fault. Your fault. You mentioned taking a cue from bodybuilders and we haven't touched much on the exercise part of this and. Tying it all into brain health. Again, that is something that I have been talking about for the entire time we've been doing this show is how much exercise for me has almost nothing to do with my body and everything to do with how I feel mentally and emotionally, just, just yesterday.

I went for a run. I'm not a runner I'm trying to get into it, went for a run. And I just had this emotional egg just crack open. I can't look at where there's a bunch of stuff going on at home. We're trying to move and stuff. And just emotionally, it just busted me open. And I was just like, that's why I ju I need to do this every day.

Talk about why that physical action helps so much with the brain health and, and the emotional health. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:28:40] So I have a couple, I have a theory. Um, part of it. Okay. So one of the things we know is all the feel good chemicals that happen when you exercise, right. Endorphins, dopamine, and dryness, all of it. And it automatically makes you feel better, the runners high, right.

Or the athletes high, or being in the zone. Like that's a real thing. That's a real chemical thing. The other piece of that is I don't have you guys ever heard of EMDR? Eye movement. Desensitization. Reprocessing. Yeah. So I'm big into EMDR for my, um, uh, mental health practice for trauma and things. The person Francine Shapiro, who discovered, I don't want to say invented, did discovered.

I dunno, EMDR. She discovered it while she was walking. Okay. So she was walking and she, she recounts it like this. I was looking my eyes side to side. If the listeners don't know what EMDR is, it's basically moving your eyes back and forth. It kind of the easiest way to recognize this as like, uh, or to talk about it is like rapid eye movement for sleep, like when you're processing things.

But the clinician usually make does something to make your eyes move back and forth. Okay. While you're reprocessing. But if you look deeper into that, the bilateral movement, I think was probably more powerful for her than moving her eyes side to side. So bilateral movement, meaning walking left right left, right running left, right left.

Right. Right. So if you've ever gone on a walk or gone into a jog and you're like, I just gotta run this out or walk this out by the time you're done running or walking, you're not thinking about the same thing you were thinking about when you first started. And I think. I should probably do some research on this, but I just, you know, at this point, I really think that it has more to do with the bilateral movement sometimes, or combination of chemicals and bilateral movement at the same time to kind of process out the material that you set out to process when you started jogging, which is why I think like walking and jogging and things like that are very different for people than weightlifting.

You know, or that kind of, so I think that's one of the reasons why cardio is so good jumping around back and forth. Think about like rocking a baby. It's one of the first things we do side to side, rock a baby for, you know, to pursue thing. So that's my philosophy. I don't know if anyone wants to put it to the test, please put it to the test.

But I think that's my philosophy philosophy. So 

Zach: [00:31:09] I tend to agree with that because whenever I go to a gym, that's more weight lifting than it is cardio. I'm. Not getting what I need and I, I, I've never recognized it as that, but it's always, I want more cardio, a lot more cardio, which is, which is when, when you say it out loud, it sounds ludicrous.

Like I want more cardio, but 

Jeremy: [00:31:34] yeah, just say 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:31:35] I want more bilateral stimulation, like, because that's ludicrous. I don't know. It sounds 

Jeremy: [00:31:42] like you've done your research and you know, this is the thing. Yeah, 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:31:46] exactly. That's awesome. It's true. And I was going to say, so I used to be a really big runner. I was, I would run, and this is not so long ago, half marathons all the time.

And I overdid it to the point where my knees. Can't do it anymore, but I don't know if you've heard about rebounding. Have you heard about rebounding? So those are those little trampolines, right? So it takes the impact off your knees and things like that. And they're talking about how it is. From the same perspective as jogging.

Um, you can do it in like 10 to 15 minutes versus 30 minutes of jogging. 

Jeremy: [00:32:21] Wow. Now, if they would just make sidewalks out of that stuff, I I'm in cause for me, 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:32:26] well, I do make the shoes that are like, have you seen the shoes where they tell you on 

Jeremy: [00:32:30] an issue? Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true. Yeah. I just found her in my 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:32:35] kitchen actually.

