Transcript

Ani
Hi and welcome to the Somatic Coaching Academy Podcast. Hey there, Brian, how are you?

Brian
Hi, Ani, how are you?

Ani
Good. What’s so funny?

Brian
Live long and prosper. That’s like just popped into my head right before we started the podcast.

Ani
Okay.

Brian
There was that— well, it was Spock. Spock from Star Trek would say, live long and prosper, and he could do that with his Hands a little bit before my— can you do that? No, I can do it.

Ani
I’ll do it.

Brian
Can you do it?

Ani
I can. No, I’m just saying, yeah, I used to be able to. There you go. Yeah.

Brian
So you got—

Ani
for my time, a little bit.

Brian
Yeah, a little bit for your time. Spock, live long and prosper. So, okay, so you might be like, what just happened at the start of this podcast? We’re talking about longevity today. It’s actually kind of a pretty cool topic. I’ve been interviewed on some other podcasts about this topic recently.

Ani
You’ve been interviewed about longevity?

Brian
Yeah. And I thought that we would— I thought, let’s talk about on our podcast. I think it’d be kind of fun.

Ani
Okay.

Brian
Because it’s not something that we have talked about, I don’t think, yet in our 100-something, 50, 140 episodes.

Ani
5 episodes, something like that. Yeah. Why are people asking you about longevity?

Brian
Well, it’s a thing. Oh, you know, how do you live? How do you live longer? How do you live not only longer, but how do you live better? Yeah, I think so.

Ani
Yeah, I think we’re living longer.

Brian
All right, I think we figured out how to live longer. Um, you know, the whole The era of pharmaceutical medicine over the last couple of decades has helped keep people alive longer. But isn’t it interesting, like even with those pharmaceuticals that have kept people alive longer, we’re still like inundated with all these chronic diseases that people experience that don’t make living longer necessarily better, living better.

Ani
Sure.

Brian
So there’s kind of a movement now towards, wait a second, let’s kind of pull back all the living longer stuff and how can we live longer, better? And I thought, let’s talk about this idea through the lens of the work we do, right, with somatic, somatics and somatic coaching, because I think there’s a role to play in somatic and somatic coaching, especially if you look at longevity research, which I thought would be interesting to kind of chat about.

Ani
Okay, cool. Yeah, it reminds me of like, ’70s the new ’60s and ’80s the new ’70s. And I think there’s really something to that from some of the older people specifically in my life and looking at what 80 looks like now, or 70 looks like now, or 60 looks like now, and what I remember used to look like when I was a kid. Yeah, I do think that in general people are— well, maybe it’s people I’m noticing. I notice a lot of thriving.

Brian
I was just listening to a podcast recently, and I don’t— I can’t remember what podcast it was, And I don’t remember who the researcher was on the podcast. Um, but I remember what he said. So he was a longevity researcher and he said that actually you’re the most product— can you guess what the most productive decade of your life, of people’s lives is?

Ani
Right now it feels like 40, but I’m in my 40s. Really?

Brian
Your 70s is the most productive.

Ani
I would not have thought that.

Brian
And then the second most productive is your 60s. And the third most productive is your 50s.

Ani
What do they mean by productive?

Brian
Getting stuff done, building things, creating things, like living what you would call a productive life.

Ani
Wow.

Brian
Yeah. So I thought that was— I thought I was like, whoa. So that’s what we’re speaking to. So I think it must have been a podcast, something on longevity or longevity research, because that’s what they were talking about. And I thought, well, that’s kind of a pretty cool statistic.

Ani
Yeah, right.

Brian
Because these are also the times where if you’ve raised kids, the kids are out of the house. And supporting and supporting themselves. Certainly by the time someone’s 70 years old, you know, they have a lot more, uh, a lot less obligation and a lot more choice about where they place their— and, and we have people in our community that, I mean, I would say their 70s and their 80s have been very productive ages. They, they’ve got nonprofits, multiple nonprofits, they’ve raised a ton of money for like animal shelters, traveling hospice, or traveling the world, you know, those kinds of things, involved with their families. Yeah, but in order to do that stuff, you got to be healthy. Yeah. So that’s the thing, it’s not just living to that age, you got to be healthy at those ages in order to do that. And so that’s been certainly— I haven’t spoken about this a lot like out loud, but this is something I think about.

Ani
You speak, you talk, you speak about it in your head.

Brian
I speak out in my head a lot. Yeah, about this idea of, uh, being healthy longer to be able to just, you know, live a full life. You know, and I’ve talked about this, a lot of people talk about this, at least in our kitchen. About the importance of this for you?

