Relaxing and Reset your Brain

Welcome to Make America Healthy. My name is Beth Shaw. I’m the host of this podcast. I’m also the founder of YogaFit Training Systems Worldwide, the world’s largest yoga mind body school for over 26 years educating people how to take better care of their own physical and mental health. I’ve also written 4 books on health and wellness.

All have the word yoga in the title. And our goal at make America healthy is to inspire you, empower you, and educate you so that you can take better control of your own physical and mental health because ultimately you are your own healer. Today’s topic on make America healthy is relax and reset your brain. And we’re going to talk about the importance of rest, why so many people have difficulty doing that, and what happens when you are not resting properly. So we have 2 very exciting guests today.

We have Michael Porter from BrainTap. I recently had the opportunity to spend time at BrainTap headquarters where I underwent all types of brain testing and live blood analysis and a whole bunch of other stuff. And Michael has a very interesting background that he will share with you. And we’d also like to welcome doctor Caitlin Lehman, who is the founder of quantumclinic.com. Welcome everyone to Make America Healthy.

Thank you. Let’s, talk about the topic of rest and, what’s going on in the world. It seems like people are having more sleep problems than ever before. It seems like everyone’s tired and exhausted. What is getting in the way of us resting?

And I know that the phones with the 5 g and the EMFs and all of that and sticking our faces and screens till all hours of the night, not helpful. I’d like to hear from both of you what you’re seeing out there in the world and what you think the systemic problems are right now in our society that people simply cannot rest. When you came to our office, Beth, one of the things we showed you with our HRV testing is how unbalanced your nervous system was. And you covered it, the phone, the TV, the computer, the Wi Fi. And then when we see kids, their music and video games, All those things take the brain out of entrainment.

So we can see with EEG. We can see with the HRV. And what we’ve done since 1987 with Light and Sound is to be able to do what people don’t wanna do. Luckily for us, meditation’s been on the cover of a magazine every month. People have tried meditation, but they don’t wanna practice or learn.

So what we can do is we can do it for them. And if people are consistent compliant, they can see those results. We’ve got over 4,000 practitioners who use our equipment. So for us, it’s a lot easier not going to one person at a time where a practitioner can go through their patient base. So one of the things we’re able to show people is if they can get their nervous system balanced and self regulating, they can sleep better.

Now they also have to eat right and exercise, but most people are so exhausted. They go to bed. Their nervous system’s unbalanced. They might get the 7 or 8 hours, but they don’t get the quality sleep. And that’s one of the things we can show them.

Once they get their nervous system balanced, they can fix their sleep. And with the wearables nowadays, they’re able to see that. So for a lot of people, it used to just be how much time you got, but it’s really the quality. And people adapt and adjust to their lifestyle, but they don’t understand how stressed they really are, and that’s something we can show them. I wear an Oura ring, and I know when we had your brother, doctor Patrick Porter, on the show, he said that we really need to have one hour of deep sleep to 2 2 hours of REM.

Is that correct? I usually just look at their deep sleep. If someone gets an hour and a half to 2 hours of deep sleep, I know they’re getting the rim. But most people, even the biohackers, when we go to that conference, will scan 250 people. The average is a half hour to 45 minutes.

You’ve got a great device that can measure that, and we were able to show them every day when they came back to the booth that change, and they saw it in their Oura ring that day. Wonderful. And I’ll talk more about my visit to your headquarters a little bit later in the show. Doctor Lehman, welcome to Make America Healthy. Pleasure to be here.

Thank you so much for having me. How did you get into this field? I’m sure that as a psychotherapist, you saw a lot of people who weren’t resting properly. Tell us some of your stories from being in practice and what led you to start the Quantum Clinic. Thank you so much for asking.

The impetus for starting Quantum Clinic was really to double down on the infrastructure that’s needed in our society to support people’s deepest relaxation through rest. So we offer reduced environmental stimulus therapy or rest, which is also known as flotation therapy or sensory deprivation therapy. And similar to your other guests, these are spaces where we use sound and certain lights to support brainwave entrainment. We also do a guided biofeedback driven meditation as part of our process. But more than an analytical or intra individual teasing out of what the problem may be, we really see ourselves as a model of preventative care and a model that represents a gold standard or a best practice and a space where people can really begin that process of unwinding and tuning in experientially.

