The Thermo Diet Podcast Episode 10 - Stressing About The Holidays?

In this episode of The Thermo Diet Podcast Christopher Walker and Jayton Miller sit down and talk about stress, some strategies to overcome stress during the holidays, and some good supplements to use in order to mitigate stress as much as possible.

Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments below!

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Full Transcript:

Christopher W.:
All right everyone. Welcome back to the Thermo Diet podcast. My name's Christopher Walker and I'm here with Jay Puff Miller.

Jayton:
How's it going?

Christopher W.:
Pretty good. Pretty good. So we're going into the holiday season right now and we thought an appropriate topic to talk about, which is always appropriate, but especially appropriate now, is stress, and stress management, stress regulation. The role of feedback loops with stress hormones and that sort of thing. And during the holidays, especially with travel, with family, money, stuff, it tends to be a stressful period for a lot of people. Also, even probably just the weather, to be honest. Places that most people live in are dark, cold. You stay inside all the time, you're not as active, and that sort of thing. So we're going to get into these ideas and flesh out some things that you can do to regulate your stress and help you better understand how stress works in your body, and why you need to regulate it.

Jayton:
Yeah. So why do you think it is that whenever we come around family, specifically, that we tend to get a little more stressed out than in certain other situations?

Christopher W.:
Well, I'd say I'm pretty lucky with my nuclear family that we don't tend to get stressed. We all get along pretty well. But there's probably a lot of scenarios where you don't, and maybe it's just these are deep rooted relationships, right? From the time you're a little kid. So if you don't get along well, it's always going to bring up deeper emotions and that sort of thing in somebody. And then also just the fact of, especially extended family, you don't really even know each other. You know each other well, but not to the extent that... It's just a bit out of your control and a lot of your extended family tends to live in very different worlds than you do. So the understanding gap between points-of-view might be different and that sort of thing. So I think that could probably stress people out.

Jayton:
Yeah. I think for me whenever I go back home, I just noticed that I don't ... Especially, after going off to college and stuff like that, I just don't click with people very well from back home anymore. It's just, it's really difficult to be able to communicate with them well.

Christopher W.:
Yeah, I found that mostly with old friends.

Jayton:
I find that big time with old friends.

Christopher W.:
Yeah.

Jayton:
Yeah. I really only have one friend that I talk to from back home.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. I think part of the stress though is just expecting it to not be that way.

Jayton:
Yeah, that's true.

Christopher W.:
If you just expect it to be that way then it's not stressful.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
It's an easy shift.

Jayton:
So what would you say some of the biggest tips are to avoid stress?

Christopher W.:
So we could talk about, there's psychological things and then there's physiological stuff. So let's talk about physiological first.

Jayton:
Okay.

Christopher W.:
So stress is essentially, your stress hormones, they're... All hormones react in a feedback loop. So there's almost this self-reinforcing, I guess, action of it and the higher certain stress hormones go and stay over periods of time, tends to make it easier to keep ramping them up over time. And that can be, especially if we're focusing on cortisol here, could be very catabolic in many ways. They're by nature, just breakdown hormones. They're in the body really for reasons of survival regulation. And so they can be extremely useful in acute scenarios. If you step out in the road, a taxi's about to hit you, your cortisol, your adrenaline, everything's going to shoot up, you're going to get out of the way, right? You can sprint, you can have superhuman strength. In a lot of cases with people lift cars off babies and whatever.

Christopher W.:
But if it's not acute, if it ends up staying elevated, it can be very detrimental to the body because it is catabolic in nature. It could break down tissue, it can lead to lots of different, focus and brain issues over time, when you have elevated levels of those hormones. So you really do need to figure out ways to manage it and just even for the reason of it doesn't feel good. If you're stressed out all the time, you can't actually think, you can't have a full capacity that you would normally have if you were relaxed and feeling good.

Jayton:
Yeah. I think that's one interesting thing about cortisol is that it actually decreases the amount of blood flow to the front of the brain, and then reverts it back to the back side of the brain where the reflexes and-

Christopher W.:
It's called a reptilian brain.

