How Relationships Heal Inflammation, Trauma, and Your Nervous System

Relationships have the power to change lives in ways both visible and hidden. Deep, supportive bonds can quiet inflammation in the body, protect against disease, and anchor people through decades of triumphs and trials. Communities that come together—whether in small groups at a church or around a shared health goal—often achieve far more than individuals working alone, sometimes transforming their health on a massive scale. Lifelong friends celebrate each other’s victories without jealousy, weather hardship side by side, and dare to speak difficult truths even at the risk of the relationship. Yet, many remain in unfulfilling connections out of fear of loneliness, forgetting that genuine, vulnerable connection is not just emotionally nourishing—it is essential to human health and resilience. In this episode, I talk with Simon Sinek, Esther Perel, and Angelika Alana about how relationships are vital not just for emotional health, but for physical wellbeing and can be a great source of growth and healing. Simon is a spark that ignites passion and ideas. He envisions a world where people wake up inspired, feel safe, and end their day fulfilled. As an unshakeable optimist and trained ethnographer, Simon is fascinated by people and organizations that make a lasting impact. He has discovered remarkable patterns in how they think, act, and communicate, revealing how people perform at their best. Simon is widely known for his TED Talk on "WHY" and his viral video on millennials in the workplace. Through bestselling books like Start with WHY and his podcast A Bit of Optimism, he continues to inspire. Founder of The Optimism Company and Optimism Press, Simon shares innovative views on leadership, attracting international attention. He also works with the U. S. government, the RAND Corporation, and in 2021, founded The Curve to reform modern policing, advancing justice with dignity, equity, and fairness. Psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author Esther Perel is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on modern relationships. Fluent in nine languages, she helms a therapy practice in New York City and serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world. Her celebrated TED Talks have garnered more than 30 million views and her bestselling books, Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs, are global phenomena translated into nearly 30 languages. Esther is also an executive producer and host of the popular podcasts Where Should We Begin? and How’s Work? Her latest project is Where Should We Begin - A Game of Stories with Esther Perel. Angelika Alana is the founder and CEO of the Somatic Healing Institute. She has been featured in Vanity Fair, Well+Good, and Modern Luxury. She certifies coaches and facilitators in her transformational body-based healing method. She has traveled and studied extensively in Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, and the UK, and is a massive foodie with her husband Patrick Drake, co-founder of Hello Fresh. This episode is brought to you by BIOptimizers. Head to bioptimizers.com/hyman and use code HYMAN to save 15%. Full-length episodes can be found here: Simon Sinek on the Power of Relationships for Longevity How To Have Successful Relationships How To Move From Toxic Relationships And Sex To Healing Relationships And Sex

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman Show, when you're in a conflictual relationship, your physiology changes to a state of disease. Corozid goes up, your inflammatory cytokines go up, your microbiome can change. A whole series of things happen in your body that make you more sick.

• 0:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Before we jump into today's episode, I want to share a few ways you can go deeper on your health journey. While I wish I could work with everyone one-on-one, there just isn't enough time in the day. So I built several tools to help you take control of your health. If you're looking for guidance, education and community, check out my private membership, The Hyman Hive, for live Q and As, exclusive content and direct connection. For real-time lab testing and personalized insights into your biology, visit Function Health. You can also explore my curated doctor trusted supplements and health products at drhyman.com. And if you prefer to listen without any breaks, don't forget you can enjoy every episode of this podcast ad-free with Hyman Plus. Just open Apple Podcasts and tap Try Free to start your 70-day free trial. If you're in a conflictual relationship with someone,

• 1:06Dr. Mark Hyman?

  your inflammatory genes are turned on. Literally not just your emotions are inflamed, but your biology turns on the inflammation system.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Like fight or flight kind of stuff?

• 1:14Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Not fight or flight. Just if you're like in a shitty relationship or if you're fighting with someone or you have a conflict, you turn on inflammatory genes that then increase expression of cytokines that cause inflammation and that cause disease. And all chronic disease from depression, to heart disease, to diabetes, to obesity, Alzheimer's, are all inflammatory diseases. Conversely, if you have a connected, loving relationship with somebody, it turns on anti-inflammatory genes.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  And inflammation is the core of like everything?

• 1:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah. And maybe the study with entrainment, you know, where you have, where if you sit with someone and you have an authentic connection, that you can put EEG and EKGs on, basically brainwaves and heartwaves, you can see the heartbeat of someone you're having a deep connected relationship with in your brainwaves.

• 2:07Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's wild. So it's not just a feel-good thing on an emotional level. It's a physiological response that happens of being in connection. If you take animals and put them in, you know, cages and separate animals and feed them exactly the same thing and have everything else the same.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The one that's isolated versus the ones that are connected will shrivel and die and get sick.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right? And so humans are the same way and we've gotten, we've gotten in a situation where friendship and connection is sort of like.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Okay, so why aren't doctors, why aren't doctors prescribing to spend more time with friends?

• 2:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I do.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Like, like doctor, I'm suffering from X, Y, and Z.

• 2:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Okay, I'd like you to try and get an extra hour of sleep, go to bed a little earlier. I'd like you to stop eating before, you know, eat no, don't eat past eight o'clock at night. And I want you to spend at least three hours a week with, with a friend. How come that's not on a, on a prescription?

• 2:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It should be, it should be. I mean, I, I prescribe it. In fact, I, I actually, based on this work that I did in Haiti, I, I met a pastor after Rick Warren, who wrote The Purist Driven Life.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 3:10Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And had a church with 30,000 members. And I met him, he came to my office and we started talking and I said, hey, you know, Rick, tell me about your church, because I really, I'm a Jewish doctor from New York. I don't know much about evangelical Christian churches. Like, yeah, we got 30,000 people. Like, wow, that's a lot of mega church. He's like, yeah, we got 5,000 groups that meet every week, small groups in the church to help each other live better lives. I'm like, oh, this isn't a mega church. This is thousands of mini churches.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I had that the lightbulb moment. I'm like, well, I just come back from Haiti. I said, why don't we put a healthy living program into the groups and see what happens?

