Heart Expert Joseph Anew on Mast Cell Matters with Dr. Tania Dempsey

[00:00:00]

Jill Brook: Hello Mast Cell patients and beautiful people who care about Mast Cell patients. I'm Jill Brook and this is Mast Cell Matters where we go deep on all things related to Mast Cell Activation Syndrome or MCAS with the help of our brilliant and beloved guest host Dr. Tania Dempsey, world renowned top expert in MCAS and related comorbidities.

She's a physician, researcher, educator to other physicians. Dr. Dempsey, thank you for being here and which of your amazing colleagues did you bring with us today?

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Well, today I am thrilled to be joined by Joseph Anew, a transformative health expert with over 20 years of experience in health centered fitness, wellness, and personal transformation. As the founder of Runga, an experience, actually, that I participated in last year that I'd love to talk a little more about because that was fabulous,

as well as a key player in the global success of Spartan [00:01:00] Race, Joseph has dedicated his entire career to helping high performers improve their health, and do whatever it takes to unlock their fullest and highest potential. Joseph's personalized paths to vibrant health involve a unique blend of ancient wisdom, cutting edge strategies, and holistic approaches.

His expertise extends far beyond physical fitness, delving deep into heart health, breathwork, altered states of consciousness to connect people deeply with their root causes and personal power to create a maximally transformative and sustainable outcome for his clients. Joseph's TEDx talk, Breathe, has resonated with over 1. 2 million viewers worldwide, emphasizing the vital connection between breathing, and overall well being. In this episode, we'll dive into what Joseph refers to as the heart problem, the powerful connection between the physical heart, emotional health, and healing from illness, and [00:02:00] how Joseph's innovative approaches are setting a new standard for true holistic health.

Welcome, Joseph.

Joseph Anew: That was a long bio. I don't think I deserved it.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Oh, no, no, no. You, you absolutely do. And, and I, and I do have to give a little plug for you because that Runga conference last year, and I think it was about this time of year, like October, right, of 2023. I was I was honored to be a panelist. Michael Ruscio was was there as well. He's gonna be on the podcast soon.

You and your wife, Amelia, put on, like, an amazing event like no other. Probably my favorite conference slash event that I've ever been to. But it was just so well thought out and all the information that you, you brought to the, to the guests, I think was just incredible. And we did a lot of breath work. And so I really, really was excited to bring you here to talk to our audience about the work that you're doing. So, so let's talk, let's talk a bit. So how [00:03:00] did you decide to pursue the work that you're doing. Give us a little story.

Joseph Anew: Well, thank you so much. And I'll say, Tania, that, you know, The event is mostly Amelia, my wife. It's like, I, I, I push people in ice baths when they get there. And I, I do a little breath work and you know, I'll, I'll sit on a panel, but you know, the, the beauty of it and the incredible attention to detail. And she's really just amazing.

And you know her and she's done so much incredible work and it's, and that's part of it. And we'll get, you know, get maybe into some of this, but what was so interesting because I began doing Runga in 2014, I think 2015 was the first year I named it that. When, when she came in and really made the experience just beautiful to look at and beautiful to be a part of.

It was a little more, it was a little less stunning, at first when it was just me and she really brought this incredible attention to detail. What I learned is it downregulates people's [00:04:00] nervous systems when they're in a very comfortable premium experience and they can't eat everything and they don't have to be the person that's like, Oh, what's in that?

What's in this? What was so interesting about it is the teachings and the learnings and the experiences actually download more effectively. When they walk away, you know, we call it momentum. When you walk away from a, just a weekend experience, you have so much momentum. You don't have to, you know, the, the cold plunge or the breath work.

It's just part of your being now. And I think it's because of the nervous system state, which I think we'll get into. So yeah, I'm excited to share, you know, and in terms of what I'm doing right now I would say that the work pursued me you know, I, and it was more this process of getting out of the way and, and observing what I've always done through a slightly different lens, so for many years, you know, I've been doing fitness work, got into breath work many years ago. Obviously I have a very keen interest in [00:05:00] food and nutrition, and I just kind of awakened to this idea over the last two or three years that like, I'm really all about the heart.

And, and I think that I want to tell a little bit more of my personal story because I think with, with your audience on this particular show, it'll really help them understand where I'm coming from with some of this. But when I was a little, when I was 14 or so, I was the lone witness to my father having a heart attack. And it planted a lot of seeds for me that later on when we got to the hospital, the doc was like, no more steak and eggs. And, and it was funny because we were a very food pyramid household and I was like, if steak and eggs cause heart attacks, all we eat is bread and pasta. Like, how did this happen? It was, it planted a seed that I think many years later, before we got on the air, we started talking about, you know, the keto diet and the epilepsy diet. And in 2007, when I first was put on the epilepsy diet, it was, I [00:06:00] think the experience with my dad was the reason I was able to do it because I had just spent four years studying conventional nutrition and exercise science, and it was so backwards. And it's like, no, I know everything about nutrition. I just graduated.

Now I'm supposed to eat nothing but fat and, you know, no, no fruit and, you know, what, what is no carbs? And and so that was just a, a really, you know, I think that planted a seed. And I also, I don't normally talk about this on shows, but in my life, I've also had four near death experiences. Two before the age of about 15 and two in my 20s.

And so, there's been this heart, life, and death theme that has just been a massive part of my life that I've really begun to observe. Particularly since my two sons were born. And so right now with some of the transition I'm doing into heart health specifically and also heart, just personal power and, and the sort of more energetic side of the heart what I'm really excited about is [00:07:00] just owning that and working more closely with docs like yourself.

So that I know my clients are getting the medical attention they need, they're having the right people look at their blood work, and we can really just focus on the breathing and the heart health and the more, the more energetic side of things. So, I wanted to tell a quick story if I may, I know I'm long in the tooth, but I think there's a, there's a really interesting story here and when I was 23 years old, I was literally diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. So dystonia, because I know you have medical professionals listening, but it was described to me as like, Hey, you fractured your skull. You had brain surgery.