Jayton:
Yeah. So you actually have less analytical and logical thinking whenever cortisol is elevated because you have less blood flow to that part of the brain.

Christopher W.:
Which, yeah, makes sense, going back to the survival thing. That's what they attribute the frontal lobe, prefrontal cortex to executive function. So the idea of being able to operate at a higher level when that part of your brain is functioning right. And then, if you're getting less nutrient delivery, neurotransmitter action, and blood flow in that part of the brain, it's all reverted back to your reptilian brain, your more primal instincts. And it naturally makes sense that you're not going to be able to executively function as well.

Jayton:
Because it's a state of reaction. So you don't have time to think, you just have to react. And so, that's what those hormones are there to do, just to make you react. And then after that, they're supposed to downregulate, allow the protective hormones to come back up, and get back into a state of parasympathetic dominance.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. It's really interesting. Most people don't think about the biological basis of behavior. They think they're disconnected in some way, but they really do control, all these things control your behavior, they control your perception, they control everything. So if you are in this elevated stress state, it's natural and logical that your behavior is going to shift in a kind of an unpreferable way.

Jayton:
Interesting. So what are some strategies that you use to downregulate stress whenever you're in a stressful situation? Say you're walking around in the airport and you notice that you get a little tense, a little anxious. What are some strategies that you use in that moment to downregulate stress?

Christopher W.:
Well, breathing is an easy one, it's free.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
Yeah.

Jayton:
I do notice that people tend to hyperventilate whenever they get stressed out.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. They'll have very shallow breathing. So one thing you can do is just kind of step aside, find a quiet place, and just do 10 minutes of some deep breathing. It'll definitely help. I like certain compounds like phosphoserine, ashwagandha, things that are proven to lower stress hormones in the body. And we have them in... Ashwaganda is in [inaudible 00:07:44] and-

Jayton:
Sleep.

Christopher W.:
Sleep, [inaudible 00:07:47] sleep, and then cortigon has a lot of phosphatidylserine in it.

Jayton:
And ginkgo biloba.

Christopher W.:
And Gingko. Yeah. So certain compounds like that can be extremely helpful. Also just consuming good, having a good diet also really makes a difference. If you're eating thermo your stress levels are going to be far lower. I actually saw a thread in the thermo group going on the last couple of days of people being, "Does anyone else notice that they're just really relaxed all the time? Is this bad or good?" It's so foreign to people. Like "Wait. I've never felt this way before. Am I supposed to be this relaxed? Am I supposed to sleep through the night?" I was like, "Yeah."

Jayton:
Am I supposed to feel good?

Christopher W.:
Yeah. Diet plays a huge role in it. And a lot of times when people get stressed they stress eat. So they'll go and they'll overeat on stuff that's not thermo, pretty much. Stuff that's really not good for you. And what that does is it just exacerbates the effect and that feedback loop and makes it worse. So you don't really want to have that happening.

Jayton:
That kind of forces you into that downward spiral too whenever you do that.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. Because you just feel bad about it and then keep doing it.

Jayton:
Yeah, but so what are some of the ways dietarily that we can down regulate cortisol, adrenaline, estrogen, things like that?

Christopher W.:
Really focusing on the right amino acids tends to be kind of a high leverage point in that. So getting a lot of glycine and proline from the diet can be extremely helpful. If drink a cup of bone broth every day, that should do the trick. Add collagen to your smoothies, that'll do the trick. Those are some easy ways to focus on that. Also focusing on good foods for your gut. Smoothies, again, are great because what you're doing if you get a bunch of organic fruits, you're going to get the natural prebiotic fibers that are in those fruits along with all the vitamins and minerals. And then add some collagen in there, you're getting a lot of glycine. It's a pretty easy way to like get a nutrition packed stress management meal.

