0:02

How the touch receptor system in our skin,

0:05

which is like seven, five to seven different major

0:07

touch receptors, any given part of the body, how

0:10

do those interpret the feeling of having your

0:12

hand held by someone you like emotionally?

0:14

What does that look like in the brain? What does that

0:17

do to our fear response? And if

0:19

we can map that out and see

0:21

what that has in common with like meditation,

0:23

deep breathing, yoga, biofeedback.

0:28

Welcome back to the Ancient Health Podcast,

0:31

where we educate you on real health

0:33

solutions that will help transform

0:35

the way you live, feel, and overcome

0:38

disease naturally. I'm your host,

0:40

Courtney Versage, along with Dr. Josh

0:42

Axe and Dr. Chris Motley. We're

0:45

so happy you've joined us. Let's dive into

0:47

today's episode.

0:49

Everybody, Dr. Josh Axe here. Welcome

0:51

to the podcast today. I'm so excited

0:54

to have Dr. Dave Rabin on. He is an MD

0:56

and PhD. He's a neuroscientist

0:59

and a board certified psychiatrist.

1:02

And today we're going to talk about how to reduce

1:04

chronic stress, which is big

1:06

for so many people, how to get a better night's sleep,

1:09

how to relax, how to have more energy, better

1:11

focus and so much more. And a little bit more

1:13

about Dr. Dave here. Dr. Dave's research

1:16

is centered on non-invasive

1:18

therapies and helping conditions

1:21

such as PTSD and

1:24

anxiety disorders and addictions.

1:26

He's also the founder of Apollo

1:29

Neuro, which you'll see here. This is a device

1:31

that I've been wearing. It's incredible. And

1:33

I love this because it

1:36

helps

1:37

with your body's vagus response. This is

1:39

something I've talked about before, but when you start to

1:41

get your body more in a parasympathetic state,

1:44

your body gets in more of a healing

1:46

state to be able to rest, digest,

1:49

and overall regenerate itself.

1:51

A little bit more here about Dr. Rabin. He's

1:55

conducted a lot of great research in epigenetics

1:58

and how to regulate traumatic

1:59

responses, you know, a lot of us have had trauma

2:02

whether it be Verbal abuse

2:04

in our lives could be physical or just generally

2:06

we have some sort of trauma and this

2:08

new technology and some things We're going to talk about today

2:11

help us heal and start to recover

2:13

from that trauma And so so excited

2:16

to talk to Dave Raven today. Dr. Dave. Hey, welcome

2:18

the show

2:19

Thanks. Happy doctor. Josh such a pleasure to be

2:21

here with you Well,

2:23

you've got a pretty great background, you know as

2:25

a psychiatrist and a neuroscientist

2:27

And so one of the things that I know that

2:29

I've continued to see rise over the years is

2:31

mental health issues In fact, I've

2:33

talked on the show previously that you know

2:36

in historically conditions like

2:38

cancer and heart disease heart disease

2:41

and especially youth Childhood

2:43

obesity and diabetes has really

2:45

been on the rise But now what's

2:47

overtaken those is mental

2:49

health issues, especially in younger

2:52

generations And so I'd love to start

2:54

off just hearing from you if that's something you've seen

2:56

it and is that part of what inspired you? To enter

2:59

into this field in addition to that create

3:01

some of the technology you've created

3:04

Yeah, absolutely I mean I think I've

3:06

been studying chronic stress for

3:08

the better part of 20 years because it's

3:10

something that's always interested me Because it

3:12

changes the way we see ourselves in the world Right

3:15

and when we're when we're looking at the world from through the lens

3:18

of of stress things Enter

3:21

into a tunnel vision state, right? Our heart

3:23

rate goes up our respiratory rate goes up We make

3:25

worse decisions that are more self-centered

3:28

self-focused self-protected decisions less

3:31

decisions that are more Inclusive

3:33

of our communities and of the environment and

3:35

the world we live in around us because

3:38

when we're stressed out and our body perceived Threat

3:40

from the environment we focus

3:43

all our resources on self-preservation survival Right

3:47

and that's not Actually

3:49

what's happening most of the time in most of our lives

3:51

most of us Actually don't have

3:53

survival threats like we used

3:56

to back in the jungle when we evolved

3:58

these pathways start

6:00

to understand that better. It turns

6:02

out thankfully the neuroscience has come a long way

6:04

in the last 30 years and that created

6:07

a lot of opportunity for development

6:09

of new technologies like Apollo and

6:12

then also new therapy strategies

6:14

like psychedelic assisted therapy which is also very

6:16

exciting.

6:18

Yeah, it's amazing. As you were sharing

6:21

here with some of the mental health issues and the

6:23

side effects and obviously we've seen this in recent years

6:26

with mass shootings. I want to say over 90%

6:28

nearly all mass shootings that people have had, mental

6:31

health issues oftentimes been even on drugs

6:33

for that or recently gotten off them. So

6:36

obviously this is everything from incredibly

6:38

serious mental health issues to just

6:40

people that are struggling with feeling overwhelmed,

6:43

feeling a sense of anxiety, depression,

6:46

anxiousness. There are a lot of these

6:48

issues that all play into what

6:50

you're sharing and I remember reading studies and I know you've

6:52

read the same studies on this of that 80% of chronic illness

6:55

might be

6:57

stress related or at least 80% of doctor

7:00

visits are stress related and so

7:02

obviously reducing stress. I remember

7:04

when I used to run years ago a

7:06

functional medicine practice Dr. David

7:09

and there were

7:11

so many patients that would come in and

7:13

I remember thinking the biggest thing I would hear

7:16

from a structure I took care of a lot of moms and they would say

7:18

I'm just overwhelmed, I'm so stressed.

7:21

We see this with so many people is that stress

7:23

and I would see in a similar thing like I would take care of a lot

7:25

of people with inflammatory bowel

7:27

disease and the experience

7:30

their body would have or

7:32

the symptoms that they would have if

7:35

they ate let's say a bunch of gluten

7:37

and so just wreck their gut, wreck their stomach,

7:39

put them in a really, really, really, really set

7:42

them back but if they would go through

7:44

a stressful situation in life they would actually have

7:46

the almost identical reaction

7:49

as if they ate that food that was worse with them.

