 Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. So can you imagine having someone who is always in your corner focused on helping you look and feel as amazing as possible? Well, my guest today has made a career of doing just that. In just a moment I'll speak with certified nutritionist, classically trained chef and reiki master Serena Poon. Serena, who's worked with the likes of Kerry Washington, Jerry Bruckheimer and Sean P. Diddy Coombs takes a holistic mind-body soul approach to healthy living. And she isn't afraid to go outside the box. As a matter of fact, her work includes reiki and functional and spiritual nutrition. And it's fascinating to say the least. On this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast, Serena will tell us all about these practices and share ways you can achieve optimal health. Serena, it's nice to see you again. A few weeks ago I was a special guest on your Instagram channel and now here we are with you on mine. Yes, hi Dr. Thank you so much for having me. Well, it's great to have you on the podcast today. Yeah, we always have such a fun time chatting. I love it. So you work in a very hybrid space of food, nutrition, energy healing. So what sort of people seek you out and what are their health needs? That's a great question. Since I cover a lot of ground and you know I would say primarily my client base has very much been people are looking to optimize their health obviously but also heal. You know I've had I have probably very much like you. You know I have people who come to me with different disorders or if they want to you know prepare for surgery, pre-op, post-op, different ways to really prepare their body for maximum healing and then there are people that as I said just really want to maximize and optimize their health. But as my practice grew and evolved to include the energy work to include the Reiki I also have a lot of clients who just want that aspect of my practice just once that Reiki and there are some actually most of them now they really like the combination of my method of culinary alchemy and that's where we're using intuitive energy we're using Reiki as well as the nutrition of food to do that optimization and to do that healing. All right I want to take you back to that so you said culinary alchemy. What the heck is culinary alchemy and why is it important for healthy living? Yes well culinary alchemy is my method of really combining integrative and functional nutrition with healing intuitive energy and I do that primarily through Reiki. So essentially we're really working with the whole body you know with the physical body or physiological body your mental emotional body and what I call your energetic body which some people may also call spiritual body. So we're balancing your physiological and your spiritual bodies through the energetics of nutrition you know we sort of use food as that as one of the vehicles for that along with of course mindfulness energetic practices so it puts a lot on the balance and health of your chakra system. Gotcha so you so you take a very holistic approach to wellness obviously so all right so where take me on this spectrum where where does where does food fit in where does Reiki fit in where does spirituality fit in or is it just you know the you got to have it all right it sounds like you got to have it all. Yeah so that's a great question and I think my practices evolved from where I started you know I started my journey as a chef because I really wanted to understand food as medicine and really use the culinary arts to cultivate that as a medicine for the physical body and throughout my journey through some of my own health challenges I realized that there is a level of there was a level of mindfulness of self-care that wasn't included in just the tangibles of movement exercise and food and I came to understand that clear I believe in energy obviously and that there's a vibration that connects us universally and that there's a vibration in energy when it comes to food and as I mentioned I believe in the energy centers the chakra system that aligns with our organ systems and I realized that it works very cohesively you know the balance of your of your organ system also aligns with the balance of your energy of your energy center there so what I do when I work with a client you know we go as you said we go across the spectrum we start with doing labs so that we can see what's going on inside of your physical body where do you have deficiencies inflammation you know what what your intolerances are just what is going on in your physical body and then I do a fairly extensive intake form which actually tells me from like a Chinese medicine perspective and an Ayurvedic perspective what your body constitution is and then I do an energy what I call an energy intake which is that Reiki and I do a read of your chakra system to see where the imbalances are within your energy and your energy centers and then we create a protocol you know a program using foods to foods and of course because it is very holistic I include other modalities right so there's food there's different modalities mindfulness and to to really heal you or optimize you and then we build we build a system from there so that's sort of how everything is included now okay I mean is this done prior to COVID in person or have you done it remotely oh yeah well pretty I if a client is able to meet in person obviously pre-covid we always did because that's a really great way for me to read a person's energy and to kind of give a read about who they are and I and I just I'm a people person I very much like that rapport and that connection with someone but after that we usually just talk on the phone or over zoom and we do we do catch up calls remotely and