Thank you. So I’ve been to several different float places, and the first one I did was complete sensory deprivation, very warm water, dark tank, no music, no light. And then I went to a few others where they had music, which I found to be very distracting. They had lights, which didn’t really agree with me. I guess everyone is different.

But if we’re talking about sensory deprivation, first, I’d love for our listeners to learn more about what that is. And then 2, what you think are best practices is for those sensory deprivation centers so that people can really get into a deeper state of relaxation and consciousness simultaneously. That’s a great way to talk about it. So the industry acronym for this is actually REST, reduced environmental stimulus therapy. Though this concept has been around since 19 fifties and was actually initially developed at the National Institute For Mental Health under the auspice of a a man named doctor John Lilly back in the 19 fifties.

It’s come a long way since then over the last 70 years. So whereas people often have this fantasy about it being this really cold or austere environment, something spooky, getting into a really dark, basically, cave or pool of water. Like, there’s a movie from the eighties that people reference a lot called altered states. Right? Where this idea that you’re gonna just transform into the id obviously is pretty outdated and and not entirely true to form.

These days, what we really wanna emphasize is user choice. So having the option to leave lights on or off, having the option to play music, or in our case, we’re playing specific frequencies that are known to support brainwave entrainment. So it’s not just music. There are specific frequencies that you prefer. Binaural beats?

Are you using some hertz frequency? I I would tell the listeners to understand a little bit more about that because you can put YouTube on, and I don’t know if there’s any subliminal messages in some of those. I’m always a little hesitant, but I I use them anyway. You get different healing frequency. Either one of you talk a little bit about healing frequencies versus binaural beats and any other different technologies perhaps like BrainTap has, Michael, that help with people’s, relaxation, but changing brainwaves also and getting into that beta or gamma states.

One of the things that I’ll I’ll just speak to briefly on this, it’s important for people to understand a concept called sympathetic resonance. So this comes to us from physics, which is the idea that when a system is presented with an external frequency that matches on some level an internal one, that there’s a resonance effect that happens in the system that amplifies the experience of that frequency. So when we’re applying particular frequencies to the body mind system, because we can’t separate our mind from our body, we found that it’s really important to also be pairing this with the mind body techniques to facilitate that inner relaxation and that imaginal work in addition to the application of the frequency. It’s not an either or because, actually, we are generators of frequency in so much as we are also receivers of it. So we wanna be facilitating for people and the understanding of their inner experience, connecting with the heart center to drive that vagal afferent traffic to support allowing folks to access these deeper states of brainwave patterns, either alpha, theta, or gamma.

And that can be aided through the application of sound frequencies. I think Michael’s work, I don’t know enough about it, but I it’s my understanding that’s some of what you guys do. We need to do it ourselves. We need to be learning how to access these states ourselves. So long time teacher of yoga and meditation, I totally agree with that statement.

Michael, let’s talk a little bit about different frequencies, what you all use at BrainTap, the difference between, like, binaural beats and different hertz frequency and anything else that I’m missing in the world of sound healing? First thing is, let’s get the body back balanced and self regulating because that’s where it needs to be to heal anyway. So that’s the goal of the brainwave entrainment and getting the nervous system the autonomic nervous system balanced. So once we do that, the other added benefit is we have 60 categories and 60 sessions. So while someone’s in that learning state, they can learn pain management, stress reduction, sports improvement learning, coping with cancer, PTSD, different things.

So how we would help doctor Lehman is she sees someone twice a week, let’s say. That’s 8 hours a day. The other 5 days a week, we always tell the practitioner what we have is something they can do for home care because they still gotta be able to maintain that. When we look at frequencies, we have different things like the bio charger. We have our light bed that you can move the frequency to.

We have the PMF. So we have different resonating things. Once the body’s balanced, now let’s get the cellular structure balanced. Depending on what their condition is, you can tune to that specific right frequency or whatever else. I always take it back to the body heals itself.

