Energy Buckets:The Longevity Code

Energy Bucket in a Nutshell

The limiting factor in all our lives isn’t actually time.  It’s energy.  You can have all the time in the world, but if you don’t have the energy to do anything then that time is wasted.  The goal of this whole concept is to give you energy and vitality to be happy and achieve the things you want.  

When your bucket is full:  

You know that person who seems to get everything done and gets to go out and have fun…that persons bucket is full.  They have energy to tackle the daily challenges, plus have time and energy left over to do all the fun stuff they want to do.

When your bucket is empty:  

Those days when its hard to get out of bed and you just don’t feel like doing anything.  When you find yourself being more angry or annoyed than normal.

Water is flowing in and out at the same time:  

There is always going to be things putting water into the bucket and taking water back out.  Sometime they can even be the same thing.  If you start a walking program for 30 mins a day, it will most likely fill your bucket.  If you start walking 16 hours a day it will take water out of your bucket.  This is why everyones bucket is personalized to them.  Its a perspective of their current situation.   If you’ve never walked before and are severely over weight, a 30 min walking program still might be to much for you!

Our needs are always changing:  

Life happens and we need to constantly change our plans.  The best laid out workout plan will get destroyed when you strain your first muscle.  This framework allows for you to make real time adjustments to your plan and your needs.

Our Principles

Don’t confuse simplicity with Impact:

It took me years to make this a simple framework.  I refined this down to be REALLY simple.  However, we are packing 30 years of experience and over 10,000 patients worth of care into one simple guide and framework.  Everything has deep science behind it, including behavior change, philosophy, goal setting, and much more.

Consistency beats complexity:

The evidence is overwhelming in favor of doing small habit changes beats out complex routines in its ability for people to get healthy.  When in dought, start small, make it easy, and it needs to fit into your flow.

Everything creates stress at first:

Changing a routine or habit creates a stress response.  This is what we want, but it’s also why we have to start small and build.  The best diet in the world wont work if it creates too much stress in your life to implement.  This is why we discuss things as a flowing bucket that is constantly getting filled at the same time has holes and leakes. 

We are building a staircase:

We start with only a small number of habit changes and we build from there as time goes on.  Drawing this out you can think of a staircase.  You start with small steps at first to “get in shape” then as time goes on the steps can get bigger and bigger.

Don’t confuse correlation with causation:

This is REALLY common.  People often assume that “one thing” changed their life.  If you go gluten free and your symptom got better, most people would assume the cause of your problem was gluten.  It puts their brain into a rut of thinking the rest of their life they can no longer eat gluten.  HOWEVER, this is furthest from the truth and is most of the time a correlation.  Changing gluten out of their diet was the gateway into transforming everything around the energy bucket.  Because they became more conscious of their choices they ate less calories, which allowed them to get into deeper sleep patterns, which made them go for more walks and be more active throughout the day, which helped shift their neurotransmitters.  The gluten wasn’t actually the cause of their symptoms, their daily habits were.  Going gluten free was just the gateway to changing their habits.

Hormesis:

Fancy word for small doses of toxicity and stress are helpful to the overall organism.  The point of exercise is to break apart our muscle so it regrows stronger.  Our body actually needs small amounts of arsenic, but too much is harmful.  Eating veggies is actually bad for us because of their toxins, which overall we respond to make an immune system that is stronger.  This is why I’m a big fan of doing short term crazy goals!  We need these small doses in order to become stronger.  You want to do a 5 day water fast, perfect.  You want to sleep deprive yourself for 7 days, be my guest.  You want to run 250 miles, yep go right ahead.  Please take into this into consideration when you hear about crazy wierd things, they can be really helpful.

