The Mindful Leader
The Mindful Leader
Peak Performance für Führungskräfte mit Hilfe der Epigenetik - Dr. Manuel Burzler
You may have heard of your genes and DNA, but did you know that epigenetics is the driver behind your genes?
In this episode, Dr. Manuel Burzler, a functional medicine practitioner and one of the pioneers in the field of epigenetics, joined us to discuss how the science of Epigenetics paves the way to help leaders achieve maximum performance and potential.
Think about Epigenetics as the software in our body. Discover the basics in the high-level overview of epigenetics and hacks around the Epigenetics area of sleep, nutrition, and exercise that you can use to re-write the software of your genes.
We also talk about boosting resilience, the world of integrative medicine, optimizing energy, and hacks to upgrade your mind and body.
This episode is in German. On my YouTube channel you will also find a video version with english subtitles.
Hi, this is Reiner, the founder of The Mindful Leader, host of The Mindful Leader Podcast, and creator of the 12 weeks of High Performance Mind program. A unique combination of training, coaching, master-minding where you can become a certified mindful leader in Tech, product, or design. The Mindful Leader Podcast allows you to learn from experts in the areas of Mind Management and Biohacking using the latest science and technology to achieve a state of a high-performance mind. In this episode of The Mindful Leader Podcast, I have a special guest here Dr. Manuel Burzler. I am glad that he joined us. Manuel is a Functional Medicine Doctor at the BODI Institute. BODI stands for burnout diagnostics in Munich. He actually lives near Munich and specializing in Epigenetics. He is also the co-founder of The Mind Base in Germany and offers unique educational program. Actually the first of its kind to become an Epigenetic Coach. He's also leading the German society for natural and functional medicine, as well as Epigenetics. I got to know Manuel a while ago while I was going deeper into Epigenetics as part of my biohacking. A friend of mine recommended to contact him as he had launched in that time already the Training and Coaching program in Epigenetics. You may have heard of your genes and DNA, but what you may have not heard yet is that epigenetics is the driver behind your genes. Think about epigenetics as the Software, which is able to turn certain genes in your body on or off. Isn't it cool that you can actually controll your genes using epigenetics? In this podcast you will learn the basics in the high-level overview of epigenetics; designs behind it and why you should care about it as a leader. We will then go through different aspect of epigenetics like nutrition, intermittent fasting, but also detoxification, as well as other areas that you can investigate for yourself, potentially make some simple changes to your lifestyle to re-write the software of your genes. So, if you want to get a solid introduction to the epigenetics and learn about its potential on how it can change your life, I encourage you to listen to this episodes of The Mindful Leader Podcast with Manuel Burzler. See you there! Hi, this is Reiner, the founder of The Mindful Leader and Mindful Leader podcast. Today we have a special format in German, but we will, of course, make sure that we also provide subtitle in English. But the idea was just to try something new and it's also important that we build up a conversation where we can really draw on the full potential. I have Dr. Manuel Burzler Manuel joining us here today. Hello Manuel, and I'm glad you can join us today. Yes, thank you, thank you for the invitation, Reiner. Yes, and now maybe just a bit of background of the story. Well, I've been very active myself for years in the whole field of biohacking. Then I was also interested in genetics, epigenetics and such topics, because I've noticed as a computer scientist, that's a principle, or the Blueprint, the basic structure of how people work and that it's different for everyone. And on the other hand there are those all the environmental influences that ultimately are the cause how our genes are affected. It is a very exciting topic, and of course very complex. And this topic is not something we can learn in a day; there is a lot of knowledge involved and that was how I actually came across Manuel.
A bit of background:Manuel is a integrative medicine practitioner and also a functional medicine doctor, including epigenetics in his practice in Munich. I became aware of him through deineMindbase, an epigenetics coaching and training, or better said, the first epigenetics coaching and training in Germany. It had naturally fascinated me as I wanted to deep dive into this area and so that#s how I first became aware of deineMindbase. And then in the conversation, I got to know Manuel and I immediately noticed that it was a great fit. Not only on the area of what is going to be done
in the training but also from to the background of Manuel:the experiences that he has and the objectives he is pursuing.