Jayton:
Yeah, definitely and glycine is really interesting because it's the smallest amino acid in the body and it acts as an inhibitory neurotransmitter. So it slows down the firing rate of the neurons, kind of allows you to slow down-

Christopher W.:
It helps with gabba.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
Yep.

Jayton:
And so that's really good. And then avoiding PUFAs is a big one cause PUFAs actually have a direct correlation to the secretion of glucocorticoids. So eliminating PUFAs is going to down regulate the amount of secretion of stress hormones. And then saturated fat actually is protective and actually has a direct blunting effect on glucocorticoids. So I'd say that's a big one too, is just making sure that you're getting the right fat source.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. So again, just thermo pretty much. Yeah. Thermo is designed this way. It's designed to support your hormones.

Jayton:
Yeah. So what are the biggest psychological factors that you notice during the holidays that stress you out? Personally?

Christopher W.:
I think we touched on it for a second, but it's just I think expectation management is a huge one for people when they're dealing with traveling and family and so forth. Because a lot of people, especially if you don't travel often, it can be extremely stressful. "Oh, I've got to get to the airport on time. I've got to go through security. Got to make sure I don't have any liquids over two ounces." Or all this stuff that is kind of inherent in traveling and then you're sitting in an airport, it's noisy, there's people rushing around. It's just a potentially stressful environment if not used to it. So that could be one.

Christopher W.:
Then the expectation management of trying to... Certain people, and everyone has people like this in their family, where they just try to control the events, the flow of events over the holidays. If it's not going exactly according to their plan, it's a total failure. So that's not a good way to be. If someone else is acting like that, then you don't really have to engage in it, to be honest. It's up to you to engage. But if you just kind of have a more relaxed attitude about all of it, like, "Hey, It's the holidays. Let's just hang out and chill." No need to have a schedule. Unless maybe it's like, "Okay. We're serving dinner at this time." But other than that, just hang out and have fun.

Jayton:
Yeah. I noticed that every time I have an agenda, I'm extremely stressed out whenever I go back home. Big time. So I think just not having an agenda and then practicing patience and gratitude both have been probably the two biggest levers that I've used in those times to kind of overcome stressful situations.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. I like the idea of play the role of the observer.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
Just let everyone else run around and be frantic and focus on dumb things. And just sit back, relax, pour yourself a cup of bone broth or a thermo rita and just chill. Maybe over the holidays, get some good, spiced apple cider or something and drop a little organic tequila in there.

Jayton:
And you're going snowboarding this Thanksgiving, aren't you?

Christopher W.:
Yeah, we're going to Breckenridge. And that's another thing is you can control your own destiny. We proposed last year we were like, "Oh, let's just make this family tradition. Let's go up." Because we went to Vail last year and that it was so fun. And this year we're going to go to Breckenridge. Found a condo for rent that two bedroom, really inexpensive, but close to the walkable to the lifts.

Jayton:
Oh, so nice.

Christopher W.:
It's low... straight lead off the drive. You don't have to do anything, just easy. So then we can go snowboarding and skiing all day, get a ton of good exercise, which also is great. Get out in the fresh air, get out in the sun and then come back and hang out. And it's kind of low key.

Jayton:
Heck yeah. So one big thing that people don't really understand is why estrogen is a stress hormone. Can we kind of elaborate on that.

Christopher W.:
Sure. Estrogen tends, it acts antithetically to the key drivers of protective hormones in men and women. Namely in guys being the androgens and then in women being something like progesterone. So the estrogen itself acts as almost like this growth factor, this fuel for for negative things in the body; such as, tumors. The the estrogen itself, you do not want in a chronically elevated level based on the ratio of whatever the main protective hormones are in your body. So if you're a guy, there'll be slightly a different scenario than if you're a woman. But we could just use testosterone and estrogen as an example. That ratio is really important. As is the testosterone and cortisol ratio. People tend to think a bit too simply, I think, about about hormones, but the endocrine system is extremely complicated and it's something that even endocrinologists who study it in med school and specialize in it, it's still very... It's like neuroscience where it's just this frontier in terms of human understanding.