over COVID it's just been something that's been a great resource to so many people because we can definitely still do that work you know I can still order your labs I can still read your labs process the intake and then we can still do the energy work because with Reiki there's something called distal Reiki and it's where I can work and read and send energy from a distance but we do the process as if that person is in the room with me so if we were to do a Reiki session Dr. Grundy I would I would have you create space and time where you are going to lay for 30 minutes or 60 minutes to receive and so be very much the same I'm just not actually in the same room with you but the process other than that is very much the same and it's very effective all right I'm gonna stop you there cuz some of our listeners are going now wait a minute you're you're you're claiming that you can read my energy remotely and that you can send me energy signals remotely now is so is that is that voodoo is that pseudoscience or is there evidence that this in fact can happen well I think that there's there's some growing evidence between a quantum physics and and also an energy and spirituality and we're seeing a lot more of that do I have like a hard reference that I can give you with a study you know I should probably have one in my back pocket I don't at the time but yes there is some of it of course is how open you are you know and we talk about how we all know that energy is really made up of everything that frequency that connects all of us and I think that anyone that's ever practiced some degree of meditation can feel that when you're in a moment that you're going to receive you do feel that we talk about good vibes bad vibes you can be sitting next to somebody you know out of restaurant and feel a vibration from them that you know that that we've all experienced and so and so it works very much like that it's just that in a close proximity you think that it's somewhat tangible but it's still not right and so from a place of distance the same can be done as long as it's about intention so what I'm working with people and we're working with food and we're working with energy and we're working with healing a lot of it does come from that connection with intention and I can walk I can walk us through an exercise later if you'd like to kind of give people an example of what that feels like okay yeah that'd be great in fact there's a there's a number of integrative physicians who have actually written books about having everyone reading that book have a remote sending out energy simultaneously and receiving energy and so I mean there there are you know accomplished physicians that actually you know more than just believe this have have actually written papers about the fact that he's a physician and he's a scientist he's written all kinds of books obviously there's a lot of doctors and scientists and research scientists that have made that connection and have put it on paper so so yes absolutely so it just to bring up again so is the same sort of thing let's use a different example is having a prayer group or sending prayers for support to somebody in the hospital who is going through a tough time is that the same sort of thing you're talking about yes it is absolutely I say that it very much the same so whether it's prayer or you're doing Reiki or you're doing chronic healing or whatever it is I mean at the end of the day it's having intention and sending out a vibration of healing so you know people asking what is Reiki Reiki is the is the Japanese you know modality of of using that universal energy and channeling it into one direction or another but in my opinion there's a lot of ways to do it there's different names very much like religion right I mean everyone has their own religion but at the end of the day what are we all doing we're all doing the same thing so prayer very much so if you're going to Reiki your food before you have it it's sort of like when you say grace you know it's same thing very very similar so if I so if I'm in the kitchen and somebody walks in and saying I'm wrecking my food that doesn't mean I'm stirring it around necessarily right no not exactly but but you could do a little thing and you can be making your food gotcha well and you know as you know I I'm a plant predator and plants actually do have feelings and they actually have memory and this has actually been proven so I think even our my devout vegan friends and patients we we harm plants by eating them and that we have to we actually have to be thankful that you know we're allowed to eat them absolutely there's and plants have their vibration all everything has that vibration so I agree with you a hundred percent you know there's there's there's a way that people can really connect to what I'm saying and it's where you know if you do a gratitude practice for example and you are and what I tell clients what I tell my community is it's not just oh I'm I'm grateful for my home and I'm grateful for my dog and I'm grateful for my family it's more think about something that you are so grateful for it actually you get almost a visceral feeling you know you think about that person that or that place or whatever it is and it evokes in you a feeling that that you can feel almost physically it's that feeling and that that's that's the connection that energetic connection that's what you will be channeling into see the food that you eat and then turn your body receives it back so so we can walk through it a little bit later but it that's what I mean when I'm talking about energy that we can use that your listeners can use the next moment they're in the kitchen as they're preparing their matcha or their or their veggies or their dinner whatever it is it's