And they are actually two exciting topics:on the one hand the topic of an integrative functional medicine doctor. We will talk about what is behind it at all, because many of the audiences don't have a solid picture of what it is about the Mitochondrial Medicine Epigenetics, that's a lot specific areas that are absolutely fundamental to what we do and how we function every day. As Tech Leaders, as Executives in the digital area, of course we need full functionality of body & mind and it is important to, I call this program what I had developed over the last few years as ''high-performance mind'', so if we want to develop a high-performance mind with the high levels of clarity, focus, and energy, of course we have to work and keep on our bodies in top condition and that's where mitochondria and epigenetics come into play. So I'm already looking forward to today's conversation with Manuel. A little more about his background, he is also the director of the German Society for Natural Medicine functional medicine and epigenetics, and he gives lectures and seminars on these topics, very much busy. I also just heard that he is in the middle of moving out into the mountains, that's one interesting topic to talk about later. I have been really into these topics very early on, But first, as I said, welcome and tell maybe first a little something about you, what I might have missed in the brief introduction. Yes, thank you, Reiner, for the introduction. Yes, I am a doctor with my own practice or a group of practice, where we take care of the causes of diseases. We have many patients who have been walking from A to B for years, have visited many doctors and none could really help them. Most patient comes from DACH regions and we look really deep for the reason why the cell itself can no longer regenerate. Actually the body is a totally intelligent being that really wants to be healthy and at some point it lost the ability; certain cells have lost the ability to regenerate, to heal themselves, and then we get sick. It's actually that simple and every time I bring it up, I get goosebumps because the body is intelligent being, that has the ability to help us recover from diseases and get healthy again and not some kind of drug or maybe medication that counts for the symptoms. And that's what we are doing in the practice, and we are good in the subject areas Genetics, Epigenetics, environmental toxins and of course the mindset. And so different things show a role as how we can help the cell and the body get back to health. Personally, I've been working with these topics all my life because I grew up very differently, so both my parents did
just dealt with it professionally all the time:My father is also an author and scientist, who has worked a lot with microbiome, the intestinal flora, and how to properly or what we should eat to keep our gut flora in health. Detoxification has always been a topic in the family and for that reason I then, of course, also relatively early in my medical career direction medically developed in the direction how can I really keep our body healthy, what do we need and what can we do to preventively stay healthy. that's why when I was 18 years old, I was already gone down the personal development path. I had this connection to medicine early on and, therefore,
I checked out the Medical studies and thought:''Ok, how can I connect the whole thing together?'' And what fascinating for me was the science of epigenetics because science of epigenetics combines medicine with the mindset and Psychology and that totally fascinated me and then I got me kneeled in relatively deep and saw the potential in this science and so if we are going deeper into this conversation, it will be super exciting because we can do more than we think and in the meantime we have science for that and many studies on this to help us know what we do here for ourselves. Yes, absolutely and maybe helpful here at this point as well to explain the term functional or integrative medicine Many listeners maybe go to a normal doctor or whatever and maybe the term is maybe not so clear. So could you please share a bit of background so that the audience can understand what that actually means. Yes, so when you go to the doctor, you say ok, if you have symptoms, you have e.g. fever and then the doctor says ''okay you have virus and because of this you have a fever.'' This is something very simple, but if we e.g. if you have a chronic illness like high blood pressure, you go to a
doctor and he says:''Okay, I'll give you a drug for high blood pressure now'', then the blood pressure goes down again and everything works fine for you. What we as an integrative medicine practitioner do is we look at what really is the cause of high blood pressure and treating the cause. We look at the control circuits in the cell, what our cell needs, so that in the end the high blood pressure can be regulated by the body itself. We do not give any medication, Antihypertensive, but we treat the causes. It is extremely complex, which means we look at all possible areas, from the intestine to other devices control circuits such as hormones and so on but also looked deep into the cell, with which environmental toxins is our cells are loaded with, and which environmental toxins is my mitochondrion are loaded with. Mitochondria are our energy power plants that give us energy every day. And why the cell cannot work properly? Our whole body is indeed a cell cluster. Yes, we are made up of 50 to 100 trillion cells, that means everyone single cell should work and when they are not working well, then there may be some disruption, for example, high blood pressure. We're then looking at what we can do here that is related with natural way of life or natural things, for example, improvement of the way of life, improvement of the nutrient, as well as detoxification of the cells. Yes, that's interesting. That's also what fascinated me back then, ten years ago when I was still in USA in California where I noticed how busy I was as a Tech Leader in a high-pressure environments, lots of
stress and so on. Then I noticed:''Oh gradually, certain things aren't working more as they should,'' and then I went around to the doctors and, yes, they were of course good in their field, but eventually, they gave me some pills that only help to relieve the symptoms and, for example in my case, a high blood pressure. Then, after I took those pills, nothing changed, but then all at once, all sorts of side effects came out, and at that point, I wasn't familiar with biohacking yet or all that. But then I realized that couldn't be the proper approach, but at the time I didn't know this whole area of functional medicine, or here it's called in Germany integrative functional medicine, I didn't know about this at all, and therefore, I went to the wrong doctors, and they just gave me medicine to relieve the symptoms that actually brings nothing. I think that's an important mindset; If you want to optimize your health, and I actually want to go to that topic now with the audience listening to this podcast, that we should approach the issues proactively and not when it is already too late or on your last legs, where all those symptoms are already there. For listeners who are listening now, if you don't have any symptoms yet, and you're still fine, now is the time to get started and dive into topics like biohacking and of course today there you will learn a lot about epigenetics, thing you can do and everything, but I think the one important point is first and foremost to have a good capable partner, a doctor who works closely with the functional medicine, because I believe that, learning from my experience, the most important thing is that you have such an expert with whom you can work together, an expert who knows the inside scoop and then have the proactive approach instead of going there when it's already too late. Do you also see it that way?
Yes, well, I find the patients who come to me and say:''ok, I want to do something preventively for me,'' are my favorite patients. There are, in fact, not many of them because we are in the society that only goes to the doctor when we feel bad, when we feel sick. But clearly the best time to get started is when we are well and there you can do a lot for yourself and do some preventive care. Absolutely. That is precisely what I want to point out, in my podcasts, and in general on my blog and work around the topic of high-performance mind, let's tackle things proactively. As a computer scientists, of course, I look at software systems. For me back then, it was much more interesting, now I look at the human being as a system, a very complex system, I would even go ahead and say the most complex system there is. If we break it down, there are different subsystems, the organs, then even deeper, ultimately the cells or even more smaller down, that is of course fascinating if one deals around these topics and aware of the intelligence behind it where everything is possible.