7:51

So I'm a big believer that one of the

7:53

greatest things we could do is

7:55

reduce stress and I think one of the things that you've

7:57

been able to tap into through a lot of

8:00

your scientific research is the power

8:02

of vibration therapy and working

8:04

on these responses. Can you walk

8:06

me through a little bit about this

8:09

vibration therapy, some of the technology that's

8:12

used and how it can actually reduce

8:14

stress? Sure.

8:16

I'd be happy to. And also before

8:18

I do that though, just to add on to what you said, I

8:21

think a major cause of stress that

8:23

we are not talking

8:26

about enough right now is disconnection

8:29

and loneliness, right? Feeling

8:32

separate from our community,

8:34

feeling not supported by our community

8:37

and or alienated

8:39

by our community. And I think when we see a lot of the

8:42

overwhelming tragedies that happen,

8:44

whether they're considered, whether they're called

8:47

and labeled as terrorist attacks or

8:49

they're labeled as mass shootings or

8:51

school shootings or any number of these

8:53

other terrible things that

8:56

are avoidable tragedies that we've been

8:58

seeing on the news, a lot of it is

9:00

because people feel unsupported

9:03

and completely disconnected from the people

9:05

around them. And what the neuroscience

9:08

has shown, which helps us to also discover

9:11

the technology behind Apollo is that

9:13

we are all human first, right?

9:16

We're all human first, no matter what our color

9:18

of our skin, no matter what the tone or the language

9:20

of our voice, no matter what we

9:22

look like or what our skills

9:25

or individual talents

9:27

are, we're all human first. And we all

9:29

need to, we all need love and

9:31

affection. We need food, water, air, shelter.

9:35

We need safety in our environment and

9:37

we need acceptance by our community, right?

9:40

And when we don't have those core needs met,

9:42

which drive all human action,

9:45

all human motivations driven by those core needs.

9:48

And when we don't, and that's as massive as hierarchy

9:50

of needs, right? That's where a lot of this comes from, which

9:52

is something we shouldn't forget. And safety

9:55

is at the bottom of that

9:57

pyramid, right? Safety, which

9:59

is... total, complete and total safety, physical,

10:02

mental, emotional, spiritual,

10:05

financial, legal, and anything else you can toss

10:07

in there, that is

10:10

fundamentally what all of us need first. And

10:13

that starts with recognizing that we're

10:15

all human before we're anything else, and

10:17

that we all are

10:19

here for each other, and we're all experiencing a similar

10:21

struggle. And I think that's one of the things that combats

10:24

loneliness the most, other than soothing

10:26

touch, is that things

10:29

that help us remember that we're

10:31

all in the struggle together, right? We're

10:33

all in it together. We all have the same challenges

10:36

for the most part in our lives, and we're all trying to solve

10:38

the same problem. So I think

10:41

starting there really

10:44

led me to evaluate

10:47

safety from a sensory approach,

10:49

right? What we call in psychology

10:52

and psychiatry somatic therapy,

10:54

so body first therapy. And

10:56

if anybody's read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel

10:59

van der Kolk or any number of other books about

11:01

somatic therapy, what is very, very

11:03

clear nowadays, and also from the epigenetics

11:06

research from people like Dr. Rachel

11:08

Yehuda at SciDye is that the

11:10

body stores a memory of

11:13

fear and of safety. And

11:16

if we are exposed to trauma of

11:18

any kind over time, even

11:21

if our ancestors are exposed to trauma,

11:23

that can be passed down to us in the form of

11:25

a body remembering that not being safe.

11:29

And that is really important to understand

11:31

because that helps us to

11:34

realize that if we can calm

11:36

the body by sending safety signals

11:38

to the body that soothe it, which

11:41

we all like, and everybody has

11:43

different soothing things they remember that they like could

11:45

be getting a hug from a loved one, getting

11:48

your hand held holding up herring

11:50

cat, having ocean waves wash

11:52

over you the smell of your mom's chicken soup, right?

11:54

The list goes on your

11:57

favorite song, right? All

11:59

of these things calm and soothe the body

12:02

in relatively immediate

12:04

time scale, almost instantaneously

12:06

without effort, which is really interesting.

12:09

And when you look at soothing touch as one of the

12:13

examples that kind of rises to the top of the

12:15

list in terms of our evolved

12:18

safety pathways, that

12:20

has the least amount of variation in

12:24

subjectivity, right? Your favorite song might be

12:26

different than my favorite song, but you

12:28

getting a hug feels a lot to you from

12:30

somebody you like feels a lot to you like me getting a hug

12:32

for somebody I like. And that's because

12:35

evolutionarily for hundreds of millions

12:37

of years since the very first mammals

12:39

started nursing and cuddling their

12:42

young, we were conveying nonverbal

12:44

safety signals to each other to calm

12:47

the body and to restore healing and a sense

12:49

of recovery that starts the body

12:51

on its vagal parasympathetic recovery

12:53

journey, which it wants to do any by

12:56

itself. So it's really that these safety

12:58

signals have evolved over

13:00

time and are hardwired into our nervous system

13:03

to actually just

13:05

effectively help our bodies feel safe enough

13:08

to recover and heal. And

13:10

so when we started to understand that,

13:12

which came from decades of neurobiology

13:14

that came before us, we thought,

13:17

well, what if we could

13:20

deliver safety signals to the body on the

13:22

go using a wearable because soothing

13:24

touch requires us to remember to

13:26

do it and hug ourselves and most people

13:28

don't do, or it requires consensual

13:31

touch from another human being, a loved one that

13:33

we trust. Most of us don't have access to that

13:35

all the time. So what if we could figure

13:37

out how the touch receptor system in our

13:39

skin, which is like five

13:42

to seven different major touch receptors in a given

13:44

part of the body, how did those

13:46

interpret the feeling of having your hand held

13:48

by someone you like emotionally? What does that look

13:50

like in the brain? What does that do to

13:53

our fear response? And if we can map

13:55

that

13:55

out

13:56

and see what that has in common with meditation,

13:59

deep breathing, yeah. yoga, biofeedback,

14:01

and some of these other safety things that we

14:04

experience, can we replicate

14:06

that with wearable technology using vibration

14:09

that the skin feels? And so that was

14:11

the audacious challenge we took on back in 2014

14:13

through 2018 at the University of

14:15

Pittsburgh that ultimately led us to the

14:17

discovery of Apollo, which is now the

14:20

product that both of us are wearing that's been

14:22

in the market since 2020.

