The Entrepreneur’s New ROI: Sleep, Steps, and Stress Control with Ryan Williamson

Ryan: [00:00:00] Life is precious. We only get one chance. You don't know when it's gonna be over. to carry my, my best friend Tanner's legacy forward to go help more people, I mean, to do all these things, like this is clearly the universe sending me a signal that now is the time. so I, you.
Ryan: Through grief did all of that, uh, healthy emotional processing. But, once I was ready to reload, man, it's been gungho from there, we've launched Transcend Health, my business, I'm writing a book as you know, which will be out this fall. And, the mission is to help people live longer, healthier, more impactful lives, and all through just educating people on lifestyle and, and really just the basic easy choices they have in front of them.
Intro: You are listening to the seven Figure Leap podcast. We're here to leverage rich relationships and smart strategies to take your business to the next level. Here's your host, [00:01:00] Dustin Reman.
Dustin: Welcome back to the Seven Figure Leap podcast. I believe this is my first, , neurologist, as a guest today, and I'm really excited, , to spend some time and be able to tap into the wisdom that Dr.
Dustin: Ryan Williamson has to share here. So Ryan and I were introduced with the mutual friend Amber Auer, who is actually a former guest of our podcast and a close friend of mine and someone who. Leads with mission and leads with service. And as I got to know Ryan A. Little bit, I was like, I really need to have you on the podcast because not only does he have an amazing story that we're gonna unpack about why he does what he does and the mission he has in this world, he has some very practical knowledge to share with entrepreneurs about mental health and stress and overwhelm and a lot of the things that we deal with, and our day-to-day adventure here as business owners.
Dustin: So, uh, Ryan, thanks so much for being here. First and foremost, I'm gonna hand the mic over to you to kick us off and tell us a little bit about. Yeah, like how you became an entrepreneur, because I know your story selfishly, and, I'm really excited to hear you, talk about this journey and, some of the reasons why you feel compelled to [00:02:00] do.
Ryan: Thank you, Dustin. I'm, I'm very happy to be here and be with your audience. so, it's a pleasure. Uh, honestly, guess to, to start, my journey is very similar to many that into healthcare. I experienced, some loss when I was
younger. And that really got some early gears turning around how I could just go help people.
Ryan: whether people end up as physicians, nurses, or anywhere in between, pretty common path. So I knew I wanted to be a doctor, certainly by the time I was, I dunno, eight 18, my parents would tell you when I was maybe five or something. Yeah. And your mom was like,
Dustin: please, please be the doctor.
Dustin: Right.
Ryan: I, I lost my first relative that I knew personally when I was five. I mean, so grandmother died, I remember is actually the opening introduction of my book is me sitting at her funeral wondering why my mom's crying. I mean, I, I have that distinct memory. and like I said, it really, really started to turn gears early.
Ryan: So. Go through the medical training pipeline and decide with neurology in the brain. I [00:03:00] fascinating.
Ryan: So I obviously went through the military. You and I talked about, so, you know, did the Navy route, they paid for medical school and then you have some time after residency and always felt called to serve. Know I wasn't gonna be, a door kicker so to speak, or infantry, but knew that I wanted to support those men and women, because I just, I have just unbelievable respect and love for that.
Ryan: still put on uniform myself still.
Ryan: And then once service was done.
Ryan: With my career, career, but wasn't entirely sure what, and so I went back into civilian medicine, and started doing some travel work. But as a neurologist, I see people through really the whole spectrum of life. I mean, I see young people that have migraines and peripheral nerve injuries and traumatic brain injuries, which is kind of the military.[00:04:00]
Ryan: But, and other things showing, having
Ryan: like Alzheimer's. started realizing how sad it was to start seeing this time and time again because so many of these cases that the vast majority of these cases are preventable. And as you and I have talked about your lifestyle.
Somewhere between 70 to 90% of your health outcomes. I think a lot of people just aren't even aware of that.
Ryan: And we just get sucked along in this journey of, you know, whether it's being an employee, being a business owner, an entrepreneur, and we just kind of accept what's in front of us every day. And, we've always got the mountain of to do list and you know, zoom calls.
Ryan: You.[00:05:00]
Ryan: And so I started diving into that literature and sort of the longevity literature, brain health, and realized how preventable so much of this, these conditions were that I'm, I'm seeing, I'm running around putting out emergencies all day. In the, the er. People are coming in with all these strokes and you know, we're giving them blood thinners and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and people end up with these horrible outcomes that again, are prevent.
Ryan: Help more people and do that at scale, and that's where the entrepreneurial side starts to kick in. Right? so at this point I joined Justin Donald's mastermind lifestyle investor, who was a front row dad with you had just met some wonderful people through there and, and that whole network, and then got introduced to Amber through Justin.
Ryan: They've been friends for, gosh, I think almost 20 years.
Ryan: Anyway, I reached out to Amber, and that would've been June, June 8th, I think, yeah, around June 8th anyway [00:06:00] of, uh, last year and June 10th, my best friend died completely unexpectedly, just. Out of nowhere and Amber responds the next day, like, without knowing this, of course, like, I don't dunno if you believe in divine timing or not, but I just wrote this book about entrepreneurship and helping people launch their books, their businesses, and of course my world's in shambles after having to enter this email, if you know, wanting go help all these folks.
Ryan: And I said, okay, this is, I dunno. Life is precious. We only get one chance. You don't know when it's gonna be over. to carry my, my best friend Tanner's legacy forward to go help more people, I mean, to do all these things, like this is clearly the universe sending me a signal that now is the time. so I, you.
Ryan: Through grief did all of that, uh, healthy emotional processing. But, once I was ready to reload, man, it's been gungho from there, we've launched Transcend Health, my business, I'm writing a book as you know, which will be out this fall. And, the mission is to help people live longer, healthier, more impactful lives, and all through [00:07:00] just educating people on lifestyle and, and really just the basic easy choices they have in front of them.
Ryan: I.