Actually, it has to go so in the direction of what you said before:you don't really have to do much, your body knows what to do, and you just don't need to think the body gets in the way. That's how I see it now. Yes, you're right. And it is actually quite simple; the idea is simple. The body has all the information to make yourself healthy again. The doctors have forgotten or we were never taught to understand that we don't know everything about the body, that we don't know all the metabolic cycle, that we don't know how the body in the end really makes the cell healthy, but the body does that itself and it has the information about it. But what we doctors, or what we personally do for individuals and already do for ourselves is to create the optimal environment where the cells can work. Unfortunately, we humans are now creating milieus; environment milieus, work environment, or milieus in which we live (our apartment and such), that do not have the optimal conditions for our body cells, for our body. And thus the body is permanently stressed. And when you have several types of stress that clatter against each other over a longer period of time, then it can come to the point that we really have any symptoms or even develop diseases. Yes, then I speak from my own experience, I've been through it myself me; through various kind of stress at work, but it also has something to do with the balancing act, which is a very difficult topic. It is difficult to find this balance as a manager, especially in startups and in the technology area. Sometimes things go haywire; deadlines and everything has to be done quickly, which makes us quickly forget to listen to the body, or even neglecting the body. If you only do this for a short time, it's ok, but over a longer period of time, at some point, the body can no longer compensate for that, and that's it. Ultimately, you'll reach that point where the energy are very simple with a certain breathing technique, or just subsides, where various symptoms appear, where then the body actually doesn't work that well anymore. Then you lose of course a lot also in terms of performance. For example, when I'm on the road for business and no longer have the power, the energy to pull things through, the body just doesn't work well anymore. You'll get sleep problems, and sleep is one of the most important pillars. if that also falls away, then recovery is almost impossible. And then we have such a downward spiral. So, I think the first takeaway, if you listen now, is the term of functional medicine or integrative medicine. Have a look in your area where you can find those who deal with the topic and Manuel, maybe you can attach a few links to the note. As you're in the association, is there any directory to find an integrative medicine? The directory is being created. It's not easy to recommend good colleagues because this area is just established in Germany, and only just developed, but we're working on it. Yes, we'll definitely be waiting for it. But now we have such a leader, Techy. And the person
says:''I'm actually still fine, but I have now heard what Manuel and Reiner explained and I think that makes sense, I want to get started. Now let's say that this person is now arranging an appointment with you. How would you do that? How would the first appointment with you look like when someone says they want to improve their health? How is the course in general? Basically in my doctor's office, many young people who come to me want to see everything on paper. For example, if I tell them certain things,
then they'll say:''all good, but show me first what is actually going on in my system.'' And what we do first. First of all, we do a thorough internal check-up. That means everything from Thyroid sonography, abdomen ultrasound, etc. and standard laboratory tests, basically everything the insurance pays for, which is relatively limited. And from this laboratory tests, we can't find out much, but if you are good at interpreting it, you get a few guesses and then we take a deep look into the cell, which means we do a wide variety of laboratory diagnostics, blood diagnostics. Here you can then see then, for example, the cell membrane, the membrane of the cell, and see whether they're oxidised. Oxidation means when we have radical stress, that is to say, for example, if you have the banana, it will eventually turn black. Also oxidation can also happen with our membrane though a lot of stress and we are going to take look at that. We're going to look at how the mitochondria work, our energy power plants. When they can no longer work, we always get tired and lethargic. Then we are going to examine how your vitamin D levels are. And the vitamin D levels is not that simple, it's not just vitamin D that we take from food, it's a different topic. And then we look at what the body is like, whether our cells are burdened with certain environmental toxins, which means e.g. insecticides, pesticides, micro-plastics, heavy metals, light metals. Heavy metals including mercury, cadmium. Light metals such as Aluminum. And we are all loaded with certain toxins, the only question is how much and how well the body can still compensate them. And then you get a really good''all-round'' view and then we have everything in black and white and we
can get started:what we can do therapeutically in order to optimize the body, and also mentally; we examine where are the stress coming from, what are the stress factors? In which environment do I actually live, in which apartment do I actually live? Here, for example, is quite nice. That is also the reason why we moved. My partner and I moved out of Munich. We lived in the middle of Munich. And the older you get, the more you actually realize the stressful environment you have lived in, how many outside stressors you lived with. And that's what you realize the older you get and I realize that too. I didn't want that anymore and that's why moved out into the mountains; we a beautiful view here of the Mountains from the living room, we also have less Electrosmog, which is also a serious topic. We paid a lot of attention to it in the past, but now it's loaded everywhere. There must be an awareness of this and you must draw conclusions from it, or better said, to take more care about your own cell because we are loaded with it. So, yeah, there is the ''all-round'' picture, and from there, we create an optimal plan of a preventive health care or to also detoxify the cells from certain environmental toxins. That's exactly the