Jeremy: [00:32:36] I know for me, like getting outside is like 90% of it. Cause if I sit here in my house and try and do the thing that, you know, I'm in my house all day long as it is for the last year. Where are you guys from? I'm in Seattle and I'm 

Zach: [00:32:48] in New York. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:32:49] We're in New York. I'm in Wisconsin. I'm right in 

Jeremy: [00:32:51] the middle of, you know, there we go.

You're the bridge keeping us together. 

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:32:56] We're just starting to like, get that sunlight. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's been tough. This has been a tough year for sure. For multitudes of reasons, but yeah, cumulative, 

Jeremy: [00:33:09] let's wrap up with, uh, any, any closing thoughts you have for people that have heard this conversation, what they need to know, kind of moving forward and where we can learn more about you.

Dr. Teralyn Sell: [00:33:16] You know what I want people to know is. Taking charge of your mental health does not have to be complicated. So keep it simple, start with one thing and build on that. And you know, big change happens when small things move. So you can check me out at Dr. cherlynn.com or pro recovery rx.com. 

Jeremy: [00:33:37] That was Dr.

Terrell and sell all of the links that we mentioned there and information about her and her products and her book are available at our website, the fitness.com. Just look in the show notes for this episode, man, that tip about delaying coffee is a game changer. Yeah. 

Zach: [00:33:54] I didn't even realize I'd already been doing it.

And as she was saying it, it was like, huh, now that I'm thinking about it on those days where I delay it two hours and I go work out or do yoga. It's Fastly different. And you know, even this morning I woke up and I went and had coffee right away and paid attention to it. I just don't feel as energized right now, as I normally do at this point, when I delayed my coffee it game game-changer.

And even though I had been doing it and I was like, oh, I'm already doing that. The thought of delaying my coffee, like 

Jeremy: [00:34:29] my heart skipped a beat. My reaction was my heart stopped for a moment. I had to catch my breath. I was like, wow. Huh. Because for how many years I wake up and before I do anything else, I hit the coffee maker to turn it on.

But that, that terrified me to think about putting it off. And I couldn't believe. Really how easy it was to delay that first two hours. The first time I did it and the noticeable difference, I used to drink coffee all day long, and now I have a couple of cups, a couple of hours after I wake up. And I'm, I'm just so much more, even throughout the day, I don't crash at four in the afternoon.

I'm not exhausted. It's so crazy. What a difference it makes by just delaying it a couple hours. 

Zach: [00:35:11] I know I was thinking that I would be just a poor human being for the entire world if I did that. But. I'm not, it's actually working out in my favor. It's working out in humanity's 

Jeremy: [00:35:23] favor. It's great worn any married people that may be listening that your spouse may not be on board with the two hour delay as I've been reminded every single day, since I've been doing

people, aren't as excited about delaying their coffee two hours as I am. So that's, uh, that may be an obstacle that you'll run into. If you decide to give this a try. 

Zach: [00:35:46] Well, that that comes in with everything that you try. Right. I know for me, every time I want to eat different, every time I want to, you know, add something to the routine, I, it's hard for me to get time on the family calendar to go have me time that's outside of my normal stuff.

So anything that you do, that's good for? You can sometimes be troubling when 

Jeremy: [00:36:08] you've got a spouse. Even beyond that. I don't maybe, maybe I'm unique. I don't think so. But. So many times when there is something that I know I need to do, there's something I want to do. There's this other voice in my head saying, ah, that sounds like a lot of work.

And it's usually something like going for a run or, or working out. And, and I know every part of my body says, if you go run for 20 minutes, you will feel so much better for the rest of the day. And there's probably some baggage in there that you will release and you will feel, you know, you'll feel 10 pounds lighter just by dealing with that.

But almost simultaneously, there's this thought of? Yeah, but then there's Instagram, you know, eh, you can just, you can just sit here and do nothing. And that, that sounds pretty good too. And how 

Zach: [00:36:53] about you look at pictures of people 

Jeremy: [00:36:56] running like the same way they burn the same amount of calories scrolling.