evoking that feeling within yourself and then putting it back into the food okay well you know I wasn't I wasn't going to talk about this but I think this is a perfectly great time as you know this COVID crisis has disrupted everyone's live and in more ways than one and a lot of people no longer are employed and we've I've talked with other guests so this is some of the most stressful times probably that anyone's been through maybe the most stressful time that anybody's been through and if you're not you don't have a job you don't know when if you're gonna pay the rent you got two kids at home that are driving you crazy how tell me how to practice gratefulness when everything's falling apart got some thoughts oh absolutely that's a great question Dr. Gundry and and I'm so glad you ask because it's actually so much it's simpler than people think when we're in this place of you know fight-and-flight when we're stressed out like that when the world seems like it's falling apart it's because we're focused and that which we don't have you know we're focused on the loss we're focused on what we cannot control you know and and and that's the focus so if that's our focus as we're sending energy towards what we don't have towards that loss that is going to continue channeling that kind of that that inflammation energetically and physically within our body so you just simply do the opposite you know you you focus on what you do have you've got two kids they're driving you nuts but it's better than not having them you know you have you've lost your job but you have skills and you're healthy I mean I had COVID so if you're listening out there and you didn't have COVID that is the first thing that should be on your gratitude list is that I am I'm safe and I'm healthy and I'm in a home and we can figure it out I mean that that may sound like okay that's just being a little bit too positive but look around because if you look around you if you look around you you'll see so many things that you actually have and the things that you have control of and so you might not have control of the stock market you might not have control of what's going on in the time of vaccines or no vaccines or whatever is going on in the news but you have control of what you do with your body so you have control of movement you have control of your breath you have control of the food that you put in you have control of how much you hydrate your body and it doesn't have to be you know expensive things just keeping yourself hydrated puts your body at an optimal immune level just and as Dr. Grandry knows you know just staying hydrated is so key to your immune system and that's something that all of us can do so I would say focus on those things dumb it down to the basics and then start from there. All right great advice yeah I'm glad I'm glad we talked about that so what I love all the what many people think are crazy things that you do and I'm going to get you to talk about another potential crazy thing and you work with crystals right I do all right so I know I know so for the uninitiated tell me about crystals crystal work the energy in crystals and again talk talk to me like I've never heard of such a crazy thing and how can a crystal help how's that so so let's think about the things that are connected to the earth that have healing have healing attributes for us there's a healing energy to it for some people the ocean is very healing the sounds of the wave going into the ocean of course there's a salt but just just being in the ocean can be healing having your feet grounded into the earth walking in the grass these are things that connect you and ground you to the earth to mother earth because there's a vibration with our crystals come from the earth so just like the foods that come from the earth all these root vegetables and just everything there's a vibration so it's it's kind of not that different than other other other things other objects that we identified that can be healing for us so we may not ingest a crystal but there is an energetic vibration that comes with the crystals and and a lot of it is also of course your belief system right so there are crystals that are believed to to hold an energy that can help with calming you know that can help with soothing that can help with anxiety to a degree you have to be open to that but you also have to be open when you go to a doctor and think that this doctor is going to be able to help you with your skin problem or your heart problem you're open to receive the information I don't see it that different when it comes to crystals I mean there's there needs to be maybe more scientific evidence because that's the tangible that a lot of people believe but when you pray or when you go to church or when you do your own ceremonies those things aren't necessary tangibles it's a belief and that belief in and of itself has a tremendous healing power to it so I work with crystals when I do Reiki I work with crystals when even with the foods you know I mean I wear them because I believe I believe that they channel an energy yay do you have yours I love it and but of course that is because you believe that that this tiger eye helps me channel an energy of passion or abundance and so it's it all kind of comes back down to the mind right and your belief system but that is an energy that you want to continue to circulate within your energetic body and your physical body so that's kind of a very basic response to crystals but I hope that makes sense yeah yeah so back in the back in the old days I had a pet rock so maybe that pet rock was very useful you know for me to have yeah actually and it's interesting my my father actually used to carry around a smooth stone a flat stone in his pocket you know every