Adaptogens 101 with Tero Isokauppila and Danielle Ryan Broida
Alisa Nappa
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Adaptogens are herbs or mushrooms that help our body adapt to occasional stress and fatigue. They have been used all around the world for thousands of years and are all the rage right now, for a very good reason. We sit with Tero Isokauppila and Danielle Ryan Broida from Four Sigmatic to get the down low and dig deep on some of our favorite adaptogens in the world.Â
- Functional mushrooms
- Tulsi
- Turmeric
- Gotu Kola
- Astragalus
- Schisandra
- Acerola Cherry
- Eleuthero
- Rhodiola
- Cacao
- Gynostemma
- Moringa
- Goji
- Ginseng
- Maca
- Mucuna
- and more!
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We also touch on how to be a super human in your everyday life and some biohacking life tips beyond consuming mushrooms and herbs to feel your very best on a daily basis no matter what life throws at you.Â
TRANSCRIPT
0:20 What's up fun guys and fun gals. We have a very exciting episode today. You're listening to the mushroom revival podcast. I'm your host, Alex Dora. And we're all very obsessed with the power of mushrooms and we like to geek out and get into the nitty gritties of how cool mushrooms and fungi are. Bring on guests and experts from all around the globe to geek out with us. So we have Danielle and taro over at for SIG Matic to join us in this beautiful, amazing conversation about adaptogen. So how're you guys doing? Great. 0:54 Who are you guys? 0:57 I'm Danielle. This is actually my second time on mushroom revival, but I think it's been maybe three years since we sat down together so definitely do time. Um, my background, I'm a registered herbalist of the American herbalist Guild and certified holistic nutritionist. I teach mycology at the Colorado School of clinical herbalism. And day to day I'm kind of teros partner in education at Four Sigmatic Yeah, and um Taro, I also have a last name, but it's so difficult. There's two ways to go by first name one is that you're really famous like Madonna, and then you go by your first name, or you have a such a difficult last name that nobody can pronounce it. So I just go by Taro. And I'm originally from Finland. I'm a 13th generation family farmer with deep history of fungi around those 13 generations grew up foraging mushrooms in Finland, my mom taught me and my brother how to forage for different mushrooms. And she also taught physiology and anatomy. So we learned about their impact on human health. And then, about 15 years ago won an Innovation Award for discovering fungi species, with my friend, which is a funny side story. And then about 10 years ago started for SIG Matic. I'm the founder and CEO, and work with Danielle on education and innovation had for SIG Matic and then we recently wrote a book together, which was many years coming and excited about that as well. I'm really excited to read it. And yeah, you guys are have been working with adaptogens for a while. And that's kind of a buzzword right now. And it's really picking up which is exciting. I feel like every human on the face of the planet should be taking adaptogens and whether they're actually consuming herbs or not. And I think we'll get into that of just kind of the wider philosophy of what an adaptogen is, and maybe some other practices that people can adapt to occasional stress that they have in their life. And yeah, how did you get into it? And what exactly is an adaptogen? Yeah, there's several different parts of my story where adaptogens were rearing their head, and specifically the the functional fungi adaptogens, but many of the plants that herbs as well. And before I joined for SIG Matic with Taro, I had a private clinical practice in Colorado as an herbalist and I had no specialty when I opened my doors for practice, I just thought whoever is going to come and show up at my door is meant to work with me. And what ended up happening was, I had a lot of people that basically said, I've tried to every practitioner under the sun, and you're my last resort. And that presented a lot of challenges. These people were really chronically ill, I was working with a lot of autoimmune conditions or misdiagnosed ailments of all sorts. And a lot of the themes I was was seeing was this lack of general vitality, whether that was contributed by stress, or nutrient deficiencies, or a lifetime of an accumulation of things that really was bringing these people to my door in a state of depletion, and we'll get into adaptogens. But I basically started focusing my private practice on specifically functional mushroom adaptogens, because of their ability to modulate which we can get into to normalize to really raise this baseline vitality, and fell in love with the power of how they were interacting with this huge range of bodies from different ages to different symptom pictures. And it was like too good to be true. I'm like, How are more people not aware, at least in the West, and we can get into that there's this big difference with maybe they're new and popular in the West. And yet, it's ironic because they have been used for 1000s of years and so many other traditions, but I really fell in love with the practical healing ability that I was seeing them take form and so many bodies. And so from there I've been dedicating my life to researching them and working with them and formulating with them and teaching about them. 5:00 Yeah, long story short, a lot of my experience with adaptogen started and through my lineage and as a child growing up in Finland we share a border with Russia where some of the original scientific literature for adaptogens came from Finland was 600 plus years part of Sweden, we still speak Swedish. And then we're a little over 100 years part of Russia or the when there was still XR in towards so before the Soviet times and then share a border. So I had a close proximity to that, and then also sports. So a lot of the adaptogen both with fungi and plants are used by athletes. So I studied nutrition that was kind of first studio was in chemistry and nutrition. And a lot of my exposure was working with professional athletes early on that was already like almost 20 years ago. And some of the compounds that are now known as adaptogens were things that we use for performance I was making palac pepper turmeric, green smoothies and using things like Cordis, hips, ginseng things, particularly with endurance athletes, like cross country skiers, runners orienteers, and then some weightlifting, particularly, some Olympic weightlifting people had exposure to to the more of the Slavic herbalism that can be used for performance. So that was kind of my starting point and been working with them actively started about 20 years ago, to learn about the term and actively 15 years working with adaptogens. And then I guess from a definition, which was the second part, which is the juicy part, I'll let Danielle give the official definition what they are, but I think to tie it into the podcast and fungi, some of the fungi, some adaptogens are fungi, summer plants, so they can be any natural substances. But there's a strong representation, an overwhelming representation of fungi. And fungi can obviously be classified in so many different ways how often mycology you look at through species. And that is a classification you can look at through compounds, so what compounds you have, but in