approach I've always said:''show me the numbers'.' I would like to like facts and figures and everything sience-backed. That it very important. And this collection of Biomarkers, like you called it, need to be checked thoroughly. They are the key figures that reflect the specific states of body. That's actually the the most important task that you have to be aware of. Biohacking is not a one-time thing that you do it once; it's a journey. When you start this collection of Biomarkers, of you first set them up, understand what everything is, and then start taking care of it and then, like car maintenance, things change, you experiments, you try out new things, maybe new diet, which then change some things. Therefore you've got to do check-up regularly. I think that's the approach that you can work with an integrative doctor as a partner, as an expert, to get the guidance and clarity on how to interpret those Biomarkers, because that's actually the most difficult thing to do in this whole topic of Biohacking, which is what discovered myself. Of course you have to know what you have or should measure. There are many problems inside, like the health insurance, what is covered and what is not? I think that's one of the mindsets I see here in Germany. In the USA, we used to live there, this problem is actually less common because you know you have to pay if you want to get good treatments. Of course, if you're lucky the health insurance covers some of them, which is good too, but yes, good health costs money. Do you also see it that way? Yes, of course. If someone is not willing to invest in their own health, and instead, investing in a car or in the latest other gadget, then it's your own fault. And that's what I always say to my patients. Let's say someone buys a Tesla for 30,000 Euro or even more but they don't want to invest in diagnostics. At some point they will no longer have fun with their expensive car and that's super important to me. In my opinion, my body comes first and when my body no more works then I have a problem. And if we now go to the topic of Epigenetic, which is also your specialty, if we think about the principles, I remember, you cover the topic of motivation, vision, mission in deineMindbase. But I found the example you gave me back then was super tangible, now also for the audience, understandable for techies, right? If you say the DNA in principle you can think of it as a blueprint imagine it as hardware, because it was given to everyone and then there's epigenetics as software, which then basically does the whole thing of controlling and manipulating and then get the most out of it, or gets nothing at all, or getting something bad out of it. I found that a great visualization with this hardware, software comparison. I use this analogy myself in my teachings when it comes to brain and mind, as you can visualize that very nicely with the analogy. But yes, can you share maybe a bit about epigenetics, like how you got there, and a bit of an overview of why we should care about it. Well, personally, there were two things that I had to learn early in my life. I'm a very head-driven person, who makes up countless things in my head, so to speak, and now and then, I lost the connection to my own body. Well, not lost in literal meaning, but I had never really felt my body, for example, when was it enough, when have I worked enough, when was it over and when my body just said, ''I don't want to do this anymore.'' I didn't feel this limit and I had to experience or learn it early on, when to listen to your body. And first I had to restore that connection between the head and heart, or rather with the body. And that was my first journey, it started when I was 18 where I really got into my own emotions and feelings. I went through several seminars over the years, where I learned and saw wonderful things
happened when people changed:Their emotions changed, their mindset, their whole structures and how does the body changed completely. And I've never, even if you study medicine, I don't know how to explain this, but I never understood how that really deep level works. And then several years ago, I crossed path with the science of epigenetics. For me, the science of epigenetics combines these hard facts with the themes of feelings, emotions, personality, psychology. And it got me incredibly fascinated. And that whole visualization you just said. We all got our genes from our parents, and we were taught that we are determined by our genes and that what I've also learned in medical school and what we all have learned in biology class. But we now know that we are not determined by our genes, but we got hem, and we can partially influence how our gene activities is affected and how our genes are read. That's the epigenetics. The epigenetic stuff are not fixed but like a software that you can re-write a little. Some parts are fixed or hard to write, but many parts can be re-written. That got me unbelievably fascinated, and still fascinates me even now because of what we can re-write on many different areas. We can do a direct hacking by taking certain dietary supplements. Or we can hack them through, for example, certain variation of sports, we can be hacking through personal development, so if we do personal development, you can measure that Epigenetics are changing. The epigenetic mark on the DNA itself change. And I can say that my rational brain is challenged here, and that fascinates me. Yes, and that's another point that the rational brain can actually understand it nicely. We have the genes, we have the Biomarkers, that we can pick up and check. And then we can do the hacking, we can also re-write software, changing the environment, be it sport, sleep, food, dietary supplements, whatever it is. And then we can see what is going on in the cycle. As a scientist, it is of course super exciting. But you you also mentioned the connection to the mind, to personality, and how it has a huge impact on it. Yes, and what fascinates me in my development, which never stops, but what fascinates me the most is if you regularly meditate, for example, and with this regularity, comes in an incredible situations or developments you make and also affects the speed. But to possess this ability at some point to connect the head and the heart with each other. I always call it the ''Heart Highway,'' because I have to imagine how the head is connected to the heart. There is a highway between them, a great connection. And imagine that in meditations. For me, it releases extreme endorphin. Others call it heart current, which is amazing because you can measure heart current by the so-called HRV measurements. That's