day and work and he he said you know he'd reach into his pocket and he'd rub this stone whenever there was anything stressful going on and he said you know it's a great way to take my mind off of whatever was you know bothering me at work and yeah he always had this rock little and little tiny yeah so there you go yeah I mean a lot of his belief in intention right like we make associations in so many different ways if you're feeling like you need a little bit of comfort some people may reach for for I'm just gonna use a dessert as an example it's not the best example but let's say that apple pie it soothes you comforts you even the smell of it if you don't eat it because it reminds you of your mom grandma or you know your childhood but you can use that you can have that same association of comfort with these crystals because that's what you're told or they're known to represent perfect all right now recently you posted about lymphatic massage so number one tell me about the benefits and number two or how do people can people do this at home oh absolutely I mean lymphatic lymphatic massage is such a great way to kind of help detox your body and we love for those of you that don't know lymphatic drainage it's just a really gentle massage of the lymphatic system that's that's designed to help detoxify you know move and move your lymphatic flow so so your lymphatic system is made of the organs and tissues that kind of act like a deep cleaner right for your body and so that fluid holds a lot of white blood cells that flow through and you want to get rid of those toxins and waste and byproducts that collect in different parts of your body so you can either do lymphatic at home by using dry brushing and that's so simple you can get a dry brush at just about any like pharmacy or drugstore they cost a few dollars you can get them on line if you're if you're being covered safe and you're not going anywhere and all you do is just lightly brush your limbs down towards the direct up towards your heart and from your arms you bring it down towards your heart because that helps a circulation and flow so the benefits of that include obviously includes the the movement of toxins out of your body and it helps with water loss for people who are say have lymphedema which is holding too much water it moves that it can help with your skin it can help with your digestion I mean any time that you can remove toxins from your body it's beneficial for your entire system so those are some things that I it's something that I recommend for for people who are let's say you just had surgery or something like that anytime you're you're kind of holding that weight it's a great way to just move move the lymph system move the fluids out move the toxins out you ever have anybody get themselves a rebounder at home oh yeah I have one right there you go I love that that's another great way those are it's another great way to like move the lymphatic system and it's so low impact anyone that has joint issues I suggest get a rebounder because you just move around it's a great thing to do first thing in the morning if you can dry a bush for five to ten minutes if you can jump on that rebounder for 10 or 15 minutes it's a great way to wake up your body and allow your body to flush out everything that had happened the night before as your body was resetting and cleansing itself yeah they're actually remarkably inexpensive and people always say well I'm gonna fall off of it but a ton of them come with a little handle that you can hold on to if you're really worried so funny you know my friend and patient Tony Robbins has a rebounder right before he goes up the stairs to the stage and it's so it's so fun being backstage with him and he before he goes out before every you know part of his show he's on the rebounder to get it and he's getting his energy going on the rebounder yeah so it's a it's a great trick great trick it is every I mean every day that's one of the first things I do just for a little bit of movement and it's a it's just it's a great it's a great little hack to for not just energy but your overall so obviously not everybody can come see you or see you remotely or hire a professional like yourself and I always like to give folks you know things that they can do at home like for instance dry brushing what are other things that you know starting tomorrow that people can do at home to do some of the things you'd like us to do okay that's a great question so so we talked about water and hydration right so that's something that I would say most people are dehydrated so one of the first things that people can do is drink and drink more water I I give clients a pretty high number as their goal which is you know close to one ounce per pound that they weigh as long as they have no kidney issues and they're not they're not deficient in electrolytes it's a goal if you can get halfway there or three quarters of the way there that would be great but what we talked about earlier with the gratitude practice in the morning but but connecting physically with that feeling of something that you're grateful for and then taking that to your food or your water or your coffee or your tea immediately and sending that energy and just having that intention that you want to connect and send that energy that you felt earlier into that meal that or as you're preparing and that's sort of the best way so when you're preparing that food to have that feeling kind of infuse and go into it that would be another tip and I again we had talked about energy centers and the chakras and the chakras align of course with physical our organ systems so if you want to try and create balance and you are obviously following the gungery diet then you choose foods that kind of across the