Ani
Yeah, well, I think about it a lot. I— one of my main goals in life is to be a healthy 80-year-old. I want to be a healthy 80-year-old so that my kids have the freedom to have as much freedom as possible in their middle-aged life, because I know how busy being middle-aged feels. No matter what path they choose, I want them to have more freedom and not have to think about me as much as possible. I know the healthier I am now and, and continue to be and think about that, the less kind of burden it’ll be on, on them. But also, I want to enjoy my life when I’m 60, 70, 80, even 90. And I know that thinking about that ahead of time is where it’s at.

Brian
Yeah, yeah. So let’s just kind of look at what are some, uh, what’s some research around longevity, and then how does the work we do at Somatic Coaching Academy kind of help fuel that or can help people live better longer. So, um, I’m sure lots of our listeners have read the book Blue Zones. And so it’s a book, uh, it’s actually pretty cool, right? So the researchers and the authors who wrote the book partnered with National Geographic photographers and, and, uh, producers of things and looked around the world at what, uh, societies seem to naturally live the longest. And then they went in there and kind of reverse engineered, like, well, why do they think that was happening? What was going on? And then even further, some of the work that is hopefully going to be done is they’ll take those learnings and then recreate and restructure, uh, Western civilization to model, um, these environments or, or, uh, communities that actually naturally help promote longevity, which I think is a pretty cool thing.

Ani
Good luck, and I hope so.

Brian
Yeah, so there are like these 9 things. There’s these 9 things that, um, encourage, encourage longevity. These 9 points, we’ll go through them really quickly and kind of just chat about them. But the first one is to move naturally. So people in these environments, they, they move naturally. So they’re not like pumping— they’re not pumping iron, right? They’re not lifting weights, like going to the gym and lifting weights, um, which are things that, you know, we do, or I do, you know. They’re not like getting on machinery to exercise, which is things that I do. So these are some of the things I have to kind of think about changing for myself, but they do things where they move naturally. So they do a lot of like gardening where they’re squatting, twisting, turning, moving. But we don’t have a dishwasher, which I’m really proud of in the house.

Ani
We don’t.

Brian
Because the people in these communities don’t use these modern conveniences. They actually have to walk or somehow—

Ani
Yeah, to do something.

Brian
Carry, you have to walk, carry, lift, move in natural environments.

Ani
Which is how you move naturally.

Brian
Moving naturally, right? So you’re getting on the ground, you’re rolling around. You’re not just sitting in a chair all day long, right? Right. So sitting kind of is the new smoking in a lot of ways. And so moving naturally, it’s really, really important. So how can we do that more, uh, more regularly is kind of a cool thing to kind of consider. Moving naturally. Now I will say, well, that’s going to come back when we do the second part of our talk.

Ani
Okay.

Brian
About moving naturally.

Ani
All right. So get rid of your dishwasher next.

Brian
Get rid of your dishwasher. Get rid of your laundry machine, your washing machine. Get out there.

Ani
Snip your own grass with scissors.

Brian
Start snipping your grass with scissors and pounding your clothes at the riverside with a rock. Okay, so the next thing is purpose. So, uh, people in these communities have a natural sense of purpose. So, um, like in Okinawa and Sardinia and, um, where else? Uh, there’s some other— the places that they’ve identified, I’m not going to list all of them, um, or maybe only just a couple of them, right? Okinawa is one, Sardinia is one. There’s a place in California, I don’t remember the name of the, the name of the town of California, it actually falls into this list. There’s 8 primary places around the globe that they found kind of match these parameters for that have more people over 100 years old than any place else, like per capita. Like, that’s how they kind of decided, like, what are these Blue Zones? The most centurions per capita live there. Okay, so purpose. So people have purpose. They have a reason for, for, for living, for being, for acting, for moving forward. A very strong connection to purpose. Which again, okay, so just kind of, kind of bookmark these things. And then as we talk about Somatic Coaching Academy, somatic work, you get an idea of why this stuff fits in.

Ani
My grandmother passed away, was it 2 years ago now? And I’m so bad with numbers. I don’t remember how old she was, but she was, I think she was 98. And I said to her, what’s the secret of a long life? Like the last time I saw her where she could talk to me. And she said, keeping busy.

Brian
Did she? Yeah. Well, there you go.

