The Children Have It Right
The Children Have It Right
Introduction and Episode Title
(0:00 - 0:17)
Hi, this is Dr. Daniels and you're listening to Healing with Dr. Daniels and this is the Sunday, June 20th, 2021 edition. And the title is The Children Have It Right. Yep, you heard that.
Show Content and Updates
(0:17 - 2:22)
Today, I'm going to share with you how resuming many childish activities has allowed me to regain the energy, flexibility, and joy of my youth, even at the bright young age of 64. But first, I want to say a special hello and congratulations. Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there. And even if you're not officially a father, I want to let you know that I, as a woman, who have received incredible advice, assistance, encouragement, and kindness from many men who I consider to be father-like, I'd like to let you know that even though you might not have children, you've probably been a father-like figure to many people. So, happy Father's Day to you as well. Yes.
(2:22 - 2:29)
Well, that brings us to Mom. Mom, there's really not much to say except she's doing well and just tooling along here, and she has every intention and plan to make her 90th birthday. So, here we are, and it's the countdown. She's having a great time, increasing her mobility, chit-chatting with her children, and just doing well. That's the Mom update.
Product and Routine Updates
(2:29 - 7:04)
Next is Vitality Capsules. Well, Vitality Capsules. So, we are continuing to source, I think, down to one final ingredient, as you'll recall from last time. All the ingredients have had passed the preliminary testing. And what we do, though, is we order a sample and send it to pass all the tests. And then we receive the bulk amount and put that through test two. And so, more often than we would like, the bulk amount does not pass all the tests. And so, when that happens, we have to send it back and then resource the material. So, we are at that stage with only one ingredient. Yay! Out of a total of nine. So, we're getting really close to production here, and we're really excited. Cross your fingers.
(7:04 - 7:31)
Okay, questions. I do answer questions at the end of the show as time allows. And you can send your questions to jdaaniels@gmail.com. That's jdaaniels@gmail.com. Okie doke.
(7:31 - 9:50)
And I'd like to do an update of myself. Unlike Mom, there's a lot of developments. So, as many of you know, at the ripe old age of 60, I decided, what the heck? Why not do calisthenics and gymnastics? I mean, why not? And so, I have mastered my left front splits and my right front splits, continue to work on my center splits. And I've mastered my backbends. But it turns out that backbends are very interesting. So, you can do a backbend, or you can do a backbend with a leg in the air, or you can do a backbend and flip over doing a backbend walkover. So, I'm working on improving those things with the backbends. And that's actually working quite well. And I wish I knew how to send pictures or share pictures with you, but I am so thrilled and happy with my progress.
(9:50 - 10:50)
Now, you might say, "Well, Dr. Daniels, that's pretty darn abstract, right? Backbend, backbend, walkover, really? So what? Big deal." Because now, I can cross four lanes of highway traffic without anxiety or stress. And I know I can make it to the other side. Whereas as recently as three years ago, I would literally stand on the curb and wonder, "Where's the Boy Scout when you need him?" And now, I have the strength, the coordination, and the agility to not only figure out when to cross the street but to execute that in a timely manner.
(10:50 - 12:00)
So before, I would figure, "Okay, I can see an opportunity here to cross the street, but I don't think I can make it to the median in time without getting hit. Or if I make it to the median, I don't have the power to stop myself and stabilize myself at the median." So as you get older and less coordinated and stiffer, you realize, ah, all these things that you did just so easily when you were younger are just so difficult. And so I was just thrilled to report that I can now cross four lanes of pretty fast traffic safely without assistance.
Turpentine Routine
(12:00 - 15:28)
And that really is what inspired me to do today's show, which is, uh, how is it that I can regain all these skills that I had in my childhood? But wait, I digress. We have not taken our turpentine. Let me take my turpentine, and then we'll get back to that. Alrighty, first, we're gonna get a spoon. This is, I'm full of ass, what kind of spoon? This is a United States teaspoon. Yes. It holds five cc's of liquid and five grams of solid stuff. That's if it's leveled off. So that's the teaspoon we're looking at here. Here we have sugar. This is, yep, cane sugar, white sugar. And I labeled it sugar. Why did I label it? Why would I label it sugar? Because it could be anything. It could be sugar. It could be salt. It could be cornstarch. It could be vitamin C. We don't know. So we label it just so we know.