No such thing as Good or Bad for you:

Our brains are wired to believe in black and white, yet our bodies work in percentages.  We need context and perspective.  Lets take the same walking example.  If you follow social media influencers, you’ll get convinced walking an hour a day before noon and exposing your eyes to sunlight is “good”  But what if you have severe inflammatory issues and are depressed?  When I was at my worst, going for an hour walk would make me not want to get out of bed in the morning and I would be sore for almost 2 weeks from it.  It would take energy away from me.  So dismiss common advice, and lets get after the thought process of how it could work for you.  The energy bucket method will bring context to your life.

Internet influencers make you feel bad so you stay stuck and addicted to their content:

It’s the dark secret of the social media industry.  Fear of missing out, thinking information is going to save us, replacing a sense of community, these are all ways social media influencer unknowingly keep you addicted to their content and wanting more.  The reality however is that most of us already know what to do.  We don’t need people to tell us their opinions and make us feel bad if we are not “all in on their one thing”  A great example of this is currently there is a medical doctor who now suddenly talks about VO2 max as if it’s some new longevity hack.  If you don’t do 4 mins of intense heart rate exercise and repeat it 4 times, you’ll somehow not have any benefit.  I’ve been working around this for 20 years.  At one point in my office I had a patient who was so deconditioned we started her out at 10 seconds on 50 seconds off and repeated this 5 times a session.  Just three times a week of doing this, and in 4 weeks she was able to work her way up to 2 minutes on 3 minutes off!  It changed her life and she was able to get a job because she could finally get around enough through the day to be productive.  Morel of the story is to start small, take action, and get started without feeling bad about yourself.

Don’t beat yourself up, you will fail and slip:

It happens to all of us, however the worse response you can have is to get upset and down with yourself.  One day of beating yourself up quickly turns into weeks of not doing anything.  SO, who cares if you slip on your diet for one day, the next day take action to get right back into the swing of things.

Focus on Gratitude, appreciation, and the daily process:

When we focus on the positives and things we can control, we feel a sense of accomplishment and happiness.  When we focus on the negatives of things we did wrong, didn’t do, or failures, we feel depressed and sad.  This is the importance everyday of looking back upon the events and thinking of the good and being grateful for the things we have.  

Energy Bucket Parameters

Why we plan in 30 day and 90 day segments:

There is lots of complicated science to unpack here and I’m going to save you years of research and just lump it together with two main concepts.  Epigenetics and Neuropsychology.

We have 3 main categories of genetics.  

1.  The genetic code is given to us by our parents.  This is the hard coded stuff.

2.   The generational epigenetics given to us by our parents.  There is various expression patterns passed down to us from our parents when the sperm meets the egg.  If you come from a family history of abuse and trauma, your DNA is actually packaged and labeled differently and we can see these expressions passed down for several generations.

3. Situational Epigenetics is the current expression in your body.  If you’ve been a couch potato for 20 years, you have different genes expressed than if you would have been active for 20 years.  These are the things we care the most about as these are the “changeable” genetics.  When we start working out, over 4000 gene expressions get activated at that moment!

“Situational Epigenetics on average takes 90 days to fully make a permanent switch in our body.”

We all know the people who yo yo diet.  When we do trendy challenges for only 10 days or even 30 days, its not enough time to tell our DNA to express different checicals to make a long lasting change.  It just creates a temporary stimulus.  SO, everything we think of needs to be in 90 day plans.  This doesn’t mean a 10 day challenge isn’t beneficial, it just needs to be followed by a logical amplifier and new habit to support the long term change.

Neuropsychology:

Our brains are weird.  On one hand we like to think of our dream outcome, which can easily be 3 years of hard work.  On the other hand, it will think of satisfying todays cravings.  The neuropsychology is the art form of training our brain to think of the inbetween and getting addicted to the 90 day thought process.  For some reason, 90 days is proven through science to be the max we can envision and set realistic goals.  Anyone who tries to get you to predict and visualize your goals 5 years from now is simply playing into your primal brain for manipulation tactics.  90 days is a controlaable factor the brain can get in agreement with and keep you motivated.  It also allows us to make 30 day progression goals as stepping stones to get there! 

What is the Energy Bucket?