Ani
Yeah, but I mean, she was the kind of person who, as long as she possibly could, was in her garden and cooking and things like that. Not just from a standpoint of not having a dishwasher, natural movement, but for purpose. Like she felt purpose to wake up in the morning and take care of her home and her food and to cook local food and to be cooking from her garden and making things beautiful. Like she took a lot of purpose in that.

Brian
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay.

Ani
Okay.

Brian
What else we got? Downshift is another one. So the downshift is, um, basically managing stress, learning how to consciously and consistently downshift your nervous system out of what we call sympathetic dominance into more parasympathetic dominance and a balanced nervous system. Every one of these cultures, uh, does that regularly, downshifts their nervous system out of chronic stress states. Um, one of my favorite ones, and I, I know this is one I I try to do, right, the 80% rule. In other words, when you’re eating, stop at 80%. Stop at 80%.

Ani
Is that why they did that? Yeah.

Brian
So that’s a, that’s a trait. That’s a trait of people who live, um, consistently past 100 years old.

Ani
You do a great job with this.

Brian
Part of their culture is like, stop eating at 80%.

Ani
When you’re 80%, not when you’re yourself, right?

Brian
Yeah. And so, um, so that’s, so that’s a thing. So I try to really practice that one as much as I can. I can always be better at it, but that’s, uh, that’s an important one, I think.

Ani
Yeah. You’re so much better at that than me. You know, we’ll be at your mom’s house for pasta, for sauce, Nonna, Nonna’s sauce. And, uh, you know, you’ll be like, I’m done. I’ve had enough. I’m, I’m at 80% and I just can’t help it. One more spoonful of pasta.

Brian
81, 82, 83, 100.

Ani
And then there’s dessert.

Brian
Yeah, right. Exactly.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
And you’re 110%.

Ani
Yeah, yeah, that’s just like how things taste in my mouth.

Brian
So, uh, okay, so the next one is, is they call it plant slant. So where your diet is primarily plant-based diet and forward to only meat a couple of times a week.

Ani
But right, they don’t have teenagers right now.

Brian
Our teenage boy is like, what do you want for dinner? Steak, meat, meat, steak.

Ani
It’s gotta be—

Brian
he gets up from— I’m not kidding, he gets up for a midnight snack and he makes himself a pound of ground beef.

Ani
Yeah, I think that— I think the, the young, the teenage influencers, the young 20 influencers are really pushing the red meat right now because he’s not the only one. Like, young men are really, really— maybe they always have been, I don’t know, but right now the, the young men are really into the red meat and we’re like really excited to get back to more plant-based, not be—

Brian
not eating as much red meat in the house. So that’s like Aye. So, yeah, we’re really looking forward to kind of moving back towards kind of that plant slant.

Ani
Yeah. We got into eating more meat as a family because we really took into consideration a farm-based diet. Yeah. Which I just think is interesting, which is why I bring it up. We live in a place where there’s a lot of farms, there’s CSAs, a lot of people belong to CSAs.

Brian
A lot of hyper-local food.

Ani
Hyper, hyper-local food. For a very long time belonged to a full diet year-round CSA, which stands for community supported agriculture. We basically like bought in at a farm and we would go there every week and get food. And when you do that kind of thing, depending on the farm you’re at, um, but at this farm that we were at that had a whole diet CSA, there’s meat and there’s grains and there’s veggies and dairy and dairy, raw dairy.

Brian
We actually still get in love.

Ani
I started eating way more meat when I started eating hyperlocal. Um, it doesn’t have to be like that, you know, because we can like put up food and things, right?

Brian
But anyway, it was really high-quality grass-fed meat too, so it’s not, it’s not mass-produced. And we were feeding 3 kids and putting up a lot of food, and we were actually kind of in this seasonal diet where, um, all summer long we’d be getting inundated with food and we’d put it up, can it, freeze it, and then we’d eat that food all year long. On this really, this farm-based diet, to your point, which I thought was really good. I mean, I really, I really enjoyed it.

Ani
And as we’re both getting older, we’re both craving having less of the meat.

Brian
Yeah, less meat, more veg. Yeah, sort of thing. Anyway, so that’s PlantSlam. Okay, now, okay, so a lot of you gonna be excited to hear this one. They call it Wine at Five, which means that not all these communities do this. One of them, the one in— the one in Sardinia, I think, really kind of digs into this where they do a happy hour at 5 o’clock, like every day, and have 1 to 2— 1 to 2 glasses of wine.

Ani
Is it red or white?

Brian
Uh, I didn’t read into that.