this case, you're looking at fungi through the lens of and purpose. So you're looking at a functional purpose for health and wellness that you're seeking. And they can come from different many different categories of fungi and many types of fungi. But they're trying to solve at the pinnacle, supporting this balance, and Daniel is going to speak in a bit. Similarly, if you think of psychedelics, psychedelic mushrooms are a category that is not shared by just the genus, although we could talk about psilocybin and then you have a family of same umbrella. But then psychedelic mushrooms would be a broader group that might include some of them and eat us, for example. So in this case, it's a pretty broad group of different types of fungi that we can also kind of address why some fungi might be adaptogens, and why some fungi might be better for other purposes. But yeah, there's a big connection with fungi. And the classification is through the end purpose versus their biology. So Daniel, you want to give a quick introduction to what adaptogens are, and then how it's if you have any questions. Yeah, I love that explanation of for the end purpose, because that's really relevant to how we look at like herbs in the West, and we choose them for a benefit. So kind of moving off of that I like to explain adaptogens as this umbrella category, so with all natural substances, whether they're mushrooms or herbs that we use, we put them into different categories based on this end purpose, what's their benefit, right, so we have herbs that are supportive directly to relaxing the nervous system, we call them nerve ions or sedatives, hypnotics, we have other herbs that and potentially fungi that support our digestive system, right, so we call those digestives or carminative. So there are these groupings of species that have similarities. So adaptogens are another umbrella category, where there's primarily plants, and about five fungi, at least that Taro and I argue, that are within this category. And while they've been used far before this definition was created, there's about three things that really define this group as adaptogenic, plants and fungi. And the first is they're non toxic. So this is really important. There's not a toxic load, they're safe to take every day. The second is that they're nonspecific, we can get deeper into this, but essentially, they're working on multiple systems of the body at once. So they're not just targeting the nervous system, or the cardiovascular system or the respiratory system. They're, they're targeting multiple systems at once, and really raising kind of this baseline vitality of multiple systems. And the third, which is what makes them really interesting, and also kind of hard for people to understand is that they're non toxic, nonspecific, right? It's like balancing and the third is that they they basically have these compounds that work in 10:00 In opposition to each other. So this is really, really interesting in the world of herbal medicine, where typically we take something to have a specific end result. But with adaptogens, there are often these compounds, we call it like a gas brake effect, where one can be have this louder effect in the body based on what that individual is needing. So we can get into examples. But essentially, each one of these adaptogens can either be energizing or relaxing, right, it can activate or downregulated immunity, it has this multiple kind of gas or break up or down action based on what this body that specific individual is needing, which really goes back into kind of the original way that we were using plants and fungi, where it wasn't just one species for a specific benefit, but really treating that body as an individual and what that body needs. And this is a very interesting conversation, because we collectively have to kind of dance around these terms, and how we describe adaptogens as a whole, because we're representing companies that are regulated by the FDA. So 11:13 it's a very interesting dance and how we have to describe these things. And it's always fun. And it's interesting to learn that language and tarot, I'm really interested in you, I think you started it in Finland, and then you're in Hong Kong for a while. And then you eventually moved for SIG Matic to the US. And I'm sure you know, from the various countries that you lived in, people had a different, you know, understanding of adaptogens, or kind of herbs in general or functional mushrooms, and how has that changed over time? Are people in the US do you find more new to these terms, and you have to kind of be you guys have to be larger educators and kind of go over that curve a little bit more than, say, in Hong Kong, where traditional Chinese herbalism is more of a foundation. Yeah. And to build off of that, obviously, Daniel and I wrote this book, but then also on our on our day job with Four Sigmatic. So there's like a fun balance to be had. We obviously have freedom of speech, just authors, but then we also work for a company that is regulated. Interesting enough. adaptogen word is approved by the FDA are defined by FDA 1998, as something that regulates metabolic response. So they are, you know, we started in Hong Kong, we're from Finland than we were in England for a beer that came to the US. So we've been seeing the different Asian regulation, the European regulation, the British regulation, which are, by the way, not the same thing, even before Brexit, even within EU Denmark is different than Finland, that is different than we sell to Switzerland, Switzerland is completely different. Canada is different than the US. So we've seen a lot and actually, funnily enough, eu is more strict than, than the US and it has helped us a little bit We probably lost a lot of four SIG Matic we didn't bend the terms. And I feel like there's a lot of companies, younger companies, maybe by not knowing that the terms and maybe benefitted on the short term, but we've had to be pretty strict but adapted in turn is allowed. Funnily enough, a word like superfood is not allowed in European Union. So you cannot say something is a superfood for you. But adaptogen is, and there is an acknowledgement that these are newer compounds, which is funny because they've been used for 1000s of years, but that they do regulate metabolic response. So there is like some understanding from the FDA that these exist, and that they have a big functional effect on the body. But obviously, like they're not meant to treat any disease, or will they treat any disease, but they have the functional effect, which is the fun to balance to dance around like antioxidants, like they have a functional effect on your body. But they're not treating anything, right. So that's the fun dance that we're doing. But definitely like starting a company overseas coming here. There's so many rules and regulations, and there's just so much to handle. And for a small company. I don't know how big companies do it. But like for a small company, the intention is trying to be pure and help people but at the same time, you're trying to do the right thing. And that's sometimes easier said than done. I don't know if I fully 14:35 Yeah, no, and you're talking, you know, how adaptogens have been used by humans for 1000s of years. And we're talking about the loopholes that us humans have to jump through with them now. But what about before humans you know, how did adapted