Christopher W.:
But one of the things we do understand is that the ratios matter. They matter potentially more so in the effect on the body than just raw numbers. Because for example, you could just be looking at a total testosterone, but if you're not looking at the ratio compared to something like SHBG, then you're not paying attention to the whole story. People could have very high total testosterone and very high SHBG which means they're free active testosterone is extremely low, but it gives you an insight into what the problem really is there. If your SHBG is really high, your liver has got an issue. So you can take actions to lower the SHBG that's being produced by the liver. So you need the ratio. You need to be able to compare hormones against reference points in order to actually get a real story about what's happening.

Christopher W.:
And I think that's one of the biggest issues of lab testing or labs that are ordered by doctors. Is that they don't order extensive, full picture labs for whatever reasons. And we talked about this in that episode about thyroid hormone, about how they do that. The typically look at TSH but they won't look at something else, T3, T4, other things. Or they'll just look at T3. You won't look at anything else.

Jayton:
Yeah. Serum T3 is not a really good marker for the actual T3 that's in the cell either.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. So, again, back to estrogen. Your testosterone to estrogen or your estrogen to androgen ratio isd the ratio is what's important. What they've found in a lot of studies with, and with testosterone and cortisol, studies with specific respect to nutrition profiles of dietary consumption of things, especially macronutrients. The most helpful results all are tied to the estrogen to androgen ratio or the testosterone to cortisol ratio. Not just raw numbers.

Jayton:
Yeah. And then for women, I think a lot of the misconception is the fact that estrogen is the female hormone. They think that estrogen is a good thing and that they need more because they're women when in-

Christopher W.:
It's a feminizing hormone.

Jayton:
Right.

Christopher W.:
But it's not the chief female hormone that you want to promote.

Jayton:
Right. And especially whenever it's in excess it can be extremely detrimental. Progesterone is actually the more favored female hormone. It's produced at a thousand times the amount that estrogen is inside the female body. So I really think that whenever you think of female hormones, you need to steer more towards the direction of progesterone instead of thinking, I need estrogen. Estrogen is probably the problem that you're having, especially with painful periods and stuff like that.

Christopher W.:
Thinning hair, hypothyroid.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
It's all tied back to estrogen levels. Yeah. And that is a really common misconception. Anytime say I'll be sitting at dinner or something with some friends or other people, and for some reason health stuff always comes up. I don't ever bring it up. People bring it up, or they'll ask why I'm not eating something or whatever. But it always comes down to estrogen being one of the main topics. And then the women are always like, "Yeah, but women need more estrogen, right?" I'm like, "No."

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
Excuse me. No, you don't want more estrogen. You want to be able to regulate it. People naturally in our modern environment right now have way too much. Way too much estrogen production and they're exposed to way too much estrogen, estrogenic influence.

Jayton:
Phytoestrogen, Xenoestrogens.

Christopher W.:
So these estrogens or the estrogen mimics, whatever, are in the environment. There are a lot of them in our environment. So you're already dealing with statistically high estrogen in the first place so you don't need to do anything to increase it actively. You need to take things away. These are blockers in the thermo definition. So the estrogen itself is what is going to be kind of a destructive hormone in the body especially because you have too much already. And it manifests in a lot of ways. The ways that we were just mentionining. Thyroid issues, thinning hair, menstrual issues in women.

Jayton:
Resistant weight gain, resistant-

Christopher W.:
Yeah. Stubborn fat essentially because a lot of the estrogen molecules are going to be stored in your fat tissue and people that can't seem to rid of certain body fat, if they try these diets and try whatever, it's because they're not really consuming things that are going to help regulate the estrogen levels in the body. And once you start eating thermo and you're consuming these good amino acids, you get all the right vitamins and minerals overcome deficiencies, you get certain minerals in the diet that are going to lower estrogen, for example, zinc and magnesium, you're actually going to start seeing this shift and in what you thought was stubborn really isn't, and it starts to disappear. Methylating it is another good thing choline and betaine methalate the estrogen. You can kind of render it inactive in the body so it can't bind to androgen receptors or estrogen receptors. There's a lot of things you can do, but really all again comes down to it's eating thermo.