Ani
Okay, right.

Brian
So I don’t know. But so what the research says is that a minimal to moderate consumption of alcohol may be helpful for that. And what they’d say is though, you can’t save it up till the end of the week and have 14 glasses on Saturday, then that does not work.

Ani
1 to 2 glasses, right?

Brian
But some of the— but one of these communities doesn’t drink at all. And they still have over the 100.

Ani
So it’s not, it’s not like you have to do all—

Brian
it’s not like you have to do all of these. Sure, these are just the things that happen. And but some people are like, they lean into the Wine at 5 like really big.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
And they’re like, but they don’t move naturally, they don’t downshift, they don’t, they don’t plant slant, they don’t 80% sort of thing. So in that case, it’s probably not going to help you live that long because there is other research to say that even moderate alcohol consumption gives you literally zero benefit to health and longevity at all, and potentially a downside to it.

Ani
Right. And some people listening to this are very happy about it because they like their wine.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
So we don’t really drink, so that one doesn’t, um, cue in with us. Do they have a coffee at 9 or something? Did they say anything about coffee?

Brian
Well, they do have a belonging category. Like, you have to feel like you belong.

Ani
Okay, but that goes with the wine too.

Brian
Like, it doesn’t say coffee.

Ani
You feel like you belong with coffee? Is that what you’re saying?

Brian
I’m drinking coffee with people. Certainly, I certainly feel like I— but they say belonging. So they actually link this into kind of faith-based communities more than anything else, but like people who meet regularly, like in kind of like a belonging network that have a, um, a shared faith or shared belief system. Um, that sense of belonging, uh, definitely fosters longer, longer life, right?

Ani
Yeah, I remember when I was sitting hospice patients as a graduate student, that was one of the things that I think prolonged people’s lives even when they were dying, was the belonging and the sense of connection.

Brian
Yeah, yeah.

Ani
So does that have anything to do with spouse— spouses and partners?

Brian
Um, that’s kind of the next one. The next, uh, category they have is called loved ones first, and what it means is that people have a strong connection to their families. To their— either their children, uh, or their parents or grandparents, and committed partners.

Ani
So that didn’t go with belonging, that was different.

Brian
Yeah, more of a community kind of thing. Yeah, a faith-based or, or a belief-connected kind of community where people would meet regularly, that went under belonging. And the loved ones first was more about family, committed partnerships, those sorts of things. So that’s another, uh, that’s another cat— two separate categories. It’s interesting, which could overlap, I assume.

Ani
Sure.

Brian
But they could have. And then the third category is called right tribe. So what that means, which you might think, well, what’s the difference between that and belonging? Well, right, tribe, it’s not only the people that you share like your specific belief system with, but it’s the larger community that you live in and their habits and practices that they do. So do the people in your community walk regularly or do they drive places regularly? Do the people in your community, you know, eat more plants Or do they eat more meat? The people in your community, do they do more health-driven practices? Is like, what’s more socially acceptable? Like, what are the social drivers within the tribe? That’s kind of the idea. Um, and so, you know, does the community within— does it— do you— do they smoke? Are you spending time in bars? Are you spending time in— at the, at the gym or the health club kind of thing? So that’s kind of more the right tribe. It’s kind of like it’s not only your specific kind of belief-focused community, but it’s also the environment that you place yourself in. Like, what are the people around you doing?

Brian
And these, these communities, uh, these 8 kind of Blue Zones across the world, uh, all have kind of the shared idea of, um, their health-based cultures. Like, that’s really what they’re kind of focused on and working in, you know. So when I travel around the country, it’s always interesting, um, Like I go to New— I’ve been to New Orleans and I don’t think New Orleans is gonna be upset by me saying this cuz every year they get rated as the least healthy city in the country, in the US. And when I go to New Orleans, like I don’t see anybody out there jogging, but I see a lot of people stumbling around from the night before, like hungover, you know, there’s a lot of alcohol consumption. There’s amazing food. Like the food in New Orleans is incredible.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
So rich and fatty and fried. It’s, oh my God, it’s great. But then you go to places, um, like, you know, well, like Fort Lauderdale. We, when we would work a lot in Fort Lauderdale, always somebody right out there running all of the time. Yeah, there’s also a lot of partying in Fort Lauderdale too, but there’s also like a lot of activity, a lot of health-generating kind of activity there too. San Diego is the same kind of thing. Go San Diego, there’s a lot of people, active kind of people. Yeah, so depending on where you, uh, Denver— I lived in Denver for a long time, and Denver, which is why one of the reasons I moved there, because it’s a lot of activity, a lot of health-conscious, a fitness and sport and that kind of stuff happens.

