Amie: Yeah, us too. And we were just saying before we hit record, we could speak for hours on any number of things, so we’re going to try and stay on track today, and we’re really gonna be focusing on neuro-longevity, or longevity, but certainly through a lens of neurological health, which is just one of many topics we could arguably deep dive on. But where I would like to start with you today, Damian, is you do speak to people a lot about the role of the nervous system, and we understand the nervous system through a number of lenses, including, you know, the physiology of it, but I think you’re uniquely positioned as a chiropractor, also, through the lens of how the nervous system is functioning optimally, or not, and the way you go about sharing that with people in a day and age where people are like, “Just give me the pill to make things better.” How would you explain to someone the connection between longevity and nervous system health?

Damian: Oh, wow. That’s such an amazing question, and it’s got so much in it.

Amie: Isn’t it?

Damian: Yeah. Wow. So, Amie, I think, if we take it back to a couple of philosophies which I think are really important, I think one of the things, as nutritionists and naturopaths, we must always remember, is that nature cures. So, it’s very important for us to remember that if we can maintain healthy nature, then our body will do much better. And the second philosophy to understand, and there might be a third one too, the second philosophy, I think, to understand is that the power that made the body heals the body. And so, keeping in mind that if we take away any kind of interference that enables or disables the body from healing itself, then we do a good job. And so, it’s wise for us to help people take away whatever it is that’s causing them problems. So, whether it’s a subluxation in the vertebral column, whether it’s a digestive discomfort, you know, that’s been caused by inappropriate foods, you know, whether it’s a neurological insufficiency, as a result of a deficiency in, I don’t know, let’s say B-6. It’s contentious. So, let’s talk about, you know, how do we help people remove whatever it is that’s causing subluxation in their life, and that enables the body to heal itself, you know?

And then the third thing is is that remembering that the body heals from above down, and then inside out. So, it heals from the head to the gut, and then from the gut out. Or, from… So, like, if you were to topically manage a skin issue, you haven’t dealt with the internal mechanisms of the problem, and it’ll continue to be an issue until you get the internal stuff right. So, it’s the same from a nervous system perspective. The nerves are the deepest components to the whole of the body, so it’s as deep as that. So, if we went to the surface first, and went to the gut first, potentially, we could be missing out on helping the nervous system assist in the repair of the human body. And obviously, it’s not the nervous system that conveys these messages. Every single cell within the body is intricately linked to each other, independently of the nervous system. So, every cell speaks to its, you know, neighbor, through vibration and energy that’s not measurable through the nervous system. So, we have to remember that, from a chiropractic perspective, if we talk about the nervous system, that’s limiting our capacity to heal people. From a nutrition perspective, if we talk about nutrition only, that’s limiting the ability of the person to heal. So, we’ve gotta remember that there’s a cellular function, like, a cellular level, and we know that’s… That, the feeling you get from a hug, that’s the energy, that’s the vibration. We need more of that, that’s gonna help people heal. That’s something different.

Amie: Oh, my gosh. I feel like we can just turn the mic off right now, because it just probably sums up everything we need to know. And it’s as simple and as complex as that at the same time, and there’s this multi-directional feedback from every system, organ, tissue, cell to each other, which…

Damian: Absolutely.

Amie: …you know, I think, in some ways, just starting makes a difference. But certainly, when you think about it from a more holistic perspective, you’re in a unique position as a chiropractor and a naturopath to really look at what’s informing what, and the hierarchy in which communication occurs, and can make the most difference. How do you approach that in clinic, and is it always, you know, one particular way, or how do you determine with clients where to start and where to take them?

Damian: Well, as a naturopath and nutritionist I always went gut first. Always. It just made the most sense to me, you know. That’s what we can affect really well. Everything that we provide for our patients has to enter through the gut, and it has to go through the mouth. We don’t have access to intravenous. Unless you do, now. Maybe some people do. But not easily, and…or maybe transdermal. But mostly what we do is through the mouth and through the gut. So, for me, it was always that. What I learned, in probably the first 10 years of practice, was that the people who came to see me that were the healthiest were the ones that also had a really healthy spine. And so, when I was measuring it, I used to use this thing called a bioimpedance machine. It was the old VLA50.

Amie: Mm-hmm. I have one of those.