Dustin: Yeah, and I mean, something you said that I wrote down in circle three times is 70 to 90% of these long, long, quote unquote long term, which, you know, obviously sometimes it's not so long. Sometimes it hits you way earlier than most people might expect, but 70 to 90% of our cognitive mental health outcomes are lifestyle driven and.
Dustin: I think a lot of people can relate to that, especially in the entrepreneurial grind. And I kind of joked with you, I'm like, my brain feels a little more healed just being off zoom for 10 days. And while I said that, tongue in cheek, there's some, obviously there's some truth to that, right?
Dustin: And I think a lot of people can relate to this, this constant stress or drive or, sometimes, uh, this fine balance between. Pushing and pursuing, which can lead to burnout. And these are the, like, the things we think about, oh, [00:08:00] this week felt this way, or Next week felt this way. But then you project that out.
Dustin: And I, I have a, personal anecdote that, I'm sure many people can relate, so I'll, I'll share it. So for one entire family, lineage, very active in the military, my son's in the infantry in the army. And so very much, feel blessed by the work that you've done there and, and continue to serve in.
Dustin: And my own father, he was 18 years older than my mom. And so, you know, there's some built-in, issues with that. But he also had many of the lifestyle factors that would lead to some issues, right? Like he was an alcoholic and had pretty poor lifestyle. and he passed away 12 years ago now, and.
Dustin: Five years of his life were brutal with dementia and Alzheimer's. These cognitive declines. And this is like stuff you don't wanna have to ever witness from anyone, especially a loved one. And I, of course, not having the medical training you did, I was writing a sucked into the heart of this reality, I guess, of wow, if he would've known 10 years, 20 years, 30 years back, the decisions he
was making, how this was gonna affect [00:09:00] this, this quality of lack of quality of the end of his life.
Dustin: so I'm very tied to your mission without the skillset to address it. So I really appreciate you being here and be able to share and, and enlighten us so that many of us who are. And middle age or, maybe a little before or after that
can make better choices, you know, than what maybe some of your relatives went through or what my own father went through.
Dustin: I think we've got a very clear reason why you do what you do. There's a very clear mission here. You've been affected in multiple levels in your own life and your own military service. And then losing your, close friend Tanner at this pivotal moment when you're making these new life choices for yourself.
Dustin: So, maybe now we could transition a little bit into present day and, talk about what you are doing with your business. I know what that was. Nine months ago, less than a year ago, that you really officially jumped in and said, this is something I need to do. And started working on this thought leadership period of your life and writing and serving, outside of just clinical and, and military applications.
Dustin: So yeah, like tell us a little bit about Transcend Health, what it's about. even down to like the offers, [00:10:00] the, how you help people right now with this business.
Ryan: Sure. and first off, Dustin, again, I'm so sorry to hear about what you went through with your father. I mean, this is a very common conversation that I have in the hospital, week in and week out with people.
Ryan: And for those in your audience who are listening, if they don't have a similar story, they know similar who has a similar story, this is far too common and on the trajectory we're of Alzheimer's is expected. Which is horrifying. and again, it's, it's no surprise when you look at the rates of obesity and what we call metabolic syndrome and metabolic disease, uncontrolled high blood pressure, just again, the general lifestyle factors that we know heavily influenced these pathways that are totally correctable and avoidable.
Ryan: Predisposes them to early onset Alzheimer's, which is very uncommon. The other 99% is lifestyle. And I mean, if we really wanna split that [00:11:00] hair there, there's some different, genetic predispositions. There's something called the APOE genotype or a OE allele and. Everybody's got some combination of that.
Ryan: So there's about a quarter of the population are at or higher risk, but it, it's not causal, meaning they've gotta really, really mind their Ps and Qs on the lifestyle more so than the average person everybody does, but that quarter of people especially have to,
Dustin: if you don't mind camping out here a little bit.
Dustin: and maybe speaking specifically to someone who's in the entrepreneurial lifestyle. Right. Um, and we kind of know what that means. it's, someone who is. And driven and goal oriented in our audience case very much to. what sort of day-to-day changes or, maybe things that people kind of adopt as part of this typical lifestyle, should we really be aware of that could lead to this insane tripling of Alzheimer's for our generation as, as we get into older age?
Dustin: Like what are some of the specific things we can do to actually prevent that?
Ryan: Yeah. And first off to double click on the entrepreneurial community, you know, [00:12:00] it saddens me too because I'm around these people all the time that are wildly, wildly successful business owners and I mean, we're talking.
Ryan: Sorry. 8, 8, 9, figure, excuse me. It might be 10 figure entrepreneurs, wildly successful people that, just for whatever reason do not have their health under control. And I know the things to look for. I mean, I'm trained to do that, right. But I think it's really, really easy for people to get used to waking up every day, not feeling well.
Ryan: Chronically under slept, not eating the right things because again, that checklist is so high and this is a, common story. And again, these people are in service to mission and to better inhumanity in the world. And my question, and this is where the why really comes in, is what are you working for?
Ryan: Right. I mean, you know, what, what do you, why are you really doing this? And if you're not here, I mean, if your brain's not intact, if your body's not intact, you're not present. You can't show up for the world and you can't be your full self. And so therefore you are sabotaging that very mission, whether you [00:13:00] realize it or not, without prioritizing yourself.
Ryan: And I think we do ourselves a disservice too in that know this selflessness in our culture, which is.
Ryan: have to be selfish in a way, meaning you to take of yourself so.
Ryan: And the other thing is that our bodies, Dustin, are really, really, really good at hiding stuff for a long time. And dementia in particular, I'm talking about Alzheimer's, but dementia's just one of these where, I mean they're preclinical changes that happen in the brain, meaning microscopic changes that you don't have a sensor for your body can't detect for decades before the first.
Ryan: Misplaced keys or, got lost walking through the neighborhood or asked the same questions over. I mean, you know, the common stuff that shows up, literally decades prior. And we're just now coming into a world where we have biomarker testing that's available and it's [00:14:00] preliminary. I mean, there's some very expensive tests.