Let’s get it back there. But then we also have to teach the patient to exercise and eat right, and then we help them think right like doctor Lieberman does. Because if they don’t think right, like Bruce Lipton says, their beliefs are affecting their biology. Even though they don’t think so, we gotta fix that too, or they’re not gonna get long term results. Michael, it’s so interesting you should mention that.

I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine who is a therapist recently about self talk. And one has to have a lot of self awareness to not only recognize self talk where it’s helpful and harmful, But then a certain degree of honesty about what that self talk is, and then there is the desire to change the self talk, which I think and, doctor Layman, you can probably weigh in on this. But for most people, then making the change is very difficult. I mean, we can have all the awareness in the world, but if we don’t have a roadmap to change our thoughts and catch them and discard them, we find ourselves very challenged and possibly compromising definitely our mental health, but also our physical health. This is where relationship comes in.

Right? We have to have supportive others who can feedback for us when we don’t see certain parts of ourselves. Obviously, no one knows the content of your thoughts unless you’re sharing them with words in relationship. It’s a very private inner experience, this realm of sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts. What we’re learning through all of this study on coherence is when you’re actively connecting with the energetic center of the heart, cultivating or generating a positive or life affirming emotional state, what that does is it shifts the thoughts.

So it’s like a chicken or the egg problem. Where are you gonna intervene? Obviously, you can intervene anywhere. You can even intervene with the body through exercise and diet. You can intervene through emotions, right, and you can intervene through thoughts.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is super popular these days, but, ultimately, what we’re suggesting here is that there is a deeper level that can be attained through connection to the innate intrinsic wisdom of the heart. So you’ll say that to a lot of people. We hear that in a lot of our mind body trainings. You connect to your heart center, all of that. I know for myself personally, that is easier said than done.

And I also know a lot of people who would say, we don’t even know what that means. As our society in particular, Michael and I were talking about the trade show industry in the health and wellness and biohacking space before we went live on the show and the greed that we are seeing, unless people coming from the heart space and a deep desire to actually educate and impact people, but more pay for play gain that is happening. It seems as though people have very much disconnected from their humanity, as well as their heart center in the past 3, 4 years. Would you agree with that as a practicing psychotherapist? Oh, I couldn’t agree with that more.

I think the impact of what we went through collectively during the COVID nineteen pandemic has had ripple effects across all areas of society, many of which we’re still just beginning to unpack. I think there’s been a real vacuum in terms of the collective conversation about how we integrate this massive global traumatic event that occurred very recently and how we begin to reset and re recalibrate not only our global systems. Right? Trade is still struggling to find its way back. Employ Trade shows.

Oh, every country seems to be doing better because hotels are are gouging everyone now. I know it’s at Yoga that we host conferences around North America, and, you know, what’s happened and I’m not gonna get too far off topic, but what’s happened in the hotel industry is insane. In fact, hotels are poised to make more money in 2024 than they were actually making in 2019 pre pandemic. I feel like a lot of people now, if you say to them, connect to your heart center, unless they went on some deep plant medicine journey, might not even know what you are talking about anymore and and have so disconnected from themselves because of technology and disconnected with others also because of technology that people don’t really know what a heart to heart connection be feels like anymore. I I agree and disagree.

We work with a lot of people here at Quantum Clinic who are representative of the diversity of Los Angeles City. We’re not in Santa Monica. We’re in East LA. We get a lot of people from the trades, a lot of people who are in health care, medical professionals. We get a lot of folks come through our door and, yes, to your point, yes.

For them, it it’s very refreshing to be met by a clinical team who is very intentionally suggesting that the heart has wisdom. The heart is our guide and encouraging people to connect with the energetic center of the heart, but there’s also a great yearning for it. I see a lot of people who are desperate for that type of deep presence, deep connection and deep healing that is possible. And especially health care workers. I’m so glad that you’re working with them, and I know Michael’s organization does a lot with veterans and health care workers.