Damian: And used to have, like, yeah, resistance, reactance measures, and then a phase angle and all this sort of stuff. And every single person, regardless of how they were, whether they were managing digestive dysfunction chronic disease syndrome, whether it was heart disease, whether it was diabetes, it didn’t really matter. Every single person that saw the chiropractor, that was referred to me from the chiropractor, always had a higher phasing. And I was always like, “What is this all about?” So, I ended up doing a little bit of study on that, nothing that got published. But I did it in New Zealand College of Chiropractic, when I studied there. I said, “I wanna do a test on all the people pre and post adjustment, and let’s just see what happens as a trend over time.” And we saw some things, which was really fascinating. I can’t explain it. I don’t really know why. But it occurred to me that we needed to help people be out of pain, and be in more comfort. In other words, we needed to help people be at ease. And in ease. Not dis-ease. And so, I then started to weave in, in the early part of people’s care, an introduction to chiropractic care, so that they could see that this is a long-term thing. Most people that see a chiropractor end up seeing a chiropractor for the rest of their life, you know? People see a chiropractor for a long period of time because they know that it’s gonna take them a long period of time to get their spine healthy.

And my message to naturopaths and nutritionists is, you wanna see people for a long period of time. You don’t wanna try and fix them in two weeks. You don’t wanna try to fix them in three months. You don’t wanna give them a 90-day care plan and say, you know, “That’s all we’re gonna need,” because that would be a lie. That’s not true. People need you for the whole of their life, because there’s external influences that are unhealthy. There could be foods that they eat on a recreational basis that, you know, can challenge them. They might be not sleeping really well. There’s a whole lot of environmental factors that influence the way which somebody who comes to see you is expressing their life and their health and well-being. So, when somebody wants to engage with you, they actually want to engage with you for a long period of time, and it’s your job to actually help them stay around for a long period of time. So, when I was in practice, I went through a phase in my life where everything was kind of protocol-driven. And it was protocol-driven through, I think probably good intention from the people that set up the protocols. But then it became very business-driven, to the extent that, from time to time, you might get a call up and say, “Hey, I noticed that your sales were down in this particular space recently,” and I was like, “Hang on a second. What do you mean? I’m not working for a supplement company here. I’m looking out for my patients.” And it was then that I realized that potentially protocols weren’t the best way to go.

But, what that meant is that people were spending a lot of money on supplements, not necessarily spending a lot of money on the advice that I was providing. So they then felt that the results should come from the supplements. And then, as a result of that, that means that the trust then becomes with the company that you’re selling the supplements on behalf of, rather than the trust coming from the advice that you might be providing as a practitioner. And so, I had to kind of reinvent the way in which I practiced, to make my information more valuable than the supplements. And so, I was finding that people were spending a lot more money on supplements than they were my information, my consultation fee. And then, as a result of that, people would then burn a hole in their pocket, and they couldn’t continue to see me long-term, because they couldn’t afford to see me long-term. But people wanted to see me long-term. Which is the reason why people go and see all of us, because they want us to be their coach. They’ve just gotta be able to afford us for the long term. That’s what it is.

Amie: I think that’s a really good point, and I do remember the golden age of protocols. It was like spoon-feeding, you know, here’s what to prescribe…

Damian: “This is how you do it.”

Amie: …and it’s unfortunate… Yeah. And, I mean, I think, as a fledgling practitioner, it’s always nice to have a framework, and train your brain into thinking about these different elements, but it’s essentially recreating a system, an alternative, you know, paradigm to allopathic medicine, but very much the same approach, of “here’s just something to deal with the symptoms,” or “here’s pills and potions and things,” to sort of clear things up in acute care. Now, I love that we have got such powerful things that can help with acute illnesses, or acute discomfort but…

Damian: Me too.

Amie: Yeah, we’re lucky, in that way, but it is very much, this is one, I guess, one of the challenges as practitioners, where we’re having to educate people about looking after your health is not a one-and-done thing. It’s not a set-and-forget thing. It is something that we make in our daily choices and our habits, which, you know, is so much more powerful than a pill ever could be, and ultimately, should really allow most of what we have to take supplement-wise to fall away, and leaving perhaps the essentials there, which I think, you know, in terms of educating clients around that, that is definitely an aspect I don’t think we get trained on in college, certainly.

Damian: Yeah. That’s true.

Amie: Not enough.

Damian: Yeah.

Amie: But that leads me to something you just said before about removing interference. So, removing all that which is in the way of our natural-born right to be healthy. You know, almost without exception, our body is always not gunning for just survival, but thriving.

Damian: Hundred percent.