I had this horrible accident about 10 years prior. Muhammad Ali got hit in the head too many times too, and, you know, by 30 you'll be Michael J. Fox. This is literally what I'm told in a medical office in 2007. And so, [00:08:00] I began this, you know, I just started going through the motions, like, how do I stop this?

How do I treat this? What do I do? And I went to something like a hundred, over a hundred appointments with, like, every, you know, Chiropractic, Neurologist Acupuncturist, you know, I just went crazy. And towards the end of 2008 I quit. If I've only got five or six years before I'm apparently Michael J. Fox, as I'm told, why would I like go to work?

And why, like, why would I do all this? So I literally grabbed my bag and moved to the Caribbean. And spent my days on the beach. And it was so interesting because what I began to do is sit there on the beach each morning and meditate a little bit. And then I got really into free diving. And when you're into free diving, [00:09:00] all you try to do all day when you're not in the water is maximize your breath hold time.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Oh.

Joseph Anew: So I would spend my days. On the beach, meditating, at doing breath work, having no idea what breath work was, just trying to extend my breath hold retention time. I didn't really have any money, so I was literally eating basically one meal a day when the fishermen came in at five o'clock. I would just get a bunch of like raw fish, just have sushi every night. And for the first time in over a year, I started to get better. It was like my healing required that I forget I was broken and I get into my body, get into my breath. And ever since I've been obsessed with the mind body connection, which now I've more or less figured out is the heart. So that's kind of like how I got into what I'm up to now.

Jill Brook: [00:10:00] Wow.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Incredible story. I got chills. But it's so, that last part, that last sentence, right? It's, it is about the heart and it is about the mind body connection. And we know that, we talk about it in the Mast Cell. cell world a lot with, we talk about the limbic system and, and limbic retraining and retraining the brain and retraining the nervous system,

because one of the things we know is that our nervous systems, our immune systems are overreacting to our crazy toxic world. And, and that's exacerbating a lot of the problems that a lot of our patients, you know, experience. So, so, so I think that what your work just, just really dovetails so nicely into the stuff that we talk about, but it's a little different perspective.

So I want to really understand better than what are you, what are you doing? So you take this personal experience, which is really, really transformative. And then you [00:11:00] just, you, you run with it and then, and then you start helping people. And then how does that translate to, to, to what people can do listening, let's say.

Joseph Anew: Yeah. Yeah. So, well, that was, that was the seed, you know, what's so curious is, you know, over the last couple of years, looking back at my life and, you know, like my father having a heart attack and cracking my head open and go to the Caribbean and doing the breath. And it's like, wow, look at all these seeds that were planted and really just taking a kind of like, you know, curious eye to them and being like, Oh, I see what this pattern is.

I see what I'm meant to do. I see what I'm supposed to do. And essentially what I have come to believe, and it's been really interesting because a lot of both what, say, if, you know, in terms of real science, like the HeartMath Institute is doing, they have demonstrated a lot of, kind of, some of the things I've intuited and kind of been curious about.

I've seen stuff about it in books about the chakras. I've seen it in, you know, spiritual texts. But [00:12:00] I essentially think we have three brains, and you may agree, right? The gut, the brain, and the heart. And we could say that the gut is kind of like our instinct, our brain is kind of like our intellect, and our heart is kind of like our intuition.

And so, as you said, when, when we are in a, when we are diagnosed, you know, in words or spells, you know, maybe that's why they call it spelling, right? When I'm told I have this Parkinson's disease and I'm, you know, by 30, I'm going to be in a wheelchair. And at the time I was like running triathlons. That's really challenging.

Now, one of the interesting things that HeartMath Institute has shown is that if you and I, Tania, were in the same room or Jill, our hearts would literally sync. Like, they would show that our hearts actually cohere with each other, and we're all on the same frequency, right? Which is probably the reason, and they've proven this just in real research.[00:13:00]

And so that's probably the reason sometimes someone walks in the room and you feel like they took a little something from you energetically. And then other times people come in and they elevate you. And other times it's like your family and your kindred spirits.

And so. There's some magic kind of going on in the heart. But as you said, when we are diagnosed, when we are in pain, when we are dealing with something that's very challenging and it's mystifying doctors, well, where do we go? We sure don't go to our heart. We don't go to our emotional center. There's no time to cry about it.

We just got to figure it out. And we end up in the mind and the heart goes back to being a pump. And our gut and our brain are just kind of running the show. So there's this like very kind of panicky, heady energy that's kind of running our life. And in my, you know, experience with some of this, it's very hard to heal in that state because you're in that sympathetically dominant, reactive, running from a lion [00:14:00] state.

And so, I think, the parasympathetic, you know, if we imagine if we're on a healing, if we're in our heart, then, you know, the bills are paid, the, the, you know, the, we're loved, we're cared for, we're protected, we, we will not be left alone. We're, you know, we're gonna, and that's a deeply ingrained feeling when we're truly in our heart.

And I think it actually, healing actually needs that, but it's the furthest thing from where we are when we're in pain. And so that's the sort of, I think that's the challenge, right, is getting ourselves into a state of healing. When everything in the world, including our treatment is, is really about, this is what you got to do right now.

And it's very intellectual. So.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Right. So how do we do that? You have a secret?

Joseph Anew: So this is it, you know, I think that the [00:15:00] heart is where we have to focus. And so I call it heart focused fitness, heart focused nutrition. And the secret is heart focused food and fitness. It's effective and it's great. And I'll tell you about it, but it's also a little bit of a secret that it's kind of like a Trojan horse, you know, where we, what we focus on grows, right?

So, you know, in the mindfulness community that my wife is a part of, they say, it's like the wolf, the wolf you feed or the one you feed, right? So what are we feeding? What we focus on expands. And so if I'm walking around my life. And I'm doing heart focused fitness, heart focused nutrition, heart focused respiratory retraining.

I am, I'm focusing more on to my heart. And that is actually a way to awaken it a little bit and to bring it to the forefront. It's top of mind all the time. And so that's kind of, you know, just the sort of like secret of it. But the other thing, Tania, and [00:16:00] you know this, is when we are stressed, when we're sympathetic, when we're running from a lion,

our respiration and heart rate is affected. So how we breathe, your brain breathes you, or you can breathe your brain. So that's the end. What I call respiratory retraining is if you were going to, you know, look for somewhere to begin, everyone breathes and it's, it is literally the mind body connection is our breath, because if we don't do it on purpose, it happens to us.