At YogaFit, we’re doing a lot in the health care system in Japan with really wonderful results. We’re still trying to break into the US health care system. It’s not as easy as it is in Japan. Health care workers really need to be given back too. And I think for anyone in that type of profession, it’s very easy to disconnect from one’s emotions and one’s heart because you almost have to, much like working in a morgue or working in in my case, if I were to work in a veterinary practice, I would be crying all the time.

It it it is a very special person that can work in health care and still stay connected to their heart center. Michael, tell us a little bit about the work that BrainTap is doing with, veterans and, first responders and and those in the health care system. Well, I think it’s the same thing. All 3 of us got into this space because we wanted to change. And for most people, there’s two reasons they do anything, avoid pain and arrive at pleasure.

So once that pain’s there, they’re they’re gonna seek someone out. What we feel is people have to wanna change first. We never took someone’s husband or wife or boyfriend or girlfriend or kids if they didn’t wanna change. But if they wanted to change, we just had the tools. But it hit it’s a daily process, and you see it too.

When we see people at the shows, they ask us if I’m doing this on a daily basis. Yes. I am. It’s something I’ve been doing because I didn’t wanna meditate back in the, eighties. My dad got us into all this in the office.

I found a simpler way of biohack back then, plus I didn’t wanna sleep 8 hours a day to sleep a third of my life away. So I know I can get 2 to 2 and a half hours of deep sleep in 6 hours. For the veterans, and we’ve done some studies with first responders, they just don’t know what solutions or strategies are there. If they can have the tools, they can see how simple some of these changes are. It still has to become a lifestyle change.

We’re gonna get you balanced just like we can get people off the the dementia scale. They go back to the lifestyle that created their problem. They’re gonna get it back. So Same same same thing with people who have a cancer diagnosis. Right?

If they they don’t make positive change. In fact, there’s a study that shows that people who had cancer started a meditation practice have a 50% less chance of a recurrence of cancer if they become a regular practitioner of meditation. 50 percent is a big number. And it’s just like what doctor Lehman works with people. For us, it’s a passive way.

If we can get that veteran to now have information in their subconscious direct and respond differently to the same stimulation because their subconscious doesn’t know the difference between yesterday 30 years ago. So who they are now would react totally different to that situation if they would allow themselves to see it that way. So for people, it’s just giving them the tools because we don’t change anybody. They change themselves. A lot of times, they don’t have the tools to do that.

And then like Joe Dispenza says, it’s 2 things. You’re getting those resources, and then it’s repetition. So once they can get the information of how to react and respond differently and then through repetition, they wire themselves to now they’re reacting and responding. It’s in a way that’s easy, effortless, and automatic until they decide to change again. So we keep hearing desire for change must be present.

Doctor. Lehman, I’m curious as a psychotherapist, how you help, people create the change that they seek to create because we we know people who may want to lose weight, but they refuse to embark on a diet and exercise program. People like Michael who want to meditate, but didn’t want to do the meditation itself. So, fortunately, there’s brain tap. What do you do to lead people who claim that they wanna change to actually making those changes?

1st, it’s important to understand where somebody is in the transtheoretical model of change. Right? There’s pre contemplative, active, and maintenance stages of change. We’re always constantly evolving through different stages of change where we’re aware or somewhat unaware of, you know, what it is that we need to work through in order to make that change. When we talk about it from that perspective, you wanna think about the importance of overcoming ones and around actually making the change.

Right? And this is where I think it’s really helpful to apply a quantum model of healing and understanding that we can all potential exists in the present moment for us. And our job is to connect with that clear intention and to imagine that possibility of what our life could be like in the present so that we draw that experience to ourselves. To Michael’s point, you cannot change someone. It’s not in our power to change another human being, Period.

Human beings barely in our power to change. Change ourselves. We have to be really radically honest that actually there’s a real discussion notion of determinism, like coming up against these age old questions of do we have free will or is everything determined? And I think kind of comes back to somewhere in the middle. There’s so much such a loaded question because like Michael said, if your subconscious knows no time and you’re being run with your programs from 35 years ago, We are consuming too much conventional media.