Amie: And it’s most often, like, things that we’re doing or not doing that are getting in the way of that, and that don’t include a missing supplement. And even beyond physical health, I think it’s easy for us as practitioners to focus on the body, even though we’re meant to be holistic and be looking at, you know, energetic, spiritual, you know, community and things like that. And one thing I found really interesting about the way you practice is you’ve really got probably more than seven, but we discussed, really, seven core pillars that you look at for clients and no doubt hold dear for yourself as well, as far as your quality of life. I’d love you just to share with me what they are, and maybe dive into a couple of them and the way you apply that in practice.

Damian: For sure. For sure. Well, there’s not more than this. There’s seven. And so, and I say seven because my partner for my podcast, Marcus Pearce, he argues that there’s eight. And so we have this, like, hilarious little argument. Kind of, you know, he wrote a book, a beautiful book, called “Your Exceptional Life,” and it’s a cracking book, and a lot of people use it to get there. And, you know, to wherever there is, but it’s like, to find what’s insufficient in their life, so they work on, you know, in his book, eight things. But I reckon it’s seven. So, the reason why I say it’s seven is because I really believe that family and friends are one and the same. And, because you get an opportunity to be with family and/or friends, to be with the ones that you choose to be with. And obviously, you may be given some family that you don’t want, but you don’t have to spend a whole lot of time with them. And you can choose to flood your life with people that fill you with positivity. But when we look at longevity, and you know this, Amie, I’ve been traveling for the last 10 years. I’ve been going backwards and forwards to the blue zones in Europe. So, over to Sardinia and Ikaria. Ikaria, in Greece, is a really small island, where there’s about 6,000 or 7,000 people that live there. But they have about 50% less heart disease, 30% less dementia, or diabetes, I think it is, and then 20% less dementia. So, and essentially, what that means is that they live these exceptionally long lives. And people, there’s, you know, there’s anecdote, and in fact, there’s fact, there’s, you know, research that shows that people have gone back to Ikaria to die at the age of 57, with terminal diagnosis from lung cancer, leaving New York City to go and pack up and just go and die on their plot of land, and then living to 104 years old.

Amie: Wow.

Damian: And so, there’s evidence of that, and it’s an amazing, you know, kind of story. That story is about a guy, Stamatis Moraitis, and, like, it’s incredible. So, there’s these fundamental principles that kind of guide that. And then if we look at Sardinia, it’s an island of about 1.4 million people. There’s 13 different blue zone villages that are scattered throughout Sardinia. None of them are on the coast, where all the beautiful beaches are and all that sort of thing. They’re all in the mountains, in the highlands, up near where the…the last remaining wild horses run free, in all of Europe, are actually in Sardinia. And so, you’ve got this beautiful kind of juxtaposition between this seaside village resort-style living, and then this shepherd life up in the mountains. And they also have seven principles. Which is amazing. And, you could easily dissect that seven and make it eight. Or, you can make that eight seven. And it comes back to the people that you surround yourself with. So, when we look at it, and people go, “What’s the secret, what’s the secret?” we go, “Well, these are the top three things that you kind of need to maintain your health and well-being,” and when we break it down, it ends up being your neurological health and well-being.

So, purpose. Purpose is number one. So, without a purpose, without a reason to get out of bed, there’s nothing that will keep you going. You need a purpose. If you haven’t got anything to get you going, you’ll just run away. You’ll just fall away. You take all the supplements you like, get all the adjustments that you want. I don’t even think you could exercise all you want, because, you know, if you’re running rudderless and purposeless, you kind of, you’ll get there fast. Which is sad.

The next thing would be engagement. So, you’ve gotta maintain engagement. And so, for me, that engagement piece is not only being purposeful, but having conversations with people and keeping your brain sharp, and, you know, contributing to your environment, your community, your society. And that engagement piece, combined with the purpose piece, maintains neurological health from a brain perspective, you know, whether it’s Sudoku or whether it’s Words With Friends, or whatever it is, I mean, that’s part of it. But getting out into a quadrangle and chatting with your mates, and, you know, at five o’clock in the afternoon, all the men meet and all the women meet over there, and all the women tell stories of their husbands, and all the men tell lies to each other. Like, it’s hilarious. And so, they kind of do all this sort of stuff, and that beautiful community piece, that keeps their brains active and engaged, forms part of their purpose, because they tend to their garden, they tend to their well-being. They might play balls or bulls, or, you know, whatever. They might still be doing karate. You know, we got taught karate in a little village, called Seulo, in Sardinia, by a 90-year-old man, you know, who’s a black belt, teaching us karate. It was amazing, you know? And so, there’s that movement part, which is the third pillar, which is movement. Not exercise. It’s movement. So, you don’t need to go and, you know, rip out, you know, muscle-ups and wall balls, and you don’t need to go and do all that hard-intensity exercise. It’s not that it’s bad, but essentially, just, by and large, if you’re moving, and then you’re getting down and squatting and you’re tending to things gardening or whatever it is, or it may be you’re walking around the local park lands and picking up rubbish, or whatever it is, but if you’re getting up and down, and you’re moving, then that’s your third tenet, or your third pillar, for longevity. And it just happens to be that that’s so neurologically important that if you can get your mind around those three things… Because I haven’t even mentioned nutrition yet, because nutrition probably comes in at about number five. And so, nutrition, in the longevity stakes, is really, you know, kind of more than halfway down the ladder. Particularly when you consider what’s the most important, purpose, engagement, then movement.