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:42Dr. Mark Hyman?

  He says, great idea, because I was baptizing my church last week and after about the 800th person, I'm like, man, we're a fat church and I'm fat and we gotta do something about it.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:50Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And so we put a program together through the small groups where people were just helping each other. There was no doctor, nutritionist, health coach, nobody. There was just a curriculum.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  We had a big rally, you know, sort of a big event where we talked about, and Rick talked about the biblical rationale for why God wants us to be healthy. I gave a bunch of speeches and talked about how, you know, God lives in you. Why are you feeding him crap? Things like that.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 4:13Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, if Jesus came to dinner, what would you feed him? You know, big mac fries and a Coke? And they got it.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth?

• 4:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  If Jesus came to dinner, what would you feed him?

• 4:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Exactly. So they got it. I said, you know, if you feel like crap, how are you going to serve God? How are you going to serve each other? You've got to take care of your body. And so they got it. And they did this together in community. It was jogging for Jesus and they all these incredible. It was incredible. And they lost together a quarter million pounds in the first year and they did it together. And then I took that same model and I applied it at Cleveland Clinic where we created small groups where people helped each other. And we had, we did research on us and published it. There were three times better health outcomes on validated metrics of health outcomes compared to one-on-one visits for the same condition with the same doctors. So the doctors at our clinic could see them in one-on-one or they support them in a group.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:04Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The group was three times as good as seeing the doctor one-on-one in terms of.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  So why, but why aren't these things then being implemented across the medical field?

• 5:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I'm trying.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Why aren't, why aren't we, why aren't we going to the doctor with our friends?

• 5:17Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  To dealing with similar issues? Why aren't we like, everything's so.

• 5:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Siloed, literally it's in.

• 5:25Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, it is essential. I mean, I think, you know, the models of support, whether it's coaching, whether it's one-on-one coaching or support, whether it's group models, they have to be the thing that's going to change. Because we, we get healthy together or we get sick together. So the quote from Benjamin Franklin is, we must all hang together or surely we will all hang separately.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 5:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I think that's kind of where we're at in society.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Where we are, yeah. I, I'm very glad that we are talking about this because I have a lot of respect for your work. And the fact that you're validating all this friendship stuff that I'm doing from a, from a, from a, from a physician standpoint.

• 6:01Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Not a kumbaya, isn't it nice?

• 6:04Dr. Mark Hyman?

  There's so much science on this. We wrote a book about this work called The Daniel Plan, after Daniel from the Bible, who resisted the king's temptation of rich food and was better for it. And, and we talked about the five F's, you know, food, fitness, focus, which is your mental fitness.

• 6:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Faith and friends.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Why aren't friends number one?

• 6:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Well, they were maybe in there somewhere. I don't know. I don't know the order, but it was like, food, probably friends. But the whole point is friends are such a key part of our wellbeing, whether it's understanding the blue zones, or how, whether it's AA or Weight Watchers, it's how we change.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  I mean, AA, all of these things, Weight Watchers, they're all community-based things.

• 6:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Hundred percent.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  And one of the problems we have in our society is community things, you know, bowling leagues don't exist anymore, you know, church, church attendance is down.

• 6:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  You know, so in church attendance and faith are not the same thing. You know, you can have faith and not go to church, and you can go to church and not have faith.

• 6:54Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's right.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  You know, the church would rather that they, they're overlapping. But, uh, but, but the idea of doing things in commune, in community, this is why I love things like Comic Con, or Burning Man, or whatever your, you know.

• 7:10Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Now, you've never been to Burning Man?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  I have been to Burning Man.

• 7:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You have?

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:13Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Oh.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Or, or, or, uh, Sturgis, is that what it's called? Yeah, it's called the motorcycle thing.

• 7:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Hell's Angels?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Like, all of these things, like, I, I, like, and I don't, like, politics aside, like, I don't care what it is, going to church, you know, doing things in community with people who have common interests. And, you know, one of the questions I'm getting since I've started talking about friendship, it's amazing how many people are coming up to me who are of all ages, of all income levels, uh, who are saying to me, I'm, I, I don't know how to make friends.

• 7:49Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  I struggle to make friends.

• 7:51Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Because they're afraid to be authentic. I mean, that's the hard part, right?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Have you ever struggled to make friends?

• 7:56Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Uh, when I was a kid, I didn't have any. I was a weird kid. I just was in my head, read a lot of books, was a little weird, and, uh, you know, kind of a nerd.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 8:05Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I just didn't.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  And you had a lot of health issues when you were younger?

• 8:08Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Not, not, not really.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  They came later, right?

• 8:10Dr. Mark Hyman?

  When I was in my thirties.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 8:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Uh, and I just, I was living in Toronto in the seventies. It was a spiritual wasteland, and I was, did not kind of relate to anybody. And it wasn't until I left and went to college and went to Cornell that I found other people who were like, oh, wow, you, you know, you actually. Think like me and you read the same books, you do the same things. In fact, I actually, my first real friend, I met on the top of a mountain in the Canadian Rockies. We were backpacking and it was a week out in the middle of nowhere by myself and he was a week out and we crossed over on Badger Pass in Alberta in Banff National Park and

• 8:52Dr. Mark Hyman?

  um, we just had this kind of moment of connection and we both found out we're going to be at Cornell in the fall. He was in the Pacific College, I was at Cornell. We climbed this mountain the first night called Bracopod Mountain, like 11,000 feet. It was like this kind of kind of, kind of prototypical pointy top mountain. We sat on the ridge and watched the sunset at 11 o'clock at night and then ran down the screen. We just had this extraordinary experience and we got back and we got together and you know, we didn't know if we were going to be friends or not. But we, we became like brothers and Still friends today? He's my best friend. Yeah, we forty, forty six years later. Wow. Yeah, forty six years later, we do mountain bike trips all over. We, we're, we're very close and um, you know, we help each other.