The 6 main Cups of the Energy Bucket

The main circle above represents the 2d space of the bucket.  Each cup has water flowing in and out at all times.  All sections are related to one another and you can’t effect one without effecting the other.  In otherwords, your movement will affect your sleep, and your sleep will affect your movement.  You can’t possible eat right while your mindset and nerves are depleted.  If you are constantly exposed to toxins in your kitchen no amount of fuel will overcome it.  The cycle is all interconnected.

The needle movers- your bubbles

Each of the 6 main Cups has a bubble with 4 needle movers associated.  Each of the 4 needle movers represents a major component of how to fill or empty that cup of the bucket.  Each of them ebs and flows with the percentage of what is needed to fill the bucket.  

The easiest example is in the movement section.  We need these 4 needle movers in various ratios depending on our goals.  I’m currently training for a 100 mile running race, so my heart rate needle mover is 60% capacity.  I still make it a point to get my strength training in 2 times a week, basic movement and mobility drills, and I still go do some sports and recreation with my family.  The other needle movers CANNOT be at 0% or I’ll run into trouble.  And this is what we see in most training plans.  Someone falls in love with Yoga, which is the movement needle mover, and they don’t ever get their heart rate up or lift something heavy.  They are leaving a gap in their overall health.

Navigation of the Energy Bucket

Once you start to identify leaks in your bucket you can start to fill them with habits specifically designed to plug the holes and allow for my energy.  The good news is that there are no wrong ways to do things.  Everything is a test a measure!  Lets say you want to start doing cold showers as part of your routine, great.  This can fill the gap in the nerves category.  You can literally pick out ANYTHING as long as you have the perspective of where it fits into helping YOU as an individual.  As mentioned before, and its worth repeating a billion times, your health is a journey and is constantly changing.  No one routine will work for your whole life.  This is an assessment tool to help you navigate lifes challenges.

Defining the Cups and Bubbles

Sleep

The foundation of having energy is getting the proper ratio of deep sleep to REM sleep.  I’m personally not a fan of just saying “get 8 hours of sleep”  Research shows that is the quality for your specific needs, not the quantity.

1.  Routine:  the most powerful needle mover, routines or “sleep hygiene” are crucial to helping promote the natural rhythm of your sleep neurotransmitters.

2. Perspectives:  this is all about self fulfilling prophecy.  Your perspective of how well you sleep actually helps dictate what kind of sleep youre going to get.  Its really hard for our brains to actually know how well we slept!

3. Environment:  Proper setting is everything.  Blinking lights, annoying noises, hot temps, the list goes on of minor things that can have a major impact on the depth of your sleep.

4. Dreams:  Dreams are an important part of sleep.  It’s a sign of specific stages we all need and if you don’t feel like you dream, we have work to do!

Fuel

This is by far the most controversial cup!  We are going to blast past all your preconceived notions about what a proper diet is and help guide you into finding what works for you…not the trillion-dollar weightloss industry.

1.  Timing:  all about WHEN you eat or take your supplements

2.   Quality:  not all things are created equal and this is very true for food and supplements

3.   Quantity:  it’s not about calories in versus calories out.  Its about energy in versus energy out, matched with your goals

4.   Trigger:  Gas and farts oh my!  Some triggers can be the food themselves, some can be the emotions behind the food.  

Movement

Pound for pound this is what I consider the most important category.  Movement has been proven through decades of research to be the number one factor in almost all health issues, and is one of the most important factors in changing those situational epigenetics I was talking about earlier.

1.  Play:  we all need fun recreation to ease our mind while challenging our body.  It promotes a health brain, body connection packed with tons of other benefits above and beyond just physical.

2.   Movement:  Our bodies need movement for just about everything.  Our joints require movement to get nutrition in and out of the joint capsules, our lymphatic system require manual movement to flush out toxins and balance the immune system, our ligaments need to be stretched like a rubber band in order to stay flexible.  This needle mover is for things like foam rolling, stretching, yoga’s, but even body tapping, massage, bouncing up and down, practice falling, and more!