And so really tuning into the breath and reprogramming the breath is I think a, it's as close to the root cause of whatever is happening as you're going to be able to get. And so you're, you're hoping for a little bit as you're doing what you need to do. You're hoping for a little bit of a butterfly effect.

I'm retraining my breath. I'm getting my nervous system down regulated, and I'm hoping that that's accelerating these [00:17:00] other things that I'm doing, whether it's, you know, medication or, you know, whatever, whatever it is. So respiratory retraining and breath work, that's where you got to begin.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: You know, We did some of this at Runga and and I still, I still do it. I learned from you and now I've incorporated into my own routine and I find it very, very powerful. And one of the things that sometimes I get resistance about with patients is when we start talking about breathing and sometimes the word meditation comes up.

And, and there are a lot of people where that's a little bit off putting for, for lots of reasons, right? And so you're not talking about meditation. You could go into meditation, right? You could, but the beginning parts of this is really about the breath, right? You're not trying to go, you know, you're not [00:18:00] trying to disconnect from your body.

And there are lots of things that meditation does, and there's lots of positives to it, right? So I'm not downplaying the role of that, but I want to distinguish it for the audience. Because I found what you did when we did this one exercise, I remember where it was counting how many breaths in, and how many breaths you hold, and how many breaths out.

I just remember that, the cadence of it.

Joseph Anew: Yeah.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Was so incredible. I'd never felt what my body felt like after we did that. Right. So, so can you talk a little bit about that?

Joseph Anew: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness. So, well, isn't it funny too? Because like my, one of my good friends was talking to me the other day and he said that the military is doing yoga now, but they can't call it yoga. So they call it tactical stretching. And so I,

I,

I think that there's also an opportunity to just sort of [00:19:00] tear down, you know, and we're talking meditation and breathwork and respiratory retraining are actually all different things.

But I think for people that have, you know, if that's like, Oh, come on, I have a real medical condition. Don't tell me to meditate. I totally, I've been there. So for me, I used to call it dynamic meditation and it included skydiving, whitewater rafting. And I would tell people, this is how I focus. You told me to focus on one thing and one thing only, this is how I'm doing it.

And so there's also an opportunity to expand, you know, what our understanding is, walking in nature could easily be considered a meditation. And, and I think though, and I think that what we did at Runga, so, box breathing was the, we did it for about 10 or 15 minutes then we did some other breath work, and so when you are counting your breath, what we did was in for four, hold for four out for four, hold for four.

And so. It's a little mesmerizing when you're like, 1, [00:20:00] 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, and you're, you're hearing somebody, there's music, and, you know, I think we had the gong going, and it's like, it's like, you know, it really gets into your cells and suddenly, you know, 25 minutes have gone by. And so that's really, really effective that box breathing exercise. But the secret of box breathing is that it is getting your respiration down to like four breaths a minute. And most people, if I just tell you to breathe four times a minute, you're going to go crazy. But if I guide you on 4, 4, 4, 4, we get your respiration down to 4 breaths a minute, and the beauty of that is if you are running from a lion, if you are sympathetically dominant, never in a million years would you only be breathing 4 times a minute.

You'd be your respiration would be 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, [00:21:00] 20 breaths a minute, right? And so that's why breathwork is able to, when we got a crippling diagnosis, when there's a lot going on, when I am in pain, my respiration goes up and my heart rate variability, which we can talk about, goes down.

And so, thinking about our issues are not going to improve that, but focusing on ironically, one of the symptoms, which is lower HRV and increased respiratory rate, bringing those back into coherence helps us more calmly deal with what's ahead of us, with our treatments, with whatever's happening inside our physical body, and helps us get us into our body a little bit.

Because I think that's one of the issues with healing is like when you start to believe your body's operating against you and there's this inner struggle.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Exactly.

Joseph Anew: So, connecting with the breath is this, is this beautiful way to just become one with [00:22:00] your body and stand a better chance at figuring it out because you're controlling your, your nervous system.

Jill Brook: Well, first of all, this breath stuff is fascinating. And I think it's so good for some of us to hear that you are a person who does all of these different things, including running triathlons, and, and you think breathing is the big thing. So I guess, I think, I think it's just amazing to hear the effect size that you would attribute to breathing and that's pretty cool.

But I'm wondering, since many of us have for example, like the Fitbits or Apple Watches that tell us how many breaths per minute we're doing, is there an ideal range? Because those numbers that you just read off are, that's like my normal number when I'm sleeping. So that tells me like, oh, but, but nobody ever tells you.

They don't tell you when the, in the Apple Watch what it should be. They just tell you what it is.

Joseph Anew: Right on. And so, and I'll say that everyone does have just like heart rate variability to extent is like everyone has a range that's normal, you know, like, Lance Armstrong, his heart beats like 30 [00:23:00] times a minute, right? But ours are at 60, 70, right? So everyone's got different stuff going on inside their body.

But most people should be between 10 and 13 breaths a minute. In terms of like your sleeping c rate.

Jill Brook: And will it come

down if you do the exercises that like you and Dr. Dempsey are talking about?

Joseph Anew: Yeah, but a lot of people, especially people that are healing, that are, that have stress in their lives, they're at 14, 15, 16, I've seen as high as 20. And so, when you're looking at that, then you know that they're in a sympathetically dominant state. If someone comes in, here's the thing too, that's really interesting is again, depending on the inner workings of their body, you know, their stroke volume and you know, how much their heart is pumping per beat.

I have had literal like world champion level competitive athletes that need respiratory retraining. And so this is a massive issue in our society simply [00:24:00] due to the stresses of modern life. It puts us into our sympathetic state and you know, there's a lot of things we can talk about here, but it comes down to CO2 tolerance, so the more tolerant your body is to CO2, the more CO2 you can handle, basically the less often you need to breathe.