14:24

Yeah. You know, I first got turned on to vibrational therapy

14:27

when I was opening my functional medicine clinic

14:29

because I had a lot of patients do

14:31

physical therapy. So we did things like chiropractic

14:33

adjustments, we did, you know, physical therapy

14:35

in there. And so what we would do to retrain the body

14:38

is we'd have them stay stand on a vibrational plate.

14:41

And there were studies showing that actually improved bone

14:43

density, helped improve proprioception.

14:46

So we'd have them do proprioceptive balancing

14:48

exercises on there because that's important as we

14:50

age to maintain our overall health.

14:52

And so we know that vibrational therapy has

14:55

a lot of benefits. In your case, you've been able to harness

14:57

specific frequencies to really help

15:00

calm the nervous system. And most

15:02

of us live in this fight or flight

15:04

state all the time because of, you know,

15:07

social media. I mean, again, dopamine is just

15:09

constantly just, you know, just, you

15:11

know, just, just we're constantly getting that hit.

15:13

Or when you're driving, I mean, I can tell if

15:15

I'm driving, you know, it was interesting. I've

15:18

also done the levels

15:21

patch, you know, I'm talking about a blood glucose

15:23

monitor. Yeah. And in doing

15:25

that, I was so surprised at

15:28

it's what we were talking about earlier, how

15:31

sometimes driving like my blood

15:33

sugar would go up. And I was and that's

15:36

what surprised me more than anything. I thought, well, the

15:38

only thing that's going to spike my blood sugar is eating

15:40

too much sugar. No, but the

15:42

amount that the little stressors cause

15:45

my blood sugar or I know even cortisol,

15:48

those sort of things to rise. That

15:50

was absolutely shocking to me. And the thing I

15:52

love about what you've done in your technology with Apollo

15:55

neuro is to be able to get the feedback there,

15:57

that vibrational frequency that says, Hey, you know

15:59

what? you're in a safe place,

16:02

you're in a secure place, you're good,

16:04

it actually helps combat those daily

16:06

stressors that is one of the biggest things that

16:08

causes us to age more quickly. So

16:11

if people are looking to slow down the aging process

16:13

and generally get that

16:16

cortisol, get those stress hormones back

16:19

down under control so we can age less,

16:21

so we can sleep better, so we can overall

16:23

just heal better. I think it's

16:25

really really powerful and this is something I think for

16:28

if I would have had this technology in the past I would have had all my

16:30

patients wearing because just keeping

16:32

those stress levels low is so

16:35

essential. One of the things I would love to hear from you

16:37

because of your background as a neuroscientist,

16:40

what actually physically happens

16:42

in the body? What is some of the

16:45

cascading effect when we experience

16:47

emotional stress?

16:49

So I think that's a

16:52

really great question and mainly because

16:54

this isn't taught well even in

16:56

medical school in our training. I don't know if you were taught

16:58

this well I certainly wasn't, I had to learn it

17:00

afterwards, but what

17:03

you know what we're seeing is that when

17:05

we experience stress our

17:08

bodies don't actually know

17:10

the difference between

17:12

perceived threat and actual threat.

17:15

So if you think about what happens

17:17

when you just described yourself as being

17:19

in a traffic situation then why

17:23

would your blood sugar spike?

17:26

Your blood sugar spikes under stress because

17:29

if our bodies recognize that

17:31

as even though it's traffic or

17:34

too many emails or too many responsibilities it's not

17:36

an actual survival threat, you're not being chased by

17:38

a predator, but evolutionarily

17:41

when we're exposed to threat from

17:43

a predator for instance

17:45

cortisol goes up,

17:47

cortisol has a way of activating the insulin

17:49

receptor which then changes

17:52

its sensitivity which pushes

17:54

blood glucose into the blood

17:56

and then when glucose

17:58

is in the blood it allows the

18:00

glucose to go travel to the brain so the brain

18:03

can use it to be able to use it as a primary

18:05

energy source to help us get out

18:07

of a stressful survival threat

18:09

situation. But when we're at rest,

18:12

we don't want to have high glucose in the blood.

18:15

We want the glucose to be in all of our cells

18:17

being stored because when it's stored in the cells,

18:19

then it actually decreases inflammation in the

18:21

body. But inflammation is something that's important

18:24

when we're under threat because that's how our body

18:26

signals to all the different parts that we

18:29

need to be sending our blood flow

18:31

to skeletal muscles, heart,

18:33

lungs, motor cortex of our brain, fear

18:35

center of the brain, and fueling

18:37

all of those with glucose, being one of the most

18:40

immediate rapid sources of

18:42

energy that we have to get

18:44

us out of a survival threat

18:46

situation. And that the

18:48

glucose is one piece of it. There's a whole lot of other

18:50

stuff going on. But the major piece

18:53

that I don't think we're taught well is blood

18:55

flow because the blood is required

18:57

to actually deliver said glucose, right? The

18:59

blood is delivering the nutrients and it's taking

19:02

away the waste. So and the nutrients

19:04

include glucose, oxygen and lots of other

19:06

things. And so when

19:08

we experience stress, the very first

19:10

thing that happens almost immediately,

19:12

and I'm sure you've talked about nitric

19:15

oxide on your show before, and how

19:17

that is one of what is often

19:20

referred to as this fountain of youth molecule

19:22

because it is an immediate released

19:24

factor from the inside of our blood vessels.