3. Heart rate:  Raising our heart rate higher than 10% above resting heart rate for sustained times.  Needed for hormone balance and cardiovascular health

4.   Strength:  the surprising benefits of lifting something heavy is actually a hormone response!  We need to have the endorphin rush to help sooth the brain, prevent anger, help with depression and a variety of other things.  The normal of course, is muscle mass is one of the best predictors of overall health.

Environment:

This is the setting around us, on us, and in us.  We are talking all the different “Biomes” here.  

1.  Bugs:  a vast majority of bugs are actually healthy and mandatory for our bodies.  So what are you doing to support your bugs in your gut, on your skin, and the places around.

2. Elements: Water, Earth, wood, these are the elements we come in contact with.  Are you using plastics for everything that leach chemicals into your food?  Do you drink filtered water?

3.   Atmosphere:  air quality, allergens, smoke, mold, chemical off gasing, each of these can have dramatic effects on our health and they are usually the silent hidden ones.

4.   Toxins:  Do you have sensitivities to the makeup or types of clothes you wear.  What about your cleaning products?  Toxins have different effects on everyone and checking to see if you have sensitivities to theme is critical in understanding how to move forward with your health.

Nerves:

This is all about the balance of our autonomic nervous system.  It encompasses the master control of a lot of our bodily processes and can change daily depending on various factors.

1.  Stress:  Not all stress is created equal however we can start to quantify how you are responding to your current load.

2.  Breathing:  breath rate is one of the most over looked health metrics.  Breathing is like your check engine light and gives us a great indicator of overall health.  When we are sick our breath rate goes way up.  When we are in flow and super healthy our breath rate goes way down.

3. Interoception:  this is your ability for your brain to perceive the body.  Some people just can’t feel if they are headed in the right direction.  Other people have a hyper sensitivity around their body.  This needle mover also includes our ability to understand how to move our body.

4. Tone:  this is the literal balance of our bodies nervous system.  We can actually do a nose breathing test to see where we are at.

Mindset:

The framework for how we think, how we perceive things, and how open to change we actually are.  This is a really important umbrella cup to understand.  We have to know how to work past our own roadblocks as most of the time we are the only ones holding ourselves back from having the energy and the life we really want.

1.  Ikigia:  NO…this is not the intersection of your work and your passion.  The true meaning of this term is finding contentment and joy within the process of doing something.  To shake off your preconceived notions around this, think of the Tea ceremony of the Japanese.  It’s a ritual they find great pride in, down to every last little step.  Finding your flow while sweeping the floor or finding joy in placing rocks around your yard for landscaping.  These are examples of finding your Ikigia.

2. Relationships:  we are social creatures by design.  Its how we survived for centuries while the world was trying to kill us.  How we view them, how we act with other, all indicate a much bigger picture of how healthy we will be.

3. Confirmation Bias:  these go deep, but the brain is wired to be efficient.  It doesnt’ actually like to process new information.  SO, it catagorizes them into buckets of thoughts.  This can be helpful, but most of the time when it comes to our health it’s the wrong approach.  

4. Programming:  by the age of 7 we actually have most of our internal programing, and by the age of 14 we have our social programing.  This is why generation after generation it’s easy to see trends of families repeating the same horrific outcomes.  The good news is that these are moldible and movable through epigenetics, it just takes time and effort.

Steps to fill your energy bucket- Lets get started!

 Take the quiz or do some sort of self assessment to find our where your current roadblock are.  These are always changing, so keep coming back to this if something doesn’t feel right or isn’t going in the right direction.