And so, that's, that's where we're at. So, yeah, if you're at 11, 12, even 13, like, I think respiratory retraining, we, let's do an exercise in a minute. I think respiratory retraining would benefit you. If you're over 14 respiratory rate, like it will absolutely, it could change your life. And the higher you are, the more you need it.

I'd be happy to guide you guys on a quick exercise if you want.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Can we?

Joseph Anew: Yeah, it's going to take 10, 20, depending on how great we are, it might take 30 seconds, but it'll be, here's the deal. This is Patrick McKeown's BOLT test. So, I used to do this a little bit differently, but he has really sold me on this, and it's it's basically a CO2 tolerance test.

[00:25:00] So all we're gonna do is we're gonna take three breaths, and everybody listening on the on the audience can do this too. We're gonna take three calm breaths, in the nose, out the nose. Ready? One, not like expansive, not, doesn't have to be super full, just, just a clearing breath. In, out, two more in, out. Now on this next one, we are actually going to pinch the nose and see how long it takes us to develop our first sign of air hunger. Okay. So we'll go in and out and pinch the nose. And it's not a maximal hold. It's your first definite sign that your brain is telling you to breathe. You're there. Okay. Tania's mega fit, so we're going to be here all [00:26:00] day.

Yeah, because you're healthy, you exercise all the time, you're not, you know, your diet is incredible. Most people are between, some people don't make it to 10 seconds, in which case they definitely have sleep disturbances, they probably yawn a lot, they're probably having problems losing weight, they're probably having trouble quitting sugar because they are literally running from a lion and they're going to be craving the foods that we would eat while running from a lion.

They're not gonna crave like hearty, you know, they're gonna, calories, what are the simplest calories I can get in? If you're between 10 and 20, again, wouldn't surprise me if your sleep is a little messed up. You're probably not super productive at work. It's like you're easily distracted. You, again, you might yawn a little bit more than you want to.

And then once you get over 20, you're really into the zone where it's like, okay, you probably exercise, you're, you know, you're probably great. And if you get over 30, like definitely Tania was going to be. You sleep [00:27:00] well, you eat well, you're not stressed out, you're, you know, you're doing really well. And I've had athletes that are get to almost a minute on that test.

And so, yeah, that's the BOLT test and it's really helpful. And so, again, if you're under 10 seconds, need definite respiratory retraining under 20 too. And once you're over 20, you're great. And Patrick says that once you're over every five seconds you add to this test, you feel like 10 percent better. So, yeah, it's a really cool little trick.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: So I was just going to ask you really quickly. I wondered the role of, we have a lot of people listening who have POTS or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, which is a autonomic dysfunction. And I, and what I wonder is whether that actually interferes with this and makes it, makes them less likely to be like, they could be exercising, let's say, they could be doing all the things, but I wonder if their condition in a way might get in the way, and I wonder if they train this specifically, whether it actually translates, [00:28:00] this is just all like conjecture, but I wonder if it actually, if they trained this, whether their POTS could potentially get better.

Jill Brook: I was actually just interviewing somebody who is studying the role of hyperventilation in POTS and what they're finding is that when not enough blood gets to the head, it can trip off the baroreceptors and the chemoreceptors and make the brain think you need to breathe faster to get more oxygen when it's not your lungs that are the problem, it's the heart not pumping enough blood up to the brain.

So then anyways, POTS patients may frequently hyperventilate and so it does sound like this might be a way to help offset that.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: That makes sense.

Joseph Anew: And this is, you know, what I call aerobic deficiency, you know? So when, when we can't, when our respiratory rate is increasing, we are needing more, our brain is telling us to breathe more, but that's [00:29:00] largely because we can't tolerate high amounts of CO2. So when, when you can, when you develop a lot of CO2 tolerance, and so let me back up, when we are stressed, we increase more often. We also tend to breathe more from our mouth, especially during sleep. It might be, and this might be snoring and, you know, eight hours of just mouth breathing. And when we're mouth breathing, we're blowing off tons of CO2. So that's at the root cause of getting CO2 intolerant. And when we are doing that, when we actually breathe through our nose, which a lot of people with

autonomic health challenges have trouble doing, we're getting way more oxygen. We're also creating and, and, and putting more nitric oxide into the bloodstream, which further helps with vaso dilation and oxygenation. So for mouth breathing all night, for instance, and during the day, we are not getting the nitric oxide we need.

[00:30:00] We're becoming CO2 intolerant because we're blowing it all off and we're going to be, our brain is going to be telling us to breathe more, breathe more, breathe more. So that's exactly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if, even if we forget the BOLT test and some of that, just getting those people to like, do more nasal, like mouth tape at night, right?

For maybe you've heard about this. Mouth taping at night, just to keep your mouth closed. And there's a few different opinions on it, but I think it's a great place to start for a lot of people. To get more activity in the true breathing apparatus. You know, the nose is for breathing. The mouth is for eating.

You know, the nose is this massively incredible structure. That's like half the size of your brain, your sinus cavity. And when we're not using it to breathe, we're not detoxifying our air. We're not absorbing as much oxygen. We're not, we're not, we're not warming the air before it ends up in our system.

And we're not, we're not fighting viruses, because all the little hairs in our sinus cavity, they're, they're there to keep those things out of the lungs, and so we're more likely to get [00:31:00] sick. So there's so much there that wouldn't surprise me at all.

Jill Brook: Now, I know you have a bunch of pillars. This breathing one is mind blowing. I'm super excited to go deeper on it and to try these things on myself, but I want to make sure that our listeners also hear about the other pillars that you believe in.

Joseph Anew: Yeah. So, and the next one's nutrition. So the first pillar is, is getting a good doc. That's my, my first pillar, like go get your blood done, like get some good recommendations. You know, I want to focus on the breathing and the, I don't want to go into like, your cholesterol and everything. And so, and so the first one is testing and having a good doc.

The second one is this respiratory retraining. And as I said, I think it's for almost anybody, no matter what they have going on. It's the closest thing you're going to get to the root cause if it's in the autonomic nervous system to initiate that butterfly effect. The next one's nutrition, and I think that, you know, what's so interesting about nutrition to me, I have a whole heart healthy nutrition program that I, that I give folks, but what's really [00:32:00] interesting about heart health specifically in nutrition, if you think about nature in general, you know, if our bodies are Mother Nature in her, like, coolest form. The hiking trails that maybe you spend time on, they don't need you to plant trees, they need you to not leave your trash all over the place, right? Like leave no trace. And so if we look at our nutrition program, it's really about like, how like minimally destructive can my nutrition plan be? Like, how many things can I get rid of that, that I know are going to cause harm?