19:27

It says, hey, blood vessels

19:29

going to our reproductive system, immune system,

19:31

digestive system, as some

19:33

examples, emotion regulation system, empathy

19:36

system. Hey, we're under threat. We

19:38

don't want blood going to our reproductive

19:40

system when we're being chased by a lion. Let's squeeze

19:43

those blood vessels off, make

19:45

them tight, decrease nitric oxide,

19:47

which then shrinks the vessels decreases

19:49

blood flow to all of those recovery

19:52

system organs, because you don't want to be empathizing

19:55

with your predator when you're being chased in the junk. Right?

19:58

You don't want to be thinking about reproduction or. digesting

20:00

your food and sending resources there when you could

20:02

not survive in the next five minutes, right?

20:05

So our bodies highly evolved

20:08

this nitric oxide pathway

20:10

through our vagal system

20:12

and our sympathetic fight-or-flight system to

20:15

almost instantly shift blood flow. And

20:17

so where does that blood flow go? As I

20:19

said earlier, it goes to your your fight-or-flight

20:22

system, your skeletal muscles, your motor

20:24

cortex of your brain, our heart,

20:26

our lungs, all the parts that get us

20:28

out of survival threat to safety. And

20:31

then when we get to safety, that safety

20:33

is supposed to signal our vagus nerve

20:35

that says, hey, you're safe enough to

20:39

know that you're not under threat right now. You're

20:41

safe enough to recover. And then that

20:43

tells the hypothalamus to then

20:46

rapidly open up, close

20:48

the blood vessels, make them tighter, decrease

20:50

nitric oxide in the vessels going to the heart, lungs,

20:53

motor cortex, skeletal muscles. Fear

20:55

center and decrease their

20:58

ability to receive resources

21:00

so that those resources can be sent back to our

21:03

digestive system, immune system, reproductive

21:05

system, empathy system, creativity

21:07

systems, all the stuff we want to be active

21:09

when we're recovering. So the

21:12

reason why this is so important is because

21:14

if you can follow the pattern of

21:17

thinking here, what happens is imagine

21:20

your body thinks you're under threat

21:22

all the time, right? In the jungle,

21:24

it was, hey, there's a threat here. Let's respond. Let's

21:27

get to safety. Now we're safe. Let's recover. Then a

21:29

week later or a few days later, there's another threat.

21:31

Let's respond. Let's get to safety. Let's recover.

21:34

And that came in first. And that's how our

21:36

system evolved to work. Now we're

21:38

surrounded by existential crisis all the time.

21:41

The news, too many responsibilities,

21:43

too much noise, over stimulation, right? That

21:47

creates a sense of threat in the body all

21:49

the time. And so now all

21:51

of our recovery systems, like our reproductive

21:54

system, digestive system, immune system, we'll

21:56

focus on those as

21:57

one example, our resources.

21:59

depleted because there's

22:02

less nitric oxide around so they're getting less

22:04

blood on

22:05

all

22:07

on the regular like across time they

22:10

are getting less resources less blood

22:12

because all that blood is where our

22:15

bodies think is supposed to go to the stress response system

22:17

and then what happens

22:20

we're asking those systems to continue to

22:22

work because we want to reproduce and digest

22:24

and fight off illness so we're saying hey immune

22:27

system digested system reproductive system keep doing

22:29

your thing keep functioning at a high level but we're

22:31

going to deplete you of blood flow and

22:33

we're going to deplete you of garbage pickup so no

22:36

nutrients no garbage pickup all of

22:38

a sudden those organ systems are working

22:40

hard they're working undernourished

22:42

meaning they're working on like effectively

22:46

a nutrient depleted manner

22:48

which means they're producing more waste and more

22:50

toxic byproducts and then those toxic byproducts

22:53

don't get picked up in the blood and eliminated through the

22:55

kidneys and the liver and so we get organ

22:57

toxicity and then eventually disease so

23:00

it's that stress is literally

23:04

impacting every single part

23:06

of our bodies every moment of the

23:08

day which is why this little guy

23:11

appears so important because this is the technique

23:13

is what learns the techniques of the

23:15

breath work the mindfulness the safety restoration

23:18

techniques that help us to remember

23:20

to remind the body hey I'm

23:22

not under threat if I have the ability

23:24

to take a deep breath right now I'm not

23:27

under survival threat if I have the ability

23:29

to practice a mindfulness technique or get a hug

23:32

or give a hug I'm not

23:34

under threat but those techniques of course

23:36

take practice and time

23:38

and mastery to use especially when we're under

23:40

stress so that led us to developing

23:43

this because this activates

23:46

that same safety response pathway on the

23:48

go for those of us who are most of us who just never

23:50

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You know, I don't know why

25:56

this is jumping into my mind, but I had

25:59

a, when I ran my. clinic, I had an incredible

26:02

office tech in the office, her name was Allie,

26:04

and she would just walk around and give

26:06

everybody hugs. I mean, just every patient,

26:08

it didn't matter how bitter

26:11

or cynical or whatever they were, they would

26:13

just somehow, she was just hugging them every time.

26:15

And I remember when I was, we did

26:18

a patient evaluation once where

26:20

we wanted to know, hey, what can we do better at the clinic? And

26:23

why are you a patient here? And

26:25

I think I probably expected to think, well, like,

26:27

Dr. Axe is a great doctor, and I've had

26:30

people lose 100 pounds and reverse

26:32

diabetes and all the things. It

26:34

was all Allie, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah.

26:36

So many people were like, for Allie's

26:39

hugs, it was like the number one thing, just

26:41

getting, you know, it's in so many of these, you

26:43

know, patient feedback things. But

26:45

you know, I think there are probably a lot of people to your point

26:48

with that are lonely that are disconnected.

26:50

There are some people who maybe

26:53

go months, years without a hug.

26:56

You know, I mean, maybe they weren't hugged, they've

26:58

literally have not been hugged since they were a child.