Jayton:
Yeah. Providing the raw materials that your body needs in order to sufficiently produce energy and push the body back into a state of balance, homeostasis.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think about... What are your favorite stress management techniques, especially in the holidays?

Jayton:
Oh, I'd say, so one of the biggest things that has helped me is practicing patience. Just slowing down, realizing that there's plenty of time. I'm usually not late. I'm a very punctual person, so I kind of get anxious whenever I'm in a hurry. So kind of just pulling myself away and observing the situation that I'm in and just being patient and kind of being in the moment. And then I'd say a good gratitude practice. So sometimes whenever I'm in an extremely stressful situation, I'll sit down and I'll just start writing a list of everything that I'm thankful for from having clean water to drink all the way up to having a job, having a vehicle that gets me from point A to point B reliably. Just anything I could possibly think of. And I noticed that using that just kind of promotes a good cognitive state. And then from there it usually kind of just flows in the right direction.

Christopher W.:
Yep. Yeah, I liked the idea of back on the observer concept. Say it was in a holiday family environment and everyone's, you got certain people just like, "Got to stay on schedule. Blah blah blah. Oh, you got to do this, you got to eat this, you got to watch this thing on TV, you got to do this thing." I think at this point, especially in Robert and I's extended family, we've just over the years become to naturally accept that they're just going to do their own thing. We're not even going to try to control them.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
If you just start doing it and not playing that game, then no one, they just shift their focus to someone else that they can control. So you shouldn't be easily controllable if you don't want to do that. Then that goes back to one of my favorite life philosophies in general is only play games you can win, which brings back, puts the power in your hands. This is my experience. It's my choice to engage. Therefore, now that I have all this responsibility and this power here, I can either engage with it or I don't.

Jayton:
So how do you judge those situations? How do you pick a situation that you know you can win? How do you observe that?What are some of the things that go through your mind whenever you're observing that situation and choosing whether or not to enter into it?

Christopher W.:
We have to know the end point of what's the outcome going to be here? And a lot of times people play these games that nobody wins. Probably most things that happen on a daily basis, especially in a holiday family environment, it's like, "Does this mean anything to me? What's the outcome to it? What could possibly happen here?" And then I choose whether to engage in it or not. Getting into a fight over whether the cookies are done or not. Who the fuck cares? Don't even engage in it. Or "Oh, we have to be at this thing right on time or whatever." Like "Do we? Do we really? This is supposed to be a vacation let's hang out and not really do that." Or I'm busy, I got to go do something else.

Christopher W.:
You can choose and just disengage with stuff that you don't want to be involved in. It's really not that hard.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
Yeah.

Jayton:
That's really something that has helped me in almost any situation is really prioritizing whether or not this actually matters. And in five hours or five days or a month or even a year, how much is this actually in a matter to me in the future? And nine times out of 10 it's not going to matter to me at all. So I just kind of slip it out of mind.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. So a very no drama existence. It's nice.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
But again, it's all your choice. I think that's probably the big gap that most people are missing is they think they have to do stuff.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
That they have to engage in other people's games.

Jayton:
Yeah. So those are, I guess, some of the kind of techniques that you use and some of the strategies that you use physiologically. What are your top five supplements for fighting stress?

Christopher W.:
Top five: [inaudible 00:26:28] 66, ashwaghanda, phosphatidylserine, glycine in general just however you get it. I think any methylators naturally going to do that. Choline and betaine are good. [inaudible 00:26:51] also is very good at regulating cortisol, some of the strains in [inaudible 00:26:54]. Rhamnosus and reuteri are great.