It's actually more about avoiding harm than, than having the, you know, super green smoothie or, you know, having this specific supplement. It's like, let's, let's avoid these things and then understand the difference between healthy and not unhealthy, which is an important distinction that I think people need because otherwise we end up eating all the like, you know, plant based cookies all day because they're healthy, though they're not as unhealthy, but that's different [00:33:00] than

healthy. And then the next one is movement. I think like low level physical activity and particularly when we look at getting ourselves out of the mind and into the body, into the heart, like how could we do it without moving? How could we do it without moving our system? If you look at like, if you think of us like almost like my dog, like if my dog is having mental, emotional issues, 100 percent of the time it's because he hasn't had a walk. But we don't, like, think of things that way and we just keep thinking about our mental emotional issues. And so this is one of the reasons I'm just a huge advocate for movement and specifically low level cardio. I think that we have to get into our bodies.

We have to get our heart moving and, and getting energy pumping through the body. So, movement and then environment is another one at the next pillar. Which I can just riff [00:34:00] through them all. You know, our environments, and this is actually a really interesting point. When I, when I was telling you guys earlier, HeartMath Institute has shown if we were in the same room, our hearts would literally be like getting coherent with each other, which is just so interesting, right? Well, when I was dealing with, you know, debilitating diagnoses, crippling diagnoses, and I'm spending a hundred days a year in waiting rooms with other sick patients and other people that are going through things like this, I'm constantly reminded that like, I'm, I'm, I'm

broken, and I'm this, and so when I escaped, like, I, I just took off and moved to the Caribbean with a backpack, and now I'm in a new environment, new people around, no one knows who I am, and suddenly I was able to heal, and this goes far, as far as to, there's, there's, we [00:35:00] can look at this another way, when I used to travel, I was traveling, we were growing Spartan Race from like, you know, nothing to like, you know, 7 million participants.

And I was in hotels all the time and I noticed something interesting. I had no issue cold showering in hotels, but as soon as I got home, it was the worst thing that I'd ever done in a decision that was challenging to make every single time, because in my home environment, I'm a certain identity. And when I'm in that room, I expect a warm, comforting, cozy experience.

And so, when suddenly I want to do something that's miserable in the same room that I'm used to, so environment, not only getting sun and feet on the earth and some time in nature, but really understanding our relationships around us, the energy around us, how comfortable is my home, am I constantly reminded where I don't want to go or do I have signs up around my house of [00:36:00] where I do wanna go.

So I think environment is a really underappreciated tool to, to just peek into when we are on the path to healing.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Absolutely. So is there any other, any other pillars?

Joseph Anew: Yeah, there's passion and play and then optimization. And so, you know, again, like the free diving thing, how do I get out of the mind and into the body? We need purpose. We need passion. You know, my friend Eric Remitzberger said and I don't know if he got this from someone, but we don't, we don't stop playing because we grow old.

We grow old because we stop playing. So I think having fun and finding joy and then optimization is, yeah, we got to do, let's do some red light. Let's, you know, jump in the sauna, which I think for heart health is just, it's a core part of the program. I have a heart health program. It's sauna's core. I mean, you know, this is like, The research is wild on sauna.

It's like, if you sauna twice a week, you're good. If you do four times, it's better. If you do six times, it's even better than that. So, optimization, biohacking, but that comes way later after food, after [00:37:00] exercise, after respiratory retraining and breath work.

Jill Brook: And I was going to ask, that's where the, that's where the cold plunge comes in, is in the optimization?

Joseph Anew: Yeah, yeah. For

some people.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Yeah, for some, for some, for some people, exactly. All these things are, you know, they have to be personalized, right? You know, and you have to be in the right place. And I think what I like about how you've, how you've outlined the pillars is that it's, it's a, it's a progression, it sounds like. Right? If you don't have the foundation, right?

And, and I will tell you that just, just experiencing that cold plunge at Runga for the first time, what I remember is you prepared us with breathwork before getting in the plunge. Now, had I not known that, because I had been wanting I've been wanting to cold plunge and had I just gotten my cold plunge, you know, like gotten it at home and just gotten in, that would have been the biggest mistake I think I would have ever made.

Okay. But you prepared us. [00:38:00] There was a breathing that we needed to sort of master. At least I felt that for me, like I needed to master that. And then when I got into it and, and you know, the sort of the time, I just remember like there, there's a timer and you're just, you know, and I just hear your voice, you know, and we're just, you know, breathing through that shock.

Joseph Anew: Hmm.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Cold. That's, if you don't have the breathing part and you have trouble with the breathing part, right? Try thinking that you're going to go in a cold plunge and solve your health issues. It's just not going to work. And that's what, that was what, that was what resonated with me. So, because I got, I felt better about the breathing and understood what I needed to do.

Those three minutes, I still can't believe that it was three minutes and it was like, I don't want to say it was like nothing. I don't want to underestimate it. It was, it was. But I don't know if I could have done it without how you sort of prepared us. Right. So this is [00:39:00] about the pillars too. You have to be prepared for each step in a way.

It sounds like.

Joseph Anew: Yeah. Yeah. And you have to know what you're stepping into as well. And so, in other words, one of my concerns with the way that information is just, you know, podcasts and social media and like, if someone has, you know, If someone is stuck in fight or flight, 39 degree water is not the solution, right?

They, they can, you could just jack your nervous system trying to do that. And so, and I think that and so knowing, you know, the appropriate time and place, and it's really interesting, Tania, Tania, because If you hear me, and I can't recall if you were, you know, we do four or five people at a time and I think you were just stoic and you just crushed it.

But if people are, if people are panicking, if they're, you know, getting in the mind, what I do is I go kind of sit right next to him like this and I say, Tania, you're [00:40:00] safe, you're safe, you're okay, you're safe. And I just constantly get them into psychological safety and will hum, which is also, you're not going to hum if you're running from a lion.

