Dr. Casey Means

They are going to respond to that.

And so I think a big part of the metabolic health conversation is

How do we create a sense of safety in our bodies no matter what is happening outside of our bodies?

And this can come down to every person's journey will be different for this because the things that cause a sense of threat or fear for any two people are going to be different.

And I think some of the main categories is one.

Unresolved childhood trauma, like something that I think is getting a lot more talked about these days, but like what's embedded in our nervous system, these limiting beliefs and memories that are really wired that create a sense of hypervigilance in us sort of all the time.

What's coming in through our devices, our phones, our computers, the media that we're exposed to that's constantly giving a fear signal?

And I think on a broader level, a big Western one that we don't talk about is literally like existential fear of mortality.

We have a very de-spiritualized, very uniquely death-fearing culture.

Like you look at other cultures, Eastern, indigenous, the Stoics, they all had intense curiosity about death.

We talk about the cycles of life.

There's this real...

engagement with it that we are so afraid of in the in the western system to the extent that our entire health care system actually i think you know we've built it around like we're not gonna we're we're not gonna help you thrive we're just gonna do whatever we can to make sure you don't die like that's it's built in everywhere and so we've got the devices we've got the childhood trauma we've got the fear of mortality we have a very poor system of

mental health care in the culture.

And I think that through all these things, Americans are getting crushed mindset and psychology wise.

And that is a big, big trigger of our mitochondria, essentially diverting resources towards defense, threat and alarm rather than homeostasis building repair.

So again, it comes back to

taking really honest stock of what are the true fear triggers in our lives across those and others, and creating a sense of safety in our minds and bodies no matter what the external world looks like, which may mean putting boundaries up to the media, doing the therapy, doing the different modalities.

What I believe, and I talk about in the book, getting back to the question about nature,

is one of the best things that we can do is actually literally just go outside.