also a great thing as you now say:''okay if our head and our bodies are interconnected and there's a better connection between them, we can measure the whole thing.'' Again, it's another new information for the rational mind. But we also always have feedback that does good to our body. Absolutely. HRV measurement is of course super helpful to see how your resilience develops, your overall constitution, self-regulating, the whole thing. Do you also have a protocol on how you measure your HRV? I assume Ouraring or HeartMath to measure your baseline. Exactly, I use an Ouraring. I observe it regularly. What is my HRV like? And then there's HeartMath with whom we work together Germany. It's a great opportunity to train your parasympathetic through the Biofeedback trainings, because the parasympathetic is, as we all know, sympathetic is what gets us into the activity and Parasympathetic restores the body into a state of calm. The Parasympathetic is like a muscle that you can train. And if you train it regularly, it's very positive for us as we can restore that calm state to our body much better. If we, for example, building a business, which I can do that on my own experience, or if you're a leader and under a lot of stress, our sympathetic nervous system is always active all the time, but our parasympathetic is hardly used and that's why it's so important to occasionally activate your parasympathetic possibly via Biofeedback Training, for example, via HeartMath. And also know how to actually activate it and then at some point you have also the ability to activate it when you are in the toilet, for example. You just need to be there and do some breathing exercises to activate your parasympathetic. That's exactly what's cool about it, that many of this technique focus on breathing. It's so easy you can do it anywhere. You just need to know how to do it. First, you need to know how to get in there and train to make it a habit. Then you start somewhere, as you said maybe start with Ouraring, which for me is also the standard. If you want to check on your performance, you should have one because that just gives a basic statement of Biomarkers like the sleep, but also the heart rate variability, HRV, that you can easily check on the app. Then when you say, I'll take a look now, for example with HeartMath, I do this in the morning after getting up a measurement as an example, you learn a few exercises over time, what you can do and yes, the goal is actually to get in there. For me, it was sometime a few years back as I got the knowledge, then I've also used HeartMath a lot, trained with it and everything. I remember thinking how annoying it is to carry around these gadgets and always think about it. But at some point I realized that I don't actually need it. Once it works, even now when we are talking, I can do some breathing technique in between consciously and thus bring the nervous system to the balance. I think it's really cool that once you've started, you can do the little things that make considerable impact without huge effort. Yes, it's great. Now, we've talked about HRV, we’ll put the link the two links for anyone who’s interested, so that you can then go into more depth there. But now back to epigenetics, well, we have the influence of the environment, the software, which ultimately we ourselves write, we write the software, just like you beautifully formulated, and then there are different categories. Now if we if we break that down in life, we had as well talked a bit about the topic of sleep, we talked about nutrients, and we even mentioned mitochondria at the very beginning and the topic of detoxification also came up. These look like building blocks of categories to me. Maybe you could go over, and give us an overview of the most important category of epigenetics, and maybe we'll go into every category, pointing out one important thing from your own experience where you say you can do something about it in this category, maybe something that can give us the greatest effect so that we can start experimenting, and so that the listener have the feeling to get into this directly after listening to this podcast; start writing the epigenetics' software. Yes, we divide
epigenetics in several areas:the transgenerational epigenetics, that means everything that we have inherited from our ancestors not only genetics but also to epigenetic mark. We were not so sure if it really works, but now we know that the case. Then we break it down into Psycho epigenetics, that is, what makes up our personality, our thoughts, our emotions, our mindset, what influence do we have here on our epigenetic cycles on our gene activity. There is also a big factor of nutriepigenetics. That is, what influence does the general diet have on ours gene activity, i.e. food is not only macro and micronutrients, but food actually has information that we eat, which can affect our genes deep down. Then, there is a crucial factor of social epigenetics. That means our social environment but also in which environment we live in general. Then, we have physio epigenetics, i.e., physio, that means how do we move athletically, what do we do athletically for ourselves, what our general movement looks like, what influence do sports have on our gene activity, and also what influence does other gadgets have, such as the infrared on us, or sauna, everything that affects our bodies from the outside. The big topic of sleep is incredibly underestimated. Lack of sleep is the number one killer. Then we have the mitochondria that already addressed before, the body's power plants. It's very important for them to work because if they don't, our cells can't function and in the end neither do our epigenetic cycles. And also environmental toxins, if we have too much of them in our cells, certain important enzymes can't work properly, for example, so that our genetics can be read correctly or so that our epigenetics can really get going properly. If you have seen the breadth, that is actually every areas there are and that's actually a cool thing. Despite all that, there's not so many areas. I can go there and say, ''Ok, I want to feel better, I want better performance, I want to have more energy, I want to feel completely healthy.'' Then I can have this ''menu'' to choose from, that's how I imagine it,
the whole areas to choose from:the sleep here, the diet, the sports, and so on. Then I can go, theoretically, search out, so to speak, what's there today as the starter, what can I basically experiment with now. Then I can make changes as much as I feel like. I can start small with one or two things. I can also, like myself as a biohacker, of course, do numerous things in each of these areas. I don't have to think about them anymore as they have become habits now. But I think the crucial perspective, like I said at the beginning, is that I would look for a good sparring partner, an expert, a good integrative practitioner. I can make a list, I'll start collecting biomarkers, and then I can look at the areas. And from your side, if you see all the biomarkers of the patients,
you can probably already say:''look here, here, and here,'' and we can do something together. One more thing on