27:01

And not everyone's in that situation. I'm blessed to

27:03

have a family where I have a three year old, so I'm,

27:05

you know, I get, you know, hugs every day,

27:07

whether she likes her, I'm like, get out, you know, and we'll, you

27:10

know, wrestle or whatever. And so I'm getting this, but

27:12

and she is too, and our family is too. But again,

27:14

I think there are a lot of people who are in that situation

27:17

where they just haven't been touched. And we

27:19

know that's when oxytocin, right, and so

27:21

many of these hormones are released,

27:23

and it's just so, so important.

27:25

Yeah, dopamine. Yeah, so let's go. That's a great,

27:27

great segue, right? What happens when you get

27:30

touched? So when you experience soothing touch,

27:32

in addition to the things I described

27:34

of increasing vagal tone and

27:36

activity in our recovery nervous system, which creates

27:39

the improved resource allocation

27:41

of blood to all our recovery organ systems,

27:44

we also increase dopamine, serotonin,

27:48

which are like reward and meaning based emotion

27:51

regulation molecules, we oxytocin,

27:54

one of the most important bonding and molecules

27:57

of feeling connection, right?

28:00

And then things like the endocannabinoid

28:03

system get activated. So that's our cannabinoid

28:06

system that's involved in everything from regulating

28:09

inflammation to emotion regulation

28:11

to sleep and recovery. And

28:15

that cannabinoid system that we have receptors

28:17

that are critically important in all of our bodies

28:20

and in all living things get activated through soothing

28:22

touch. And of course,

28:24

amongst others, the opioid receptor system,

28:27

right? What is the opioid receptor system important

28:29

for? It's important for natural

28:31

pain management. Our

28:34

body has the ability to

28:37

train itself to self-regulate

28:39

pain, right? Cannabinoids

28:43

can help do it from the inside or from the outside.

28:45

We know because people use cannabis regularly

28:47

to manage chronic pain, but we

28:49

have the ability to produce our own opioid receptors

28:52

that are, or sorry, our own opioid molecules,

28:54

opiates that are made from our bodies that

28:57

bind to our opioid receptors that help

29:00

mitigate and reduce and build

29:02

tolerance to pain. And

29:05

that prevents us from

29:07

becoming reliant on opiates that

29:09

are unnatural or synthetic

29:12

from the environment. And it's really,

29:14

really interesting to look at the epidemiology

29:17

or what happens in a population

29:19

when people are deprived of touch. For

29:21

instance, look what happened during

29:24

COVID, right? People

29:26

were more disconnected than ever. I mean,

29:29

people were coming into it disconnected, but then it was just

29:31

thrown in all of our faces that we had to socially isolate.

29:34

So we have even less connection

29:36

to each other, less touch, less

29:39

intimacy, and we're not getting

29:41

as much of the natural touch

29:44

induced opioid receptor

29:46

activation and endocannabinoid receptor activation

29:49

and the dopamine and the serotonin and the oxytocin.

29:52

So what do people do? Well,

29:54

if you look at the population data, social

29:57

isolation correlates directly

29:59

with increase in substance abuse

30:03

of the molecules and medicines

30:05

that activate these systems. Opiate

30:08

painkillers, abuse went

30:10

through the roof during COVID, cannabis

30:13

use increased through the roof, alcohol

30:15

increased through the roof. Why? Because

30:17

it's a sedative that reduces the anxiety

30:20

of not being touched enough and not being soothed

30:22

enough naturally, right? And the list

30:24

goes on. So I think

30:27

it doesn't require

30:29

us to look very far to see

30:31

the evidence of how neurobiology

30:33

can help us predict when we're not

30:36

getting what we need naturally.

30:39

Yeah, that's powerful. I love that you shared

30:41

that. I think that's so enlightening for everybody to understand.

30:43

Just again, what we talked about, it's cascading

30:46

effect. A lot of times I think we think stress

30:48

affects cortisol. No, stress affects

30:51

everything in your body and it's

30:53

so important that one of the practices

30:56

or things that we're conscious of is not

30:58

only what we eat but how do we keep stress

31:00

which is tied to mental health. Sometimes it can

31:02

be even tied to spiritual health,

31:05

keeping these things in balance.

31:07

Talk to me a little bit about the technology. I've been loving wearing

31:09

this Apollo neuro thing.

31:12

There are two pieces of tech that I'm wearing

31:14

a lot now and it's this and actually an aura ring

31:16

because I know that sleep and stress,

31:18

okay there we go, sleep and stress.

31:21

Those are two things that people are not

31:24

I think aware enough of in terms of the overall

31:27

impacts on their health. Walk

31:29

me through some of the powers of the vibrational

31:31

therapy and then also what was

31:34

the inspiration of

31:36

developing this technology?

31:39

I think a big part of the inspiration

31:41

is what we were just talking about which was

31:44

that working as a psychiatrist

31:46

in the mental health space, doing

31:48

a lot of population-based research, it

31:51

became very clear that people were

31:53

not getting enough soothing touch in their lives

31:56

and that I was watching the impact

31:59

of that on my patients. patients seeking and

32:02

using drugs of abuse to

32:04

self-medicate for the lack of what they could get

32:06

naturally. And

32:08

then the ones that were not abusing drugs

32:11

like opiates and cannabis and alcohol were

32:15

getting soothing touch through

32:17

pets

32:18

and service animals. And

32:21

they were listening to music all the time and they were having

32:23

other inputs that were helping to supplement

32:26

that were getting them through the day-to-day.

32:29

And as we start to see these patterns not just

32:31

in our clinic and our colleagues' clinics

32:33

but also in the literature, it led

32:36

us to start to think about, well,

32:38

what are other natural ways that we could soothe

32:41

people? And how does breath

32:43

play into it? Because we were talking

32:46

about this a little bit earlier, normally

32:48

and normally. Usually

32:50

if you were to assess like in your clinic or when

32:52

people walk through the door of my clinic or the average family

32:54

medicine or practice or hospital, when

32:57

you measure somebody's breath, we're taught that the

32:59

usual breath pattern is somewhere between 12 and 24

33:02

breaths per minute, usually 12 to 18. That's

33:05

stress breathing. That's a

33:07

sign that our bodies are

33:10

in a sympathetic tone,

33:12

low vagal tone, high stress.