1.  Pick your habit changes

2. Plan out 30 day and 90 day segments of your journey

Find the leaks in your energy bucket

Rate the following from 0 to 10 (print this out, or just write your number on a piece of paper)

Tips to complete:  go with your gut reaction and don’t take more than 30 seconds per question

Sleep

Statement: I go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time 7 days a week

• 0:  never once is the the same

• 10:  7 days a week I wake up within a 15 min window and don’t need an alarm

Statement: How well do you sleep

• 0:  Insominiac/horrible

• 10:  I wake up refreshed every single day

Statement:  Describe your bedroom

• 0:  its chaos, cluttered, stresses me out just thinking about it

• 10:  It’s my happy zen zone I immediately feel relaxed in

Statement: Describe your dreams

• 0:  I never dream and I can’t remember the last time I had one

• 10:  I can wake up remembering my dreams, even go back to sleep and get back into it

Fuel

Statement: Can you control when you eat

• 0:  I always feel hungry and eat whenever I want to

• 10:  I have no issues controlling my hunger and it’s easy for me to decide when to eat

Statement: Awareness of your food

• 0:  I crave junk food all the time and I can’t get enough of it

• 10:  I’m extremely selective of the types of foods I eat

Statement:  Controlling your fullness

• 0:  its easy for me to overeat and stuff myself

• 10:  I can feel satisfied when ever I want and stop eating

Statement: Your reactions to foods

• 0:  every time I eat I feel like I can get gas, bloating, or heartburn

• 10:  I’m a human garbage disposal and have no issues with any food

Movement

Statement: Recreational and play activities

• 0:  I hate moving, stay inside, and don’t engage with any friends

• 10:  more than 3 times a week I’m doing something fun and active

Statement: Daily Movement

• 0:  I wake up, go to work, come home

• 10:  I practice daily mobility/stretching and fitness classes, massages, foam rolling

Statement:  How often are you elevating your heart rate significantly

• 0:  Never other than occasional steps I have to go up

• 10:  I participate in over 300 mins a week of activities including VO2max, cardio, HIIT

Statement: How often do you strenuously lift something heavy

• 0:  I try not to lift anything heavy

• 10:  I find myself 3 or more times a week straining to pick up really heavy things

Environment: 

Statement: How consistent is your stool

• 0:  Massive fluctuations between diarrhea and constipation

• 10:  consistent, solid, regular with no issues

Statement: How particular are you with your water source

• 0:  don’t care drink everything

• 10:  i have multiple layers of water filters and backups

Statement:  How often are your allergies bothering you

• 0:  all the time congestion, swollen, itchy, cant seem to control them

• 10:  It’s my happy zen zone I immediately feel relaxed in

Statement: How aware of toxins are you

• 0:  i actually don’t know whats toxic or not, haven’t cared

• 10:  I would move into the woods and go all natural if I could

Nerves

Statement: What is your perception of how stress affects you

• 0:  everything feels overwhelming and stressful, it's painful all-encompassing

• 10: I can flow in and out of stressful situations without even having second thoughts

Statement: How well do you breathe

• 0:  I have trouble catching my breath even in conversations

• 10:  I nose breath and can massively slow down my breathing on command

Statement:  How aware of your body are you

• 0:  no clue, I just go and do

• 10:  I’m hyper aware of what my body does and can even control reaction times

Statement: How well are you able to respond to stressful situations

• 0:  I find myself very angry and reactive and frequently explode at people

• 10:  People call me the zen master

Mindset

Statement: Can you control your day

• 0:  I rush from thing to thing and often stress over how much I have to do. I’m Busy

• 10: My days are filled with what I want to do and what I enjoy

Statement: Describe your support system

• 0:  I often feel alone with no one there to support me.

• 10:  It’s easy for me to call someone and have them drop everything to come hang out

Statement:  How quick do you make decisions with new information

• 0:  I tend to move fast, gather info quickly, and move forward with assumptions

• 10:  I ask a lot of questions and imagine myself in the persons shoes while I listen

Statement: Have you deconditioned your cultural perspectives

• 0:  I frequently feel like my parents and what they said to me growing up

• 10:  I deeply understand other perspectives and cultures.  Well traveled

DONE!!

Count up each Cup value (each of the 4 questions should add up somewhere between 0-40)

Put them in order from lowest to highest

Lowest equals the biggest holes in your bucket, AH your leaking!