Ryan: Like there are things called PET scans, which is an expensive brain scan. They're, they're spinal fluid taps. We can look at different protein that accumulate in people's brains, but we know this. First clinical symptom of Alzheimer's, they pass away of something else, unfortunately, likely preventable.
Ryan: but then they go through an autopsy and the, medical examiners go, oh my gosh, this person looks like they had Alzheimer's, but they never had the first symptom because these changes have happened for years. And so they're these big brain banks that people where we know that they've got these risk factors that accumulate, before the cognitive symptoms show up.
Dustin: So, yeah. Like what I know this is like, this is a very loaded question, but if. Three. Like what are maybe the ones that people don't? I think most people would think, yeah, if I'm a hundred pounds overweight, I'm probably not doing myself any favors. If I drink soda 24 hours a day and just live off sugar, that's gotta be bad for my brain.
Dustin: you mentioned sleep and I, I imagine like stress. I wonder about some like alcohol. are there these top three things that you're like, you're probably thinking this is okay, but this is gonna really show up in 20 years, you're really gonna regret these kind of [00:15:00] day-to-day decisions that you're currently making.
Ryan: So, yeah, pretty perfect. And I didn't mean to tangent away from that question.
Dustin: Your context was like what we needed. I, maybe it selfishly I'm like, what do I need to take off the list of things I'm doing to ruin my brain right now? So
Ryan: you nailed it. So have what I call my core four, so, you know, top three, top four, I mean, pick up the core four kind of easy.
Ryan: so sleep is absolutely on there. These are in no particular order, by the way. so I'll just list them out. Go, you know, tap in each one. So sleep, nutrition, So movement slash exercise and then stress management, those are the big four they all, the mechanisms all interrelate with one another.
Ryan: Meaning that, if you have poor sleep, you're likely to have impaired fasting glucose, which affects your metabolic health. you're sleeping and you're tired. You might skip the gym. You tend to crave more sugary foods. I mean, so these things all interrelate, right? You feel more stress because of all the above.
Ryan: You're not body with the right things, you're not. So they play together, big symphony. but sleep, I mean, literally we could do a three hour talk on sleep period. so we'll [00:16:00] try not to off,
Dustin: we'll save that for Joe GaN those Yeah, we highlights.
Ryan: So the highlights sleep is non-negotiable. the term I'll sleep when I'm dead, like that is literal nails on a chalkboard to me.
Ryan: So, sleep has been conserved over millions of years of evolution and most animals sleep in some fashion because it's that important. When you think about the opportunity cost of like getting eaten by predator natural disaster, like why are you just lights out for eight or nine hours a day, one.
Ryan: this actually wasn't even known when I was in medical school. This came out halfway through med school, which is wild about. so there's this fluid flow through your brain that basically washes your brain of harmful proteins and, waste products. that system is mostly active while you sleep.
Ryan: It's a little bit activity during the day, but you know it's 90 plus percent active during sleep, during quality sleep, and it pulls away some of these proteins that accumulate. And these are the changes I'm talking about on [00:17:00] the brains that, that the medical examiners see, or, oh my gosh, person looks like they have Alzheimer's.
Ryan: So it pulls that stuff out of your brain. That only happens while. If you imagine over years and decades, you're not getting enough sleep, you're building up these toxic metabolites, these proteins that are slowly gunking up your neurons, creating more inflammation, that becomes a positive feed for a negative feed forward cycle.
Ryan: And it only accelerates the process. And by the way, the more that goes on, the more it interferes with your sleep architecture. So it makes, so sleep is. Nongo. There's a whole list of things that, I mean, there's great content out there. We talk about.
Ryan: Definitely,
Ryan: movement. there we can on on movement. If we spend three hours on sleep. but in general, I just, I want people to intentionally think about integrating movement into their day. We're designed to move. I'm in my office, I don't have a chair in my office. I have a standing desk, and that's how I'm talking [00:18:00] to you.
Ryan: It improves your spinal alignment, your posture. You burn 50 calories more an hour by standing, by using your anti-gravity muscles, which adds up over terms of maintaining lean mass, A walking
Ryan: pads, percent percent, just like. Walking and getting up and standing. That's not even dedicated. Strength training, cardiovascular training, high intensity interval training. There's so much to do that has its own benefits. So movement is non-negotiable. You've gotta do it. each different type has its benefits.
Ryan: Again, before I pull, dive, before we go down it, that's definitely a core pillar. nutrition. so again, nutrition's very nuanced, so this is a tougher one. And I'm sure you and your audience have experienced this, but there are a lot of diet camps out there in these camps tend to run in kind of fads and cycles.
Ryan: So, you know, I get people that are like the carnivore diets become popularly leave, not carnivore,
Ryan: [00:19:00] carnivore, low carbohydrate. High protein. Those are good things, but what is it not doing well? It's not giving you enough fiber, and it turns out fiber's pretty darn important for your gut microbiome to help clean your gut out to manufacture what are called short chain fatty acids, which your little gut microbes do that, produce neurotransmitters.
Ryan: So 90 to 95% of your serotonin, which we think about as a brain hormone because it mostly is, it's made in your gut. If your gut bacteria unhealthy, then you don't feel well. So if you want an easy fix to just your mood period, eat some more fiber. That's very helpful. and carnivore diet, you may not do that as an example.
Ryan: Again, not on the carnivore people. and people have their reasons for doing one thing over another, but. I think for a long time the evidence has been very unclear. And again, people tend to gravitate towards these tribes. And again, when you think about how we evolved, we evolved in tribes, people feel safe around like-minded folks, the entrepreneurial community, we've got seven figure leap, we've got Transcend Health, you know, we've got, so it, it's just how we are, right?
Ryan: We have to be aware of that. but I, try to approach this from an [00:20:00] evidence-based perspective. Meaning like, what do we know actually works? What do the brain
Dustin: on the nutrition front, if I. because as you were talking about the. you have all the right terms. my layman's term is cleaning out the gunk, right?