Jayton:
Yeah. And it has that endotoxin fighting effect too. So it's going to downregulate serotonin.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. so just physiologically by lowering the stress that's induced on the body, even on a cellular level, you're naturally going to feel better because of the hormonal effect that it has. You're going to feel less stress. Yeah. What about you? Do you have any other stress supplements?

Jayton:
Oh man. So magnesium will be a big one. I noticed that whenever I supplement with-

Christopher W.:
Yeah, that's a good one.

Jayton:
Yeah, something with a little extra magnesium and then make sure to get in plenty of salt. Salt is a big one. And then sugar. So my roommates kind of look at me like a crazy person right now because I've been using, I switched from honey to just pure white cane sugar and I'll just put it in some milk and I put a pile of sugar into this thing at night and they give me some weird looks because I'll just be sitting there just dumping this entire pile of sugar into my milk. And you can tell they think I'm a lunatic but I sleep like a rock as I take that with some magnesium and I'm out completely.

Christopher W.:
That's why I drink a ton of organic orange juice and kind of similar thing. I'll drink the orange juice with dinner and then I just feel this affect like that. I've just like [inaudible 00:28:26] chill. Then I sleep full through the night.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
It's easy.

Jayton:
So I would say magnesium, salt, glycine, phosphatidylserine is a good one. And then [inaudible] I've actually noticed that. I started taking testrolex again here recently and [inaudible 00:28:44] is absolutely amazing.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. It gives you that like calm even keel.

Jayton:
I noticed that I tend to drink way too much coffee and it takes away that anxious edge from the caffeine. So I really enjoy that because I can still get stimulated but not be tense and kind of tight all the time.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. And that's why we put it in a miracle morning, which is our new supplement from Umzu that's coming out in 2020.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
It's going to be, it's how you start your day. Drink your coffee, take some miracle morning, boom. You're going to be feeling good.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
Focused, calm.

Jayton:
[inaudible 00:29:24] Perfect combo.

Christopher W.:
Yep. So what other stress stuff? Is there a... Wish we had a live thing where people could be like, "This stresses me out. Answer my question."

Jayton:
Oh, yeah. Like a little-

Christopher W.:
Some sort of live feed.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
While we're recording. Yeah. That'd be fun. Yeah.

Jayton:
But that's really all I can think about. Whenever it comes down to it, thermo is built in a way that fights stress. So literally that's just the biggest tip that I can give is just eat thermo.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. It's literally thermo's design this way. There's a very intentional design in how thermo is. So just keep coming back to it. Thermo diet podcast after all.

Jayton:
Yeah. Heck yeah.

Christopher W.:
So one thing that I think would be appropriate to talk about is at this point is we have cordegon is our specifically designed stress-relief supplement from Umzu. So cordegon was actually the first, originally truth Nutra formula that we made. Now it's Umzu. And it's as the name implies, it will lower your cortisol levels. The cool benefits of that is that you also have a brain health element to it. And a lot of people just don't associate, they try to compartmentalize things and say, "Oh, hormones aren't, your brain. Isn't your gut. All this." But it's all the system. And when you use the compounds in cordegon they happen to have a really profound effect on your brain as well. In terms of the behavioral outcomes that you would associate with your brain. For example, focus and memory and learning capacity.

Christopher W.:
Brain fog goes away. So what you're doing is actively lowering your cortisol and controlling it. Whether you take it on a daily basis or whatever. And then you're increasing your focus, you're getting rid of brain fog, your ability to remember things improves. And therefore, again, you go into this positive feedback cycle of like, "Okay, I can focus better. I can think. I can get more done throughout the day. I'm more calm throughout the day." And then your stress continues to go down as well. So it's pretty cool. I've read a testimonial for cordegon about some guy. He's like, "This stuff is amazing. I've been taking it for a couple of weeks and I even got pulled over by a cop the other day and I wasn't freaking out. I was just really calm." And he's like, "it works."