Ani
Yeah, the culture, right? I’m thinking about your parents who are snowbirds, so they leave New York and go down to Florida in the wintertime, and the community down in Florida is always doing something. Yeah, they’re just really active. Um, and in contrast, here people basically in New York, people just kind of stay in their own homes in the wintertime. Yeah, well, even— yeah, but even in the summertime, it’s not like the neighbors are all interacting with each other or whatever, but in Florida, all the neighbors are interacting with each other in this. I mean, that’s belonging too, but like, again, culture, like what are people doing? It’s just really interesting.

Brian
Yeah. So those are the 8, those are like the kind of the 9 areas of, um, these Blue Zone traits that help people foster longevity. So I thought we’d just kind of segue into, um, kind of some of the work we do here at this Matt Akoshi Academy. But I do want to know that all 9 of those traits, right, um, all 9 of those traits— move naturally, purpose, downshift, 80%, plant slant, wine at 5, belonging, love one person, right tribe. None of those have anything to do with like genetic engineering.

Ani
Yeah, right, that’s true.

Brian
You know, because there’s a whole thing right now, oh, we’re going to genetically engineer away disease, we’re going to start to do genetic modifications. And I’m not saying that that stuff’s not valuable, that they’re— right now they’re working on genetic engineering and gene modification for things like Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body syndrome, like these really devastating diseases. Sure. But we also know there are things like these 9 traits that when people do these regularly, they’re less likely to have those problems. So I just think it’s interesting that— isn’t interesting as humans will invest a ton of resources into like genetic engineering or pharmaceuticals to try to minimize the effects of things that we’re doing to ourselves. Yep. I just want to point that out. Like, as humans, we’re really, really good at that for some reason. Rather than just changing our behavior and changing our behavior to have healthier lifestyles, we’d rather spend all kinds of resources and money to try to affect the symptoms of what we’re doing to hurt ourselves, right?

Ani
I don’t know, counteract the symptoms, right?

Brian
So I’m just putting that out there. And that leads then into our, you know, what we do here at the Somatic Coaching Academy. So if you’ve been listening to us for any amount of time, there’s like 3 primary uh, tools that we— 3 primary processes, I guess, that we use here at the Somatic Coaching Academy, where we have Core Centering is kind of— that’s our Level 1 certification program. But we have Core Centering classes that we do regularly that people can come to. First month’s free, so you can join in for those and try those things out. These are things that we do in all of our group programs and even with our private clients. Okay, so Core Centering, this really kind of locks into this downshift trait. That’s really what it does. So when we’re doing Core Centering, we are actively and consciously downshifting the nervous system, moving it from sympathetic dominance into parasympathetic or towards parasympathetic dominance, looking to balance the nervous system so that the neurophysiological and neuroendocrine profiles optimize for someone and stop creating inflammation stop creating chronic tension, stop creating all the disease processes that would decrease longevity. So the thing is, is just bringing your nervous system into a state of balance by itself is longevity-producing, right?

Brian
It creates longevity in that, in that way.

Ani
And it feels good.

Brian
And it feels really good. Yeah, you just did a Core Centering class with our—

Ani
I did. I was, uh, led through one of our our, uh, Core Centering classes with one of our amazing teachers. They’re so good, they’re so great. Yeah, the hardest part is getting to them because we just get wrapped up in life and forget how important it is. But, um, it’s like, that’s the hardest part, which is crazy because they feel so good. You feel good while you’re doing it, you feel good after you did it, you feel good because you did it.

Brian
Yeah, and it can help you live longer and better, apparently. From what we’re looking at in the research.

Ani
Fantastic.

Brian
Right? You just have to get a— have a way to do it. The one other thing that, right, Core Centering practices are really helpful for is just the idea of breath capacity. Can we just talk about that just for a moment? That’s important. So in the Framingham Heart Study, which is like a 60 or 70-year-long longitudinal study of cardiac risk, like why people would die of heart disease, which by the way is the leading cause of death in Western countries, is heart disease. One of the, one of the findings they had in that study is that your vital breath capacity is the most accurate indicator of how long you’re going to live and how healthy you’re going to be. It’s longer and more— it’s more accurate than, um, your blood cholesterol levels. It’s more accurate than your blood glucose levels or your blood sugar levels. It’s more accurate than whether or not you smoke. Is your breath capacity So the idea is, folks, is if you can just do things to enhance your breath capacity, that is directly linked to living longer and living better. Breath is life. Breath is life. And we’re advocates of extending your breath capacity in gentle, consistent, meaningful ways.