33:15

And you can see it from the breathing right away

33:17

when what is our ideal

33:20

breathing rate though, right? Just because

33:22

that's what most people are breathing at in the medical literature does

33:24

not mean that's what we should be

33:26

breathing at. And if you look at the biofeedback

33:29

literature, which is the oldest neuroscience

33:31

of breath, what it shows

33:33

is that people will naturally

33:35

within 90 seconds, if given the right

33:38

feedback, will sink

33:40

their breathing to five to seven breaths

33:43

per minute, which is actually

33:45

thought to be our ideal breath

33:47

state at rest. And that five

33:50

to seven breaths per minute is very

33:52

interesting because it creates

33:56

a coherence or resonance state

33:58

between the heart, lungs and the brain.

34:00

And when people breathe at that rate over

34:02

a short amount of time, even just like 90 to 180

34:06

seconds, we see that

34:08

heart rate comes down, blood pressure comes

34:10

down, people

34:13

start sweating less, racing thoughts

34:15

start to slow, and people just feel

34:18

better and more at ease. And

34:20

it's akin to what happens when people

34:22

start to enter into a meditative state. So

34:25

what we thought was, well, and

34:28

this is what had not been understood

34:30

before, it was known that through biofeedback,

34:33

you could induce these states. It was known

34:35

that through top down practices, like

34:37

I'm telling myself to breathe at five, seven breaths

34:39

per minute, I can induce these states. And

34:43

it was known that music could induce these

34:45

states. What was not known was that

34:48

these states could be induced

34:50

through the skin without any actual

34:52

feedback part. And what we

34:54

discovered in the lab is the Department

34:56

of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh between 2014

34:58

and 2018, was

35:00

that simply by delivering

35:03

the ideal rhythm of our

35:05

breath

35:06

at this five, seven breaths per minute rate

35:08

to the body, that the body

35:11

actually likes that rhythm.

35:14

And it likes it so much, and it knows

35:16

so well how to get there because we

35:18

evolved that over time, that

35:21

it gets there on its own just by feeling

35:23

it. And so that was

35:26

a lot of the key for us

35:28

is understanding what happens, what is our neurophysiology?

35:31

What does our heart, lungs, and brain look like when

35:33

we are at rest and in

35:36

our optimal state? What does our heart

35:38

rate variability look like? Well, it starts to

35:40

go up. So we looked at heart

35:42

rate variability as a key indicator, as

35:44

a measure of balance between the stress response

35:47

sympathetic and the parasympathetic recovery

35:49

vagal system. And what

35:51

we saw was that if HRV

35:54

goes up during biofeedback and meditation

35:56

and breathwork and mindfulness practices

35:58

and then if we send

36:00

this ideal rhythm of your breathing to the body,

36:03

will atrophy also go up? And will that

36:05

correlate with reduced subjective stress

36:07

and improved cognitive performance and physical

36:09

recovery? And it did. And

36:12

so that, and it did in most

36:14

people, which was really interesting because

36:16

we're, again, re-emphasizing

36:19

this point we made, I made earlier, which is that we are

36:21

a heck of a lot more similar than we are different. We

36:24

all like this five to seven breaths per minute rhythm.

36:27

So that became the core of Apollo.

36:30

And that's why it works to help get

36:32

nudge the body into these different states because

36:35

it's effectively providing

36:37

a signal that's soothing, that's closer to the body

36:39

than everything else that's going on around us. The

36:42

kind of noise cancels the body effectively

36:44

and helps to remind us that we're safe

36:46

enough to breathe at our ideal rate. And

36:49

then all of a sudden within anywhere

36:51

from two to three minutes, the

36:54

body starts to re-regulate

36:56

itself based on that soothing

36:58

input that reminds us to breathe at the

37:00

rate we're supposed to be breathing at most of the time.

37:03

Wow. I love it. You know, one of the things that I've noticed

37:06

is I have interviewed a lot of innovators

37:08

over the years, one of my closest friends, he's a, he's

37:11

an amazing innovator. And it's that, you

37:13

know, it comes out of a need, you know? And so,

37:15

you know, we, we, um, uh,

37:18

mentioning him a Jordan Rubin. So he was

37:21

my, he's one of my closest friends. We created

37:23

a product called bone broth protein. It's a supplement

37:25

at a company that we found out called ancient nutrition.

37:28

And we created that product because I had patients

37:30

that would come into my clinic and people I would work

37:33

with and I, and I knew that bone broth

37:35

would help them. So I had a lot of people with auto immune disease,

37:37

a lot of people with digestive issues who wanted to heal

37:39

and they would come in and I would get them on bone

37:42

broth and it would

37:44

do wonders for their body. The problem was

37:46

compliance because you know, having

37:48

them go and make their own homemade bone broth

37:50

every single week, they just

37:53

compliant. Yeah. Compliant is a lot of work.

37:55

And so eventually we came up with this idea for

37:57

bone broth protein and we had people.

38:00

You know in still today of course because it's

38:02

so many people continue to buy it But just saying

38:04

I mean I have never you know my gut health

38:06

is the best it's ever been my joints

38:08

are better You know people especially

38:10

with inflammatory bowel and autoimmune I mean

38:12

just the results were amazing and I noticed the same

38:15

thing myself and I take a lot of supplements And

38:17

I don't always notice things so all that being

38:19

said you know that was a product that

38:21

was born out of this is something People

38:23

need today, and we saw these

38:25

in you know and still see I got I constantly get messages

38:27

on Amazon reviews and things

38:30

like that on bone broth protein like this really helped transform

38:32

my life I'm curious in your case. What

38:35

are some of the things that people are saying about

38:37

this device and technology? What

38:39

are some of the biggest benefits that you've seen

38:42

on your reviews online and

38:44

your feedback on what are the top five or ten?