the first area:the transgenerational epigenetics. I find it super exciting about the grandpa, great-grandfather, or great-grandma or even further back, how they lived. And I still know my great-grandma and great-grandfather from when I was a little boy. I know how they lived, in what conditions and circumstances. But now I know that practically, their standard of living and environment is what I've inherited now. We have to see it that way, right? Exactly. You can inherit certain parts. How or which parts, so which certain influences, of course, is still a going-on research because one did it around ten years ago and said, ''Ok, all epigenetic markers will be erased if the egg cell or the child, also, when the egg cell is fertilized with the sperm, then first. all epigenetic markers are gone. And then everything just happens on the genetics first before the epigenetic markers back on it.'' But back then, we didn't know how the whole thing works. Now we know that certain epigenetic markers are inherited. And we know, for example, if our grandfather had a trauma, well, that is practically the World War II generation, if they had a trauma, then a part of this trauma, so to speak, is inherited in the epigenetic marker. How does that end up with us, how it's affecting our metabolism, that's a whole other question. But in any case, certain markers were set by certain traumas of the grandfather's, for example. They can be inherited, that is clear. And that's still in us. That understanding is a very, very important part in transgenerational epigenetics that we are partially aware of this, and also aware that we have noticed certain things that we have inherited, which we have never experienced but are within us, which may also play a role in our personality and our mindset. That sounds so crazy and I could not accept it myself for a long time until I just witnessed it again and again, that something changes when you work on certain topics, although you have never heard about this, or although they have never happened. And that's the transgenerational epigenetics. But of course what our grandparents did, what environment they lived in, what did they eat, partially. Yes, that is of course another point, we can't change anything about what they had done, it already happened. But ultimately, we can use the hacks, probably use it in other areas to compensate it. It is then actually more of, some kind of status; what did got or what I took with me. So, that isn't a clean slate is when I was born into this world. It isn't a clean slate, but there are certain software routines that are already there, I got it from my ancestors and of course I can be positive, it doesn't have to be a bad thing. But of course, it can be something that's a bit of a hindrance, or my body is then correspondingly more susceptible to certain things. Now, let's get into the psychology area, which we addressed very briefly in the beginning. As we don't have much time left, I would say that maybe you can share briefly, maybe get a little something out of every area, just some important bits you can think of right now, something that we can start experimenting on, or just an impulse, so that we get an impulse on what is possible and what does it bring? So what's the impact? In psycho (behavioral) epigenetics, it's clear, we all know it, for example, when we have stress at work, psychological stress or emotional stress. This stress becomes the one that affects our epigenetics. What we can do here is to be
aware of our condition first:''Okay, I have stress. How can I change this for the better? What 'stuck-state' am I in right now? Where am I stuck at the moment? Can I change certain things so that my body and my mind don't need to be stressed all the time when I work or work a lot?'' So, that's the first part that's vital in psycho epigenetics. And you can, of course, measure the whole thing, for example, if you look at the neurotransmitters, then there's a cortisol measurements, there's also adrenaline measurements. One of the most important hacks is when we have a lot of stress, we can we pimp our enzyme that breaks down the stress hormones, mainly adrenaline and noradrenaline with the so-called COMT enzymes. COMT enzymes catalyzes the methyl groups and methyl groups are formed by a certain control circuit and they are quite fond of certain cofactors. One of the most important cofactors are B vitamins, such as vitamin B12 and folic acid. It is very important that when you buy B vitamins, buy the B complex vitamins and make sure that they have methylated folic acid and methylated B12 in it. Then you have these methyl groups in there that this enzyme needs. Then this enzyme can quickly break down stress hormones. Super. Do you have any products that you can recommend that the listeners can easily google and check out? So, we, in the practice, are cooperating with the company MITOcare who has methylated vitamin B complex, so that you're on the safe side. MITOcare also has supplement called the ''Methylation Master,'' which I find really good. But the ''Methylation Master'' is the 'non-plus-ultra,' so to speak, it is for someone who's always stressed. This is a product where you can get the most methyl groups, which is of course the best product for it. Yes, there are many cool things, but that was how to
get started:stress, reducing stress and maybe as a matter of dietary supplements, you can start with B vitamins. So, that's all the good things that you can follow. In the area of nutrition. How is it in the area of nutrition? I think, it's quite important that one understands that the nutrients are not only consist of macro- and micronutrients, but we also eat the information. As an example, a quite well-researched
food:the broccoli. Broccoli has the micro RNAs, so it's called, in its structure and we eat this microRNA, and it goes deep into our cells, which can influence whether certain genes are correctly read or not or what meant to be read or not. And it is very, very important that we are aware that food is not just food, but that it may even carry information and above all the natural food. That's why
I really recommend:''Okay, I don't only eat processed foods, but I go back to basics, I go back to nature and eat fresh vegetables, and so on. Don't eat things that are being processed all the time because there are many things that will make you sick. This is the easiest hack. That means, practically, when you look into this topic, there are much simple stuff like eat good, organic food if it's possible and not processed food. There are so many more. You have to be careful of sugar, for example. Then of course we have to mention the microbiome when we talk about nutriepigenetics. Our gut is actually the most important organ for us. If our gut is not healthy, then we have a problem because we have the so-called ''gut-brain'' axis and if our gut is under stress and there is inflammation, then our mind also won't function well. That's very important. Yes, that's very exciting. I don't think many know about the importance of this connection. And that means, in the beginning where you talked about detoxification, that each of us has a lot of toxins in the body, that are everywhere in our organs but also in our gut, everywhere, after all, right? That means that we have got the focus on detoxification, the gut, which also means looking at the microbiome and what can you do there. Would you say one more thing about the gut where you say that we can start with. The most important thing is to omit the sugar, the sucrose.