• 9:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And when one's down, the other picks one up and I'm down, he picks me up. When he's down, I pick him up. And we've had this really sustained, deep, authentic, intimate relationship for forty five years. That's amazing. And we love each other, we hug each other, we cry together, we laugh together. And it, you know, it was a place where, where I could say and be and do anything and it was, it was, it was a remarkable experience for me to actually feel seen and loved. It was like the first person who loved me who didn't actually have to love me like my parents. They didn't have to love you. That was like, and that friendship for me has been like an anchor in my life. Throughout all the troubles and tribulations and successes and diseases and

• 10:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Uh, you know, his wife committed suicide. I went through three divorces. I got very sick.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  You're such an overachiever.

• 10:25Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, I know.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  The, the.

• 10:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I'm an expert at relationships now.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  I mean, what did W C. Field say? Quitting smoking is the easiest thing I've ever done. I've done it hundreds of times.

• 10:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's right.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Marriage is the easiest thing I've ever done. I've done it four times.

• 10:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I got it right, though.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Here, here's something I discovered about close friendships, right? Which is, we always talk about close friends as the person you would call in, when you're in need, when you need help. The person you can cry with, the person, you know, we, we, the person when you're in pain.

• 10:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  And I actually think that's true. That's a level of close friendship that you can call that person when you, when, in a time of struggle or need. But I think there's even a closer level of friendship, which is when you can call somebody when something amazing happened.

• 11:09Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And they're not jealous.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  And there's no jealousy and you can call them and what you're doing is bragging, but not really. You just need to tell someone about this amazing thing that you accomplished.

• 11:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Or that was given to you or that you won or that, you know, whatever it is. And if you were told anybody else, they'd be like, they'd think you were bragging.

• 11:26Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  But to that friend, they're, they have unbridled joy with you and for you. And what I've learned is the number of people I would call with good news is actually smaller than the number of people I would call with bad news.

• 11:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's interesting. Well, you can call me with good news.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. But you know what I mean?

• 11:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  It's like to, you know, and, and like a friend of mine called me recently about something amazing that happened in his life. And, uh, and he was, I was the first person he called. And we, and I, I had no jealousy and I was, I was like, I was feeling like a parent.

• 12:01Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  You know, I was so proud of him for what he did. And, and you realize that that was actually more intimate.

• 12:10Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Than being there in pain.

• 12:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  And so I started making lists of who are the people I would call for the insanely good things.

• 12:16Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  And it's a smaller number.

• 12:18Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Well, it is. It's important to take in the inventory of your life and your friends. And, and if you don't have good friends, it's really important to cultivate them, to invest in them, to find them. And there's ways to do that. I mean, there's ways to put yourself. And environments and situations and part of it's like who you are, right? For me, you know, I wear my heart on my sleeve and I'm just who I am. Like when we met.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I remember.

• 12:42Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It was a weekend and I just got through this very intense emotional process. I, you know, worked through a lot of this trauma that I was had experienced as a kid and I was just like, kind of like in this altered state and then I met you and I was.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Oh, I remember. Oh, I remember.

• 12:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I think that's why we became friends.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  You put it on your sleeve.

• 13:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Because I just, I just shared authentically and, and we just then had this connection and it was, that's kind of what I'm talking about is in order to actually create friendship, you, you have to be open. You have to open your heart.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  I think, I think people sometimes treat.

• 13:16Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And not be afraid of being judged.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  I think people sometimes treat friendships like bad food.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Right? So.

• 13:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I don't get that.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  So, so, but here's what I mean, like, like, you know, I, I just had this conversation with a friend of mine, just, just very recently. She's in a relationship and um she's, if she, she's afraid of being alone. She knows the relationship is imperfect.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  She knows that if she were in a different place in her life, she wouldn't be with this person.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  But that partner fills a space for her for where she's at. She's more afraid of the loneliness than being in an imperfect relationship.

• 14:04Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, you're not.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  And, and I don't know how healthy that is.

• 14:09Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  And she can rationalize it, like they go on adventures together and they laugh a lot together, which is all true. But then now as I'm talking to you, it kind of sounds like cake, which is, I know I shouldn't eat this. But it's so tasty and so chocolatey.

• 14:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  And just so good. And I'll worry about it later.

• 14:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  You know, what's another little piece? I'm just having a little piece of cake. And it, the goodness, I can, I can, I can, I enjoy the goodness so much that I can ignore the badness.

• 14:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  And.

• 14:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  We tolerate a lot.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Tolerate a lot. And, you know, this is one of the downsides of human beings, which is we're incredibly adaptable people. We're incredibly adaptable.

• 14:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Oh, I did that for so many years in relationships. I was like, oh, it's been, uh, for instance, all this bad stuff, I just rationalize away and.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  So how, how do we, okay, you're a doctor. You know, one of the things I'm taught, one of the things that I'm, I'm exploring when this friendship book is how to make friends.

• 15:17Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  How to foster friendship. That's the thing I think most of us fall down on. How to navigate tension in friendships and how to end friendships. How to recognize that I really like this chocolate cake, but I think I need to not be in friendship or in relationship with this chocolate cake. And maybe we'll just hang out now and then.

• 15:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  You know, cause I do have fun with you and I do like you. But this is not healthy.

• 15:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  At a certain dose.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  At a cer, there's a certain dosage. And I've adopted wholeheartedly, by the way, just as a quick aside, you know, something you say regularly, which is treat sugar like a recreational drug.

• 15:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's right.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  You know?

• 15:54Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's right.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  So I enjoy sugar, but I know to do it just occasionally.