Highest is the fullest, congrats

You’ve now learned a little bit about how full your bucket is.  Take a second and sit and think about your reality.  This is really important to give yourself some space and think about your bucket.  Make some observations and correlations about yourself, then lets get started in programing your small habit changes!

Programming the Energy Bucket

First we need you to think about how experienced you are.  This is totally up to you and how you feel.  Have you been working on your health at all, maybe not at all?  Maybe you’re a biohacker whos deeply obsessed with trying routines…we’ve got you all covered.

Beginner Level

Most of your life you haven’t done much towards your health.  Maybe you’ve tried a bunch of weightloss diets with no results, it’s ok, we are going to get you where you want to go.

1. Tactics- pick 1-3 habits to work on for the next 90 days.

2.  Choose your lowest scored Cup and pick 1-3 habits OR

3.  Choose your lowest 1-3 Cups and pick one habit in each.

4.  Rule- you can only choose habits from the beginner category

Intermediate Level

You’ve tried stuff on and off in your life and feel like you handle habit changes pretty well.

1.  Tactics- Pick no more than 6 habits to work on in the next 90 days

2.  Choose your 2 lowest Cups and pick habits from each OR

3.  Choose your 3 lowest Cups and pick habits from each

4.  Rule- no more than 3 habits in one cup can be chosen

5.  Rule- you can only choose habits from the beginner or intermediate category

Expert Level or Biohackers

You know your stuff, now get after the action.

1.  Tactics- Pick no more than 9 habits to work on in the next 90 days

2.  Choose your lowest 3 Cups and pick habits from each OR

3.  Choose your lowest 4 Cups and pick habits from each

4.  Rule- There are no rules, pick from all categories and try new things!

Scheduling Your Energy Bucket Roadmaps

90 day plan with 30 day increments

There is an art form to the integration of habits.  It takes some experience, but you’ll get there through trial and error.  

It depends on the blend of your schedule, how difficult the habit is, and if you have things available to make the habit change.  There is no wrong way to schedule them, however the most common should be break apart the habits into three equal numbers.  Integrate the first set for the first 30 days, then the second on the second set of 30 days while still doing the things from the first 30.  

You could also start all of them at the same time!

The goal is to integrate them in a way that makes sense to you, but to also keep the stress of change to a minimum.

Accountability

This is where both paper and pen or fitness trackers can come in handy.  To hold yourself accountable, keep tallys of daily progress in the simple terms of did you do it or not.  At the end of the 30 days you’ll be able to see the percentage of accountability to help you understand if it’s working for you or not.  Many Fitness trackers will help you with this as you can easily look back at the activities calendar.  There is a lot more fitness trackers can do in combination with other services but this is beyond the scope of this book.

Energy Bucket Roadmap Tactics

There is actually an infinite amount of of options here, so I’m going to write the top ones I’ve seen work in my 10,000 patients and myself.  

Sleep Beginner

1. Go to bed at exactly the same time 7 days a week

2. Cover all blinking lights and block out all light seeping through.

3. Switch to red lights in the house at 9 pm

4. Cool shower 20 mins before bed

5. No tv or cell phones after 8 pm

6. 3 minutes of nose breathing in bed

7. Room temp 68 F or below

8. Lavender on wrists

Sleep Intermediate

1. Square nose breathing

2. Meditation

3. Essential oil diffuser

4. Relaxing music with gentle stretching

5. After 9 pm use all candles (this is a fun challenge!)

Sleep Advanced

1. HRV control apps

2. Red Light therapy

3. Light therapy face masks

4. Relaxing flow of sleep music or binaural beats

5. Rock mats on your bed

6. Self trigger point/accupressure

7. Massage gun followed by castor or essential oils

Fuel

This is the one cup with some special rules.  It’s one of the biggest picks, everyone wants to do a diet, so here we go diving into rewiring your brain and how to think about diets and fuel.