Amie: Yeah. Wow. That’s so powerful to look at it in that way, because, again, anyone who is interested in natural health, I’m thinking of anyone in the general public, their first port of call probably would be going into a health shop, and be looking for something for anxiety, or “I’m looking for something for low moods,” or for better sleep. And although we’re gonna talk about herbs and nutrients…

Damian: A hundred percent.

Amie: …that are amazing for the brain, if you do lack purpose, if you don’t have something that gets your self out of bed, other than a full bladder, each morning, and a community with which to engage and contribute, but also, equally, be nourished and supported by…diet does make a difference, but it doesn’t make as much of a difference when you, in the face of those other things, if they’re missing, or insufficient. And I know you mentioned family and friends, and I guess that’s sort of part and parcel of that community, people that you love, and that love you, and if you…

Damian: That’s number four. Yeah.

Amie: Number four. Yeah. I mean, we are social beings. We wither away in isolation. It really affects our mental health, for sure. And I think there was also finance and spirituality. Would you consider those…I mean, they sound separate, but do you consider them separate, or no?

Damian: Yeah, I do. I consider them separate. I think the belief that there’s something greater than ourselves, I think it takes us away from ourselves, that selfishness. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being selfish, but…and I don’t mean to say “but.” What I wanna add to that is that in being selfish, what it should ideally enable you to be is better. A better person. Like, better for your community, better for your family. That’s really what selfishness should enable you to do. Like, to be selfish, you know, could mean that you spend money on better food, or, you know, exercise, or trips away, creating memories, those sorts of things, but to be selfish that would exclude other people’s benefits, I think that’s probably where we could go wrong. So, much of that selflessness comes from having the belief that there’s something greater out there, and that we’re contributing to that greater good. And I think that’s really very important. So, for me, I have a religious faith, but it’s kind of changed through the years, as a result of the way I was educated as a young boy, growing up to now be 51 years old, I kind of, I’ve got a faith that there’s something bigger and greater out there, and I’m happy to say that for me, that’s God. For other people, they might say that it’s Allah or Buddha or whomever, but just the idea that there’s something greater out there, grand organized design, to have that out there is really important. It’s really important.

And some people say it’s not important, but it is important. And if you look at the cultures where people lived a long time, all of them have spirituality. All of them. No one… I mean, most people accidentally get old. They kind of arrive at old age and go, “Oh, my god. How did I get to this age? I never wanted to live to 108,”” you know. But inadvertently, there’s been a community, with some degree of spirituality. When I talk about finance, I think what finance enables us to achieve is a bit more ease, a bit more comfort. There’s a great book written, called “The Comfort Crisis.” I listened to that book a few years ago. And it’s a really great book, because it kind of speaks to how easy life is compared to how it was, let’s say, 100 ago, when a lot of the centenarians that are kind of coming through now were growing up, being born and growing up. So, if you move a couple of years into that first 10 years of that centenarian’s life, at that point in time, they were probably only just starting to get electricity, and just starting to get running water if they were lucky. Certainly not potable water, and maybe it was kind of coming from a tank. They definitely didn’t have refrigeration. And they might have not even had access to gas or kerosene lamps, you know, for many of these centenarians.