38:46

Things people were saying I noticed this difference

38:48

as I started to use this

38:50

Yeah, that's a great question And and I

38:53

think to your earlier point what really inspired

38:55

us to make Apollo was that we were

38:58

seeing patients who had you know

39:00

PTSD depression anxiety and Traumatic

39:03

brain injury and other and autism

39:05

really challenging issues that medications

39:07

just weren't helping them with they

39:10

were not getting better and so Stud

39:12

working with those people and asking them and

39:14

studying them in and out of the lab was

39:17

really what drove us to this Develop this intervention

39:19

because we needed things that were non medication

39:22

that didn't require a clinician to

39:24

be there all the time to help and Because

39:27

not everybody can access that so that

39:29

really is in a similar vein as

39:31

to your your product discovery

39:33

I think it is that drive

39:37

to help people in new ways

39:39

that Really led

39:41

us to put in the energy to

39:43

figuring this out. What was interesting is when

39:45

we first Discovered Apollo

39:48

we the technology behind Apollo the vibes

39:50

soothing vibrations that kind of feel like a

39:52

purring cat on your body We did

39:54

not we thought people were gonna use it for focus

39:56

during the day and to give them energy and clarity

39:59

during the day And that's what our lab

40:01

studies showed originally was the

40:04

most impactful. But when we actually

40:06

released it into the real world, we

40:08

learned a heck of a lot from our community

40:11

about what they were using it for. That was very

40:13

different than what we thought. People still

40:15

use it for focus and for improving

40:17

performance and recovery, but the

40:20

biggest use case was actually sleep.

40:23

And that really stood

40:25

out as something that people

40:28

were getting tremendous benefit

40:30

in, like up to 30 minutes

40:32

more sleep a night that was concentrated in

40:34

deep and REM sleep just from using

40:36

Apollo around 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. Wow.

40:41

And it was concentrated deep in REM.

40:43

So to give you an idea of what that compares

40:45

to, Ambien, which is

40:47

our most, most

40:50

effective pharmaceutical sleep aid,

40:52

gives you about 22 minutes of sleep a night and

40:54

it's not deeper sleep. It's just the

40:57

same. So just

40:59

by calming the body

41:01

using the Apollo vibrations,

41:03

you get a similar effect to what you get from practicing

41:06

a regular yoga or meditation routine daily,

41:09

which is deeper, longer

41:11

sleep that we're seeing 8 minutes longer

41:13

than Ambien, which is really,

41:16

really exciting. I mean, that's amazing. I

41:18

mean, that's more effective than a lot of supplements.

41:20

People take everything from CBD to magnesium

41:23

to all these other things you're

41:25

talking about, even melatonin possibly. So

41:27

it's really powerful. Would you walk us through?

41:29

You're going to do a better job of this

41:32

than I am. But talk about this

41:34

device specifically. How long a day do you wear

41:36

it? Do you wear it all day? What does it pair up

41:38

with? How do you use it? Walk us through how easy

41:40

it is. Because that's one of the other things I love about both

41:43

Ora Ring and then Apollo in the same way

41:45

is that it's just so easy to use and

41:47

also so effective. As you're mentioning, people are noticing

41:51

these really amazing results.

41:53

Yeah. And to that point, the

41:55

other thing that we saw that was really, really interesting

41:58

about use that I did not expect, was

42:00

social anxiety and public speaking.

42:03

So people were telling us that, and

42:05

then I started using it for public speaking because I

42:07

had a little bit of like leftover public speaking

42:09

anxiety from college and high school

42:11

that I didn't address. And I started trying

42:14

it because I was hearing this from our community and it

42:16

actually, it helped

42:18

me retrain my brain to not be

42:21

in that anxious state when I was speaking to people

42:23

and presenting, which was incredible.