Diets are overwhelming to the nervous system

Diets can create a massive amount of stress to your system and end up draining your bucket.  As a result, you can only pick one of the needle movers to work on at a time!  For 30 days you could start with the quality of food, but don’t change the quantity or timing.  Any combo you want, just every 30 days you can add one more.  **in most of my patients, it would take 6 to 9 months to solidify a diet switch.  This means you could plan to just work on timing for 90 days before trying to reduce the overall quantity of the food for example.

The most common example is changing the quality of the food first.  This usually means if you are going to something like keto you switch to meats and put away the candy.  Later in the plan you change the quantity; smaller if you’re trying to lose weight and greater if you are trying to gain mass.  Lastly, you can change around and play with the timing.

Quality

Choosing a diet is based off goals plus your genetic heritage!  Specific enzymes are needed to convert certain types of nutrients like carbs and fats.  We can actually look at genetic and tell what tendencies our diet preference will do well with our bodies.  A great easy example is the Inuit people who lived off almost nothing but fat for centuries.  They have all the enzymes needed to break it down fully and be healthy.  Some people are missing the genetics to convert plant material into the fat molecules neccesary and will run into trouble if they have a plant based diet.  The good news is, nothing needs to be set in stone, give things a try and just follow the rules of this guide to integrate what you want.

Quantity

The amount of food or supplements taken

If you are not counting calories and eating less

There are several strategies to employ here and it doesn’t matter your level of experience.  One is to just eat until you are slightly full for each meal, one is to just take out snacks, eat ¾ the amount you used to, eat slower if you have trouble feeling full from eating, only eat with your fingers.

Counting calories and eating less

Warning here:  Counting calories on a macro tracker takes an enormous amount of time, energy, and brain space.  It can drain your bucket quickly so I recommend just doing this one for 90 days with limited other habit changes.  I will also note that counting calories has a +/- ratio of about 30%.  This means you can give yourself space to figure it all out and realize it's an art form that takes a little while to get proficient at.

Eating more

There is usually only one main reason you want to eat more, and it's gaining mass.  However, some people are gaining mass because of medical needs, others for beefing up their biceps!  My note of caution in this category is that 100% of the time you will need to take digestive aids to completely break down the extra mass you are shoving into your stomach.

Triggers

Food sensitivities versus food allergies

Sensitivity is a temporary state in inflammation caused by lifestyle factors.  Allergies are ard coded in and cause a different type of immune response that is detrimental to your health almost immediately.

Social programming triggers

This is about habit recognition.  When you feel stressed do you eat more, do you “always” need ice cream before bed.  Next time you feel hungry ask yourself “why am I feeling this way”

Trigger Beginner

1. Take out what you think might be causing the problem for 30 days and monitor

2. Try a leaky gut protocol

3.  Try taking digestive aids

4.  Try adding fermented foods

Trigger advanced

1. Elimination diet

2. Gut health testing and stool samples

3. Food sensitivity testing (IGG panel)

Timing Beginner

1. 12-15 hour intermittent fasting no more than 2 times a week

2. No eating after 7 pm or 3 hours before bed

3. Eat 4-6 small meals per day spaced evenly

4. Fasting mimicking diet done for you 

5. Skip one of your meals one time a week

Timing Intermediate

1. 12-18 hour intermittent fasting no more than 4 times a week

2. 3-day water fasting

3. One day a week doing a 24-36 hour water fast

4. Fasting mimicking diet your custom choice

5. Skip one of your meals 2-3 times a week

Timing Advanced

1. 12-18 hour intermittent fasting 7 days a week

2. 5-7 day water fast

3. Eat 1 meal a day

Movement

Instead of splitting these out into levels of expertise, I’m just going to give you examples in each of the needle movers.  Start at a level you know you can handle and slowly progress in. 