So you're, the nervous system is saying, this is dangerous. I'm going to get hypothermia. I'm going to die. Like, so humming, I'm safe. And immediately you can take somebody from, you know, a panic attack to a calm state sitting in the water. But what's really been interesting kind of over the many years of doing cold plunges is when you're new, you always got to do the breath work because you got to get into your body.

You got to, you know, this is going to shock you. But what's kind of neat later on once you've done it a lot is actually using it. It's like, I call it my Oura ring because if I get in, and it's a massive shock, I know my nervous system is out of whack. And if I get in, like the other day I was able to do, [00:41:00] I sat there for like seven and a half minutes with no breath work.

And I said, okay, so I know

I'm, I'm great. I must've slept well. I don't need an Oura ring to tell me that. I like, this is great. This is cool. And so you can also use these things that way. And I think that's one piece of the heart as well, which is your intuition. And when you are biohacking, or you're doing cold, or your even breathwork can stress people out.

So, listening to the heart, when, sometimes it's not a cold plunge day, sometimes it's not, you know? And so, being able to know when it's you being weak, and when it's you legitimately not having it in you today. Like these, if you do a 30 day challenge or something, you're going to stop getting results about day three and you're going to be going in the wrong direction.

And so, I think staying tuned into the heart, feeding the intuition is how you can really navigate a lot of this stuff more effectively as [00:42:00] well.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: You know, many of our listeners have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, or they have Lyme, or they have a mold illness, they may have all of those things. They have, certainly they have those things, they almost certainly also have a dysfunctional autonomic nervous system on some level.

So they're, they're in sympathetic overdrive, a lot of the time and and, and honestly navigating the medical world is like a crazy place that, that will send you into, into a fight or flight, just alone, just talk to a doctor and that will send you into a fight or flight. So so, you know, how do we, well, what, what would you say to someone who's starting in a place where, you know, they're overwhelmed, maybe they are very reactive.

They don't have a lot of food that, that they can eat. They're limited right now that they're reactive. So like, there's a perfect diet, let's say, well, I don't know if there's a [00:43:00] perfect diet, but there's a good diet. There's a heart healthy diet. You're, you call it, right. But, but let's say they're limited, they're limited,

they can't eat all those foods or, or they can't limit certain foods just because of the way their immune system is acting. So, where, where's their in? Like how, what's the place where that they can at least sort of start this journey? Because I, I feel like once you kind of get through a few steps, maybe that allows things to

to move better. Maybe it allows the other treatments we're doing, like the treatments that I'm going to be using with my patients. Maybe they will work better if there's a way for patients to use techniques like yours. But the point is, how do you start, you know, when you're not feeling well?

Joseph Anew: Yeah, yeah, great question, Tania. And I have to say, quickly, because, you know my wife, like, she's had medical issues for like 20 years, and we finally figured out [00:44:00] that it was like Mast Cell Activation Syndrome and stuff, and, you know, she floated around the system for like so long. And then like, I think the first time you guys met, she explains what's going on.

You're like, Oh, you sound like you've got some Mediterranean fever with a little mast cell activation. And she's like, took me 25 years to figure that out. Like, you know, and I, she was going to docs in four different countries, you know, so, you know, just like, you're amazing. So anyway back to the question, I think, I think there's, there's so many things I want to say here, and I think that number one, I think we always have to start, we have to start below threshold. Like, I think one of the issues, I think, I think the core objective of healing is getting out of the mind. Like we have to get into the physical body, into the heart, you know? So sure. We need to use the intellect. Like you got to tell me what medications I need and you got to like, you know, figure out what I need to do.

But in [00:45:00] terms of initiating the healing process, it has to happen, we have to believe it's likely to occur. We have to get into this sort of mental emotional realm, which, which is the heart. And so what I'm getting at with this is one of the things we need to be careful of when we are in pain and healing is overusing willpower.

Because willpower is a muscle that gets tired. And so if I'm in the mind and I'm doing all this stuff and I'm trying to go to work and I got the red light panel and I'm taking the Zyrtec and I'm, now I got to do breath work and now, and if it's, so I think the, the, the, the answer is really like, what can we, where can we begin that costs nothing?

Like energetically, right? You know, where can we begin? And so everyone thinks, so let's [00:46:00] start with thinking for most people. Okay. So I would try to, if somebody is really, you know, hurting, we have to begin with our thoughts because if we start to pile on even breath work, it's just a lot. So how am I thinking?

Because that is the mental program of my healing journey, and my life. I would ask somebody, you know, when was the last time you felt powerful and, and confident and strong in your body? And what was going on with you then? What was your job? What were you doing? And try to get them into that mental state of like, we can get back there.

So begin with thoughts. And then from thoughts, the next one that everyone does would be our breathing. So, okay. So like, let's, we can, that's even if we can't get our mind in the right place and we can't really get a generative emotion going well, let's try to change our breathing in a way that helps us control our thinking a little bit better.

Food, you know, beginning with food, you know, and I know that, you know, again, my wife too is like very, [00:47:00] diets get very restrictive when you're dealing with some of these issues. And reframe would be, it's not a restriction, it's it's this is what I need to do to get healthy. There's a, I think the mental program around, wow, I'm eating because I deserve to be healthy and right now these are the foods that are going to get me there.

So changing the mindset and then movement, you know, I think walking in nature is, is just one of the most powerful places to start for most people. Because yeah, I'm very aware and very careful with the willpower and the number of things that are on the plate.

And also because once you give someone something, you can't really give it again.

And so if they've got 20 things on their plate and you say, add red light and like, Oh, I tried that. It didn't work. And it's very hard to add red light later because they already have a belief about it. So it's also like, all right, I'm going to keep as many aces in my sleeve as possible. And like, let's start

with thoughts, our breath. That's where, where most people, it's the freest [00:48:00] medicine.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, how can, how can people work with you, or where can people find more information about the work that you're doing? Tell me, tell me about all your, your stuff right now.