(15:28 - 16:00)
And this is the amount of sugar that I like to get. It comes out to more or less a teaspoon and a half. Then we have our turpentine. Yay! Turpentine here's a bottle. And it is labeled close enough. So see, it is turpentine, not something else. We have here our pipette. This is two and a half, actually three cc's, but it's two and a half right up here to the neck. And two and a half cc's is the amount that I take every day. Honestly, I do miss about one or two days a week. But when you're doing calisthenics, splits, and cartwheels, you definitely need turpentine every day. All right, yep, keeps those joints nice and limber. And we're just going to squirt this on here.
(16:00 - 16:50)
As you can see, if I block the, yeah, you can see that the front of the spin where I stripped the turpentine is a little bit grayish. And that's what it's going to look like for you. Uh, the part that turpentine covers is going to change color, and that's totally normal. All right, sugar out of the way. And we have water! Yay, water! You want to chase with enough water to get all the way down to your tummy. You don't want it stuck halfway in your chest. Some people have burping, burp up turpentine, and that varies from person to person. Sometimes I have that, but usually, I don't. So I try and take mine in the morning. That way, I just get it out of the way.
(16:50 - 17:22)
And this is Shilajit. As you can see, I am not a neatnik. However, in the tropics, this is really gooey and runny. But if you live further north, where the weather's cooler, it'll be stiffer and it won't be as gooey. But that's what it looks like. Then I just stick my little chopstick in there, pull that out, and I'll just show you their side view. That's pretty darn gooey. You want 200 milligrams. That is clearly more than 200 milligrams. Those of you who are experts with such things. And so I just scrape it off. And some days I'll have a little more than 200 milligrams, and some days I'll have a little bit less. This stuff does not taste good. I'll just alert you there.
(17:22 - 18:39)
I would say between turpentine and Shilajit, the turpentine is easier to get down. Now, water. Put this in here. As you can see, it does not dissolve easily. We're gonna let it sit for a while. There. Why would anyone take Shilajit? Well, we take Shilajit because our mineral biological chain of receiving minerals is broken. The way it works is people eat food, people poop, and when they poop, they poop out some of their minerals. But they use their minerals to fertilize the plants that they eat. And then when they eat the plants, they get the minerals back. And this is a cycle. It's a cycle. People eat plants, poop, plants eat minerals, get minerals back to people, people poop, plants eat minerals, people get minerals back. Right. Okay.
(18:39 - 19:50)
And in that scenario, one always has enough minerals. However, if you're watching this show, you probably have something called a flush toilet. Or you have a method of waste disposal that does not involve your plants being fertilized with your waste. Yeah. And because that chain is broken, taking Shilajit fixes it. What is Shilajit? Shilajit is a naturally occurring, actually mineral deposits. They literally scoop it out of the ground, put it in a bucket like this for you. And that is it. That is all the processing involved. Now I could be a perfectionist. Close this, but, yeah. Okay. So that's the Shilajit story. There are other minerals. There's colloidal minerals. There's folic minerals from Utah and other different deposits. However, the deposits in Russia, to my knowledge, are at the most diverse spectrum of minerals. What this means is just by taking those, you can remediate all of your trace mineral deficiencies. You don't need to engage in expensive testing. This little bucket costs more than any test you would do for trace minerals, and it solves the problem. So there you have it.
Main Topic: The Benefits of Childlike Activities
(19:50 - 29:08)
All right. So we're talking about deteriorating over time and literally either reversing that or just avoiding it. So I originally was going to name this show, I Won't Grow Up and Why You Shouldn't Either, but that would be negative. So we're going to keep it positive. Children have it right. And so as years have passed, there have been many changes, but I've watched people older than me, and of course, as a doctor, you definitely see the effects of aging. And I watched them and I accepted that that was just the way it was. I had to find a way to maybe delay aging, but hey, how about skipping it altogether? I realized that it's a choice. You can just skip it altogether.