So, we now live in a environment where we can determine the temperature in our house. It could be 21 degrees all the year round. We can determine our hot water. We’ve got refrigerated food. We’ve got fresh milk, all the time, if we want it. We can have, you know, everything’s kind of easy. Everything’s really good. And so, when these people kind of coming through, and things were a little bit challenging, it wasn’t really until later on, when the industrial revolution kind of came through and they had running water and gas and heating, and access to medications, and infection control, and if you broke your arm, you didn’t die. If you got a cut, you weren’t gonna die anymore, because you could manage those sorts of infections. And if we go back to the 1940s, or the early ’50s, my father-in-law was playing in a gully trap, and for many people won’t even know what a gully trap is, but it’s essentially, like, a pipe, a hole, that’s outside the laundry, and his mum poured boiling hot water down the laundry sink, and it went straight into the gully trap and burned all the skin off his feet. And fortunately, fortunately, he was in Queensland at the time, I believe. And the U.S. Navy was in port. And they had penicillin, and he was the first person to receive penicillin in Australia, the first child to receive penicillin in Australia, and it saved his life. So, we need to thank medicine for those sorts of things, and that acute care, that management. But that’s kind of how people kind of accidentally get old, and now he’s 81, and he wouldn’t have made it past 10 if it wasn’t around, that stuff, you know. So, there’s these amazing things that finance enables us to now have access to, and if we’re poor, it’s harder for us to access quality food. If we don’t have enough resource from a finance perspective, it’s harder for us to have heating and cooling, and all the things that might provide comfort, that enables us to live in a modern society. So, finance is important there, because probably the most stressful thing on the planet is a lack of finance these days, because the world revolves around money.

Amie: Yeah, absolutely, and I think, certainly, when we have patients investing in us, and long-term care and supplements, every practitioner, no doubt, has that in the back of their mind, about what’s a real priority. And, you know, I mean, money can’t solve everything. Obviously, you can have endless wells of it, and no amount of that can sometimes change your trajectory either, but absolutely…

Damian: Absolutely.

Amie: …those basics, that make such a huge difference, and in, as you point out, such a short amount of time, I think. For those of us that are a fraction younger, we take it for granted, electricity, refrigeration, dehumidification, vacuum cleaners with a HEPA filter, you know. Air purifiers, all of that stuff. And good food, and food that you can readily access from down the road, it’s all kind of centralized into your suburb, if you like. You’re not having to go out and source it from farmers, and that brings, obviously, there’s always a cost, though, isn’t there? There’s a risk and benefit from all of these systems, but ultimately, in the lens of health, the more resources you have financially, the more opportunities you have to prevent illness, maintain health, and also treat something, if it comes up.

Damian: For sure. For sure.

Amie: And as you said, better food is a big part of that. And I think, before we dive into your favorite children, as far as supplements and herbs go, looking at nutrition as a tool for longevity, I think, is something that is worth exploring, because…

Damian: A hundred percent. I’m glad you came here. I’m glad you got to this point, because we look at people like Bryan Johnson, and…

Amie: Oh.

Damian: …and I don’t…even without mentioning names, you know…

Amie: Others. et al.

Damian: Others.

Amie: Yeah. Yeah.

Damian: Yeah, others.

Amie: We know who they are.

Damian: Yeah. Yeah. And the whole biohacking model is, it’s 100% unproven. No one yet has biohacked their way to centenarianism, or centenarian age. The suggestion that dying is a disease, or the suggestion that we can decide to live forever, all of these sorts of things, or even that our biological age is possible to 140, all of that, all of that is just, it’s guesswork. It’s not mythical, because it might actually happen, but it’s at best a theory, and it’s yet to be proven. So, in 50 years’ time, if these guys that are my age, who are biohacking at the moment, if they make it and I don’t, I’m happy to be wrong. But I, having witnessed longevity, in a way that was not done with biohacking, it really resonates with me that you would use food as your medicine initially, which is Hippocrates’ wisdom. So, we’d use food first, which, inadvertently, and you and I spoke, Amie, off-air before, were saying that to avoid chronic disease, so, heart disease, diabetes, certain types of cancer, or as many cancers as we can, and then Alzheimer’s, which is essentially diabetes of the brain, if we can avoid these things, which obviously happens through better nutrition, if we can avoid these things, then essentially, we confer longevity. Now, longevity doesn’t mean raising your bat and making it to 100. That’s not what longevity means. Longevity means seeing your last 12 years out better than what everybody else does.