Christopher W.:
And it does. There are a ton of people that take it. It's the most reordered supplement that we have. Even though it's not the most popular supplement. It's just once people try it, they're like, "Wow, this has a profound effect on my everyday experience and it really does work." So if you want to check out cordegon and you can find that over on Umzu.com. U-M-Z-U.com. And try it for yourself. Again, we have a 60 day money back guarantee as always, so if you don't like it, just let us know. We'll refund your money. But I don't think that's going to happen. I think you're going to love it, especially if you have issues with stress. If you have issues with brain fog or lack of focus throughout the day, this is definitely going to help.

Jayton:
Yeah, I'd say if you walk into work numb to the world almost or if you feel like that whenever you sit down to work, you're almost stuck in a time warp. You look at the clock and it seems like a minute is taken almost an hour to go by. I noticed that whenever I take cordegon that doesn't happen. So you're kind of more in tune with the environment that's around you and kind of can flow a little bit better.

Christopher W.:
Yep. And it actually has a FDA approved health claim about helping neurodegenerative disease in elderly people because really the key ingredient phosphatidylserine is it's really a phospholipid that that aides in your brain's ability to communicate, the neurons ability to communicate. So people end up being deficient in, and over the years it's a naturally occurring thing in your brain, they become deficient and the brain stops the communication within the brain, the electrical chemical communication starts to deteriorate. So phosphatidylserine can help keep you topped up and really prevent that in old age. Because one of the last things you want is to have deal with dementia issues as you get older.

Jayton:
So one interesting thing about phosphatidylserine is that there was actually a study done on trained athletes and it actually blunted the stress response from exercise, which led to more anabolic effect over time, which was really interesting.

Christopher W.:
Yeah, it can be very useful and I think in that same study, they saw a very noticeable increase in training capacity throughout the workout. So these athletes were able to train harder and have less of a stress effect on the body. Because in general, when you're training you are lowering your androgen levels and increasing your stress levels just by the nature of what training is. It's a stressful activity, right? Especially if you're trying to get stronger and so forth, and then you rebuild and get stronger through the recovery after the stimuli, but it always helps to be able to control the cortisol and make sure that your androgen levels are, like you said, the anabolic effect isn't unnecessarily blunted. So it's almost like this unfair advantage if you're using pohsphatidylserine in that way, it's really cool. You can have stronger, better workouts, less of a negative stress effect to overcome. Therefore, you can recover more quickly.

Jayton:
Yeah, so that's cordegon. Also, if you want to learn a little bit more about the thermo diet in relation to performance. The Barband podcast is actually interviewing me a little bit on thermo and this relationship to optimal performance in terms of power lifting, weightlifting, things like that. So if yall want to tune into that, it'll be coming up pretty quick.

Christopher W.:
Yep. So what's that called again? Barb end?

Jayton:
Barband.

Christopher W.:
Yep. With David Towel.

Christopher W.:
Cool. So you'll post that in the group. So if you're not in the Facebook group, get in there. Jaden will post the the info in there. It's also an awesome place to be. A lot of helpful, great people in there that are living the thermo journey on different, everyone's kind of on different levelt of Thermo. You've got people that have been doing it for a couple of years, you've got people who are just joining now maybe in their first couple of days or couple of weeks. And it's just a very helpful environment for people to learn how to do it and be supported with their questions.

Jayton:
Yeah. I don't think I've ever seen a group that is that positive constantly. All the time.

Christopher W.:
Yep. Because it's Thermo.

Jayton:
Yeah.

Christopher W.:
Yeah. So all right. Thanks for listening to this Thermo Diet podcast. Subscribe wherever you like to listen to it, whether it's Apple or Google or YouTube, Spotify, etc. Or over at thermodiet.com where you can find all the episodes as well. And you can sign up for the course, learn everything you want to want to know. You can get your grocery list out of the course. You can get the thermo chef cookbook, which has all these thermo recipes in it, which we are also going to be continually adding to. Putting new thermo chef recipes in there throughout the year. And I think you're really going to like your thermo journey. So thanks for listening and I will see you on the next podcast.

Jayton:
Have a good one.