spectrum of the rainbow so that you're targeting every single energy center you're staying with gun gungery friendly foods and you make that your meals throughout the day cover the spectrum of the rainbow and that would be something that and a lot of people don't really realize they don't eat enough of different colored foods because you're getting different phytonutrients you're different you're getting different micronutrients from different foods and different levels of fiber and fat and so that's something that's really important because most people I find have their two or three go-tos and that's what they stick to every single day and a variety in your diet is so important clearly for your gut health as well as your brain health but it's also good for your shocker health all right yeah years ago actually with my first book Dr. Gundry's diet evolution we found that the average person the average American has only five go-to meals that they eat on a rotating basis and they that's all they do and yeah and so it's you know it in a way it's that's what you get and fix but in a way it's so different than the way our ancestors would have eaten thousands of years ago in fact modern hunter-gatherers eat and interact with about 200 different plants on a rotating basis and even my you know devout organic eaters when I say excuse me you know how many how many different organic plants did you eat last year and they'll go oh you know dirty and I will you know good for you but absolutely and you know when we had talked about my practice of culinary alchemy right and you know one of the things that I do want to remind people of is and I can I have I have a chart that I use for clients but and some people in my community and it's where you want to eat an alignment of those chakras because as you're eating an alignment for those chakras which is why you want to eat the rainbow and you're also eating an alignment for your mental emotional health as well as your physical as your physiological body so it's just important to try and target every one of those to kind of keep things in balance and it's important to check in with yourself that's something that you might need to work with me a little bit on but you can check in with yourself let's say you're feeling ungrounded because of all the stress of what's going on in the world if that's the case then you want to reach for grounding foods you know you want to reach for foods that come from the earth you know you want to reach for foods that kind of help balance out that energy center and help kind of bring you back into a parasympathetic system so that you can digest properly and that you can tone down the overall inflammation in your in your system so those are things to think about so now you're gonna have me ask another question how how do you check in with yourself in a time like this give us give us a hint and I mean do I call myself on the phone or visit me on zoom or I mean give us a hint on how do you check in with yourself because I think you're right I think most people don't really check in with themselves they react yeah a hundred percent you know you're reacting so so it kind of boils down again back to the basics you know it's just taking a moment and it taking a breath and connecting to where you really are like try to feel yourself feel your body like this you know this is my body this is this is these are my legs this is like feel yourself and just and sometimes it helps to sit I would say try to have your feet on the floor so that you can connect with this is feeling the floor beneath your feet and I think that that's the first thing you do is to get yourself in a place where you have presence of where you're at and our body tells us things all the time our body talks to us which is what people forget you know by the time you're thirsty your body screaming at you that you're super dehydrated we know when there's pain your body's telling you there's a problem here but it's kind of screaming before we get to that point the body talks to us and tells us when there's a little tick there's something that's not quite right so when you're checking in with yourself sit there a take a breath get grounded what feels what feels off you know is it is it in your head is it in your heart is it in your stomach and you'll feel it you just have to take that moment now if it's in your stomach are you hungry is it something that's upsetting and you just kind of think for a second like is this something that's physical or is this something that's in my mind you know or is this something that's in my heart and I say that because I'm talking about emotions right so so check in and then and then once you start doing that once you have that presence and you start to try and break down what is it that I'm feeling where is it coming from your minds already shifted your attention and your focus is already shifted and and it'll it'll allow you to kind of come up with with a solution so either you're hungry you're not your stomach hurts you realize your stomach hurts because you got bad news so you can go address that I don't know if that's helpful but I think I mean I think that presence is is one of the key things that reminds me years ago I was doing mission work in Zimbabwe operating on on children in Zimbabwe and in the hospital in Zimbabwe there was a big sign and it caught my attention because I saw it every day the big sign says sometimes I sits and thinks and other times I just sits and actually as you were saying that I was saying you know that's exactly what Serena is saying to do sometimes you want to sit and think but other times just the sitting just the you know the quiet you'll find out a lot of things right oh yeah you won and as you said Dr. Gundry at most of