Dustin: Like one thing I've heard a lot more about recently with that is fasting. You know, the idea that when you get into like a 72 hour fast, does this regeneration, there's stem cell production, is there, truth to that is, is fasting a advisable part of a nutrition plan and whether it be an intermittent fast on a daily basis, or like a one to three day fast on a periodic basis?
Dustin: Great question.
Ryan: yes. So again, this is very nuanced. meaning, what works for one person may not work for another person. so, for example, intermittent daily fasting or time restricted eating is another name for that would be getting your calories in a limited window.
Ryan: So somewhere between 12 to.
Ryan: Of the, which is a great way to put it. I mean, quite that term is called autophagy. Yeah, exactly. [00:21:00] I knew there was a word autophagy. Yes. That, yeah. which literally means selfe. That's, that's a way that your cells clean themselves out. so that pathway is upregulated by a handful of things.
Ryan: So, exercise is one way that. That helps this, although it's a complex path, but fasting's another way. So is it intermittent daily fasting versus, you know, three day, five day quarterly, monthly? I mean, are different ways that
work. The whole idea is allowing that pathway to turn on for long enough that it's doing something and help helping you maintain those systems.
Ryan: the big problem I have with the.
Ryan: Over time, it appears that most people that do that have a, a loss of protein and that turns into cycling or, increased, muscle cell turnover. And that's a problem for a few reasons. Number one, muscle is incredibly metabolically active. again, our metabolism is a cornerstone to our health.
Ryan: So the higher your metabolic rate, the energy efficient your body is the correlate with longevity. So. Muscle, right? So. [00:22:00] A way around that. I have no relationship to this guy or his work, but, there's something called the Fasting Mimicking Diet that's been proposed by a guy named Ter Longo.
Ryan: he wrote a book called The Longevity Diet a few years ago that I love. , he gets into the neuroinflammation and the neurodegenerative stuff and all the autophagy. but the whole idea is that it's not zero calorie, it's just very low. I think it's, sorry, low protein, high fat, low carbohydrate.
Ryan: I think I've got that right. But the point is you're getting something and that seems to preserve protein, which is important. because after 30, we lose about one to 2% of our muscle mass a year. And that only gets worse as we get older, especially after age 60. You preferentially lose what are called type two fibers, which are the quick twitch strength fibers.
Ryan: so you think about standing up outta a chair or walking, balancing all those things, that, that becomes a real problem the older we get. And we've gotta maintain those, those are used or lose it because that, those stem cells you were talking about earlier, they don't work as well as we age.
Ryan: Our stem cells dysfunctioning is actually a problem with, with our, our senescence or our cellular senescence, which are, which is what hallmark of aging as we get older. And so we lose the muscle. It [00:23:00] can't come back. So you really have to maintain it and people that are doing these prolonged water only fast or at risk for losing more muscle.
Ryan: So that's, an issue I have with that option. and some people tolerate it well, other people, I mean, they get, get headaches.
Ryan: There seems to be comparative data, meaning the similar outcomes for people that practice what's called caloric restriction. So meaning if you are, taking in slightly less than you need every day, enough to maintain a lean mass over time, that appears to have many of the same benefits as fasting does, and there are camps in the scientific community with both of these.
Ryan: There are lots of healthy debate there. stance is somewhere individual.
Dustin: That's super useful. I appreciate you letting me nerd out on that. That was a bit of a selfish question. fasting tends to work really well for me. I feel really good when I particularly like the intermittent, you know, restricted eating windows.
Dustin: It just, that's been an antidote to me for the lifestyle that I choose of being very, busy during the day [00:24:00] and very, active here, like on Zoom, but, and we're gonna talk about stress, which is probably kind of the hallmark one that entrepreneurs in particular can relate to. The things I wrote down, and again, I'm not trying to cliff notes, this, this is your entire work, the core four.
Dustin: But, you sleep eight hours a day, around there you're doing a huge benefit to yourself if you're eating clean, particularly high, high end protein to maintain some muscle mass and not missing out on fiber. So that kind of blew my mind, that 90% Of what you need, in the sense of, you know, you got the right words for it. There's like a 90% effect of what's produced in your gut that has a direct effect on your brain. Health and fiber is a really key part of that, and that's a part that I think a lot of us, with some of these more fad diets, uh, will, uh, dismiss as like, so fiber is super important.
Dustin: And then the other thing you, that kind of blew my mind, you're like, if you have 10,000 steps a day. It's a 40% reduction in Alzheimer's risk, and then there's a 40% improvement in another thing. What was that one?
Ryan: It also 40% [00:25:00] risk. Thereabout i's 38, 39 in all cause mortality. So your risk of dying of anything goes down by about 40%.
Ryan: If you just walk 10,000 steps a day, which by the way is like miles or something.
Dustin: those three of the four, uh, big fours, we talked. Not like exotic, but responsible nutrition that you do consistently and then moving 10,000 steps a day, even if, you know, a chunk of that is by having a standing desk and maybe getting a treadmill functionality at your desk. or one of the things I like to do, I
do a lot of Zoom calls, but when I have a break from Zoom calls, I will go walk, you know, I'll just go outside and walk.
Dustin: If I'm gonna do. Voxer messages or make a quick phone call instead of sitting and doing that, at least I'll get out and I'll move. and I do get those 10,000 steps a day most days. and I think that that's a really good benchmark for someone who otherwise is a slave to their desk and doesn't get out and move enough.
Dustin: So that leaves us with the fourth of the core four, and then we'll actually talk about your business. But we, we kind of move the teaching moment from the end of the podcast.
Dustin: [00:26:00] This is the one I hear about all the time, and I, on calls or in mastermind groups or whatever, it's sort of the real common enemy of the entrepreneur is stress. So like how do we combat stress? And, when a lot of us are sort of self inducing stress in the, the lifestyle choices we're making and how we're doing our work.