(29:08 - 38:06)
So the past four years, I literally reversed so many things in my body that have happened that I thought were just like, okay. I've literally discovered that many things I accepted as reality and inevitable are simply not true. These things are not inevitable. And the good news is, of course, this can only give you hope, but these are things that you can do as well to level up your life. And the first thing was the attitude change. This is huge, huge. Because if you don't have the attitude change, then you can't do the rest. You can't look like me at 64 and do calisthenics and splits. So you need an attitude change. You cannot ask questions like, should I do this? Or is someone else going to disapprove? Or what else should I be doing? Those are the wrong questions. Let me give you a new set of questions to ask yourself. If I had no other experience, could this be wrong? Could I be wrong? That was, could I be wrong about aging? Could I be wrong about putting on extra weight as I get older? Could I be wrong about becoming stiff and just less active as I get older? Could I be wrong that it's to be expected that I wouldn't be able to jump and run and skip at age 60? Could that be wrong? Or what else could be true? And what's the best that could happen?
(38:06 - End)
So that was if I work on learning to run again, learning to skip again, learning to jump again, what's the best that could happen? Well, the best that could happen, of course, is I could succeed. And also, is it going to be fun? Of course, it's going to be fun. So these are questions that children ask. Children ask, what else could be true? What's the best that could happen? Is this going to be fun? So if you just switch your questions to those questions, it opens up a whole new world of consideration, of possibilities, and of excitement. I mean, like, thrilling excitement, I tell you. So those are the questions I ask myself now. I ask myself those questions. And try asking yourself these questions and see the amazing answers that you get. Next, as a kid, there were a lot of foods I ate. And as an adult, I just started to stop eating them. Stopped. Listen, let me go back to eating some of those foods. Now, my ethnic background or cultural background is different from maybe many of my listeners. But everybody has some type of cultural background, right? You've got culture. It's just what it is. And so there are probably foods you ate as a kid. And those foods gave you your energy, gave you your flexibility, gave you your beautiful skin, and gave you what many people interpret as youth. So in my case, what I did was I took a look and said, what foods did I stop eating as an adult? What foods just went away? I don't know how it happened. They're just not there anymore. And I stopped and I thought, and I said, oh my god, jello. I stopped eating jello. And you know, whatever you want to say about jello, it contains gelatin, which helps the joints. Also, I ate pickled pig's feet. Another huge gelatin source. Next, even though we didn't have Kool-Aid, I would drink my Kool-Aid half strength or quarter strength, never full strength. And so eating the jello, eating the pig's feet, it creates this kind of skin. It creates flexible joints. And drinking your Kool-Aid half strength or quarter strength means the sugar content in it is so low that it doesn't give you the ill effects of the sugar. And what else did I eat as a kid? A smothered liver. Yum, yum, yum. I loved my liver. And what does liver do? Liver fortifies your adrenal glands and just gets your whole body filled with excitement, optimism, and energy to carry through and do whatever. You can look at a hill and say, oh, I'm going to run up that hill. And just, boom, before you know it, you're at the top of the hill. And I can tell you, nowadays, when I go for a walk, a route that I walk, in order to get to the center of town, it's about half an hour. And I have to go up one big hill and then one smaller hill. And usually, when I'm walking, I would walk about two-thirds of the way up the big hill. I'll think, let me keep going. I know I can make it. I'm going to get to the top of this hill. As soon as I get to the top of this hill, I can go down. And then all I have is one little more hill. And I know I can make it. So I'm already giving myself this pep talk. All right. So now, since I've made the changes that I'm telling you about today, I am literally at the top of the hill already on the way down before I even think about that first big hill. And then I see a little hill. I'm like, oh, I've already finished the big hill without even knowing it. I'm going to savor the little hill and pay attention as I walk up the little hill and enjoy it. So it's a whole new experience. Why? Because I went back and started eating my childhood foods.