So, it’s the last 12 years of life in Australia where we suck. Like, we’re just so bad at it. Australia’s fourth or fifth in the world for longevity. We live a long time, we’re a very healthy nation, we’ve got access to beautiful food, we’ve got access to incredible healthcare if we want it, and if we need it, we, you know, we can be kept alive for a long time. So we live a long time. But in terms of drugs taken, and intervention, and time spent in hospital, we drop down to about rank 40th in the world, for the last 12 years of our life. And that essentially means that we haven’t enabled longevity. We’ve enabled lots of birthday candles, but we haven’t enabled longevity. In my world, longevity means being fully functional until you drop off the perch. And of course, there’ll be a decline, but you don’t want that decline to be the last 12 years of your life. That’s a long time. That could be, potentially, 15% of your whole life, you’re just kind of fading away, you know. So, it’s something that you wanna pay attention to, and ideally, you’re trying to help people avoid heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. So, yes, have the tough conversations about weight loss. Yes, have the tough conversations about carbohydrate consumption. Have the tough conversations about protein insufficiency. All of these things are so important, because if we don’t, if we don’t engage them in exercise, if we don’t help them find a purpose, if we don’t take them through the journey of finding out what health is really about, what longevity is really about, then we’re just gonna sell them some supplements for a short time in their life, and then they’ll never come back to it again, you know. They’ll just burn out, and then you gotta ask yourself, did you really help them, or did you just kind of ameliorate a symptom, that now they can use a drug to kind of manage later on down the track?

Amie: Yes. I think conflating lifespan with healthspan is something that’s certainly gotten quite distorted. And, you know, just reflecting on what some of those in the biohacking community are doing in the name of living longer is concerning. I mean, I’m all for optimization, but also, you know, getting these basics right is such an important part, and you touched on carbohydrate [inaudible 00:31:20] in terms of blood sugar control, avoiding insulin resistance, and therefore inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction. And really, it’s the health of those mitochondria that are determining the cellular health for everything else, right, and…

Damian: Yeah.

Amie: …making that difference in that last 15% of our life, I think, as you said, the birthday candle number becomes irrelevant. It’s about how well are you. Like, what are the life in those years that you have, however many that you actually get? And I think, again, this is a tricky balance, I think, for practitioners, because people are so accustomed to the silver bullet approach, and…

Damian: Oh, I know. That’s why we’ve gotta be better educators, you know.

Amie: We do. We do. And yes, it’s lovely to help people feel an appreciable difference quickly, and our tools are amazing for that, but also, not forgetting to bring in that education piece, of actually, this is a very short-term, sort of, this is a rescue. This is the naturopathic paramedic team coming in, and actually, what got you here, we have to undo all of that and course-correct for you, for the long term. Otherwise, at best, you become an acute symptom manager. Every time they come back in, their habits bring them down. Speaking…

Damian: And then you’re looking for something, like, to treat.

Amie: Yes.

Damian: You know, and to treat someone is almost, let me say, condescending. It’s, you know, you don’t wanna treat someone. You wanna care for someone. You wanna be by their side, to offer them support, advice, supplements if you need, but if you treat them, it’s only ever short-term. Like, a treat is something that you can’t sustain life on. You know, if you trick or treat, you’re getting something that’s, you know, tasty for a short period of time. That’s it. So, if your language is to treat a condition, you’re not in it for the long term with that person. And so, people are gonna come to you and they’re sick. You wanna care for them, and you wanna take your time caring for them. And you need to explain that we need to manage whatever it is that you’ve got going on right now, just to get you comfortable, but this happened as a result of years and years and years of abuse, that didn’t really show up in the early days, but now it is. Like, here it is now, like, and we’ve got it, so in order to unwind it, we need to kind of work together for a longer period of time. Like, the initial period of time that we work together will be intense, but the longer time that we work together will be about rapport and trust, and you come into me to be able to answer your question. So, let’s, when somebody wants to see you because they were referred to you, they want you to be part of their healthcare team. Don’t burn them off.

Amie: Yes, definitely take a bit more of a longer-term mindset, I think.

Damian: Yeah.

Amie: Well, certainly, we’ve covered, like, all of those really vital pillars, as far as that goes, and things for practitioners to focus on, but if we turn our attention to some of that acute care, now, those initial interventions… If anyone feels like this has been an absolute beat-up on supplements until now…

Damian: It’s not.

Amie: …it’s more about framing them in the context in which they should be offered.

Damian: Hundred percent.

Amie: But when it comes to the judicious use of supplements, they can be an absolute game-changer, not only initially, with symptom management, and helping someone feel better, which also improves their, I guess, internal commitment to making changes when they see a result early on, but also correcting some of those deficiencies, or correcting neurophysiology quickly in that way, can really quantum-leap people back on to the right path…

Damian: For sure.