• 15:59Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right, sorry.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  You know, it's okay. I don't, I don't, I was, I, I read once, and you can affirm whether this is correct or not, that when people stress about eating dessert, the cortisol released from the stress about eating the cake is actually worse for you than the chocolate cake.

• 16:15Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It might be, yeah. That might be.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  So if you're gonna have a little piece of chocolate, you just enjoy it.

• 16:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Well, I did, you're right, Simon. The greatest pharmacy is the one between your ears. And it can actually kill you or it can heal you, literally.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I mean, that's how, you know, voodoo works. It's not like they just kind of like put a hex on you, you die. I mean, people, actually happens.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:35Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So. I think how we think about things matters. So if you you want to eat a cookie, eat that cookie and love it.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  And just enjoy it.

• 16:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And enjoy every bite.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  And treat it like a recreational drug. Just have one, two at the most. You know, one of my tricks, if there's like a bowl of M and M's.

• 16:50Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  If you take a handful of M and M's and throw them in your mouth, that counts as one. That's one mouthful.

• 16:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Oh, no.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  And then you take another handful and put it in your mouth, that's two. But if I have one M and M, that's also one.

• 17:01Dr. Mark Hyman?

  One.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  And if I have another M, that's because you count mouthfuls, not M and M's.

• 17:05Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  And so if you just go from handful to one or two, you're drastically reduced the sugar. Anyway, but we digress. How, how have you ever? I want to understand the health issues of staying in unhealthy friendships or unhealthy relationships. Where we know, where we know, and when we're in the dark parts of the night, we will admit to ourselves or out loud, this is not a good relationship and I shouldn't be in this, but I fear the alone more than the thing that I'm in.

• 17:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Talk, talk about the physiological impact of being in an unhealthy relationship.

• 17:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, well, we sort of touched on it before, but when you, when you're in a conflictual relationship, your physiology changes to a state of disease. Cortisol goes up, your inflammatory cytokines go up, your microbiome can change. I mean, a whole series of things happen in your body that make you more sick. And we see, we see this happening. You know, we see people who are in bad relationships just do poorly and get sick more often. And so I think, I think the data is there. It's just really, the question is, how do we, how do we navigate a world where friendship is not of value? It just, it just seems like the last thing on the totem pole.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 18:26Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, and after work, after success, after social media, after whatever else we're doing, exercise, food, it's not something we invest in. And it's a crisis. It's a, it's a severe crisis. I mean, I don't, you probably saw the articles in New York Times about men and friendships. And it was just, it was just so heartbreaking. And for me, it's, it's, it's a bit of value I've had my whole life and I've intentionally invested in friendships. And when COVID happened, you know, we're all isolated, we're all alone and. September 2020, my wife and I split up. I had just had back surgery. I was alone. It was COVID. And what did I do? I sent an email to my closest men friends, six other men,

• 19:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  who I, you know, men's work with, men retreats with, done medicine journeys with. And I said, hey, guys, like, can we start a little Zoom once a week for an hour, maybe? And they're like, how about we do two hours? Every, you know? And we've been going for, it's plus four years now. And it's remarkable to have this container. And what's been interesting to watch is that even though these these are all my close friends for 40 years, 30 years, that the depth of our friendship has gotten more profound, the more vulnerable we've gotten, the more we open our hearts, the more we share our fears, the more we share our successes, the more we share, whatever is going on in our life doesn't matter.

• 19:56Dr. Mark Hyman?

  There's always something with one of us. And it's, it's, it's, to me, it's like an anchor. And, and most of us don't have that. And in Okinawa, one of the blue zones, there's a thing called a moai, which is when you are born, you're stuck together with like three or four other kids, babies. And that's your basically group for your life.

• 20:18Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 20:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, and you, you're there throughout everything.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  You didn't even pick the friends. I mean, this happens with like the Marine Corps or any boot camp for that matter. You know, these become lifelong friendships because you go through hardship together. Or in the Israeli army, one of the reasons they're historically been very successful is when you go through boot camp, that's your unit for the rest of you.

• 20:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  That's for the rest of your military career.

• 20:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Is the, is the, you don't get split up.

• 20:42Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  And they, but, so what I think's really interesting is these, these friend groups aren't chosen. They're kind of like arranged marriages. Like you're just thrown together by zip code or by, you know, and you're in the case of babies, like, oh, you're born on the same day? You're friends.

• 20:56Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Right? And I think what's really interesting about that, which is, you know, sometimes just like, I think sometimes we overanalyze.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  You know, who should be a friend? Am I, is that right?

• 21:09Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Well, I mean, listen, we have to.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  I'm trying to think, maybe I disagree with myself as I'm saying the words.

• 21:13Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It depends on the situation. When you're, if you go through shit with somebody, even if you don't, you don't have all the same background, you can get close, right?

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I mean, I was in Haiti, I was thrown together.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, because we, we know that shared hardship produces cortisol. I mean, shared hardship produces oxytocin.

• 21:27Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  So when you go through shared hardship with someone, it, it creates a bond of.

• 21:30Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  It creates bonds. But, but, but now that I think about it, I'm going to go back on what I said, which is, I also know friendships and have had friendships where time is the only bond. Where we really don't.

• 21:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's not enough.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  We, we, like, we used to grow together, but now, you know, it's sort of grown apart. And, you know, we have fun, I guess, you know?

• 21:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Sometimes being a friend is, is actually calling people out. In other words, when you see, like, if you're growing.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  But I think we stay in friendships unnecessarily, simply because, oh, but we've been friends for 30 years, like, so what? So what? If it's no longer, it's like, you wouldn't stay in a marriage that is, it is dysfunctional just because you've been married.

• 22:13Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's right.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  And yet we seem to have a different standard for, like, nobody says, when you say, you know, I've been married to my wife for 25 years, but, you know, we've struggled for a lot of years. And quite frankly, I think we've just decided mutually, you know, it's amicable, but we've decided to call it quits. Nobody says, I think you should stay in the marriage, you've been married for 25 years. Like, I think you, I think you should try and go another 25. Nobody says that.