We’re we’re negatively programmed constantly. It’s hard for people to know what’s true and what’s not anymore. There’s upside down theory in all of that. Even in the nutrition space, kale is good for you, kale is not good for you. For some people, it is other people.

Things become very complex. Yeah. And this notion of reality testing right now collectively is a really critical one that we need to navigate and discuss as human civilization. What is real? What is not real?

How do we navigate this phase in our larger evolution when we’ve arrived at essentially the carrying capacity of the planet in many regards, and we’re careening towards a cliff with no evidence of significant structural change to support At the same time, we’re supposed to be, like, in the age of Aquarius, and more people are supposed to be getting conscious and waking up, and more and more people are doing plant medicine and becoming she’s a psychiatrist from California as well and and talked a She’s a psychiatrist from California as well and and Sure. Talks a lot about this. So there are more tools available to people who want to wake up and go deeper. Yet at the same time, yes, it seems like even with the obesity rates, we’re moving towards a cliff that many people are gonna fall off of. Yeah.

Increasing rates in cancer, diabetes, obesity, suicide is through the roof, anxiety, depression, autoimmune disease, all of these rates of disease are increasing and yet at the same time, there’s all of this awakening. So this is what I refer to as a transitory or transitional phase in our collective evolution. What’s almost I don’t I don’t know if you yourself are are also a mother, but when, like, the birth is happening, it’s happening right now, and it’s ugly. It’s not the prettiest thing right now to look at the world and and all of the ways in which our old systems are crumbling as that which wants to be born is being born through us. So I think in Michael’s clinic, our facility here in Southern California are examples of models of ways of doing things differently than maybe have been done historically in traditional Western medical context.

And I think bridging the gap between these systems that exist under the status quo and that which we know to be supportive of health and human functioning, getting up and moving your body, eating a healthy diet, getting adequate rest, deep rest, cellular rest, resetting that nervous system. All of those things are vital and mission critical to our 6 continued success here on planet Earth as a species. Do you feel in general with the awareness obviously spreading, do you feel like people are becoming more aware and healthier? We have obesity statistics, but that doesn’t show everything. And this question is to both of you.

Do you feel like the scales of awareness and challenge are, are rising at the same time? Also, I’m curious as to to how you both get the word out about your various services and businesses in a very crowded media space right now with many people experiencing information overload. On the weight loss, we did that for 25 years, and we had a 108 franchisees. I can tell you I saw a lot of great food logs, and I saw people exercising, But most people weren’t eating enough to lose weight. And like we said in the beginning, stress and sleep were just as important as diet and exercise.

But for most of these people, we did it during the low fat, no fat year, so it was a lot harder. But still, for most of these people, if they don’t get their nervous system balanced, the cortisol and adrenaline stays elevated, and their body won’t tap into stored fat because it thinks it has plenty of circulating sugar. But one of the things I found, I’d have to go to the different franchisees, and I’d tell them to put them all in the same room for the people who weren’t losing. And when they looked in the mirror, what they saw, themselves, £30 overweight, fat, ugly. They had all that negative self talk we were saying.

Like we just said, it was a self fulfilling prophecy. They were getting what they ordered from their subconscious. It’s a mathematical equation. This plus this equals this. What we started the day out talking about is we’ve gotta get stress reduction as a solution.

Now we’re gonna be sleeping better. Then what they’re eating and the exercise will pay dividends, but it won’t make a difference if they don’t get the stress that they don’t realize they’re under every day, especially out where doctor Lubin lives in LA. These commutes that people have, the shift working, all these things are working against people. It’s a bunch of pieces. Let’s get the body back where it was designed to be to heal, and then let’s see what happens with your dietary choices and the exercise you have because there’s too much emphasis put on that and not enough the other lifestyle habits.

I would think we can all agree for any of us who have yesterday morning, I was up at 4:30. Eating choices change dramatically the day after the night that you don’t get enough sleep. I always find myself craving carbs, craving sugar. Some people who are chronically sleep deprived obviously are going to be super challenged. As we move towards the close of the show, I’d like just some general advice from you both to our listeners who are looking to relax and reset their brain, practical tips and solutions, as well as a little bit more information about where our listeners can find you.