Amie: …and make it easier for them to make better choices. So, in terms of nutritional building blocks, what are your handful of favorites that you might use for neuro-longevity, and why?

Damian: That’s so good. I look at nutrition in two lights. So, I’ve either got the messenger system. So, I’ve got the nutrients that send messages. Or I’ve got the nutrients that are kind of building blocks. So, there’s the nutrients that our body stores, and our body uses to create function. So, that could be calcium, magnesium, boron, manganese, like, all of these sorts of nutrients that our body requires. Then I’ll look at the vitamins. You know, essentially, the water-soluble vitamins are messengers. They tell the body to behave in a particular way. So, let’s say, for example, need more B vitamins, or we need vitamin A or vitamin C. You know, if we…well, not vitamin A, but vitamin C. Maybe it’s beta carotene as the vitamin A. But if we need water-soluble vitamins to come into our body, they’re sending messages to different cells within the body, to behave in a particular way. And that might mean, then, that the cells require more nutrition. So, the cells may then require more of the fuels that we’re consuming, whether it’s protein, fats, carbohydrates, broken down into the smallest amounts, you know, the lipids, the amino acids, and the sugars. You know, that’s essentially what each of the cells are gonna need, and then the quality of that then determines the cell’s output.

So, adding micronutrition to that, to that macronutrition approach, needs to kind of come from the signaling messenger component, or the building block component. Now, building blocks also create signals. So, we know that magnesium triggers various muscles to behave in a particular way. But an insufficiency in magnesium, because we haven’t had enough, our reserves, our wells, are in, maybe running dry, or running flat, that in itself, because we didn’t have enough of the building blocks, means that we don’t have the messengers available, the messages available, to make things happen. And so, it’s using building block supplementation, as well as messages supplementation, to assist the body. So, taking a really great case analysis, or a history, to understand where things are faulty, like, is it a messenger system that’s not working properly? Is it a building block issue? What’s going on here? And that kind of helps me determine where I start my care.

So, you know, if someone comes in to see me with chronic fatigue syndrome, I’m gonna be looking at that from a holistic perspective. Is this a neurological cause, or is this a insufficiency cause, with gastrointestinal permeability, so on and so forth? You know, like, I know that, from a practitioner perspective, we’ve all got our own lens on this. That’s just the way that I see it, and so, I might start with some, you know, two or three weeks of chiropractic care initially, and with some gut things, just to kind of support the work that I’m doing from a nervous system perspective and a digestive and gastrointestinal system perspective, before I launch into other supplementations to help provide energy and so on and so forth. But I really find it beneficial to kind of look to see what’s kind of not getting through. What’s not happening here? Like, have I got a build-up of toxicity? Have I got an insufficiency of microbiota? Do I have a dysbiotic situation? Is there a messenger issue? Is there a breakdown in communication with the vagus nerve? And if that’s the case, where do I manage that first? Is that a supplement thing? You know, what tablet do I take that’s gonna help my vagus nerve? And I don’t know if there’s one, but essentially, I might look to help manage the vagus nerve through some postural correction exercises, you know. Get people to lay on their back and do some deep breathing, to kind of help regulate the parasympathetic nervous system. So, it might be these sorts of little things that would kind of form this care plan for people, that incorporates a chiropractic approach, a naturopathic approach, an exercise approach, that really starts to shape and change their lifestyle.

Amie: And I think in listening to you share all of that, I had a question in my mind about nutrients versus herbs, and I feel like you did answer that already, in the sense that nutrition comes first. They are the building blocks, they are the messengers. And whilst herbs can be incredibly powerful medicines, they don’t replace nutrients, and they can’t overcome a nutrient deficiency or a lack of nutritional support. But if we were to, I guess, leapfrog forward a few weeks, and you’ve been working on someone’s, obviously, diet, specifically, adding in nutrients that are indicated, what are some of the herbs that you like to include? And I know we’re running out of time, so we won’t be able to deep-dive on this…

Damian: Yeah. Yeah.

Amie: …but just, what are your favorites for nervous system support?