Brian
And you get all that with the Core Centering practices, right?

Ani
Yeah. Core Centering helps you to naturally release the tension that keeps your breath bound up. I think that’s really important because he’s not trying to push through. Release the tension and it’s already there.

Brian
Exactly.

Ani
Waiting for you. Yeah.

Brian
And what happens when you release the tension in your body? Let’s talk about all the, all the effects of that. Um, well, when you release the tension in your body, you get better blood circulation, you breathe more deeply, your neuroendocrine profiles, uh, optimize and normalize to actually bring you more vitality. To, uh, when you decrease tension in your body, more life energy flows through your body, right? You just feel more alive. You feel better. Um, think about anytime you’ve been tense or tight and how fatigued do you get? How tired do you get at the end of the day? You’ve had a stressful day. Your muscles are like knots and you’re just exhausted. And you’re like, oh my God, I didn’t do anything today, but just look at a computer all day. And I was on meetings and I’m exhausted. You need to really exercise. So why are you exhausted? All the tension in your system.

Ani
I think this points to the purpose thing that you were talking about, because when people live a life on purpose, they’re able to go through their day with less tension. Actually, it takes— there’s so much tension that is required to get ourselves to do things we don’t want to do and don’t feel aligned with and don’t feel on purpose with every single single day. It requires so much energy and intention and armoring to be able to do that.

Brian
Yeah, for sure. So again, Core Centering, folks, all these things. Oh, here’s another one though, another really cool one is, um, what we know— what somatic practices like Core Centering has been shown to enhance the, uh, life of what are called telomeres. So telomeres are these little caps at the end of a DNA strand. So every time a cell in your body reproduces, and your cells reproduce, you know, billions of times every day, your cells reproduce. Actually, every day you have billions of cells die and you have billions of cells reborn every day. So, but depending on how a cell reproduces, it’s going to pass on to its offspring cell all of the current processing and operating system that it currently has going on. So that’s why it’s important to have a healthy cell because it’ll pass on healthy information. If you have an unhealthy cell, it’s going to pass on unhealthy information. It’s like kind of passing the clipboard to the next person in line sort of thing with the operating procedures for what to do. So you want to have those healthy cells. But in either case, what happens is when a cell divides and multiplies, its DNA strands unwind and then it reproduces and then those DNA strands wind back together.

Brian
Well, every time the DNA strands unwind— At the very ends of the strands are these what are called telomeres, and you lose a little bit of telomere every time they unwind. And then when they wind back together, like, you get a new cell. But here’s the thing, every time they unwind, you lose a little bit more telomere. When there’s no more telomeres at the end of the DNA strand, the cell can’t reproduce anymore and it dies completely, dies permanently. It can’t reproduce again after that point in time, which means then you start to physically die more permanently. So when your telomeres are preserved at the end of your DNA strands, you—your cells can reproduce longer and more often, longer and more times. And we know that somatic practices actually preserve the telomeres at the end by actually producing an enzyme called telomerase, which actually supports the health of the telomeres. That’s how it actually works. So I’m just saying, like, going deeper into why that downshift is so important with these practices that we’re teaching you in Core Centering Practices, they actually help to support the how many times your cells can replicate. Isn’t that mind-blowing, boggling something?

Brian
It’s just incredible, right?

Ani
Yeah, I think it’s incredible. Yeah. Remember all of those things? Yeah. All the little details. It’s so cool.

Brian
So cool. Okay, so just one more thing on the Core Centering stuff too. Just one more thing.

Ani
There’s so much.

Brian
I’m trying to keep it short. I’m trying to keep it short, but there’s so many things. All right. So we also know from research is that, and this isn’t true just for Core Centering, this is true for lots of different somatic mindfulness practices, that what happens predictably after about 45 minutes of practice. Now, with that said, let me just caveat right here. There is some research to show that just if you, if you are just starting a practice, just starting a mindfulness practice, 5 minutes of practice a day for 30 days shows a statistical improvement in your nervous system’s shift into a parasympathetic state. Okay, so just, uh, 5 minutes a day for 30 days actually shows a statistical improvement to help you regulate your nervous Now, if you want to kind of go beyond that, when people practice somatic practices, predictively, for about, at about 45 minutes, 45 minutes, people enter into an altered state of consciousness where you actually start to feel more connected to not just your local self, but more the universe at large. And you start to kind of commune with forces outside of yourself, greater forces. Um, the universe.