and even evolve on this planet? And were they? I'm sure that the compounds that these plants and mushrooms were producing weren't even for humans like why 15:00 I or these plants and mushrooms producing these compounds in the first place, I was instantly brought back to a story which I'll share of an adaptogen that Taro and I found in nature together, we were in Iceland. And it's a really prime example of how these species are so freakin resilient. They grow in some of the most extreme climates on Earth. And this is really a metaphor. And it's energetic in a lot of ways, too. But not only was this in Iceland, so we're seeing these huge glaciers and big mountain ranges and a wide variety of climates and temperature fluctuations through the day at different soil types. I was searching and searching and searching like, okay, there's gotta be Rhodiola somewhere. And it was after several days out in Iceland that I see my first Rhodiola in person. And it was on this huge cliff side, hidden beneath all these rocks, and it looks like a little succulent, it's this beautiful little kind of has this Roselle shaped green leaf with a yellow flower. And I was like that is you couldn't have chosen a more challenging place to live and thrive and survive. And this is the story of many of our adaptogens is they have these this ability, they've developed these compounds to withstand some of the most extreme environmental stressors on the planet. And when we think about where we are, as a global society today, we are really trying to withstand some of the most intense stressors we've ever experienced. Not only like did we have a stress, we used to have a stressor once every week, or once every month, or maybe even less often. Now it's all day every day. And we're really searching for tools to cope. And so we can look at how these adaptogens exist in the wild. And that they are able to really not only just withstand, but grow and thrive and evolve through I mean, any extreme that that nature presents to them. And I just, I love that metaphor of this, like Rhodiola on the side of the cliff with a glacier ice cap, melting over it and high up in this elevation and the winds and the weather was changing. I'm like, damn, like, you can survive, you can thrive I want some of that. And we can get into kind of my energetic belief about plants, but I really I feel and fungi that they can only exist to a certain extent of their fullness out in nature. But when we ingest them, we get to manifest and really kind of extend their energy, their ability to show up in the world, through our animated human bodies. And so we can really take a lot of what they offer in nature and, and bring that into our own lives in a bigger way to really support some of the huge stressors that we deal with every day. I was reading this article recently that was talking about rest, and I loved the author was like, Yeah, I suppose people we don't truly rest in the modern world, or it's very rare. You know, most people have these vices, you know, they'll watch Netflix or mindlessly scroll, and it's like, that's not truly resting, you know, you're, you have notifications popping up, you're watching some action flick, or you're constantly stimulated, and you're not fully resting. And fully resting is really rare for people living in this modern world where it's just notification after notification and screens and you got the blue light activating you know, your your body and truly resting is rare. And so people are constantly kind of in this fight or flight mode, and are not really hitting the reset button. I was just in Peru about three weeks ago without any Wi Fi no screens or anything for a week. And it was the craziest thing. It was the longest that I've ever been without any screens. And I felt like I was able to fully rest and just sitting in a rocking chair all day. I was like, Oh, 19:12 like this is it? You know, this is I've never been, you know, usually like that's my go to mechanism. I'll you know, look at a screen some event. I think I'm resting you know, I'm relaxing. And it's like, no, I'm not, you know, I'm probably at at 75% rest but the 25% is still active. I'm still getting blasted with blue light. There's notifications. So, you know, it's really a deeper philosophy around adapting. Right and you know, you could take all the herbs that you want but you know Are you are you making the lifestyle changes and this goes into psychedelics to is like yeah, you can eat all the magic mushrooms that you want, but are you making the the lifestyle changes as well? And yeah, I love how you guys don't only educate on Earth 20:00 Have you educated on okay? How do you make these deeper life changes as well. And you live by example, which I think any great educator should. Yeah. And to build off of that, I think, to tie your first two questions about where they come from, why are they here and what the tie is, fungi and adaptogens, often in big live in the beginning of the lifecycle or end of the lifecycle. So obviously, we know about Rotter, mushrooms or fungi that break things down in nature. But we also have a lot of fungi that help create the soil and environment for plants and other living species to collect nutrients. And then they create these compounds to protect themselves often bitter compounds. Same with plants. So we can take a lot of examples. Turmeric, and cacao would be probably engine saying, the most household names have adaptogens, you've heard but if you've had real turmeric, real cacao, there's a strong flavors that that plant has created to protect itself. And what actually happens when we consume them. And this is similar to you know, the beta d glucans. As well, they're a little bit of a stressor to the body. So what they are is they are hormetic stressor, but they're like a little bootcamp and these bitter compounds, usually bitter compounds, give a trigger to the body to then create another response. And in the case, it might be fairly simple like ashwagandha, for occasional stress, and then ashwagandha helps you sleep slightly better. And by sleep sleeping slightly better, your testosterone levels are slightly elevated by having slightly elevated, you have a little more energy having a little more energy, you are able to work out or go outside or do something and then that triggers another kind of positive chain reaction. So the fact that they are at the beginning of the end of a lifecycle living in extreme conditions, or in the case of cacao, like extreme biodiversity, ideally, and then having these compounds to protect themselves against their environment, and we consume them, they trigger this hormetic stressor in our body, and then that hopefully compounds positively into healthier, better wellbeing. So I think that's interesting. And as far as rest goes, there's nothing that will replace the rest of the world. So we're living in a modern world, where the idea of never having a screen only been rocking chair seems unattainable for most especially, like, I have a family and kids and you know, it's like, it's just like somehow modern life stress still finds a way to creep in. So the idea of adaptogens giving you this buffer using osmocon does and the Rhodiola is of the world Turmeric Salt the world to create you this buffer that allows you to integrate into the modern day life that we living in those stressors and detox toxins that we need to detox for are