It is so:It's been known for so long, that only 5 grams of sucrose per day, which is very little, the normal table sugar, alter our microbiome for the worse and can promote intestinal fungi and so on. If you omit the sugar, It's a very, very, very good thing. Unfortunately, the sugar industry is so tough and so good, they are simply so strong that this knowledge does not really apply to the entire population. But you can see that it is important to use another types of sugar. One of the best sugar types right now that even build up the microbiome is Tagatose. A kilogram of tagatose cost around €100. I also like tagatose-galactose and ribose, not sure what it is called in German. There are healthy sugars and I think we can even make a podcast to only talk about sugar. The topic of intelligent sugars is really exciting. But yes, for now, leave out sugar in your diet, you hear that again and again. There is only now another perspective on it, why it makes sense. Let's go over the topic of sleep very briefly. Maybe you can share one sleep hack with us? Or in general, something for big impact. First, the awareness of sleep is very important; between at least 7 and 8 hours of sleep and there must be a regularity here. So, it's crucial to have
a correct sleep rhythm:when do I go to bed and when do I get up. This
sleep rhythm is very regulated, which means I go to bed at 10:30 p.m. and then get up again at 7 a.m., for example. That would be ideal. I couldn't believe it myself, but eight hours apparently according to studies are really the optimal time. Do you measure your sleep with Oura ring? What's your minimum deep sleep? Yes, that's quite interesting. Currently, I'm testing around a bit, so minimum I really wish I have an hour and a half of deep sleep. Yes, you often hear that too. Well, that one and a half hours of deep sleep comes from many sides. There seems to be something to it. Are you in deep sleep most of the time? It depends on what the day before was like, and I'm testing currently some hacks, say, if you can't fall asleep, I use the sleep hormone, melatonin. But also, for example, GABA, which is an amino acid that can help us relax. I am currently trying melatonin, e.g., How much melatonin can I take so that I can fall asleep, but not overly detoxified. Because melatonin, maybe we can talk about this when we talk about detoxification, Melatonin is a hormone, a sleep hormone, that puts us to sleep. It is also one of the most powerful antioxidants, that means a radical scavenger in the body and detoxifier for our brain in our sleep. So, we detoxify in our sleep and when we can't sleep, our brain is not detoxifying, and eventually, it gets sick. That means one of the hacks, so to speak, if you can't sleep, you could also say that you take a little more melatonin and see how much is washed out, but
of course, it would have been suboptimal. But you can do it this way:You have phases where you take more melatonin to counteract, or to detoxify the brain a bit.
There are also different supplementation:Biogena has melatonin drops as an example.
You also have to keep an eye on the dosage:Can you take a higher dose? You always have to look at what you do with the minimal principle, how much do you actually need. Do you have any idea on the dosage, maybe first try out what kind of dose fits perfectly? Personally, I once started with 0.5 milligrams, really little, up to 1 mg is always recommended here in Germany. And then, depends on which supplement you use, you mentioned the drops before. I've noticed that with drops, you have a much better absorption. That means you can take significantly less, but melatonin capsules have a much worse absorption on the milligram counts, so you can take more. And of course, you can go up to 10 mg to see how my body tolerates it and how well does it work for me. But I would definitely start with a milligram first and then maybe step up and see how do I tolerate it and how do I feel when I wake up the next day. That's always one of the problems when you take too much of it; you could feel a little groggy the next morning. Less is always more, like this micro-dosing of 0.5 mg; it works and you don't notice anything the next day. Interesting that we brought up melatonin now because I just started experimenting with infrared for a few weeks now. Infrared therapy; I have found out 20 minutes of infrared therapy that, this is also scientifically proven, infrared triggers the formation of melatonin in the cells which is interesting as an antioxidant and formed in each cell. I found it super exciting because you basically have to take nothing, you can get infrared outside in nature, which means that you can get it everywhere, like in the field, the forest, where the sun shines. Then you actually get melatonin for free, but the problem is for us techies and executives, we are working most of the time inside in the office, there's no sun coming in. That is also the answer as why my sleep was very poor many years ago when I was still living in California, a place with endless sun. But then when I reflected on myself, I stayed most of the time in the office. Typically, there's less infrared inside the office, and your body form less melatonin. A very exciting topic! I think we can talk about sleep hacks probably for another whole hour. But I think the tips you gave us about GABA and small doses of melatonin, those are things that we as biohackers can experiment on. Great! Now as we're reaching the end, maybe let's go back to the topic of detoxification, because I believe that this is an important topic. How can someone get started? Because you said it before, we all have it. We obviously can't see it. So, how can anyone start to find out how much toxins are in my body and how do I get them out? First of all, everyone needs to be aware of it. We are all burdened, we are polluted and shot at with two to three thousand environmental toxins every day. So, our body, body, our liver, and our whole cells always have to get them out again, and some parts stays inside our body. At some point, the time to get the stuff out will come again, or maybe even do it constantly to support the body, taking substances again and again so that the body can detoxify more. There's an interesting hack, that I have not yet tried, is eating several cloves of garlic and wild garlic at the same time. So, three cloves of garlic and several wild garlic leaves and then to see how I'm doing afterwards. Many said, ''I ate way too much garlic and now I'm feeling bad, I can't tolerate garlic.'' But this is a detoxification, and it's a detoxification of certain heavy metals from your body, from inside the cells, and then partially multiplied in the blood where they are then mobilized and the body then reacts to it. Because in garlic there are a lot of natural sulfur molecules and of course, when we eat the wild garlic and garlic in a high dosage, then we mobilize heavy metals. This is the easiest hack to have a look whether we have a lot of toxins. But basically, I can say that I have not seen young people in the practice, who has not contaminated with heavy metals or other environmental toxins. That means the simplest hack ever to be active here is to take sulfur. Low doses of sulfur, such as MSM to support the body a bit here. Of course, there's more to it than that, but that's it something that is, at least, can help your body a little. Yes, like you said, even a young people have quite a bit of toxins nowadays and the older we get, the worse it