(38:06 - End)
Now, what else did I eat from childhood that just went away when I grew up? I mean, gone. Well, I always got the ham bone. Yes, the ham bone. So I had a family of two good-sized adults, no skinny minis there, and six of his children. And so when you buy a ham, no matter what size ham you buy for that number of people, by the second day, it's going to be pretty much gone. And so I was a middle child who was always, always, always interested in keeping the peas, keep the peas, keep the peas. And so I decided that I would eat the ham bone. And how do you eat the ham bone? What does that mean? Well, that means when everyone else gets all the meat that they want, there's little bits of meat on the ham bone. And I would slice those bits of meat about a quarter inch thick and slice them off the ham bone. And these pieces were about one inch tall by about two inches wide. And so literally, it was just the base that everyone cut their big slices off of. And so I'd take these little triangles, I would put it on the bread and put it all together, and that would be my sandwich. I was just so happy and pleased with myself. And I put some mayonnaise on it and bam, that was it. But what was that? That was a very rubbery collagen sandwich. And so as you might guess, as a kid, I was pretty flexible. So these are things that I have gone back to eating. The ham bone, I've not gone back to eating the ham bone because buying a ham is a huge prospect and I'm just not going to eat all of that. This is a lot to eat. So instead of buying a ham bone, I buy the long femur bone of the cow, and I boil that up. And I have gone back to eating my liver. It's amazing energy. I have not gone back to eating Kool-Aid, but what I do now is I just take fruit and slice it into the water and drink the water and definitely eat my pig's feet. And the jello, again, it's just gelatin. So I have all kinds of gelatin sources now. Pig ears, chicken feet, pig feet, cow feet. So I eat tons of gelatin. And this has just absolutely turned things around in terms of my flexibility, my joints. So when I was vegan, for example, I had pain-free joints, but they were not strong joints. Now I have strong joints. Now I can jump. Now I can run. Now I can do forward rolls and tumbles without injuring myself. So foods I stopped eating as an adult, foods I used to eat as a kid, I went right back. I eat these kiddie foods all the time.
Conclusion: The Power of Play and Simplicity
(38:06 - End)
Then is play. We're going to talk about physical play first. Now, when I went to school, I don't know if they still have it, but when I went to school, they had recess. So you had a one-hour lunch and you ate. And as soon as you finished eating, bam, run outside the playground and you run around and play. And what happened in recess is we kids would organize our own little games. And we would make up our own games, make up our own rules, we'd pick our team members. And obviously some people did not get picked. But it was an exercise in freedom and choosing our friends and choosing our activities and structuring our own activities. And everyone just did what they felt like doing. And if you didn't like someone, you didn't play with them. If you didn't like a game, you went and played another game. But now what happens is there's something called organized sports. This is very bad because it creates injuries. So kids are told, these are the rules. You have to follow these rules. Kids don't get to make rules, number one. And number two, they don't get to stop the game or change the rules when they're uncomfortable or to keep themselves from getting injured. It also limits their imagination, doesn't allow for changing rules to get a better outcome. And so the organized sports have literally, just my opinion, my opinion, reasonable minds may differ, really destroyed a lot of the better parts of being a child and of actually developing one's physical skills and abilities. So now I play. I practice walking on all fours around the house. And then there's the body twirls where you're on all fours and you just lift up one limb and then the other and flip over without your butt touching the ground. So all these different disorganized activities, I do. Why? Just because I feel like it. And I get the grandkids together and everybody gets their own water pistol gun, fill it with water. We have a bucket of water, and we just spray, spray, spray each other. And if the kids look like they're not winning, I say, okay, I'll, I'll, you know, not spray so hard or not spray at all. Or we'll switch the game up instead of a game where they're trying to spray me and not get wet. It's 90 degrees out here. I tell my grandkids, look, I want to get wet. I'm going to stand right here and you spray me. They're like, oh, okay. So we switched the game, switched the rules, changed the game, and we're having fun. So this whole thing where you run and you play, you make up your games, you make your rules, you pick your team members, huge important thing. And when we grow up and we don't do this, we become very unhappy. Why? Because we're following rules that are harming us. Or maybe we're associating with people that we don't like or who don't like us. And so going back to this whole childhood activity of play where you get to pick your teammates, you get to pick your rules, is huge in terms of maintaining your happiness and keeping your enthusiasm for life.