there. And they're basically close to impossible to avoid. Be it EMFs or toxins or stressors like somehow they find a way into our life. And I actually think it's good because if we didn't have any stressors in life, we would probably soon adapt to be pretty weak. And then the wind on our face would create a stress because we're stressed by the wind. So by having these challenges actually make us in a way better, but you just need appropriate rest to go with it. Totally. Yeah, I would love to kind of go. This is obviously a mushroom podcast. But you know, we're excited. I'm excited about life in general. And you know, plants and fungi go hand in hand with mycorrhizal fungi having symbiotic relationships with pretty much all terrestrial plants, and also endophytic fungi in the actual cell walls of plants. So you can't have plants without fungi. And so I'd love to, you know, we've talked endlessly about all the adaptogenic fungi out there, but I would love to kind of dive deep on some plants. And you know, you guys went through a master list of some juicy adaptogens in your new book. Maybe let's start with Tulsi or host holy basil, one of my favorite plants of all time as a soft spot in my heart. So why don't we start there then kind of go down the list. I don't know if you guys want to go back and forth, but kind of a one on one quick and dirty elevator pitch on each of these herbs. So people who don't know can introduce themselves and say hi, I love it. And before I get into Tulsi which is one of my very favorite herbs, I've spent many, many chapters of this life and I think past lives in India. When Tulsi is the most sacred herb in all of India, it's thought that no household is complete without having a tool see both on the altar and then if you have the capability to grow tolsey on the land as well. So it's revered. It's really sacred. There's many 25:00 Hindu gods that are associated with the Tulsi plant, but I was just gonna mention one brief thing to kind of tie in that, that rest and adaptogen example is, when we're really, really stressed, we are using up many compounds in our body like vitamin C, right, we're like burning through certain nutrients in our body. So we're left in the state of depletion. And so while we can't ignore lifestyle adaptogens are a really incredible way all of them are so nutrient dense, the amount of identified constituents in them is really off the charts. And we can give a couple examples of that, but several 100 constituents is pretty average in each of these adaptogen. So the amount of antioxidants whether it's polysaccharides, vitamins, minerals, they are so nutrient dense, and so they're replenishing us on a cellular level, which enables us to to rest easier, right and get into that state of deeper sleep. And Tulsi is a great example of working on many systems of the body, toes, he's considered a wisdom herb, which is really cool. So similar to reishi. As a wisdom herb, it's thought both physically and energetically to act on the mind, body and spirit. It's in the mint family, the lame ACA family. So it has many of the benefits that are common mints like spearmint, and peppermint have so great for respiratory and digestive. But it's also amazing for longevity, for brain health, anti aging, because of so many of these nutrients that are present with a replenishing our body, nutrition and longevity go hand in hand. And it's really this unassuming leaf that we brew into a tea we can talk about how to use that each of these but you can make it really easily you can add it like a mint in different meals. And it's just this really powerful sacred mind heart, supporting our sleep supporting our brains supporting our longevity, like how deep do we go, it's like surface high level elevator pitch on the sacredness of Tulsi. And if I may build on that connection with fungi in general is a lot of these adaptogens are the number one or or fungi in that region. So it's from all the things you could consume in that region, it tends to be like the number one or two elevated thing that has survived the test of time through multiple generation and generation after generation after generation, a being elevated into the sacred position, sacred herb or fungi, they're often also the elevated species of their family. So out of the awesome Rola Terry within a certain family, that meant family. And that's nothing away from the peppermint. I love a good peppermint tea every now and then they are like over time evolved to be for our purposes, they're all equal. But for our purposes, some might be more beneficial than the other. And that's because of conditions where they grew soil evolution, species selection, this and that, over time, they become the top species within a larger family. So I think that's interesting, similar, there's a lot of fungal families that we can go to. And then if we want a species for micro remediation, there's one species that is really good for this specific contaminant. And it's evolved into that. And then similarly with human health and plants, it's usually the best of the region and best of the biological family feed fungi, your plants. How about one that probably everyone has in their spice cabinet, little orange nugget. Tumeric is also a good one and Otero you were talking about tumeric and black pepper before what's the deal with tumeric? Yeah, just I'll give a quick intro and Daniella if you want to jump in but similar here it's a family ginger family. So ginger actually has a lot of healing properties. This is like the yellow ginger. Turmeric is something printable people everyone knows they probably familiar with it. It's one of those things that while there's access to add people rarely get the real thing or in depressed format or fresher format. A lot of people have like four year old turmeric powders in the cabinet and some of the medicinal properties are not there after they've sat there for four years. Some are still there, but the depletes values so freshness matters, and bioavailability so that's why the active compound in turmeric the most known active compound is curcumin and it's combined with black peppers most active compound paper and and that increases by absorption. This is not uncommon in herbalism, or fungi. There's a lot of compounds that are common that actually help with absorption. So Vitamin C is probably none of us will ever be vitamin C deficient. Unless you're in the sea it gets sicker. 