• 22:35Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But part of the friendship.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  But we say that in friendship, like, how can you end the friendship? You've been friends for 25 years.

• 22:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Well, you can, if it's.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  But I'm saying, people, it's a different standard. Time becomes the only bond.

• 22:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's true, but sometimes when you shift apart, or some people change, like, if you're changing and you're growing, or I was changing and growing, and your friend isn't, and you see this sort of.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  It's hard.

• 22:52Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Split happening, you have one of two choices. You can either go, okay, well, we're just moving apart, it was a nice one, lasted.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:59Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Or you can actually kind of go in for.

• 23:03Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Kind of a surgical, spiritual surgery. And, and, and sometimes it's painful, but I've done this with friends where I've seen them be in bad relationships or be in a job they didn't like, or doing things that were contracting their life and becoming smaller when they were expansive, open beings when I knew them earlier. And I had a choice where I was gonna just kind of let this happen. Or was I gonna go in for

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:25Dr. Mark Hyman?

  A surgery? And was I gonna do a spiritual surgery on this person? And, and some of those people are always do it, some of them are not.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:33Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But, you know, I had to drug them. Literally, I had to give him MDMA. I had to like, literally spend hours acid and basically get him to really see how his life

• 23:44Speaker 01

  That's a little extreme.

• 23:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Contracted. And, and it, it, he needed that, you know, like, and, and he needed to kind of break the cycle of his pattern of thinking. And now, you know, he's lost 40 pounds, he's out of the relationship, he's free, he's got out of his job, he's, you know, kind of at the time of his life, he's exploring his own development, he's growing, he's let go of his fears around money and this and that. I mean, it's, it's amazing to see a transformation, but it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't have leaned in.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I've, I, I have a friend who sat down with me to give me some life advice.

• 24:14Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  And the conversation started like this. I need to tell you something and you need to hear this. And I need you to know that you're not gonna like what I have to tell you.

• 24:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But I love you.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  He didn't say that, he said, you're not gonna like what I have to tell you. And I recognize that you may be so angry with me for telling you this, that you might end the friendship with me. And I want you to know that I'm willing to risk our friendship to tell you this, because you need to hear it.

• 24:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Well, then how did that land for you?

• 24:45Speaker 01

  I mean, he picked the right person, because I'm like, yeah, I mean, you're not gonna lose the friendship, but bang, you know, game on, right? And he gave me something that was very hard to hear, that I, that needed to be said. And I love him even more for risking the whole friendship out of love.

• 25:02Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Like, he was willing to throw away the friendship because he cared about me so much to tell me this. And that is, that's a high bar.

• 25:09Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That is, I mean, I think that speaks, I think what's, what

• 25:11Speaker 01

  He's a remarkable

• 25:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Defines friendship, in my mind. What defines friendship is the ability to be authentically who you are and to be authentic and transparent with your friend. Just like your friend was, right?

• 25:25Speaker 01

  I mean, he gave me the whole preamble.

• 25:26Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah. And that's a, that's a, it's a very scary thing for people to actually let down their guard.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right? To be open and to risk. And, and it's fearful, but, but that's what creates real friendships.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 25:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's what creates real friendships.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Another friend of mine is struggling, um, I'm like, I'm so attuned to friends these days. Another friend of mine is struggling with one of her friends. And she asked herself, if I was in a marriage and my, or just a romantic relationship, a long-term romantic relationship and the, the relationship was struggling, we wouldn't just break up, we would, we would get help. We would seek therapy, couples, couples counseling.

• 26:04Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  And so she went to her friend and said, this is tension has been going over too long. Um, we're going to go to therapy together.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Friends therapy.

• 26:13Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  And again, why, why do we instinctively understand that if a marriage or a relationship is struggling, that we expect people to at least try, to at least try the couples therapy before you call the whole things quit, before you call the whole thing quits? And yet we don't do that with friendships. When we have tension with friendships, we're quicker to end the friendship or sit in weird tension or avoid the person than to go to the therapy with the person to try and work through the struggles. We may still end up breaking up.

• 26:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  But let's at least put in a, put in the effort.

• 26:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  To rescue this friendship that we claim we care about.

• 26:50Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  I love the idea of, of friendship counseling.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  It used to be that when people came to couples therapy, they came actually for their children. They didn't come to couples therapy. They came and slowly we would identify that there was something maybe in the relationship that also was at a, was interacting with the challenges that the child was having. Couples therapy really became a discipline of its own in the center that it is today when the expectations around intimate relationships began to rise. The more we expect from the couple and the more we need couples therapy to help us with those expectations. When the couple was not the central unit of the family, but because the, the family was more important than the couple and people stayed together for the family.

• 27:39Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Today. Not the children and not the family. It really will keep people together. They may keep them a few more years. But ultimately, what keeps people together is the quality of the relationship between the two people.

• 27:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, right.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  So therefore, couples' therapy becomes a much more sought-after practice. I don't just do communication. You know, I was thinking, and I was editing another podcast session. And it's an incredible session. It's the first session of season five that I'm producing now. And they come in and he says, you know, we are both people who like things to be done, who like to do things our way. And I said, that's okay, that's interesting. But what I'm hearing also is that you are two people who like other people to do things your way.

• 28:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah. That's what they meant, right?

• 28:34Speaker 02

  So then I ask, you know, how did you learn, you know, to say yes? And how did you learn to say no? And he begins to tell me a whole story of how, basically, his father would continuously belittle him, lecture to him, be contemptuous. You know, we would start with the conversation, "Son", and then what followed was often, you know, berating him for all the things that he wasn't doing right and living up to expectations. And she grows up with a drug-addicted mother, a father who commits suicide, and she is the adult in the house from that little on.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Raises her two children. They say to me at one point, "We fight about everything, we don't communicate." And I say, "I don't think you fight about everything at all. Actually, I think you're fighting about the same thing all the time." The moment he experiences you as saying to him, "You're incompetent, you're not doing it well, you're not doing it right." He is in that original wound of him.