Right? So when there are other obstacles, like other people's schedules and demands of real life, When the obstacle begins in your own head. And then the next hurdle is how this affects other people and how this affects my time and how this affects what I want to be doing. It is so easy to let all of those things fall down to, to give up on all those hacks yeah.

That you've put into your life to try and, and live better. So none of this is easy, but that's what I loved about this conversation is, is the idea of no rules. The idea of just do a little better than you did yesterday, or do a little better than you did an hour ago. Uh, whatever it is that that is so critical, especially if you are just starting out on this path, or if you have fallen off the wagon on whatever thing you try to do every day, just doing a little better is such a huge reminder about creating that consistency and doing what you're hoping to do to accomplish those goals.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Zach: [00:37:57] And just remember the only person you're competing against is yourself. Right? It's just, you. Be better than you were yesterday. Be better than you were the 

Jeremy: [00:38:05] week before and put down the damn cliff bars. Oh, they're 

Zach: [00:38:08] delicious. Although the, the, the, uh, the comment of the, the cliff bar being the exact same level of effort to get it open as a banana, like blew my mind.

And then I looked at an orange and I was like, that is 

Jeremy: [00:38:21] way too much work. Yeah. Yeah, no, I hate, I hate oranges for the effort. They're there. There's, there's not enough juice in that squeeze to, to make it worth feeling that damn thing. Yeah, I 

Zach: [00:38:32] love orange juice, but I can't eat orange. Just, they just take too 

Jeremy: [00:38:35] much work.

And at one more thing that I wanted to point out that, that she talked about that was really essential in my weight loss journey was the concept of just adding more protein before I did limit carbs and go a little bit more strict with the things I was holding back on. I worked with the nutritionist.

And that was the first thing they said was just up your protein. Don't worry about cutting anything. Cutting anything else out? Don't worry about changing anything else. Don't worry about working out, just get the protein up and that will cascade into other things. Naturally you will, your diet will change.

Your body will, will adapt to that. That is a huge starting point. If, if weight loss is something you're, you're trying to accomplish. And that's what started me on a path that ended up helping me lose what was 70 pounds. It's it's a little less now, but uh, still, probably 60. It's still probably 60 ish. So great tip there.

Also, if you're, if you're taking notes at home and trying to figure out where to start on a wellness journey. 

Zach: [00:39:36] Well, I think we've talked enough. 

Let's 

Jeremy: [00:39:38] wrap it up here and let's so by reminding you that if you head over to our store on our website, uh, on the affiliate link there, you can find a lot of the tools that we use.

In our little fitness toolkit to, uh, to bio hack our way to better health, check those out, see if there's something there that you want to try and you can always reach out and ask us, you know, what we like about any of those, or reach out for any other reason. And there's all kinds of contact information on our website, the fitness.com.

There's also links to our social well media accounts, where you can follow us. And of course the newsletter where you can sign up and keep up to date with the show. Way to make us sound 

Zach: [00:40:09] lonely, reach out to us for anything, anything we're 

Jeremy: [00:40:11] waiting. We're standing by operators are standing by the phone, always happy to hear from you guys in whatever way you want to reach out.

But for now we are going to wrap it up and we will be back next Wednesday with a brand new episode in a Disney world. Visit recap from, from Zack, which I'm extremely jealous, leaving tomorrow. So angry at you because I want to go. But anyways, More about that next time, more and more of me yelling@zachnexttimeatthefitness.com.

We'll see you there. 

Host: [00:40:42] We know this podcast is amazing. It doesn't seem to lack anything, but we need a legal disclaimer. Prior to implementing anything discussed in this podcast is your responsibility to conduct your own 

research and consult your physician. You should 

assume that Jeremy and Zach don't know what they're talking about, and they're not liable for any physical or emotional issues that occur directly or indirectly from listening to this 

podcast.