30:00 For me, but vitamin C does help with absorbing many nutrients in our body, and many foods. Similarly here black pepper, there's a reason why it's so commonly used in cooking. But I don't know if Daniel, do you want to talk to you? I know you have a lot of personal stories on turmeric living in Asia. Yeah, I think we all know Tumeric is incredibly anti inflammatory. That's what you see and a lot of the big headlines and what does that practically good for, we really think about it in terms of longevity and immunity. But a third benefit that we can touch on that isn't often talked about, at least in the west with Tumeric is its beauty. Its beauty, supporting properties. And so that's used both topically as well as internally. In Sanskrit, there's actually a cool name I love looking at like these different common names throughout the world. We obviously have our Latin name, right, which is throughout all cultures, but then in every country or region that these different herbs are used. There's a name and it gives us so much information about either the history of use or these different aspects about what it can be beneficial for Tumeric is called natural Monica in Sanskrit translates to like as beautiful or as shimmering as the moonlight. And so when I lived in India, I would often put out when I was doing my yoga teacher training, I would douse myself in tumeric. And the local woman would teach me how to do this as a way to support support skin health from the outside and an inside out. But incredibly as we talked about anti inflammatory which is great for the longevity of our internal organs, as well as our largest external organ, which is our skin. So gold of the gods I mean from for so many ailments. So like, so many different stories coming up with with tumeric. But even like getting a motorcycle burn living in Thailand, the locals would like to up tumeric root and throw it on my throat on my like open wound. So it's it's incredibly healing, and something that we have access to, in a way, yeah, whether it's in our spice cabinet still helpful. You know, it's thought that a lot of the longevity benefits and people in India or because they just throw a ton of Tumeric into their curries every day. But of course, we can get extracts and get a stronger dose. And then of course, adding that that black pepper is huge. It activates, as Tara mentioned that curcumin, that main active constituent, incredibly more potent, right? So we want to get the most out of the least we can. And so we love talking about this, like the best friends are the allies of each of these because, well, they're synergistic on their own, and we're using the whole form, we can create these formulas to really increase their potency and get the most out of them. There's I don't know if you've seen it in India, but there's this Hindi ritual for like a pre wedding ceremony called Haldi for both the bride and groom, and it's like, I'd love seeing videos of that they're just, you know, rubbing each other with this, this Tumeric paste as like a pre wedding ceremony. It's like it looks so much fun. And yeah, I think extraction is an interesting touch point with fungi and things like turmeric and others is understanding the bioavailability doesn't mean that there's no processing. So obviously we know this of a lot of inedible mushrooms and some of the Chi tin and other things, how important it is to have bioavailable, even rice, or things that we consider like staple foods need to be processed, minimally processed, processed to make the bio available for us to eat. And I think there's a lot of touch points around heat and lipids, somewhat alcohol, honey. There's other things vinegars, but in order to make most fungi bioavailable, you need to somehow process them and historically, our ancestors are intuitively very correct by making teas for turmeric tea and putting it in in curries with fats and ghee. So not that often like getting shredded thrills and cooking them in butter or you know, doing a broth which she talking mushrooms. So I think there's a lot of touch points on also bioavailability and the other word extraction but bioavailability of plants and fungi and knowing that there is some preparation needed and even simple things like turmeric, while you can have turmeric raw, in most cases you will benefit from either some sort of herbal combinations and or some form of extraction and often, heat and lipids do play a role in some compounds are heat sensitive. But in many cases these are very sturdy roots or poly bores in the fungi family that require some some form of processing. Obviously, you guys have been really busy with this book and doing a deep dive on. I mean, there's dozens of adaptogens you guys covered well over a dozen key adaptogens and do you have a favorite? I know it's might be a hard question. 35:00 But I don't know if there's been one. Maybe you had one before. And it's changed through writing this book of maybe you know, you had a favorite adaptogen that you wrote this book, you're like, Ooh, I didn't know much about this one. This is a good one. Yeah. Can you find me on the ask? There's a fun way, what's the one that you know, you should be taking more, but you're not taking as often as you hope. That's a good one. 35:24 Maria Ranga, for sure. That's one that I was interested in kind of excited by never really used much in formulation, or in private practice, before writing the book. And the more we were researching and uncovering and finding these clinical studies around Moringa. And the use case of every single part of this tree goes like, yeah, the leaf we use the leaf in herbal medicine, it's like, no, no, when you look at the history of use, it's like the pod, the flower, the seed, the bark, every single part of this tree is incredibly medicinally. Rich, and I love adaptogens, like Moringa, that are more of a food, many of them, you know, we can think of more as a foods, we can take them every day, and they're safe. And they have that non toxic quality. But Moringa really is, you know, can be eaten like young dandelion leaves, like in a young salad is a bitter, bitter green. And we have this breakdown in the book where we compare the different vitamin and mineral content and in Moringa leaf compared to the foods that we think are the highest. So like how much vitamin C and Moringa leaf compared to what the general public thinks is the highest vitamin C containing foods like oranges, or the amount of potassium and Moringa versus bananas. And it's just off the charts. And so, going back to that statement, I mentioned earlier, where so many of us are in this state of depletion, because we're stressed because we're not truly resting, because of the lifestyle habits that were, unfortunately, have become too common, you know, the, the coping mechanisms that we're using, we think about something like Moringa. And I feel like it's this, like rain flood of just replenishing so many potential deficiencies in our bodies and giving us this amazing nutrient download, to just show up in whatever way, you know, we've been kind of deficient in whether that means more energy, or deeper rest, or better brain function, or easier ability to deal with the stressors that come our way. So marinko kind of blew my mind in writing this book, I would have to concur. And I can't remember what country I was in. But I it was a permaculture farm and they had a, you know, a hole. I don't know what you call it, but they were growing a bunch of Moringa and they had an entire shop, selling all the different combination of products you can ever think of Moringa and like they had all these, you know, educational plaques and the whole thing and they're so jazzed on it, they have books all about Moringa. And it was like Moringa toothpaste Moringa you know, energy bars, Moringa seeds Moringa this ring of that. And they're like, Yeah, Marie, everyone should be planting Moringa you know, it's like people getting Jasson hemp and they're like hemp can do everything. Everyone should be grown hemp. Same thing with Moringa. And like these people running the shops, were just like, oh, it's the best plant in the entire world. Everyone should be growing Moringa you could do everything with it. So it's cool. I actually forgot about it. So thanks for No, do a deep dive on it in a bit, go down a YouTube rabbit hole all about Moringa. And that's