Ryan: And one more on
Ryan: Theon Day.
Ryan: Which again, there are tons of reasons for that. Your brain's about, uh, 60% fat, and it's olive oil, fresh olive oils. Got a lot of work called polyphenols and antioxidants helps with neuroinflammation. So you've got building blocks for the brain. You've got, improved inflammation, so on and so forth. So another fun one.
Ryan: Yes, whole food, non-pro, plus your fiber, your protein, your olive oil. All good. First off, the first three pillars, by the [00:27:00] way, if you are able to maximize those, that by definition lowers stress. Because when you're well rested, when you're sleeping well, when you wake up, we've all had that great feeling of, oh man, I got a great night's sleep, right? When you're maybe, you know, on vacation in St.
Ryan: Augustine and you're not work, work, work, right? That becomes the minority experience, right? That becomes the treat on vacation. Not I get to wake up feeling this good every day. Like that's how we should be. Not some remote thing we get for like two weeks a year if that, you knows, average vacation or whatever. anyway. Prioritizing sleep will absolutely help with stress management, helps with mood, helps with focus, right?
Ryan: All the things. So that's easy. the right types of dedicated exercise help with memory formation, which helps with focus, which helps people throughout their workday. Same thing with nutrition. Obviously the right fuel in your body's gonna help you perform better, so on and so forth. I mean, that already moves the needle tremendously for what that's worth.
Ryan: But assuming people are doing all that and feeling like, man, I'm still [00:28:00] stuck. I don't know. there's some other useful tips and things I think that really help. One is how is your brain designed to work? Your brain wakes up about 2% of your entire body weight. So based on your whole mass, very small burns, 20% of your body's entire energy.
Ryan: Incredibly, incredibly expensive organ to run. Again, most important in the body makes sense. Very energy intensive process. So because it burns really hot, it can't do that really well or efficiently for more than about 90 minutes at, at a time before you really need a break. there are these rhythms in your body that.
Ryan: if you time block work, if you're an entrepreneur, right? Say I've got all my Zoom meetings, my schedule, my whatever. don't put work more than about 90 minutes together at a time without taking the dust and break to go outside and just stretch and breathe and then move, right? that's a perfect opportunity to go get some of your steps in like you're doing, and to just push away from the work.
Ryan: Push away from the.
Ryan: [00:29:00] The workplace should be structured this way instead of sitting in the cubicle all day, where people, you know, maybe they're productive for an hour or however long, or maybe they've just slammed like three jelly donuts and
they immediately have an insulin, you know, spike and crash and they're asleep on their desk and not get any work done.
Ryan: Or they're, all they can do is Facebook or whatever, right? I mean, like we, we've seen this so, not healthy
Dustin: or can do. And we've seen our doctors do it. My brother's an EMT, I'm like, he has the worst lifestyle. He is working 12 hours at a time, sitting in an ambulance. And I'm just like, wow. Like it's, the healthcare professionals are sometimes the ones who don't get the break, and don't get to take care of their lifestyle in this way.
Ryan: Dustin, do, you know how many nutrition courses I had in medical school? Zero. Oh my gosh, that's
Dustin: crazy.
Ryan: Doctors do not learn nutrition. I have had to teach myself this and learn it and go seek knowledge on my own. And look, look at the average physician. They're not healthy people. which fits with the general statistic?
Ryan: 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, which means they don't have optimal blood pressure, body mass index levels of cholesterol, bloodstream, blood.[00:30:00]
Ryan: Not most, almost all of us. 93%. Wow. 90 horrifying ramifications. No surprise. which leads to more stress and inflammation, so. Back to our regular scheduled program, back to stress management. 90 minutes with 10 to 15 minutes off. Easy. Push away. Get up, move. That's a good opportunity. Just get outside, get some pressure.
Ryan: That's an easy one. what else can you do? There's a whole bunch. So if you're really feeling spun up, one thing I love to do is, one of two things either. So meditation, so being mindful, you can do that in your 10 to 15 minute breaks too. the whole idea is that you are disengaging your fight or flight system, which is called your sympathetic nervous system that gets us ready for battle or run, you know, to fight the tribe or run away from the bear, whatever can fight or flight.
Ryan: The opposite of that is your para sympathetic nervous system. So does this down. Lowers heart rate, lowers blood pressure, gets us in a relaxed state, actually allows us to focus. And when you're in that [00:31:00] sympathetic mode, by the way, the fight or flight mode, your connections to your frontal lobes, which is what you used to think and plan, are get like knocked offline.
Ryan: you can't think and process information very efficiently. So you're in a more frantic state anyway. You're less efficient. And over time when you stay in that state, you have an elevated sympathetic tone that actually correlates with decreased longevity overall. So meaning people tend to live shorter lifespans.
Ryan: Well, because you're stressed out all the time. Your cortisol's elevated, your blood pressure's, elevated. All the changes, map that out 30, 40 years and, and congratulations, heart Alzheimer's, whatever. Right? I don't mean to be, whatever. You, you get it.
Dustin: So, yeah. No, I totally get it.
Dustin: And Double click. I guess this too. I think one thing that the people I work with and, something I used to sort of a false badge I used to wear was, oh, you know, I'm on Zoom for 12 hours or whatever. Like, yeah, look at me. Well, ultimately we control this, right? And so even if you're an entrepreneur, I.
Dustin: You set your Calendly schedule just to make this really practical, right? So in built in, build in the 30 minute breaks and like you mentioned, meditation, you know, breath work. One of the, things I like to do in my [00:32:00] walks, a couple times a day, I call 'em God walks. You know, as a person of faith, it's
maybe a, different form of, meditation.
Dustin: It's just like a unplugged sort of like conversation with God and I'm just walking and I don't have a phone and I'm just. Having this sort of, offline conversation, with a higher being. And to me that's a very calming, and I guess it's the parasympathetic, puts me in into that state so that by the time I get back to my office, I feel completely reset and refreshed.