• 29:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yes.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Of his. And the moment he says, you're not gonna tell me what to do. You know, I'm doing it, I'm, I'm, I'm out of here. And then, and he goes for a break. You think I'm once again all alone with all the responsibilities and the four children on my shoulders. And I will always be alone and I will never have anybody by my side. And you fight about that original wound. That's what every argument is actually about.

• 30:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The same story over and over.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  You know, and that was so illuminating for them, that it wasn't about the chore chart that they had, she had made, and it wasn't about the kids, and it wasn't about his parents. It was about, you know, I don't wanna be inadequate and I don't want to be alone. Those were the themes that each one was really, and then we started to work. So that becomes different than just communicating, how do you say things nicer?

• 30:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, yeah. And how do you, how do you get people to kind of move past those really primordial conditionings of childhood? That's the, that's the sixty-four thousand dollar question.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Yes. I think the most important thing is that you teach people two things. Or you, when I say teach, it means you, you help them see two things. You help them separate the past from the present. The fact that this brings back vividly the experience of back then doesn't mean that it is actually what used to happen back then. The past and the present sometimes feel like they come together into one, but they are not. And the second thing is that you then say, at seven, you were helpless. At seven, you couldn't respond. At seven, you couldn't just leave the house and say, this is dangerous for me to be here.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Um, you, you, you know, um, whereas now you are an adult and you have choices. So.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  And then you go and you basically help them, first of all, through the body, to separate the past from the present. In this moment, I get that tension, like I wanna start fighting, like this man was a master of defiance. You know, but he got all his confidence through defiance, which means that it was pseudo-confident. And when she would actually say, "Go ahead and do things, I'm with you, I support you", then he would start to talk about all his doubts. He was always sure only when he was in opposition.

• 32:16Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  When he was in a fight, then he knew what he wanted. But when he had somebody who was actually loving and giving, then he didn't know what to do with himself. And you go through the body and you track the feeling, because a feeling is also embodied, you know. Then you articulate the experience. And then you know what I really did with them? I really had a lot of fun. They had a lot of fun. I said, "Lay down, flat on the floor."

• 32:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Hmm.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  And then I said, "Now continue the argument."

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Do you know that you can't fight when you're lying flat?

• 32:49Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, or if you take your clothes off, I think that's another thing I've heard from couples. Everybody take their clothes off, it's hard to have a fight.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  You know, it's like, we are meant to fight in straight opposition, like mammals, you know?

• 33:02Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  So then it opened up a completely different, and it went from the fighting to the affect behind the fighting, which is often the fear of loss, which is often, "Will you leave me?", "Will you be there for me?", etc. And then you go deeper, deeper, deeper. And that takes some time.

• 33:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's so beautiful. You know, Esther, you've been at the front seat of literally probably hundreds, if not thousands, of relationships in ways that most people don't ever have insight into by simply the virtue of your job. Just like I've seen so many people who've been sick, you've seen so many people who've had relationship challenges. So in that, in that perspective, looking, you know, back after decades of doing this, you know, what do you define as the success of relationships?

• 33:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Day to day, like, what are the keys to a successful relationship? And what are the things that really destroy relationships?

• 33:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I will start with what destroys.

• 33:56Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I'm taking notes. Taking notes.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  I will really refer to the work of John Gutman and John and Julie Gutman here on what destroys them. You know, they have a wonderful way of kind of separating between the masters and the disasters. And they talk about the four horses of apocalypse.

• 34:14Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  And basically, what will kill relationships is chronic criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling. And the killer of them all is contempt. Because contempt, and this we know also in large scale traumas, is contempt is the dehumanizing. Contempt is whatever you feel or think is irrelevant and doesn't matter. You don't even reach me. So that, those four horses of apocalypse, I think, kind of summarize things well. And one could add a lot of things, defensiveness.

• 34:50Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling, basically shutting down, right? Shutting people out.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Bring world off. And contempt, which is basically, you know, shame is on the, shame is one side and contempt. Contempt, shame is contempt for oneself and contempt for the other. It goes in both directions.

• 35:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  I think when I once wanted to write a paper, I wanted to write a paper about what are creative couples? Because we talk about lasting couples, we talk about stable couples. But we rarely talk about what is creative couples or what you may include in successful couples. And what was fascinating is what you said before. The majority of people, when I said, do you know couples who have a spark? Couples who inspire you? And I and people would on occasion come up with one, maybe two, often none. Um. It was really scary to them because if I said, can you come up with entrepreneurs,

• 35:52Speaker 02

  with artists, with writers, with intellectuals, people have lists of people that inspire them. But here is everybody wanting to be in a relationship and not many people, you know, uh, can think about, yeah, I like that. I want to do this. I never wrote the people, the paper because what people ended up saying seemed rather banal to me as in that's, I know that. But then I I've been sitting on this thing for years thinking, actually, maybe it's not that known. But what they said was this, and that was very interesting. This is not in order. One is admiration. Admiration for your partner.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  It's not respect. It's different. Admiration always implies a level of idealization is I look up to you.

• 36:39Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Hmm.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  I I I admire you for who you are as a person, as a human being, more than just in your role as a partner, as a parent, as a, you know, uh, voila. So that was one big one. Two, the relationship is basically a foundation with wings.

• 36:56Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Hmm.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  Uh, meaning there's a solid anchor of trust. And that solid anchor of trust interacts with the ability to take risks in the, in life and in the relationship and to be playful. It's what I often have looked at the combination between or the integration between our need for security and safety and predictability and reliability and our need for change and novelty and exploration and discovery. These two fundamental human needs. Um, I think that the the best relationships have.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  A nice balance between what is togetherness and what is separateness. They have, people have their own lives. But before I even continue, I think the best thing to say is this. There is no one size fits all.