Joseph Anew: Well, you know, we'll start with Runga, Rungalife. com. We have in person events, which is this sort of meeting of, of my wife and I's passions, mindfulness, breath work, fitness, community, amazing food. Our in person experiences are numbered. There's one max two per year. Um, but we also have an online program that's going to kick off in January. We run it two or three times a year. It's called Momentum. It's a 12 week mind body program. That's an incredible on ramp for somebody looking to develop that mind body connection. You know, maybe grow a little bit into this more you know, kind of energetic realm in addition to some of the more structured stuff they're doing.

So I love that Momentum program. I [00:49:00] love our events business. I also do one on one work and I just started a new heart club group that I'm really excited about. So there's an opportunity to work with me in a one on one relationship on some of this stuff or in the group. Both of them are on my website, josephanew.

com.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: What I love about your journey, really, is that through your own personal experience, and then through working with others, right, you found how to integrate all this information that you, you knew, but did not really know how they kind of fit together, right? And now you're, you're like, okay, here it is.

This is, this is how it fits. And I feel like it's, it resonates a lot with even like my own experience and background, you know, I, I tell the story a lot on podcasts about how I was living my life, you know, really thinking of my, my lifestyle was one way, what I was putting in my body making sure that I was sleeping, thinking about exercise, like all these things that I think are so important to, to, to, to [00:50:00] living a healthy life.

And then I would be in medical school and I would be, you know, required to tell patients, you know, and then after medical school, it was even worse where you would say, okay, you know, the patient has high cholesterol, here's your Lipitor. You don't have time to talk to them about diet. You don't have time to talk to them about anything that's related to health.

Right. And I was really struggling with this. Like, here's my life on one side, and this is what I'm supposed to do as a doctor on the other side. When I had that, one of those aha moments, like, I don't understand why I can't talk to patients about what I'm doing. You know, it's not the only thing, but it's like, if you don't, if you don't have the foundation, right, the patients don't know this stuff, then, then how do we expect to get them better, right?

That's why we just perpetuating a chronic illness sort of mentality in the medical establishment. So I had that same thing, like I was doing this, I was doing that, and then all of a sudden I was like, wait a second, it's all the same thing. We just have to go, you know, go at it, you know, kind of integrate it.

And it's finding [00:51:00] that integration, I think, that really does. Serve people better. It's like when you can find how those pieces fit.

Joseph Anew: Had to change your environment, you know? So, but, but I think that what you said, Tania, is exactly it. I think this is one of the real like root causes of a lot of what ails us, especially like mental, emotional, sadness, anxiety, like whatever it is, is when two of our three brains, our heart, and our gut are saying, this is what you should do, this is it, tell them about the vitamins, tell them about the gym, tell them about this, and the mind is like, no, no, no, and that is like a boxing match happening inside your body. And we wonder why we're anxious and we're, we're not well. And, you know, we're losing energy and we've, we've got chronic fatigue and it's because you've got, you [00:52:00] know, WrestleMania going on in your psyche between what you know and what you're actually doing. And so I think that's a huge area of exploration.

And even with Amelia, my wife, I've just like, when I look at her auto immune condition that over the years has had, she's had some, sometimes I just, you we're doing what we need to do, but I can't help but be like, I wonder, it feels like there's like, there's something in the body that's like, biting each other.

Like, what do we need to uncover here? Like, what do we need to unpack? It's just so, it's just so interesting.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Exactly. Exactly. So that's, that's the thing. So in my own body, I was fighting and, and actually it was really interesting. I did this weekend meditation right before I started, I, when I went on my own and started my own practice in 2011, I did a weekend meditation group that I, I had never really done anything like this before.

And part of the meditation, we had to draw. We meditated and we drew things. And I would be drawing these, these like, buildings [00:53:00] that were like almost like jails and it would be like me stuck in this jail which was really the the practice I was in and I would be like fighting like just like you said I was like wrestling with myself because I what I knew was not what I could do in this practice so it's so interesting that you you sort of like you know explained it that way anyway it was that was a really cool experience

but um but but you know the the thing is that I I do think I see that a lot, we just sort of, you know, kind of translate that to, to patients like your wife and others that are, you know, are listening.

A lot of times there are very conflicting things happening in the body, in the mind, in the heart, in the, in the gut. And and trying to figure out, right, sometimes there are really, just like different medical conditions. Okay, like we'll just put it out there, right? Sure, you could just have different medical conditions that are in conflict with each other, but very often they're not different medical conditions.

[00:54:00] They are one root cause that's driving manifestations in a certain way. And, and like you said, like, if you could kind of get to where that, where that's coming from, and maybe some of it has to come from the heart and, and, and, and the gut maybe some of it does have to come from the brain, right? We, we still need the brain, but I think, right?

I think, you know, I could use the brain for this. But I think it's interesting, right? How do we explore that in chronic illness. I'm really fascinated by that.

Joseph Anew: And I think that, and as you said, we do need the mind, and I think this is where I am really interested in going, because I think right now there's such an amazing opportunity, kind of like, on the planet, because we are in this very sort of time and place where there's a lot of meditation retreats. There's a lot of, even there's a lot within family systems. [00:55:00] There's a lot of like opportunity to sort of, question like root causes or, you know, some of the traumas we might have held on to from, from school or from childhood.

And, you know, and I do think that a lot of those things guide us and we're finally in maybe a time and place where we can be a little more open in many cases about those things. And so I think when people have just like, you know, just like my wife and just like myself is like, we, we, we have Western medicine too and we have great doctors.

And so it's not like we have to think that like, like I had people in, cause Austin's full of crazies, right? Like everyone here is a little bit crazy. And so like, there are people like my son. Three or four weeks ago, he had a seizure and, there was a few people that were like, I wouldn't have gone to the hospital.

And I was like, Oh gosh, like, you know, like we can't like you just because you like, like breath work or you're like into psychedelic, whatever you're doing. It's like, I'm still [00:56:00] going to the hospital for, and I'm still treating things in a way that like we know is effective and great, but like, while we're doing that....

Dr. Tania Dempsey: yep.