(38:06 - End)
Next, other games. Now, I didn't play marbles. I should say, I only played once or twice, but I was very bad at marbles. So I didn't play marbles much. But marbles is definitely a game of coordination, and you also have to play it on your knees. So you have to have some agility to play marbles. If you can't get down on your knees, well, you can't play marbles. Jacks. I love jacks. And as a kid, I could go from my onesies all the way to my tensies without a miss. I'm now back to where I can do that. And that creates a certain amount of eye-hand coordination and agility and speed. And then there's spit. Spit is a card game where you quickly throw down the cards, and the first person to get rid of the cards wins. But there are rules as to what card you throw down, how fast and in what order. So spit creates incredible eye-hand-brain coordination because clearly you have to decide, okay, which card am I looking at? Where can I put it down? And you have to move very quickly. And then there's a hand slap game. That's a game where one person puts their hand out, palm up, the other person puts their hand, palm down, and the person at the bottom has got to go slap the person on top before the person on top pulls their hand back. And so I was very, very good at that game, and I never got my hand hit. And then there's jump rope. And all of these things create agility and coordination. And when I was in my twenties, I was extremely coordinated. In medical school, people were amazed at all the things I could do with my fingers and how I could do them so quickly and easily. Why? Because I was the winner at spit, at jacks, and the hand slap game. But again, these are just some of the games that kids play. They're lots of fun, but they develop incredible brain and physical coordination. And it just makes life a heck of a lot more fun. And playing these games and mastering them means that once something slips from your hands, it doesn't hit the ground. Why? Because you catch it. And if something's falling across the room, you can lean over, grab it, and it doesn't hit the ground. So there's all these seemingly miraculous physical feats that you can do if you resume these childhood games. And you can just start practicing them. Pick the ones that appeal to you. And then maybe there's some, I'm sure there's some that I don't have on the list, that you can pick up and just remember back to your childhood, which games you used to play, and try them out.
(38:06 - End)
Then there's the mental games, which are like cards, board games, blocks, tinker toys. These keep the mind sharp. And if you want them to be interactive, you can be interactive with other people. And it gives you just mental agility. So these are really, these are important games. So now I don't play board games because it takes too many people, but I do play blocks and tinker toys. And the card games are difficult because there is a language barrier. So I'm working on that because I did like cards when I was younger. And then there's the too cool for school. What is that? Well, it turns out sitting is the number one cause of premature aging. The imprisoning of the human being in the chair causes the soft tissue, which is the fascia. And it literally is a, you can think of it as a semi-elastic, not really very elastic, but semi-elastic covering over the whole body. And it's just below the skin. And if this shrinks as you sit, the more and more you sit, it shrinks and literally limits the mobility of the joints, almost every joint in the body. So the spine, the hip joint, ankle joint, knee joints become frozen in a constricted sitting position, making standing and any activity more difficult over time. And so what I've done personally is I have made a concerted effort to limit my sitting time. And then with the gymnastics, I realized just how my hips had been bent forward. And now I'm opening those up, opening it up even more to do splits. And now to do what's called a chest handstand, which means basically taking my head backwards and touching my heels, making progress on that. I'll have pictures soon. But the good news, of course, is all of these things can be stretched out. I'm doing that. You can do it too. You can start yourself out with just some simple videos you find online. No matter what browser you use, there's plenty of really good information that comes up on this. And once you get progress, I would say to where you can at least touch your toes, palm to the floor is even better. Then you're ready to maybe spend some money if you want to on coaching. The other secret to this is even as a beginner, it's much better if you have a friend or somebody helping you. The next thing is to learn something new or meet someone new every day. This is important because we're taught or trained or conditioned to believe that once we complete an advanced degree, once we reach a certain age that we've learned everything we need to know, done, over. And that is really the key to aging and getting old. So learn something new or meet someone new every day. And for me, just doing gymnastics creates that because I meet other people who are doing gymnastics, and every day I'm able to stretch a little further, and I'm learning a little more about how to stretch, about different exercises I can do, about, oh, I thought that was a stretch problem. It's a muscle problem. It's this