the times we're reacting so you know this gives you an opportunity to to just be and then acts and then usually when you do that you can make a decision from clarity if you are going to have a thought and a decision after that because you're not in this in this hyper sympathetic state gotcha okay so are there any new exciting advances in intuitive healing modalities that you're excited about new tools you're learning about what's what's the next step I've actually been playing with this device that's really cool so I mean I and I just got a hyperbaric machine an hyperbaric oxygen chamber for my for my home it's not new it's it's you know modality it has been around for a long time but I find to be very beneficial and I've been using I've been using this little device and tell us what it is because a lot of people are just listening to this oh yeah sorry about that yes it's called a healing but it's a microcurrent device so it's kind of it's working with frequencies and your resonance and there are there have been a lot of other devices out there like it where it's using something tangible to read the the electromagnetic frequency in your body and to and to balance out or clear blockages so there's a lot of doctors that uses it's you know think about like the right from a long long time ago it's same kind of ideology but fast for a tour we are now and this is a wearable device that again I said I've been playing with it's called the healing and and what it does it's been FDA approved for pain but what's interesting is that I've used it for energy you know I've used it to to help align and bounce out say someone's energy centers I've also used it for pain so it's it's it's a really it's a really interesting sort of fascinating device you might want to play with one I mean the next time you're in LA you can come come play with mine but it's it's very very cool and so and it's very small for what you held up is what three inches by three or two inches by two inches maybe two by two for the people that are listening and it's a wearable device and and what you do is you can either wear it on yourself you can wear it with wristlets there's electrodes as well depending and what's very cool about it is that it reads it can you do an analysis it sort of reads your resonance the frequency in that's that you're in in this moment and then it makes suggestions of where there are energetic blockages so and then if you run that program which is kind of brilliant the way they've done it so in the past doctors physicians researchers that I've used frequencies they have to sort of manually set the frequency for the patient you know they'll run it at 639 Hertz for two minutes and then they shift it to 39 and it's a whole process this device has it pre-sets so let's say you have pain in your back or you have joint pain or you have whatever it is you know there is a preset program and you just wear the wrist wristlets for however long it says and you run this program and it actually does alleviate pain it has cleared you know we all had zoom fatigue for a moment there right and your eyes can get tired there's a setting where you can run it and after about 20-25 minutes that fogginess with your eyes clears and your eyes are no longer tired so something I haven't talked about that you might be the first actually doctor the first time I've really shared that because I'm good breaking news folks I mean the device is recently been introduced to the US a couple months ago but I just like to really dive in and and and understand and play with a modality and the science behind it before I really start to introduce it but I've seen I've seen a lot of success with it so from the energetic side there's not as much science to to back that up tangibly from the physical side it's an FDA approved device so there's obviously a lot of data for that aspect of the device of the machine but it's pretty cool and I think it's something that for people who don't have access to practitioners on a regular basis something that would be very useful for them and it's not a prescription you know you can get it on the internet and yeah you can get it online I mean I can send you a link to it if you'd like and people can when you share this podcast and and actually I'll do that and then people can go there and they'll see and there's different devices I use one that's for a practitioner I can read you know I can read someone's resonance with it and when I combine that with Reiki when I combined that with my intuitive read it's so accurate that it even I mean it even kind of surprises me still I ran it on someone just last night it was fascinating you know she had complained of she had complained of shoulder like pain in her arm it was excruciating so I said okay let's run this program and as you know before we even I already knew just from doing an energy read what the percentage was that I should have her set up we ran the program it pointed out pain there's 140 120 programs it pulled pain it pulled joint and it showed me on the app exactly where to put the electrodes which was exactly where she told me and then as we ran the program we I you know we kind of moved it up and down and she told me her comfort level and we landed at exactly the percentage that I knew it would be from the energy read so again like culinary alcohol I'm combining food and energy and the nutrition into a protocol to help heal someone I've found that this device is kind of fascinatingly it's just exciting that I can add it in and and we saw immediately results she she wasn't completely for your pain but she said it reduced it by at least 40% and we ran it for 50 minutes yeah so right yeah pretty cool all right well I'm glad I asked that question so so it's been great you know seeing