• 37:48Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's all, yeah, yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  I can't tell you one, it's like you with health. It's not like you have a sense in health that it's an interaction of different parts.

• 37:57Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Of course.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  But if it is more of this or more of that. You know, some couples have Venn diagrams that are completely overlapping. They do everything together. They spend all their time together and it works beautifully.

• 38:08Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  And some other very creative and successful couples are much more differentiated. And actually, they have a strong core, but with big individual lives, you know, separate.

• 38:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  So there is no one size fits all. I really would love that to be actually my opening line to your question before I even say what makes for success. People who feel free in a relationship, that makes for success. For sure, people who feel oppressed or under surveillance or who have to constantly lie or hide. Or, you know, don't not say what they bought or what is, you know, that kind of stuff. Those are major differences that I would add to the, to the, to the Gottman list, you know? It's a, a degree of autonomy. Matched with a deep sense of belonging. These two together is a beautiful dance.

• 39:03Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's beautiful, but I think there's some really practical ways that you talk about. For people to achieve whatever it is their best relationship is, right? Boundaries, routines, rituals. You know, what are the kinds of things that you help people establish within the relationship to build that? Foundation, that structure, because it's not something we know automatically. It's not something we, we actually are taught. How do you help people build those structures in those relationships and help them get to that?

• 39:30Speaker 02

  So it's very interesting. This couple that I was mentioning before where he kind of walled himself off with no needs. Because he was all alone and there was nobody who could help him anyway. And she is like permeated by all these voices. I thought that I had done a, a rather limited session with them. I really thought, hmm, I didn't really reach them. I didn't really go underneath the noise, et cetera. And then I get a letter today. That you never know, you know, you never know about how much some of the tiny things that I did that I thought were almost slightly, you know, they were not, basically,

• 40:11Speaker 02

  I would say, it's one thing to say, how about you tell Esther about this versus shutting your partner up and talking for them. Of course, you want to to bring something up, but you also want to let them tell their own story.

• 40:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  How about when you have a problem or a question about sex or about children, you don't first go to your mother and grandmother, but you also go first to your partner?

• 40:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  And you set a boundary with all the people from your family so that you can create a more sacred space with your partner. The boundary is not always inside the relationship, it's between the relationship and the outside world.

• 40:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Hmm.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  How about you are able to make a request that isn't a protest? So say what you need rather than what the other person is or is not doing. Just make a request and stick to that. And adding up these things, basically, they write to me three weeks later and say, there's been a fundamental shift. We haven't had a single fight. I was able to no longer go and talk to my mother about everything. He feels much more open to me because I'm much less critical with him. And I appreciate his openness, and that makes me more fond of him, and that makes him more sexual with me and more expressive of his desire for me. And it becomes the opposite of the escalation in the negative direction

• 41:41Speaker 02

  is now a kind of escalating.

• 41:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  The going up in the positive direction. That's the work.

• 41:48Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, it's so powerful. It's so powerful. What are the things that you've learned after decades of working with couples and relationships that that are sort of nuggets of wisdom that you would lead people with about that can help them with relationships that they may be struggling with? You know, what are the things that people should anchor to? And of course, there's your book, Made in Captivity, and the State of Affairs, and your podcasts, and all that, which is great. People should dive into that, and your TED Talks. But I just wonder if you could kind of distill down, you know, what you've really learned?

• 42:18Speaker 02

  The first thing I would say, and I think I have really, really learned it from, you know, the millions of people that listen to Where Should We Begin?, is that you're not alone. These days, on the one hand, we have unprecedented expectations of our couples' lives, but at the same time, we are also in a machine of fake news on social media. So people curate and posture and filter, and you kind of don't know where is the truth. You know, when people lived in the village, you heard the fights of the neighbors and you heard the frolics of the neighbors. Now your best friends can come and tell you that they're breaking up and you never saw it coming.

• 43:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, right.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  Nobody tells you the truth about what goes on in the couples' relationships. And yet, and then you're left thinking these are.

• 43:07Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Everybody's great, right, right.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  They're doing great and we are alone with our problems. And so I think really Where Should We Begin? showed me that when you listen deeply to the stories of others, you see yourself in front of your own mirror. And you don't feel as alone and you get the tools for the conversations that you want to have. I think that's the first thing I really realized, that this is a unit that doesn't talk. Friends talk to friends, couples often talk to nobody about what's really going on. They may be struggling with infidelity, they may be struggling with infertility, they may be struggling with bipolarity and mental health issues, they may be struggling with unresolved grief. They may be struggling with economic hardships, with unemployment, with addictions.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  And they won't talk about it to anybody because they have to present themselves a certain way. And it breaks my heart sometimes to see how alone people are with some of these major, major challenges. So that's the first thing I've really learned, is to make sure that that's part of the game too, is to give people a tool to make hard conversations less difficult.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  The second thing that I have really learned is this couple that I was describing where I thought, oh my god, this is, you know, they really came in to say, we need you to tell us, are we broken? Are we beyond repair? And uh, and I thought, eh, at the end of the session, I thought, I don't know where this is going. And I have been so many times surprised by people where I think there's not much left here. And then when you change one thing, like this woman, she stopped trying to change him. And she went ahead and took responsibility for her contribution. And she changed a few things about her own behavior.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  And it just unleashed a cascade of changes for the for the better. And that is a real important piece. Sometimes it looks like everything is over, is interconnected and it's like impossible. Heap of of uh, of nuisance. And yet, if you make one shift, it has the power because systems are interdependent parts to activate everything else. That's the second thing that is very important. The third thing is that there is a big difference between what you feel inside and how what you experience inside affects the people around you.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  You may be depressed and feel weak and hopeless and helpless and anhedonic. But when you are in relationship with those who love you, you often wield all the power.