muscle. I have to work on that muscle. So every day I'm learning more. The other thing is to help other people. It is not cheating. We are taught in school that when two people work together, it's cheating. It is not cheating. It's the fun thing to do and it's the right thing to do. And helping other people is the fundamental basis for enjoying life and succeeding in life. Not helping others creates isolation and loneliness. Do not make yourself lonely. Do not wait for permission from anyone except the person you're helping. And don't even wait for permission. Maybe you'll ask for permission. Hey, can I help you with that? So help other people. Cooperate with other people. It's fun. And take your own friends. So sit with people you want to sit with. No authority should tell you that you can't be friends with someone or how close you can be or not. That's between you and that other person. And so talk to strangers. They really are your future no matter how old you are. Even at my age, the people that are going to be part of my happiness five years from now, many of them, I haven't met yet. And also as a kid, it just comes to you naturally to know that if it's not right, just don't do it. Never go along with the crowd. Go your own way. Choose your path. What's okay for others may not be okay for you. And that's okay. That's okay. And also run in the fields. Eat the berries. No need to pack lunch. Don't complicate things. And just be. Just be. Watch the ants. Admire the leaves in their veins. Count the leaves on a tree. Admire the clouds. Experience and appreciate the air that you breathe, the breeze blowing against your skin, your eyesight, your hearing. Just experience these things and enjoy them. My father sat me down one day. I was 11 years old. After I returned from running and playing, I didn't realize that he was on the porch watching me just run up and down the street, just run and run and play. And he said, you know what? Appreciate this. One day, you won't have the eyesight, the hearing, the strength, the energy you have now. So enjoy just having it. Enjoy it. So if you're alive and you're even with it enough to listen to or watch the show, just enjoy and appreciate that you can hear. Just enjoy and appreciate that you can even focus on this. It's such an amazing thing. And here's a biggie. This one is so huge. This totally helped me wipe out my stress. If you have to go somewhere, walk. I know, big news, right? It may take an hour or three hours. Just walk and stop and rest whenever you feel like it. Then continue. Get there when you get there and have fun along the way. Now, that's a scary thought to me. And it used to be that for me to take a 30-minute walk, I had to strap on a CamelBak with a sucker straw of three liters, my water supply. I had to put ice around my neck to cool me and put on the ice vest. Right. So now we've got about 11 pounds at least of extra carriage. Yeah. To say nothing of just getting all that together. I don't even try and put a mask on top of that. I mean, it's just overwhelming. But as I did more conditioning and more practice and I did shorter walks and gradually increased it, I now am to the point where I don't need to strap on the water. I can drink a liter of water before I get going. And I can either buy coconut water or water along the way. And I'm cool enough that I don't need the ice. So just try that wherever you live. Just try going for a walk. And if you can't do an hour or three hours, no problem. Just walk out the front door to the curb, turn around and walk back. Like, huh, that was easy. And then we walk to the corner, turn around and walk back. And each time, though, what you want to feel is you want to feel the freedom of being able to take that walk without having to pack a bunch of stuff with you. That you can just go. And just that freedom and not being burdened or tied down. And then also the lack of urgency. So let's say it takes you two minutes to walk to the corner and back. Give yourself 10 minutes and take your time. And if you see something interesting, like an ant or something, take a look at it and relax. And this just itself, you realize how many conditions you've been putting on yourself and how much stress you've been putting yourself through unnecessarily, of course. So the moral of the story for the sake of your health is to eat those foods that you stopped eating. Those organ meats, those high-collagen food. Figure out some kind of activity that's pointless, where you can move your body. And organize your own little games with either yourself, yourself and another adult, or yourself and some kids. Kids are great. They just make up all kinds of games. I had my grandkids over and I felt like, oh my gosh, I didn't arrange activities or planets. Oh, no problem. They took my exercise mats, started jumping on them, ran between them, rearranged them, jumped up and back, and they pretended there was this big ocean there. It was amazing. And so they just created their own game. So I say borrow some kids and it'll be easy. And that is it for today. No time for questions, but I hope that you got something out of this and that you can implement a few of these things and just become youthful. Restore your flexibility, restore your mental sharpness, engage your health, and just have an awesome life. Well, that is the end of today's show. And as always, Think Happens!