Play

Recreation sports like pickleball, volleyball, bowling, and so on

Group Classes like yoga, kickboxing, and so on

Group Outdoors like birding, hiking, kayaking, nature bathing walks

Group Arts like theater, LARPING, reenacting

Meditative movements like landscaping, building, gardening

Movement

Slow walking, foam rolling, jumping on a trampoline, vibration plate, lymphatic massage, tai massage, stretch labs, band work, small weights at high volume.  This would also include the group classes from the playgroup with the modification of doing it with more intent to fix something or hiring individual trainers for them.  

Heart Rate

Generally, anything that puts your heart rate more than 10% higher than baseline.  You can get into zone training with fitness trackers and program out a logical plan based off zones.  You can go off perceived exertion scales or go fast enough that it’s hard to hold a casual conversation while doing it.  Key concept would be to find something you enjoy doing repetitively.

Strength

There is traditional gym exercises, but also includes simply lifting something heavy like the end of your couch, landscaping rocks or logs, water buckets.  There is an endless list of lifting heavy but the goal is to feel the endorphin response.  It’s a sense of accomplishment mixed with your whole body feeling it almost tingly.  Lifting small weights at high volume is part of the movement needle mover bin.

Environment

Bugs beginner

1. Take away the antibacterial soap 

2.  Add in supplements like prebiotics, postbiotics

3.  Gut health support diet

4. Start using essential oils on your skin

5. Switch to natural soaps, cleaners, cosmetics

6.  Incorporate regular fermented foods

Bugs Intermediate

1. Take a few less showers per week

2.  Take a few showers without using any soap

3.  Make your own fermentation food

4. Red light therapy

Bugs advanced

1. Stool sample tests

2.  Nature bathing literally

3.  Yeast detox

4. Fecal transplants

Elements beginner

1. Switch to natural deodorants and cosmetics

2.  Switch to natural kitchen products like cutting boards, cast iron

3. Switch to glass containers for storage

4.  Natural cleaning products

5.  Living water systems

6.  Alkaline water systems

Elements Intermediate

1. Whole house water filter

2.  Natural furniture, blankets, beds, pillow

3. Natural clothes 

4. Mineral testing to find deficiencies and supplement with

Elements advanced

1. House remodel to more natural materials

Atmosphere Beginner

1. Room air filters

2. Chemical closets go outside

3.  Switch to natural chemicals for cleaning

4.  Check your coffee source for mold

Atmosphere Intermediate

1. Whole house hepa air filter

2.  Clean air ducts with a professional service

3. Inspect home for mold 

Atmosphere Advanced

1. House remodel to more natural materials

Nerves

We are lumping all the needle movers together so you can pick and choose what you think might work best for you as all four of these needle movers are heavily correlated with each other.

Nerves beginner

1. Nose breathing square triangle and circle techniques

1.  Red light therapy

2.  LED visual light therapy

3.  Cold shower

4.  Vibration therapy

5.  Essential oils in the diffuser

6.  Nature with fireplace

7. Humming

8. Assisted meditation with apps or devices

Nerves Intermediate

1. Holotropic breathing

2.  Cold plunge

3.  IR sauna

4.  Tapping and acupressure

5.  Vagus nerve stimulation by massage or throat singing

Nerves advanced

1. HRV bed

2.  HRV therapy

3.  Advanced meditation techniques

4.  Silent retreats

5.  Primitive living for one week or more

6.  Assisted psychedelic therapy

Mindset

Mindset Beginner

1. Nose breathing square triangle and circle techniques

1.  Red light therapy

2.  LED visual light therapy

3.  Cold shower

4.  Vibration therapy

5.  Essential oils in the diffuser

6.  Nature with fireplace

7. Humming

8. Assisted meditation with apps or devices

Mindset Intermediate

1. Holotropic breathing

2.  Cold plunge

3.  IR sauna

4.  Tapping and acupressure

5.  Vagus nerve stimulation by massage or throat singing

Mindset Advanced

1. HRV bed

2.  HRV therapy

3.  Advanced meditation techniques

4.  Silent retreats

5.  Primitive living for one week or more

6.  Assisted psychedelic therapy