42:26

So I think those are two of the really interesting

42:28

findings and we really

42:31

tried to make Apollo easy to use because there's

42:33

so many tools out there that are not easy

42:35

to use and not convenient. And

42:37

so as you can see, you know, I'm wearing it on my

42:39

chest here, you're wearing it on your wrist. You

42:41

can wear it anywhere on the body with a clip, clip

42:44

to a piece of clothing. It works over

42:46

or under clothing. It doesn't have to be touching your

42:48

skin and it can work

42:51

anywhere on the body. So it's,

42:53

we have touch receptors all over our bodies. That's

42:56

what it's targeting. It doesn't need to be worn in a

42:58

specific place. There are certain places that

43:00

people enjoy to wear it more like ankle,

43:03

chest, wrist and arm, but

43:06

it works anywhere, which is really convenient for

43:08

people. It also, when

43:10

you set it up, Apollo has an app, the

43:13

mobile app connects to the device. When

43:15

you set it up, it's required to do that connection

43:18

to just program it and to get familiar with

43:20

it. But once you set it up, we

43:23

can actually, we can give you a customized schedule

43:25

that is curated to

43:27

your chronotype that's focused on giving

43:30

you the best results possible that we saw from our clinical

43:32

trials, which is roughly like 11% increase

43:36

in heart rate variability. This is the only

43:39

wearable technology that increases heart rate variability

43:41

just by putting it on. And

43:44

those 30 minutes more sleep, we've seen

43:46

people who use Apollo for about three hours

43:48

a day, five days a week vibrating on

43:50

their bodies are getting that

43:53

level of impact. And so

43:55

the app is designed to do that for you automatically

43:59

by what we call the Apollo app. a scheduling feature right

44:01

now. So you just open, you set up the app,

44:03

you connect your device, and there's eight vibes

44:05

that you can choose from that are basically songs

44:08

composed based on the neuroscience of our touch receptor

44:10

system. And each song

44:13

has a different energy level. So and

44:15

we call them vibes. So there's like energy

44:18

vibes, which are the, which could feel kind of like a shot

44:20

of espresso, it's like a jolt of energy. And

44:22

then going down in energy from there, they're

44:25

social, which is like creative social flow

44:28

focus, which is intense focus on one

44:30

thing, then recovery, which is like five minutes

44:33

of moderate breathing, then calm,

44:35

which is like 20 minutes of deep meditative

44:37

breathing, then unwind, which

44:39

is kind of feels to a lot of people like

44:41

a cannabis indica or glass of whiskey. And it's

44:43

just like a deep relaxation for anything

44:46

before bed and also helps with intimacy

44:48

and connection. And then down from there

44:50

is sleep. And then we have

44:52

another vibe for everybody that's called power nap, which

44:55

drops you down into sleep, and then also wakes you up

44:57

afterwards after with like one click, which

44:59

is something that I always wanted to have access

45:01

to. And when I was trying to power nap and

45:04

setting my alarm and doing all this stuff that

45:06

like, you know, I was like, am I actually going to wake

45:08

up at the end of this nap? So those are

45:10

the eight vibes. And you can schedule

45:12

them throughout the day. Or if you

45:14

answer a few questions and tell us about yourself in

45:17

the app in the schedule, you click the little sparkle

45:19

button, and then we will actually learn

45:22

about your specific chronotype,

45:24

which is your ideal circadian

45:26

rhythm structure, your sleep and wake structure,

45:29

we all as human beings have an ideal

45:31

structure, which has now been found by Dr. Michael

45:34

Bruce and others to be really, really important

45:36

for our overall health. And

45:39

so we identify your circadian rhythm structure

45:41

that's best for you, and then identify

45:44

what your struggles are during the day.

45:46

And then we compose

45:48

a personalized schedule of vibes for you, that

45:51

schedule gets saved to the Apollo. And

45:53

then the Apollo can be completely separated

45:55

from your phone, you don't need a phone around

45:57

to use it. And it runs automatically in the

46:00

and all you need to do is keep it charged. And

46:02

now we have an AI that we

46:04

just released, which I can tell you about as well.

46:08

Yeah, it's awesome. I just wanna mention, you're just feeling

46:10

light vibration. I mean, that's one of the things that's happening

46:12

here. You're feeling this vibration. And

46:15

we don't have time now, because I'm looking,

46:17

we're running out of time, to get into metaphysics of what's going

46:20

on in terms of the importance of vibrational

46:22

frequency and how it resets our system. But

46:25

it's pretty incredible. And so I wanna encourage everybody,

46:27

check it out. Apollo, Apollo Neuro

46:29

here. And can you share a little bit, Dave,

46:32

about the website? I think we also have

46:34

a link that we can send people to. But

46:36

what is the website? And then

46:38

I'll stay on after this. We're gonna put this in the show notes.

46:41

I think we have a discount for everybody who wants

46:43

to get this, who listens

46:45

to the interview here. And so we'll put that

46:47

in the show notes here as well. But tell us a little

46:50

bit about where we can find it, and then we'll put

46:52

a link so you get a discount to this in the show

46:54

notes.

46:55

Yes, you can find Apollo at apolloneuro.com.

46:59

That's A-P-O-L-L-O-N-E-U-R-O.com.

47:04

Or if that's hard to remember, you can go to wearablehugs.com,

47:07

which is what our kids call it. And you

47:09

can find me at drdave.io, and

47:13

on Instagram and Twitter at DrDavidRaben.

47:16

I always love to hear from you, so please reach out. And

47:19

yeah, and also I should let you know

47:22

that just to add one last point, and

47:24

I know we're wrapping up, but we just released a

47:26

feature we've been working on for the last five

47:28

years that is so exciting because

47:31

we've been trying to use AI to

47:34

help understand states of the body that

47:37

are unpleasant, uncomfortable,

47:39

undesirable, and then turn

47:42

Apollo on automatically throughout the day

47:44

and night that gets you nudged

47:47

into the more desirable states. And

47:50

the piece we just released, that's an add-on

47:52

software brain that

47:55

drives Apollo that you

47:57

can add on to your Apollo hardware

47:59

like a Tesla. brain and it learns

48:02

about your sleep habits. They've called smart vibes.

48:05

It learns about your sleep habits, learns about when

48:07

you're sleeping well, learns about when you're sleeping

48:09

disturbed, tracks your sleep

48:11

and shows you in the app and then turns

48:13

Apollo on automatically during the night

48:16

to prevent unwanted middle of the night

48:18

wakeups. And just by adding

48:20

this AI feature that runs in the background when

48:22

you're sleeping, you don't have to do anything other than turn it on.

48:25

We're seeing people go from 30 minutes

48:28

of sleep a night using Apollo regularly to

48:30

over 60 minutes more sleep a night by preventing

48:32

them from waking up and just imagine

48:36

how much less stress and how much better you'd feel

48:38

getting an extra hour of sleep

48:40

a night. I could tell you it's been life changing for

48:42

me and my wife. So definitely

48:45

check that out. And there's more to come with integrations

48:47

with Ora Ring as well in the next month.

48:50

I love it. It's so great. Well, Dr. Dave,

48:52

I want to say, Hey, one, thank you for being an innovator

48:54

of this technology. I know it's been a benefit,

48:57

not just people with mental health. It's going to help those people.

48:59

And if you're struggling with depression or

49:01

anxiety, or you're just like me and you're just

49:03

saying, I just want to be as healthy as I can be. I

49:05

want to sleep better. I want to have less stress in my

49:07

life. I want to encourage you check out Apollo

49:09

neuro. And I only bring things here on the show that I personally

49:12

use and love. And so that's why I wanted to invite

49:14

Dr. Dave Raybin here on. So Dr.

49:16

Dave, thanks so much for sharing your wisdom with

49:19

us today. Thanks everybody for listening.

49:21

And if you're not subscribed here to the podcast,

49:23

make sure to subscribe here. So you don't miss

49:26

another excellent interview like we did today. And

49:28

also check out in the show notes, we're

49:30

going to have a discount on if you want to get Apollo

49:32

neuro, you can get one here as

49:34

well. So thanks so much for Dr. Dave Raybin

49:37

sharing his wisdom with us today. Have a great week,

49:39

everybody. Thanks everyone.

49:42

Hey, Dr. Axe here. I want to say thank you so

49:44

much for listening today. If you enjoyed

49:47

this episode, make sure to like

49:49

and subscribe to show so you don't miss a thing.

49:52

Also, if you're in search of more natural

49:54

health content, you can follow us at

49:57

health Institute on Instagram.

49:59

or subscribe to our newsletter using

50:02

the link in the show notes below. Hey,

50:04

thanks a lot and have a blessed week.