gets. That's clear, but the problem is you just don't see it. Even if you go to the doctor now, normally, these won't be measured. Well, nobody talks about it. That's why it's so important, that you just become aware of it, and then begin to put interest in it. Sure, you can always try out the hacks, but that means, like you said before, if someone then says, ''okay, I'll eat all the garlic,'' and then they notice afterwards that they're not feeling well or whatever, then that can be a sign that there are a lot of heavy metals in the body. Then it is actually then the correct way to go directly to you, go to an integrative doctor to get measured and get started systematically to get something out of it. But that's a very long-term topic. So you have to say that right away when you say you're so motivated, let's do it, but this is actually a process that may take over many years, right? Well, what I already have seen is that people think that they can just do a couple of things and that's it, it's completed. But that's not true. Do you have experience with patients in general, how long on average until all the toxins go away or on a good level? So, to reach a good level, it takes at least half a year and really detailed, but I would say to reach a very, very good level, at least 12 months constantly. And then you should say that they want to continue to support my body, not in such high doses like we do during detox, but they should support the body after 12 months so that only fewer toxins are absorbed. I always describe it like keg. The keg will be full at some point, it will spill out as the result, which is not good. And what I do with the detox is that I make some holes in the keg, allowing some to flow out. Then the keg is not overflowing anymore, and everything's fine again. But if we don't keep those few holes open, then we have a big problem because then it will overflow again because we get polluted aver day. Yes, that's a good point. Well, that's not a one-time thing. You have to do this''clean-up'' systematically, then it's gone, and you think that's it. But it's over. It comes every day, more and more. That's why you have to achieve this continuity with all sorts of tricks and hacks. But yes, it's also for a separate show. Now finally, I would like to talk about the mindbase. I think it's so exciting to know more about the programs you have because I think many leaders, in fact, could fundamentally benefit from such a program. I've noticed that it's a combination of coaching, as a leader, I also have to be a good coach and a good mentor for my team, so that's one skill that you can actually train and learn. But also if I bring this knowledge of how I can upgrade my software, so to speak. That's exciting and the program that you're offering is really unique not only in Germany, but also globally. I think it's good if you can describe it to the listener so that they can get an overview of what it is. We offer a six month training, where we go through these subfields of epigenetics, what we have discussed earlier, only then much deeper and what can we do for us personally but also for our clients, how we can lead them so that in the end they have an influence on all these processes. Our wish was, as we just started back then, we wanted to build a large community that follows this path with us where we can build certain programs with them and so on. And then we realized that we wanted to achieve even more or how we can reach more people with the knowledge because it is my calling. I see that every day so many young people who cannot be helped, or they could have done so much preventively for themselves before it evolved into a chronic disease. It became clear to us, that we actually have to train the people, who in turn train
other people:the clients, patients. That means that they are naturopaths, doctors, coaches, executives, or even bosses of certain companies. And then we achieve a lot more people with this knowledge and end up taking care of more people. We started with the training March last year, and we have tremendously grown, and as we're still growing now, mindbase will evolve into healthversity. Our vision is to expand this area even more and also more in this business. So, to go even more to the leaders who are more involved in the company
and say:''Hey, what could you actually do for the employer or what can you do for your employee so that they stay healthy, which is also in your interest.'' Yes, but on the other hand we want to establish more in that
personality development area. But also say:''Ok, for the end customer too, what can you do for yourself?'' But still our desire or where we very much have fun in, is always practical seminars. That means it's like 4 days with us in such a nice hotel where we then really experience specific hacks and training for your own body. That is what we are still building on right now. Super exciting. Yes, and for anyone who is interested, we will, of course, provide the URL
in the show note:deine-mindbase.de, there's a lot of information about it and the aspect of the coaching is also very, very important, it also helps you there practically emphasizing the training. As a leader, you can can act as a mentor on the one hand and help because you have the experience, but you can also act as a coach, who can help the employees. Most people already know what the answer or solution is in themselves, but to fish them out with the right questions, that's the art that you have to learn, and it's not easy. Therefore, I think it's great that there are such opportunities. I think that leaders usually know far too little about it. Looking back, how many of the leaders, with whom I have worked together, had coaching training? I would say that I can count on my fingers, if there's even any. That's why an education like this is really fundamental in my opinion. This is the skill-set that you can build up, learn, and practice. Therefore, is this combination very strong. But I will put the URL in any case again in the notes. Then, first, thank you. We have covered many topics today and there are some practical tips now that you can take out. Now at the end, if someone comes out after this episode and says, ''Oh yeah, cool. All that epigenetics is super exciting and yes, I want to do something, I want to be proactive, I would like to get started.'' What would be the first steps to start. I believe that's the start is always the key, right? How can they start? I think the most important first step is to deal with sleep. It is really the most important thing in my opinion. And becoming aware of what I eat each day, how and what I eat. And really the everyday things that
we do every day, to question and see:''Ok, can I improve certain things that I've heard now?'' And for me, the first most important things are actually sleep and nutrients. Yes, they are the foundation, right? The body ultimately burns food with oxygen, transforming and transferring them.
An those are the fundamentals:food, water, oxygen, and sleep naturally to regenerate. Great! Then yes, a lot of information and thank you for the time, for being here today. And yes, I'll put up the links and details on the show note for everyone to see and understand it more. We'll also put English subtitle for this episode so that the audience from English-speaking countries or English as the primary language can also benefit from all the information on this episode. Thanks for the invite, Reiner. I really enjoyed it. Thanks to you! Until then!