Joseph Anew: Entertaining and feeling into some of these other places, because ultimately, you know, as I said at the very start of the podcast, I invested my whole life into getting better back when I was a kid and I had this diagnosis and I was miserable and I was like, honestly, just totally shattered and I only got worse for, you know, the entire year that I was treating myself. It wasn't until I forgot I was broken because I was focused on holding my breath for four minutes,

that things started to get, so it planted this massive seed in this mind body connection that we might never fully figure out. That's the thing about the body. We don't know much about what this thing's doing. Like there's all we know. There's more [00:57:00] we don't know, right? In terms of how does the circulation get all the way around?

You know, all the, there's a lot of questions. And so I think there's a both and that needs to happen and today we have that sort of like a bit of availability and luxury to do that. But yeah, the spirit is, is really powerful. The heart is a really getting into the heart is a profoundly healing experience.

And I really believe, that the heart is supposed to be running the show. Like we're supposed to be following our heart, right? Trust your gut, follow your heart. But if you do it nowadays, people say you're out of your mind, but like we're supposed to be really just like you in medical school, you should be following your heart.

You should, you know, that these people need the damn vitamins, you know, they got to get on the treadmill, you know, they got to like, you know, stop smoking or whatever it's going, but all you can do is recommend, you know, the medications. And so, we're really supposed to be governed by the heart. The [00:58:00] brain serves what the heart wants.

Tania wants to be a doctor. It's in her heart. Okay, the brain's going to say, apply to these schools, go to these interviews, do all these things. But there's a big disconnect there. And I think that getting back into the heart is how we regulate the systems in a way that is just more effective.

Jill Brook: You know what is, is occurring to me is it comes back to almost the first thing you said, which was how important it is to get the right doctor, because when you work with somebody like Dr. Dempsey, you never get that gaslighting, you get listened to, you get believed. But there's so many physicians, I'm so lucky that I get to know Dr.

Dempsey and her colleagues now, but even still in my in insurance, my in system doctor, the gaslighting is relentless. Which I have to laugh because my case has even been written up in the British Medical Journal, and I can hand that to my doctor and still get gaslit, right? Like even when they're looking at...

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Right, right. You're actually in the literature.

Jill Brook: Yeah, actually in the literature. And so, [00:59:00] but to me, I think about how the essence of gaslighting is to kind of try to extinguish somebody's intuition. And so, I think some of us patients have to work to unlearn what, you know, what was gas lit out of us to not trust ourselves and to not listen to our intuition.

And I think that a really, it's been absolutely life changing for me to get to know doctors like Dr. Dempsey. And I think until you're working with somebody like that, it's really hard to get into the heart when you're always being told that your instincts are wrong and you don't have what you think you have.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: That's a, no, that, actually, that's so important, Jill. Honestly, it is. And it saddens me. You know, that's why I do the work that I do. Because I, I, I think that if we can send, you know, set the foundation and, and, and Joseph even said, like, his first pillar is find the right doctor to help you, right? [01:00:00] That's your, that's one of your...

Joseph Anew: Yeah. Number one.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Yeah, because you do need that. But but unfortunately, it is not, not easy. That's, that's the part that's not easy. And so, but if you can overcome that and find a partner that's willing to work with you, and, and, you know, again, nowadays, there are there are PAs, NPs, NDs, DOs, MDs. There's a lot of medical practitioners even, even, you know, DCs and acupuncturists.

There are others, you know, who can support patients and if they can have that support and, and be believed and, and, and they can deal with some of the, we'll call it the, the, the body stuff, right? The, the physical, right? Then you can move to this next level, I think it sounds like. Does that, does that make sense, Joseph?

Joseph Anew: Absolutely. So, you know, when, when somebody, and I think this is, it's been so just curious the last several [01:01:00] years, right? Like, I feel like I like, went to sleep one night as a strength and conditioning fitness guy. And like, I woke up and people wanted me to look at their blood work. And like, all of a sudden I'm like, something happened over the last like bunch of years, and I think this was one of the things I woke up to.

It's like, I have a bachelor's degree and I like, I've worked with a lot of like really impressive people, but I shouldn't be the one like looking at your blood work, like, it's just not like I wasn't educated on this, et cetera. And not to mention, there's other stuff I want to do. I want to talk about, you know, breathing and the things I'm passionate and that my heart is calling me to.

So yeah, that's one of the things as Runga, you know, continues to grow, and with our Momentum program, with my one on one work, it's one of the things I emailed you about. Dr. Tania is I'm getting, I'm making the black book where it's like, okay, you've got a mystery illness. You got Lyme or something going on.

All right, go to Tania. You know, you've got, got stuff going on. Here's Dr. Ruscio. He's my favorite. You got hormonal stuff going [01:02:00] on. Go to, you know, so and so. And so I think that's one of the things that I'm really trying to do so that people don't end up bopping around a hundred docs because it's mainly because it's so demoralizing.

But I think, you know, Jill, what you said, our whole world is, you know, it's like 50 percent or something of kids under the age of 10 are on ADD medicine, right? It's like we're, we're dampening so much of our like energy, you know, those kids just need more recess. They need more, you know, or they're eating sugar, but like, our whole world is basically suppressing

our intuition and it's really producing people that are really disconnected from their body and then they're getting sick and they're unhappy and they're, and so, you know, I really think that there's an opportunity here to, to get back to our sort of natural state, which is joy and fun and, you know, being a part

of humanity and trying to do good in the world. And so, the more we're in [01:03:00] our mind, the more we're just bumping into each other, you know, my wife has a saying in her teaching that's, when we're lost, we run faster. And it's it's so true.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: It's so true.

Jill Brook: I'm just so thrilled that we got to meet you, Joseph, and Dr. Dempsey, I love that you are bringing new people into our community to show us how to live well, whether or not you have MCAS and related things, and we're just so grateful. Thank you both.

Joseph Anew: Thank you, Jill. It's been a great meeting you and thank you so much, Dr. Tania.

Dr. Tania Dempsey: Thank you for being here.

Jill Brook: Well, hey listeners, that's all for now, but we'll be back again next week with a normal episode of the POTScast, and we'll be back soon for another episode of Mast Cell Matters with Dr. Tania Dempsey as our special host. So thank you for listening, may your health be good to you, and please join us again soon.