the beauty of today is each one of this has that raving fan base. And usually in a region, I'm actually pretty good with Moringa myself because I lived in the Philippines and they call him a little guy. But it was like the top Filipino or so I'm pretty consistent with it. But it's interesting that every one of these have their own fan base. And now we can go to Amazon or whatever. And it's a one click away next day delivery, which is insane. For me the one that I would love to consume more Schisandra it's actually one of my first love. So obviously I grew up in Finland with Chaga and Rhodiola. But the first two loves I had as like for adaptogens that I really noticed was cordsets notice so much especially as a runner. The other one was she Sandra it just works well with my body. And I was so consistent with it for like close to a decade and now last few years I've completely almost never take She said her very rarely. And then writing this book I'm like, honestly, like if like in a clinical practice, like what Danielle had, you usually get very targeted advice like if your body's hot or cold or moist or dry and this and that, like what are you looking very custom, but funny, not a lot. Some of these adaptogens are so universal, that you could take 10,000 people and pull a name from the head and say they are going to need spill this and couple that come to mind is Rishi. It's very hard, but I know there's a small part of population that is allergic to ganoderma but like it's so hard to find someone who wouldn't. Who shouldn't take reishi and then the other thing is 40:00 She Sandra. It's literally like the one thing out of the herbs and stuff like, you could take anybody off the street, and they will pretty much benefit from Schisandra. And writing this book, I was like, damn, I gotta get back on my Schisandra. It's like one of my favorite allies. Yeah, I just want to talk about that a little bit that this ability of adaptogens to fit with so many body types, which is so unique in herbal medicine, as Tara mentioned, and we put this in the book, we put energetics to try to help people understand what's their body type, and how to best almost matchmake your plants or fungi to support you. But to Xandra specifically, it's called Amphur attic. So it's the five flavor Berry, if you've ever put a berry in your mouth, you literally go through all five flavors, as you're stepping on the berry. And it will change its energetic profile based on your body type. So it can be cool, it can be moist, it can be warm, like it can be drying. And so it really encapsulates that adaptogenic energy of unintended but adapting to you, you know, and working with you as an individual. But we see this amazing benefit. You know, we talked about Tulsi like Tulsi is called Tridosha IK and I are VEDA meaning it's good for all three of the dosha body types. And so there's this really cool ability with adaptogens that makes them unique within the world of herbal medicine, to work with you, regardless of your constitution, like most of them are safe and visual. When I started for SIG Matic with the team, we would go around the world we do millions of these demos by their events or sampling sessions, like all around the world, so many so many literally over 1000. And sometimes people are like, What should I buy? Like, I've never taken fungi? Where should I start? So we used to say when in doubt, it's reishi. Like when in doubt, it's just reishi is so similar in the plan adaptogens when in doubt, to me, she Sandra, like, I'm not saying it's the best and this is going to be the one you'll benefit the most. But it's definitely there are a few of these like, like Tulsi and Schisandra that are pretty much a sure shot. 42:14 It's so good. I used to take traditional Chinese herbalism classes and that was like on class one, our teacher would hand out a berry to every student and when say a thing and had people taste it and he was like, you know, try to keep your reaction to yourself until everyone has tried it. And yeah, he would say yeah, what, you know, What flavor did you taste the strongest? And he's like, Well, that's what you need to work on. And that was kind of the foundation of you know, setting up that philosophy of you know, understanding balance and you know, understanding where your body is at. I have another friend and in New York City and she her neighbor actually in the apartment building right next to her has a huge like really old schizandra vine growing on their balcony and you know when it's in season she's obviously become friends with them and you know is able to pick some and she's so excited every time she like texts me she's like oh, it's in season like it's you know, it's fruiting right now and it's such an amazing Berry and it is an experience to say the least it's almost like I think it's like the Gobstopper in what is that movie Willy Wonka 43:23 where you can taste all the different meals and you know all these different flavors as it I think it's gum or something I haven't watched the movie in a long time but yeah, it's an amazing plant. I would love to get into kind of beyond herbs of what practices that that you guys do obviously you're you're so busy you're doing so much writing books and you know managing huge companies and raising families and you know doing traveling the world. Obviously there's there's other techniques that you you guys have done Tara I know you were really into running for a while and I read an article that I think the title was like mushroom co sleeps on a bed of nails or something like that. I don't know if you remember that that article but it got me actually into acupressure mats and I was before I went to bed last night. I was laying on acupressure mat which is like the spiky mat. So good. So amazing. I was able to just like slip into sleep and even this morning I did it again right as I woke up but just you know laid on the acupressure mat and that for me is just a little hack or getting you know working out every day or you know making sure to meditate for like five minutes you know these little things or wearing blue light blocking glasses that we you know, we're talking about blue light before. So what are kind of your different life hacks that you use to manage this crazy busy lifestyle that that you guys have? I've been what are now known as biohacking for probably 20 years and I still entertain a lot of weird stuff and 45:00 And frankly some of it or most of it might work or might not work so I II, I do a lot of things as a lifestyle that gives me little to no noticeable results. But then every now and then I discover something that just works. And I stick with for a long time. Acupressure is one of them, like sleeping on a on a nail, but still do. I've been doing it for Hekia Yeah, for I don't know, 15 years. And it's something that just works for me same as napping, I'm most productive in the morning. So if I take a nap, I get two mornings, which is, which is a real a real thing there. Yeah, I would say the philosophy on what works. And what I've seen work for also, my clients in the past when I did personal nutrition and lifestyle optimization is elements. So this is I would say like a general theme. And the way to look at it is being in touch with the elements of you know, fire, water, air Earth. And these are probably for evolutionary purposes. That why they work is that we've got generation