you again having you on the podcast now you have a lifestyle brand and a new TV show is that right yes yes they do I have a Serena loves TV it's also a podcast oh very cool and so where do people find you so they can find me on Instagram it's chef Serena Poon S-E-R-E-N-A-P-O-O-N on my website Serena loves dot com and you'll find everything there you'll find links to all the other social platforms and YouTube and the podcast which is Serena loves you guys will find all of that and we have a wellness line called just add water and you'll find that there as well and that's another you know really exciting exciting project that we work on my sister and I were partners and that's like a super nutrient dense super food so so different things that you know we offer just to help people heal and optimize so sleep is a huge issue probably particularly now do you do you have any advice I mean do people need to change their mattress do they need to wear blue blockers what where do you where do you see you fitting in on sleep I say that the if you can get one of those glasses those blue blockers glasses and you're using that at least the hour or two before bedtime that's very helpful but I've also found different herbs and this is a big part of my practice is using natural organic either supplements or herbs to help to help balance and soothe your body and there's definitely different herbs that are helpful for that so you know we're familiar with we're familiar with chamomile tea but there's also passion flower and you can drink it as a tea or you can you know take it as a supplement if you need to those are great things to do before bed to kind of help relax your system I also recommend magnesium you know and I recommend magnesium glycinate something that I do as well just to kind of help ease and relax a lot of people are deficient in magnesium so that's also helpful in that sense when it comes to your mattress I mean yes of course I'm not the expert on mattresses but having a good mattress is obviously very important but I would say you know if you can do that gratitude practice you do in the morning if you can do it before bed it helps to ease your mind and your focus is on things that relax you make you happy calm you and you want those thoughts to be the thoughts that you have as you go into in sleep and rest so those are really helpful and there's there's a few other herbs as well but passion flowers usually might go to and magnesium glycinate might go to if you're going to do teas or supplements and a little bit of a breathing always helps as well the 444 that can really help yeah I actually I like lavender essential oil as well oh yeah fantastic and that's great and then yeah yes rub it and the other thing that I've found very interesting is there's an amino acid called glycine and glycine actually lowers body temperature and so I have a lot of my really you know troublemaking sleep deprived people try taking a thousand milligrams of glycine about an hour before they go to bed it's just a tablet and drops their temperature and there's actually very well controlled clinical trials that is really aid sleep so anybody so all great tricks okay great there you have the exactly and I think you've got one behind there if she's got a bunch of crystals behind her we have apocalyptic that's not that's not behind me but apocalyptic it's great for sleep as well and so is how like very good great crystals for sleep all right great pieces of advice and thank you again and I'm sure we'll be Instagramming or something together thank you so much doctor gonna use a lot of fun thank you so much for having me appreciate it all right and take care thank you so much dr. Gunry I really I loved it our pleasure that was great great information thanks okay it's time for our audience question live health and wellness or it could be live health and wellness on Instagram ask if you are going to have dessert like ice cream or cookies is there a best time of day to cheat well first of all I hope you're not having ice cream and cookies unless they're one of my recipes from the various books as you know we've got some great avocado based ice creams which I think are fantastic and we've got so many great cookie recipes using almond flour and coconut flour and the alternative flours that you can have these you know decanate treats but actually improve your gut health feed your gut bugs without destroying things but the interesting thing about these sweet treats you're better off having them earlier in the day rather than later in the day and that's not usually when we have these so if you had an alternative between having them after lunch and having them after dinner try to get them in earlier during the day and you'll actually I'm going to give you a bunch of tricks in my upcoming new book the energy paradox on how to pull this off how to cheat without killing yourself and your energy a great question all right it's time for the review of the week following my recent episode with the fitness podcaster Ben Greenfield dragonfly on YouTube wrote this was so interesting I've also worked in sleep medicine but the information here was more than I learned on my journey well okay thank you very much well we're trying on the Dr. Gundry podcast to introduce you to lots of different areas of health like in today's podcast for instance so you know keep the cards and letters coming in and if you want to hear something I'm happy to find out what we can for you and get them on the show so that's it for today we'll see you next week on the Dr. Gundry podcast before you go I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes Google Play Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts because I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you