Dustin: And so everyone does have the ability, especially as an entrepreneur. I mean, one of the ironic thing is one of the reasons we wanna have our own business and be an entrepreneur is to escape that cubicle control. And it would become our own worst enemies, chain ourselves to our desks, sit all day and never get a break.
Dustin: And ultimately you do that to yourself, I'm speaking of course to myself, but also to, a lot of our listeners who maybe are sitting here like, that sounds great. how do I do that? Well, like, have to do that. Like you get to, you get to choose it, and you get to build it into your schedule, right?
Ryan: nailed it, Dustin. And so that's schedule point number two is exactly what you just said, and that is leave time in your week [00:33:00] and there are any number of ways you can do this. So not just you know, the 90 minutes with the 15 minute breaks, but time block chunks of time off for you. So time to take the God walk.
Ryan: Time to go, go to the gym, if that's your thing. Time to spend with your family. just protected time just to, be by yourself. one of my favorite things to do is to leave my phone on doing not disturb mode. I tend to do this when I'm at the gym because that's sort of like my zen time or whatever.
Ryan: Or even if I'm in the sauna, which we can go to sauna cold pl tube, great stress eruption techniques and cardiovascular health. as entrepreneurs, we have the calendar and we see an empty spot and we fill it, right? And that's just, what we do. And it's important to treat that time.
Ryan: I mean, back to putting you first, right? Being selfish, you know, put you time, time for you and your family because you've have that number one, gotta have that reset button. It's non-negotiable, like sleep number, number two. sympathetic state into the parasympathetic state is there when something like the best breakthroughs happen.
Ryan: So like if you really want a productivity hack or whatever, do that. I mean, it's like, the shower moments where like you have the greatest idea ever in the shower and you gotta go write it down or [00:34:00] whatever. Like it's not because you're in the shower, it's because you aren't doing anything else.
Ryan: You're have your phone in your hand, you're not on a Zoom call, you're not having to be on the stage, you're just.
Ryan: Process what you're going through and don't leave enough time for that in our culture. Again, I mean the rate and sheer volume of information that our brains have to filter and process today is not what we were designed to handle.
Ryan: I mean, you and I in terms of bits.
Ryan: Time important. and if we, one more before.
Dustin: One more, and then we'll, our last 10 minutes to talk about how you're actually helping people do this with Transcend Health. But yeah, one more on stress and then we'll, we'll move on to talking more about your business what you're up
Ryan: to.
Ryan: Wonderful. Well, one that I'm, I've just seen more on, social media. This has been in the literature for at least the last handful of years, so something I followed, but, alcohol consumption and, I'm sure your audience is, I mean, familiar with it and, you know, this is part of our culture and [00:35:00] I think a decision that everybody has to make.
Ryan: But my general stance and my take in the literature is that there is no proven medical benefit of consuming alcohol. that is what it's, I'll skip the
metabolic mechanisms, but this metabolized into a toxin that can impact your brain, your liver, your whole body.
Ryan: It's a poison effectively is what it turns into. It happens to be a poison that makes us feel good for a period of time, and it offers an escape from all the stress of daily life, which is why people gravitate towards it. Again, back to frontal lobe effects and social behaviors, et cetera.
Ryan: So, I mean, makes sense why people do it. so I'm not throwing stones in a glass house. I choose to have a nice glass of wine every now and then, or like a good German beer, right? So I still choose to do these things sparingly because I do enjoy the flavor. but man, I mean, there have been so much data lately.
Ryan: Quality data, mind you, on people that even just have a, a drink a day. So like used to recommend this to my patients. This is what I was trained to tell people is, oh one two drinks for men and one drink for women, which also is [00:36:00] just sexist to tell and just whatever. Anyway, uh, I'll skip that. but that really just, just one alcoholic unit.
Ryan: Thinning of the cortex. These where your, your brain cells live on, the outside of your brain, thins the cortex and over time can lead to dementia. literally, I see patients that drink maybe more than a drink a day that are heavy drinkers. But there's a specific type of dementia that alcohol itself causes, over time because of the destruction, all the neurons and the metabolism.
Ryan: B. That sets you on that path one, but two, alcohol is very stressing to the body. It elevate the body's stress responses and so depress when, but wears off, get this rebound spike of all stress hormones. And so I think when most people, you know, get off. From work and or it's the weekend they wanna unwind.
Ryan: They're actually starting to feel a little miniature withdrawal and Ryan: unwind. Everybody's rollercoaster.
Ryan: [00:37:00] But that's a man, that's a really easy one for people to just stop and may take a couple weeks for most people to kind of get past that. But the mental clarity, the decreased levels of stress, I mean, long-term brain health, I mean, the benefits are endless lowered cancer risk. I could go on and on.
Dustin: appreciate you bringing it up.
Dustin: might shared this in our, personal conversation. I gave up alcohol on my 45th birthday, which is coming up on a year ago. very much like you described, you know, it was, A social thing but as I got honest with it, I'm like, why am I really doing this? It was a stress blocker in a sense, right?
Dustin: Like, I wanna check out, so I'm gonna like, Hey, you, I'm gonna have, have a drink or have a couple drinks and have an excuse to go have drinks with people to make it social and in my own reality. And of course that was like the core issue with my, my own dad and the dimension, all the things he dealt with.
Dustin: I'm sure it was heavily influenced by that, a life, a whole life full of overconsumption of alcohol. So I gave it up, about a year ago. That's the number one thing I can say without hands down, without a doubt. That's like the number one thing I've done that I've. Noticeably felt way better [00:38:00] and more productive and more mental clarity.
Dustin: And it improved my sleep and it improved my eating habits, like all the Core four for me were directly affected by removing alcohol from my life. And if you do wanna a deep dive on this, obviously you can, go to to to Ryan and his
resources for me. I listened to this long podcast on the Huberman Lab podcast, all about effects alcohol in your brain and it.