after generation after generation are adapted to it. So for example, light if you stare at a fire and the impact on your stress response and and the Lux that you get out of the light or for moonlight, which is can be really bright, moonlight and feminine. In the winter, when it's all white is really like everything is pretty white is completely different than even a small part of artificial light and its impact. So elements that is there's no like one way to do it's more of like circadian rhythm seasonal and time in place thing like where you want to have some light. First thing in the morning you want to have fresh air. And then that's like triggering a certain evolutionary response but cold, warm, Earth touching Earth napping. So resting, fasting, these are things that consistently work. And I've seen them also work with other people. And then I can give at the end a couple of really weird ones that I'm experimenting with right now. But Daniel, what about you? What do you what's good for you? Yeah, the biggest one for me is nature. And Bill Mollison, who founded permaculture I've done a lot of permaculture in my background says all the world's problems can be solved in a garden. And so even though I live in the middle of Los Angeles, now I have a small garden and grow what I can and it is the most grounding place for me, I have very few things I'm growing, actually a ginger, I tried to get what I can from the grocery store and bring it to seed and then take it out to my garden to plant it and Cameleon roo and rosemary of lemon verbena out there. And it's really, I found these boxes on the side of the street for free in Venice and repurpose them and started growing herbs in them. But that nature therapy is so powerful. And I'm reading the secret language of plants right now. And it's really brought that understanding that feeling that I've had my whole life into such a different context where we really are communicating with the plants. And I have a almost one year old nephew and it's amazing to see as well. And Taro, you probably see this with Banyan. But when they're in this hyper stressed kind of fussy state, I'll just bring them out to nature and there's this instant, calming, grounding quieting effect. And in that kind of new vulnerable being. It's just so powerful to see that nature effect. So that's definitely my number one through and through and then something that I do every day and taro and actually do this together a lot that you didn't mention is breathwork practices. So before I joined this call, I have been doing the Wim Hof which used to be called to Mo and has been rebranded kind of like our adaptogens. They didn't used to be called adaptogens. There's these different like words and marketing that come with them. But that has been such a like shortcut into focus and productivity. I was getting really tired in the afternoon. And I'm not a Napper. Taro is like the professional Napper. But I could never nap and after doing this Wim Hof breathwork consistently for a few weeks, that kind of mid afternoon energy drop was gone. So that was huge. And then just optimizing sleep. So I think nature the breath work and sleep might put red light bulbs in my room, so we don't have that blue light and that obtrusive light when we're going to bed we got Zen alarm clocks, which is I always thought it was like kind of this funny heavy thing but it wakes you up to like a little Zen Charm, like chiming effect and no phones in the bedroom. So charging those and turning them off and putting them in the kitchen when we go to bed. Just really trying to create that sacred space like you in the hammock, you know, so how do we if we can't 50:00 get deep in the jungle in Peru and be in a hammock all day. How do we kind of mimic that experience? In our bedrooms? There's a small hacks that you can do that are actually pretty profound similar to you know, what? Or should you be consuming more? What practices? Do you wish that you practice more? Yeah, I would say, to build on the stuff that I'm doing now is, I'm like always experimenting, but if I'm, like, completely honest with myself, like, a lot of these experimentations, like, like now I'm doing like, medicinal eyedrops. I do nostrils, sprays. There's all kinds of fun nootropic, nostril space, including tobacco up your nose, and all the kinds of things that you can do. But if I'm completely honest with myself, it's not what I don't do, but I should more even more consistently be with sauna. Which sounds really funny because right now I'm in Austin. It's like 104, what do you from Finland or something. 51:00 But even more consistent with sauna cold plunge barefoot hiking, things like that, that are easy to do, but I should do more. And in reality, I should probably stuck with some of these experimentations because they're kind of pointless or adding little to no value. Same with weird vitamins. I'm taking like, I'm taking high doses of boron right now. And, and the reality is probably is like it's not sustainable or smart. So I think even more consistent, I'd say the one main enemy I have is sitting, like, number one. And number two is screen time, even though I do so much delimited and I do all these things, sitting at screen time. Oh my god. Those are yeah, those are my 51:50 I have like a standing desk I have this and that and the medicine ball. And like, those are things I feel guilty of heavily. I don't think he Homo sapiens evolved to do that. 52:02 And I don't think you're the only one I'm in that camp too. And probably most people on this planet sitting in screens. I don't think you're gonna be good for evolutionary track in the long run and, you know, as many Hacks is that we could do to limit that or make him just a little more functionable I think will go a long way. That joke in this record is Daniel and my friend you hold who made the illustrations with this book and has made illustrations to all my books. He asks people like what's your favorite childhood memory? Palace? What is your favorite childhood memory? I've had one for a while. And it was we took a family trip. I can't remember how young I was. But we went to Ecuador in the Amazon rainforest. And I went for a hike with my dad and we found a bird eating tarantula on the trail. And we're just like going out in the trail where it was the sun was setting we see this huge trench love bigger than your hand that can eat birds, which is the fucking Craziest thing. And the birds were going off. And it was like, wow, I've always been obsessed with jungles. I don't know if you can tell. But yeah, just being immersed with that much life around me, the little kid in me just like, you know, I always think of that day as being super memorable. How about you guys? Well, 53:18 the city, he goes and ask people and I've noticed these finish like me. Americans give really beautiful answers like the one you just gave and go on about stories often involving their mom, dad nature, some sort of quiet moment. And then they ask what you just ask is like you Oh, what about you? What do you what's your favorite memory and he just replies not having back pain. 53:43 That's never finished humor for you. It's kind of like we don't think of it but kids, you don't have back pain. You also don't sit like my kid is squatting all the time walking or lying. And there's no back pains the spine is as good as it gets and, and constantly moving. And then somehow from that to now it's very hard to find anybody even a really healthy individual that doesn't have back pain. You can take the yogi's back pain dancers back pain and it's just the funny cultural thing with Danny ally and the few Finn's but yeah, what's your favorite childhood memory and then him say not having back pain? I've been following this finished comedian for a while and I love it. 54:30 helps me understand new Tarot a bit more. 54:33 Weirdos. Love it. Yeah, it's great. So where are you to go and you just released this book. Danielle. You're about to get married Tarot. You got another kid in the way. Any exciting future plans that that you want to share? We both had really big summers. So I feel like I'm almost excited to settle on to nest I was just backpacking through the mountains of Turkey and spent a lot of time back in Thailand. 