Brian
You can talk about this in a lot of different ways, but something changes after about 45 minutes. And this is a gateway, my friends. This is a gateway to the deeper behavior change that will help you to do more regular life practices that would help enhance your longevity. So you’re not like popping the— popping the pills all the time to help you live longer. You actually— your body’s actually living longer on its own. But that takes behavior change, and the gateway to that behavior change, um, happens, um, at that 45-minute mark. That’s when you actually can start to look at your, um, look at yourself not as like a local person, but you actually, you start to kind of look at yourself on the outside and notice those habitual patterns of behavior, and you can start to change and modify them at that point.

Ani
We’ve been doing a bunch of work on morning routines, and one of the things that I’m noting is 45 minutes is this benchmark, I think, for people to really feel like— 45 minutes or more, mm-hmm. Yeah. I feel like you really have a morning routine, you really have a practice, but less than that, if you do it for like 20 minutes or 25 minutes, it doesn’t feel as meaningfully— like the gravitas of that practice just isn’t there in the same way. Um, if you’ve always wanted to feel what that feels like, I think you’re bringing up a really good point. Shoot for 45 minutes, do that consistently, and you’ll start to notice the shifts in a different way.

Brian
Yeah. And on the way there, but here’s the other thing we want to say is don’t not do the practices if you can’t do them for 45 minutes. Absolutely. Because doing them at all is better than not doing them. Yep. Right? So if you, if you have 5 minutes, do 5 minutes. You have 10, do 10 minutes. If you have 30, do 30 minutes. Like, keep doing the practices. Keep doing the practices and keep expanding it. And it might be if like one day a week you’re like, I have plenty of time today, I’m going to go a little bit longer, then try to go a little bit longer. But don’t let yourself convince yourself that I can’t do it for 45, so I’m not going to do it at all. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. Okay. Um, okay, so, uh, let’s just talk about cross-mapping really quick. So way back in earlier podcasts, we’ve talked all about cross-mapping. This is our Somatic Transmission Fundamentals program. We teach this primary skill Again, we do this with our groups, we do this with our private clients, so you get it whether you’re in our certification programs or whether you’re in our group programs.

Brian
But one of the things that cross-mapping really does is it helps to train you to recognize the subtle signs, the subtle signs in your body that an imbalance is occurring, that something is not— something is off, something is imbalanced. Because if we’re talking about longevity, we’re really talking about longevity being from— it comes from balanced physiological state. And that’s not like a fixed state, it’s dynamic, right? Because some days, um, you’re going to be a little more out of balance, some days you’re going to be more in balance. But the idea is on overall, like, where are you overall in your physiological balance? If you’re always on the edges and the extremes, that is not going to, um, help support longevity. The more balanced your system is, the more— and the more coherent, the more coherent your system is, the more you’re going to have a greater longevity in your life. And so when you have the ability to sense into the subtle things in your body, you’re like, oh, something’s a little off, then you can make adjustments. And most people don’t do that. Most people wait again until their, their discomfort or even their pain is so bad that then they decide they need to do something about it, and then it’s an emergency, and then they go to the doctor or the ER, and then they get drugs and all that kind of stuff.

Brian
And you’re not really addressing the underlying thing. So it’s about listening to the whispers in your body, not waiting for the screams to start happening.

Ani
One of the reasons I love that you’re talking about cross-mapping with this is cross-mapping does teach you to touch in on the whatever’s happening that is an undesired state, and then recognizing that I can choose in my body, and, and to be able to go back and forth and to be able to, to notice these different states. Because if if you’re just doing, for example, the Core Centering practices, I think one of the things that can happen is you think, well, if I’m not centered, it’s not good. Like, if that’s the only, um, option. Whereas when you do Course Cross-Mapping, you start to experience there’s lots of different experiences in my body that can feel regulated, right? You feel desired and, and gives you more contrast and options. It gives you more options for desired states.

Brian
Yeah, I love that. And definitely experience.

Ani
I think that’s one of the things that’s interesting. Lots of people say listen to the whispers, but I think without the body awareness and without— not just body awareness, like doing body scan sometimes, but actively working with your sensations, actively working with your body you don’t have that range to be able to really listen to the whispers.