From a brain tap standpoint, meditation is the number one way to do it. But for people who’ve tried meditation and don’t wanna do it, what our lights do is in all the studies we’ve had in the last 30 years, the lights can move your brain about 20 to 25% more effective than just sound. So So even though your eyes are closed, as the optic nerve is syncing with the light pulse, as it start out at beta, they go down to alpha and theta, and then we bring you back up, We’re taking you through a meditative cycle or sleep cycle. And even though we found this in 87, it was around 20 years before we found it. So it wasn’t something we invented.

We just found a neat, easy solution for people that they could utilize and not just for the brainwave and treatment and the stress reduction, but also for helping change their habits and patterns and behaviors. So for doctor Lehman and other practitioners like that, when we see them at a show, they can do a lot of great work when the person’s in the office, but what happens the other 5 days? So that’s where we can be a fit for some of these people because everything we’re talking about today is not something you turn on and off. It’s a lifestyle. And people just have to realize that this is the world we live in.

All those things we talked about, the phone, the TV, the computer, the Wi Fi, the music, and the video games aren’t negative things. It’s the world we live in, but we just have to be able to have the solutions to rebalance it. When we had your brother on, he said, don’t be on your screens past 7 PM. Don’t drink alcohol too close to bedtime. Don’t eat too close to bedtime for optimal sleep.

There’s a lot of research on getting up and having the sunlight in your eyes in the morning before you consume caffeine, coffee in particular. These little daily tricks and habits can really add up to positive results. Doctor Laymon, any final words of wisdom for our listeners? Absolutely. I echo everything that’s been shared on this show.

I think identifying micro habits that you can build into your daily routine to support your stress reduction and relaxation throughout the day is incredibly valuable. And then beyond that, I would say, find a community of practice. Identify organizations locally, communities, groups, practices such as ours here at Quantum Clinic, where you can connect with other like minded individuals who are on this healing journey and really give yourself that opportunity to connect with other companions on the journey, so to speak. And for any listeners who are here in the Southern California area, we are Quantum Clinic, quantumclinicdot com, and Quantum Clinic USA on socials. We’re happy to be here and support, and you’re welcome to visit us anytime.

Great. And you’re offering our listeners 15% off if they mention Make America Healthy podcast. So thank you for that. I hope to come visit Of course. I mean, Los Angeles in a few weeks.

Also, regarding BrainTap, you can save 10% off if you email redeemable at braintap.com, and the code is yoga fit. Michael, any other information that where people can find BrainTap? Like I said, we’ve got 4,000 practitioners, so we’re probably in your area. But best place is to just start out where you gave them that link because for our 1st 25 years, we had cassettes and CDs. Now everything’s on an app.

So that’s the best place to start. And we find if people need a more enhanced experience, there’s probably a practitioner near you that you can experience the lights. Thank you both, so much for being on Make America Healthy. And we’d also like to thank our sponsors, Lifeboost Coffee, making clean, organic, mold free, and pesticide free coffee. Check out my new mindfulness blend that I developed for Lifeboost Coffee.

It’s half calf dark roast, and it will get you energized, but not too jacked up. You can save 15% at checkout by using the code yoga fit life boost coffee dot com. We’d also like to thank YogaFit Training Systems Worldwide, the leader in yoga mind body fitness education. We’ve got conferences coming up in Scottsdale, Arizona in early July and Orlando, Florida in September. YogaFit offers corporate wellness, yoga for health care workers, over 250 different educational programs so that you can take better control of any back pain, mental health, physical health, yoga as therapy.

We have a program called Yoga Fit Warriors for first responders and veterans and anyone who has experienced trauma. So please visit yogafit.com. You can use the code m a h, make America healthy to save 15% at checkout. You can find me at Beth Shaw Health on Instagram atbethshaw.com, and check out our new social media and website, make America healthy and make America healthy podcast. So if you enjoyed this show and you know someone who would benefit from it, please share it with them.

We thank you so much for listening and your support. Have a healthy rest of your day, everyone. Namaste.