55:00 She's where I used to live and then running all over the place. So I am really looking forward to grounding. And as Terrell briefly mentioned in the beginning of this call, we are working on some innovation together. So we're gonna have some really exciting new things coming down the pipeline with for SIG Matic and putting on our thinking caps and getting creative and taking our lion's mane and go to cola and Rhodiola. And excited to kind of birth some fun new creations for the world and the year to come. Yeah, similar busy year and excited to nest and have our second kid and be home and have a really simple life and through simple life also have a lot of good routines, but there's no lack of excitement. So our book that have we've been working for years, and we went through over 1000 research papers, and for this book, Healing adaptogens is out in late September. Hopefully, it's going to be the seminal book on adaptogens, which is trending partly for wrong reasons with multilevel marketing and scammy. online marketers, but definitely, hopefully it becomes the seminal book for many years to come and help to educate people on why they're so awesome. And also what to potentially avoid. So the book is going to be busy, busy part for us. And then other than that, it's trying to live a very simple life and get some foraging done here in southwest Texas as well. You say that, but you keep building companies and you. 56:28 Yeah, good luck. I mean, I'm impressed by both of you of how much you're accomplishing. And with all that you're doing, you seem to have your head on your shoulders, and you're able to continue taking care of yourself. There's so many people out there that are doing too much. And they're burning out and are just yet running the hamster wheel a bit too hard. And you know, Daniel, like you're talking about all the people that you're seeing, in your practice, just running that hamster wheel a bit too hard, and they're exhausted, you know, and so adaptogens are key and just having a healthy lifestyle. And I think you guys are doing it really well. So congrats. And I'm excited just to watch your journey ahead. Thank you. And the challenge, I feel like it is because of all the adaptogens that because of knowing the health hacks from you know, ice plunges to napping and this and that gives us more buffer and you can go beyond what you can. And I have for example been beyond cavalier about my immunity, I had a rule at Four Sigmatic orginally that if you ever get sick, including myself, you have to quit because you got sick ahead. And that went over the toilet on like year two, because almost all our team got sick in and Cambodia building a school. But yeah, I'm pretty Cavalier, and I believe I get overly cocky on how much I can do or how much can buy immune system hold, which is good, because then you can do more, but then you sometimes hit a wall and it's very humbling experience hitting the wall. Yeah, for sure. I think we all have to hit a wall or break down to evolve, you know, like you're talking about with stress, it's like, we can't be too comfortable and cushy, you know, we got to, we got to push ourselves to the limits to know our limits and you know, overcome our old selves, and then to evolve into our new cells, if we're ever going to grow as individuals. And then also as a species, you know, we got to, like adaptogen. So we got to be in extreme environments. Not all the time, but maybe for a little bit to make these great compounds to adapt to overcome, to become better, or, you know, to be able to live a quieter life in chaos, to be able to meditate in Times Square, and be at peace, you know, absolutely so beautiful. Yeah, I used to say as a kid that only way to go far is to go too far. And I think it was a model my life 30 years got me in trouble many times, but it is kind of like, if you have a paradigm that if you can, you can you're right. But if you stretch the boundaries, who eventually found that limit, but the limit might be much further and I think in like ultra running usually like the moment when you're like oh I'm done. I'm so tired. You're like halfway there. So it's like yeah, sometimes you gotta you gotta stretch those limits but knowing right after to also heal and recover. Well thank you too for coming on and I'm sure we could keep talking for the next like 10 hours and there's so many topics that you know we didn't touch and that we barely touched on that I know we can go more in depth about but for people listening that you know adaptogen seem really cool maybe you don't know much about it maybe you know a little bit and you want to go deeper. They got a book coming out highly recommend it you can get it pretty much anywhere and so yeah, definitely read it keeps your fingers flipping through those pages and download that good information. And thanks for tuning in. You know, we me for one you know I love diving deep on fungi and mushrooms but 1:00:00 I also want people to feel good and live their best life. So, you know, we only bring on PhD scientists to talk about the Latin names and nitty gritty enzymes and all these things that about fungi, you know, I want to talk about how to actually live a good life as well. And I think, Danielle and Taro, this was a great conversation to live a bit better and feel a bit bit better as well, which is always to pluses. So, yeah, check out their book, check out our site, we don't have any Patreon or you know, where people can donate to support the show. It is a passion of love and so you know, we have our own site mushroom revival. Check it out. We got all the information there a bunch of juicy stuff. And yeah, tell your friends, leave a review, talk about adaptogens to person at the checkout at the grocery store, talk about functional mushrooms, how cool life is, you know, you've learned a new life hack and it's working for you. Tell your friends family, we're all in this together as a big community. So spread the knowledge Don't keep it to yourself. And let's let's keep improving. So, with that much love and may the Force be with you. Can I throw in a challenge at the end? Yeah, yeah, go for it. Leave the podcast review and incorporate an adaptogen name into the review and then DM me or Danielle and we'll send you a free gift from for SIG Matic if you leave a review and somehow tie in any adaptogen discussed on the show or on the book. Love it. That is a great challenge. That's your homework y'all. 1:01:34 Much love Alex. 1:01:37 Thank you guys. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