Dustin: Blew my mind, you know, to use a crude term. And I was like. Oh, and wasn't in that moment that I decided to stop, but, for me, I took a break through doing 75 hard through doing a different sort of protocol and a, a challenge. And then I started just really asking myself like, what benefits is this providing me?
Dustin: You know, like I can feel a lot of benefits of not doing it and, but like, why do I keep going back to it? And so when I finally just took it out as an option, like I'm just not doing it. for anyone listening who's sort of sober curious or like, man, I wonder if that could be. A needle mover.
Dustin: I think for many of us in our culture and in the entrepreneurial lifestyle, and can only speak from personal experience, that's been the number one change for me that I think has affected all the core four. [00:39:00] I wasn't gonna necessarily bring it up, I'm really grateful that you did. But as you were talking about all these things, I'm like, yeah, when I quit drinking, like I did all these things better.
Dustin: and it was a very simple choice, but a pretty profound impact.
Ryan: Thank you for sharing, Dustin. I mean, I've had a similar experience and I dunno if any your audience may, wear some kind of a sleep tracker, like a whoop band. I have an ora ring that I wear, which
Dustin: is Yeah, even my Apple watch, like my resting heart rate dropped like 10 beats a minute when I eliminated alcohol for my life.
Dustin: it's
Ryan: unbelievable. I mean, like I said, even on a night that like birthday was like one of the last nights I two wine.
Ryan: My heart rate variability dropped, you know, my heart rate spiked. I had to give a speech the next day and I was all shake. I felt terrible. I'm like, this is, this is wild. Like when you really, again, you remove yourself from the equation and, jump back into something like that, I mean, it, it really is striking.
Ryan: so anyway, yes, there's, there's plenty of data behind this and, and again, it's a personal choice and you know, again, dust.
Dustin: Need any support or wanna talk to 'em about that? I'm happy to be, a resource. It's something that [00:40:00] comes up a lot in our mastermind. Now, I've sort of led this, just by example. I've never preached to anyone else you should or shouldn't drink, but we, we had an in-person retreat that you mentioned in St.
Dustin: Augustine, and I kind of found myself looking around. I'm like, no one's drinking. You and that's. Pretty remarkable for a group of 20 entrepreneurs who are on a beach. It's just like no one was. And it wasn't a prescriptive thing, it was just sort of like, what we've become as a group.
Dustin: And I think it's just a lot of people that are wanting to opt, optimize their health and optimize their impact in the world. And this was a, a choice we can make. That was a pretty easy choice, to make a big impact. So I really appreciate you. Bringing that up. But let's talk about Transcend Health.
Dustin: Let's talk about how you help people. And if people are like, man, I need some more, uh, Dr. Ryan Williamson in my life. Like, how do you work at this current time? And of course we wanna talk about the book before we, we run out of our time today.
Ryan: Of course. well, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.
Ryan: So, transcend health group.com, which I'm happy to get you if you don't have that. is our website and there are really three main ways that people can get involved now if they wanna. I did recently start private coaching. I was very resistant to it for a long [00:41:00] time. I'll spare you that story.
Ryan: but I, for people that really need.
Ryan: Again, they're core four, but if you're a busy business owner, you're experiencing cognitive fatigue, stress, any of this, , that's of concern. Which turns out, again, as most people, as I have found, that I'm here to help. I mean, that's, really why I made the decision to do it, because the need was there and like once I opened the door, people just started pouring in.
Ryan: Do it, but, here, here to help. Happy to do it. So that's one model. we do have a group membership. So this is an ongoing month to month membership, called the Longevity and Legacy Membership. So it's a mastermind type community where you can share stories with fellow entrepreneurs, hang out network.
Ryan: We use Circle as our private membership portal, which is great. I do, I. Yeah. Circle, yeah. Circles. Awesome. actually I can toggle between lifestyle too, which is perfect.
Ryan: Zoom calls. so for example, call on Thursday on Micros, which is a whole horrifying new threat that we're just [00:42:00] starting. speaking of anxiety and stress management, I'm gonna debrief to people after that call, um, talk about they're gonna wanna drink after they learn about micro. Exactly. Uh, awesome. Um, yeah.
Ryan: Well, and we, we'll do alcohol, we'll do sleep or, or just, movement, whatever. I mean, whatever the topic of the day is, there's always, you know, something.
Ryan: At the start of that membership, which is last fall, I took people through really the, what I call the foundational content. And as new members come into the community, they can certainly watch old calls and, get up to speed. But then I thought, well, how can I fast track people that wanna join the membership?
Ryan: So we then have the, what we call our, coaching cohort. So it's a smaller group of people, kind of designed to be five a.
Ryan: Order to get you up to speed on all the lifestyle metrics and just a deeper dive on basically what you and I are covering today, plus a lot more. And so then people feel pretty empowered, pretty educated after [00:43:00] that. the membership is included for that duration, so people get to sample both and they can transition into the membership or if they think, Hey, that was great, but I need some extra help.
Ryan: Private coaching. So they're just different ways to pivot all around there. of course we got the book coming out. that'll be September 9th. Is the publication date. So very excited. It's my first book. so this has been learning process for me to say the least. have you written a book or No?
Dustin: I did actually, I wrote, a marriage book. So my very first online business was in marriage. So I've written a marriage book. I am currently in the process of, my entrepreneurial book. So, It's a lot of work and it's, definitely gotta have a passion and mission behind why you're doing it to get it done.
Dustin: So, kudos to you for embarking on that. So, can you share a little bit, I don't know if you have a, you know, a title you wanna, share or unveil here and a little bit about like, who the book's for and, obviously we can't quite get it, but we can mark our calendar for September 9th when it comes out.
Ryan: Of course, yeah. So you know all about this whole process then. So again, it's been a journey for me and, it is a lot of work and that's how important the mission is to me, is to, to get this word out to more people at scale. So, I mean, obviously more people can read a book [00:44:00] than I could ever, you know, hope to have one-on-ones with, right.