Damian: I’ll look at the nervines. You know, really, I’m looking to find ways in which we can calm the nervous system generally. Most people are exhausted. So, for me, it’s, if they’re exhausted, I don’t wanna overstimulate their adrenal glands. You know, really wanting to just calm them down, and just to help them find rest. And I don’t know if anybody listening to this here wears any wearable health tech. I have…yeah, I’ve got my Oura ring. And so, for me, when you plot change, and when you’re looking at change, even from an Oura ring perspective, you’re looking in 90-day increments. And so, if you’re looking to see trends, you’re really talking…you’re not getting a trend until you’re looking at 90 days. Like, that’s a few menstrual cycles for a woman. It’s a few moon cycles for a man. Like, it’s, if you…you’ve gotta consider that there’s cycles that we need to work with, and so you’re looking at trends over time. And for that reason, I like to see people improve over time. So, I don’t want people to feel like they’re gonna jump out of bed just because I gave them some B vitamins. I don’t want them to think that the magic comes in the bottle. Like, all of a sudden, now they’re taking this bottle, because…and that’s what’s gonna fix them, because then if the expectation is on the bottle, then if the bottle doesn’t work, then it’s a big chink in the armor. And so, all of a sudden, there’s a credibility issue there, and so they go, “Well, you said that that was gonna give me more energy, it didn’t give me more energy.” Or they say, “You said that was gonna get rid of my cramps, and it didn’t get rid of my cramps.” And so, I’m really careful with that, because I love using supplementation. I use it almost every day with patients. It’s just selecting, I suppose, whether it’s a herbal approach, because I know that nutritionally they’re fine, and that I wanna offer support through some herbal medication, which I just absolutely love. And I used to love mixing all of my herbs. Like, I just I miss that, and sometimes I send people up to the naturopaths just up the road, because they mix herbs. And I’ll write a little herb prescription, and I’ll go, “Or whatever you want,” you know. So, like, I’ll go, “This is the five that I want, but or whatever you think is better,” and so, you know, I’m not wedded to a particular herbal regime or supplement regime, but what is what the patient needs? That’s where I go.

Amie: Yeah, absolutely. I think you can really tell the more anxious ones. Kava is a lovely way just to sort of…

Damian: For sure.

Amie: …you know, chill them out. Withania, for that adrenal exhaustion.

Damian: For sure. Hundred percent.

Amie: I tell you who I am having a love affair with at the moment, though, and that is saffron.

Damian: There you go. Nice. Beautiful.

Amie: Yeah. Well, it just reduces neuroinflammation so beautifully, which allows neurochemistry to function optimally. And I think that in particular has fast become a bit of a keystone in my formulas. And we’re so lucky to be seeing more and more research coming out around that, which is also supporting that it plays a pivotal role in brain health, but I think, you know, in…

Damian: Yeah. And from a ancient medicine perspective.

Amie: Yes.

Damian: Like, to be able to use this. And it was something that was only ever in food, and now, all of a sudden, using it as a medicine.

Amie: Yes. Yeah.

Damian: You know, again, it’s Hippocratic, so it’s perfect.

Amie: It is so beautiful. I love that you do take that really holistic and Hippocratic approach. And for anyone who’s not familiar with Damian, first of all, have you been living under a rock? But second of all, he does lifestyle immersions overseas. You’ve heard him mention Ikaria and Sardinia. I think next year, you’re taking a group through to Japan…

Damian: Yeah.

Amie: …and really just immersing people in those places and spaces that are that historical reflection of those pillars that really are the base that form human health, outside of all of the tools and tool kits that we get to use. So, we’ll certainly leave some links down in the show notes for you to check those out if you’re interested in them for yourself, or it might be of interest to a patient. But Damian, I’m so sorry. We could talk for another hour, I’m sure, about this.

Damian: We could. We’re getting the wrap-up from Marcus. He’s going, “That’s enough. We’re out of here.”

Amie: Aww.

Damian: Big shout-out to Chantal Oxley for helping me get this going, and if it wasn’t for Chantal, I don’t think you and I would have had this opportunity, Amie. So, I’m so grateful for you having me on here, and thanks to Chantal for coming with us to Ikaria, actually. She came with us to Ikaria, and who knows, maybe she comes to Okinawa next year. We’ll see what happens.

Amie: Oh, gosh. Goodness me. I’m gonna have to check that out for myself too. Well, thanks again for your time, Damian. It was a real pleasure to have you. And thank you to our beautiful listeners for tuning in today. It’s been a pleasure to have you also. Remember, you can find all the show notes and other podcasts on the Australian Designs for Health website. I’m Amie Skilton, and this is “Wellness by Designs.”

Bec: And I thank you so much for having me.

Amie: Absolute pleasure. And, to our listeners, thank you for joining us today. Remember, you can find all of the resources I mentioned in the show notes below, or on the Designs for Health Australian website. I’m Amie Skilton, and this is “Wellness by Designs.”