Brian
Yeah. So that’s a great point, Ani. It’s not just about listening to the whispers, it’s actually doing something about them. And in Cross-Mapping, that’s what you do is you learn to consciously shift your internal states again to come back into balance. Yeah. Right. So the answer is kind of the how, how do I get back into balance? Well, you use Cross-Mapping. Yeah.

Ani
That’s how you do it.

Brian
That’s really an interesting point. Yeah. Okay. So now let’s just segue into sensation-based motivation. Coaching, which we do in our Level 3 certification program. Again, we’re doing this with our clients in our groups all the time, these sorts of things. So this is really where you get in and you, you change the behavior, where you get underneath the behavior itself and start to change at the sensory level what’s driving the behavior. So when you do these practices, just start living in more ease and more flow. You just stop fighting life so much. Right? You just stop fighting life so much. And I think that’s a lot of what we kind of see when you look back at these traits of the people who are in these communities that have longevity practices. They’re just not fighting life, right? Like, life is in flow. Um, they don’t make problems where there’s not problems. How many people just make problems where there’s not problems?

Ani
Yeah, I’m just thinking about technological advances that are supposed to be so spiffy but actually make us sicker because, for example, we’re not moving our bodies. And humans are supposed to interact with their physical surroundings, and then we try to like make things easier and we actually make things more difficult with a lot of the things that we concoct.

Brian
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, crazy the way— I mean, I just went off on a little mind trip around that whole thing. We could talk about that. But so, but it’s not only making life, um, making life easier and more flow. It’s making it easier and more flow with who you really are and who you really want to be. So one of these, uh, one of these blue zones, I think it was in, I think it was in Okinawa, if I remember. Um, oh yeah, in Okinawa. Um, the, I can’t pronounce this word, a moas. A moas is a group of 5 friends, 5 friends. That in, um, their— like when they’re 4 or 5 years old, they become committed to living their lives together. So there’s these groups of 5 women, like different groups of 5 women who have known each other for 100 years. That is so cool. And the idea is they know who each other is at their core, because it is— if you’ve ever gone to— if you’ve ever gone to visit anybody on like a, you know, as a guest in their house, you can hide who you are for one day, you can hide who you are for 2 days, but after 3 days everything kind of starts happening, right?

Brian
And isn’t that Benjamin Franklin who said like, guests and fish after 3 days both start to stink? Or stink? Yeah, but that’s true. Like, and when, you know, when you’re in a group of people that you’re not familiar with or that you only visit once in a while, after 3 days like you’re— the real you starts to come out. And sometimes You don’t always like that, and you don’t always like, oh my God, I realized they were really like that.

Ani
And it’s just— forks—

Brian
and but after 100 years, like, you know who those people are. And there’s something about being recognized as your authentic you. Imagine going through life, stop hiding who you are, stop trying to be someone else, stop trying to be someone that someone else wants you to be, and just live in the flow of who you are. Oh my God, can you just feel the tension come off?

Ani
Back to that thing about releasing tension.

Brian
Yeah. And so that’s really a lot of the work we do with that sensation-based motivation coaching is helping people to, um, live in the confidence of who they, who they really are. And you work at it at that sensory level so it gets invested into the subconscious and you get the subconscious blocks out of the way and you step into who it is that you’re really meant to be, right? You— and then you can engage with forgiveness and faith and, you know, detachment and all the things that are associated with these groups of people who can, you know, who live past 100 years old. Not only living past 100, but health— being healthy past 100 years old, right? Like, we want to kind of keep coming back to that again and again and again. These are not people who live on pharmaceuticals. These are people who live natural naturally healthy lives, which I think is just amazing. It’s pretty remarkable. Just amazing. So, you know, um, if this is something that’s really grabbing you and you’re like, God, I want to live longer and I want to live better, then reach out to us, right?

Brian
There’s a lot of ways you can work with us. We can connect you with one of our associate coaches to help you kind of do the work at that level. We have Core Centering classes, first month’s free. Come to the classes, start to work at that level. We have group programs that actually feed into this also.. And, um, and this topic on longevity, this might be our longest podcast we’ve ever done. I was just thinking on longevity, been at this for a long time. We have been. Yeah. So just a good match in that regard too. But this is something I could talk about for a long, long, long time.

Ani
Should have been a series.

Brian
Yeah, it could have been a series. Yeah. But, uh, but I hope that you, hope that you enjoyed it. Hope that you got a lot out of it. Um, reach out, share. What else do we wanna ask people to do, Ani?

Ani
We’ll see you next week.

Brian
Okay, come back next week.

Ani
Bye.