Ryan: so the Incredible Brain is the title. So that's, gonna be it. And then I think it's, there's a subtitle. It's like, proven Strategies for Living a Longer, healthier, more Impactful Life, or something like that, or evidence-based Strategies, one of the two, which is all true, either way. But, the book really is for any, I mean, so I, write to an avatar, which is the Amber Method, if you've ever.
Ryan: Come across the way that she does this. But, so my avatar is this 37-year-old guy named Steven. He's married to Sarah. They've got two kids. He's a busy finance professional. his weight is starting to slip. He's starting to get the receding hairline gray hair. So that's, I mean, like we can all relate to that in some fashion.
Ryan: Right. But that doesn't just mean his name could be Dustin. He could be 45. Yes. I gotcha. But that, that's the point, right.
Ryan: How their body, how their effectively, how[00:45:00]
Ryan: purpose. And what drives you? What's your, what's your motivation? What are your passions to really get people activated and thinking about that, because again, you know, you mentioned Huberman, who I love. I think he puts out great content. and any, and certainly has had people on that have done this, but lot of that kind of content is how content and Core four is how, right.
Ryan: So, I mean, it's lifestyle, it's building and all these different, you know, therapies.
Ryan: I think when people are so busy and they're disconnected from their why and their deeper mission, it's like, dude, I. 500 things to do today. I don't need one more. I don't need to go to the gym, or I don't need to go buy this olive oil or, or whatever the thing is. Right? Yeah. But when you understand the purpose and how it improves your performance and gets you closer to your goals and what's important, then it becomes an integrated, aligned part of your life and you get to do more of it.
Ryan: Right. that's the disconnect that I think a people miss and
Dustin: Starting with why, and not [00:46:00] just a general why, because we're gonna have a tripling of Alzheimer's by 2050. But like your why, like why is this important to you and why do you need to make changes and tweaks and optimizations and why is it worth your time and your energy to recalibrate towards, some of these things that aren't debatable?
Dustin: They're scientific fact. And you've got obviously all the evidence, What is effectively simple, right? Like that's what I, the most important things in life, of course, are really easy to do and easy not to do. And therefore we tend to sometimes not do them. And then we have these long-term issues.
Dustin: So I love the name, the Incredible Brain, and I love the fact that you start with a focus on why and getting, helping people get clear on their why and their, purpose behind why this is so important to them and things that they care about. Because some of the things I care about aren't the same as what you.
Dustin: It sounds like, regardless of why you're doing it, you need to be plugged into that and then that's gonna help you inform the how and actually do some best practices.
Ryan: So, so why is upfront, part one [00:47:00] is sort of, how does your body work? What can go wrong, right? So that's sort of that. And then there's a lot of kind of how to fix it, peppered in there just to give hope, because it gets pretty dark if I don't do that. Um, but then, so that's part one. Part two is just how do you fix it?
Ryan: So what, what are the mechanisms you can put in place? And to your very point, Justin. I mean, it, it, it's simple and I think that's like one of my biggest challenges with people is they're like, yeah, I've heard all this before and it's not some sexy new peptide, or, go fly here and get these stem cells or some new, GLP one ozempic.
Ryan: I mean, okay, this, those things will have their place for the right application. But I mean. Again, like the vast majority is simple, simple stuff that we just can't overlook people aren't and aligned. the rest.
Dustin: Man, I told Ryan 30 minutes. We're we're 52, so, I have to honor his time and end it here, but, , maybe we'll have you back. I mean, we can do a whole deep dive on alcohol and entrepreneurship or sleep or nutrition. That, to [00:48:00] your point, the core four is fascinating and I just, of course, I'm a bit of a junkie for some of the optimizations and.
Dustin: In this interview is the profound impact of some of these changes that you can totally control.
Dustin: Aren't taking away from your busy lifestyle, they're actually fueling it and helping you live your mission in a bigger way. So, well, we're all going to eagerly anticipate the release of the book. I'll be your biggest fan. I'll definitely
help you promote that. today, as, as people are listening to this and the book's not quite ready for us, if people want some more of your insights and they wanna know more about how you can help, what is the next best step for people, Ryan to get over into your world?
Ryan: So over to group, and an send an
Ryan: optimization.
Ryan: There's one on stress management, one on brain health optimization. So those are the big three I think [00:49:00] people can nab on there. and then, yeah, then from there, I mean if people wanna try out the membership or schedule a Zoom call with me just to hear more if they're interested in one route or another, be more than happy to talk to anybody.
Ryan: And, uh, of course I'm on social media too, so that's at Dr. Ryan Williamson and then at Trenton Health Group. So, and follow along there. Try to put at a few times a week to share information that way as well. And newsletter.
Dustin: Well, you're, uh, doing great work and, it's clear, it's coming from your heart, it's coming from your own, experience and all these different settings and all the different things that you've, been through and that you've witnessed, in all this, this amazing neurological work that, that you've been called to do.
Dustin: So I'm very grateful to call you a friend and a colleague, and I'm really grateful that you, took so much time and, poured in to all this value to our community today. Ryan, so Transcend Health Group. Com, that's the home base. Go there, get on the email newsletter. I think the eight week cohort in particular really kind of spoke to me as a, let's, let's get in and have a structured way to implement this and make it part of our [00:50:00] lifestyle because there's no time like the present to make some of these changes because they're just.
Dustin: the most important changes you can make, it's not the 80 20, it's like the 1 99. Like this is the 1% that you really have to treat well to have an optimal life. and I I love the core question, why are you doing all this? And if you're doing all this because you wanna live a more fulfilling, happy life, you have a family, you care about the number one thing you gotta do.
Dustin: To fuel all that and your business and all the people you wanna help is to take care of yourself and especially, take care of your brain. So, Ryan, thank you again so much for being here. Go to transcend health group com and get plugged into Ryan's world.
Ryan: Thank you so much. Dust it. [00:51:00] [00:52:00]