• 45:56Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  Because you activate everybody around you to try to make you feel better, to give you advice, to try to lift you up. And in the end, they feel defeated and deflated like you. So power doesn't always come from the top down. Power often comes from the bottom up, from places that are not nearly that obvious.

• 46:18Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Hmm.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  I think we really don't understand enough the complex, you know, interplay of power dynamics in relationships. Uh, if you want to change the other, change yourself. And maybe the last thing I would say is beyond most issues that people argue about, there generally are three themes. Control and power, care and closeness, and respect and recognition.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Whose priorities matter? Who has the power here? Can I trust you? Do you have my back?

• 46:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  And do you value me?

• 46:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, those are huge.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  These are, these are the three major themes that many, many couples basically struggle about. But it comes in the forms of talks about sex and money and family and in-laws and. But that's not the, the issue. It's not the issue. It's the emotional crucible in which those issues play off.

• 47:22Speaker 03

  How do we know if we're in a toxic relationship versus a healing relationship? Well, step one is you're in projection. You're not aware of your own integrated pain, your partner's pain, and you're, you're blaming one another essentially. And trying to have that person meet your needs and refusing to meet your own needs, which is a big one. I want you to say all the things. Yeah.

• 47:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah. Well, that, I think that's the first fallacy of relationship, that our partner's job is to meet our needs. That is not their job.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  Ding, ding, ding.

• 47:51Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's our job.

• 47:51Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. And that points to, which is very useful information. So when we see that in ourselves, we don't have to shame ourselves. We can look at that and go, okay. So for example, me, I had this unmet need in my childhood. So my greatest unmet need from my perspective as a child was that I, I just needed a safe and stable place. So before I did this healing work, I was running around looking for a man to give me a safe and stable place, but refusing to give it to myself.

• 48:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yes.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  And that, that was my inner 10 year old running my love life and sex life. And most of us who haven't done any relational healing work have a 10 year old, a 12 year old, a seven year old, running our love life and our sex life. Yep. Which is, I didn't get this need met and I'm going to find someone who reminds me of the person who didn't meet the need. And I'm gonna play out my unfinished business with my parents, with them, and hope that they meet the need, even though I'm refusing to meet it myself. So yes, step one, owning your needs, which by the way, actually makes it easier for other people to meet your needs. That's the kind of like mind bending part of that. When you, when you come to someone and you're not saying, I need you to do this or else. And you say, you know, I recognize it's my responsibility to create a safe and stable place for me, and I will always be the one to do that for myself.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  And if I, you know, I always come back to at least aiming to do that for myself. I know it's my responsibility, but can you help me? Different energy, right? And so moving into a healing relationship is taking ownership of your own work. And then who are the people in your life, whether it's romantic partners, friends, family members, who empower you to do your own work? They can't do it for you, but they can love, support, encourage, and empower you to do your own personal development work to, as the cliche, become a better person through them loving you, supporting you, and you doing your own work. A toxic relationship is one in which you feel consistently disempowered

• 49:51Speaker 03

  from doing your healing work.

• 49:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I, I, I found a new framework that's really helped me in, in my current relationship, which has really been extraordinary. And that is, there's, there's me, there's her, there's us. And then there's this third entity, which is the, the stuff that we bring into the relationship. You know, the traumas, the triggers, the fears that aren't really who we truly are, but are things that we've brought in. And instead of being obstacles, they're opportunities to actually together, hold them outside of the container of the relationship and look at them and be curious about them and explore them without judgment,

• 50:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  without fear, or without having to have a certain outcome, but just in an honest, clear and curious way, go, hmm, gee, this is coming up for me.

• 50:52Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And instead of me going, oh, that means you don't like me, or that means blah, blah, blah. It's like, oh, okay. This is interesting. Where is that from? What's that about? You know, how am I showing up that's creating that? Or where is that? A place where we can learn about what's driving us and how do we become free from it? It's a very different framework, you know, because I often see people sort of dug in, you know, I'm not meeting, you're not meeting my needs, you're not meeting my needs. It's like, it's like, I'm not going to do what you want me to do until you do what I want to do. And it's like this crazy weird dynamic that this doesn't get anywhere. And it's, it's like, it's, it's like, if you look at love as a container for creating your own spiritual evolution,

• 51:37Dr. Mark Hyman?

  then it becomes a very different perspective on how to actually be in the relationship. It's not about, it's not about them fixing you or you fixing them. It's about being curious together about how to evolve together.

• 51:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:54Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And individually.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  Yes. And what you just described so beautifully is what we touched on earlier, which is this idea of undifferentiating, unblending from your reaction, but still looking at it and sharing about it. Curiously, one of my good friends, Sadie Simone, is an amazing Buddhist teacher. And he says, the quality of your curiosity is the quality of your liberation. And I love that. It's what you're saying. It's can I create enough space to look at what I'm feeling, not disassociate from it, not disconnect, not shove it down. No, have it leak out sideways, but can I just have enough space so we can be curious about what's here? And learn how to grow from it and shift from when I win, you lose, or vice versa, this win lose power struggle.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  Yep. Into how do we compassionately and creatively get both of our needs met?

• 52:48Speaker 03

  Takes creativity.

• 52:49Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah. Or how do we, how do we actually?

• 52:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Realize that our happiness isn't really about the other person meeting our needs, but us becoming whole human beings and meeting each other as two whole human beings in the context of love. It's something we don't really have a model for. We're not, I certainly, did not have that model for me. As a, as a, as a boy, it certainly isn't modeled in our culture. It's certainly modeled in books and movies and TV. And, and so we're kind of flying blind a little bit. And what's really exciting is that there's, there's this sort of this emerging consciousness around love and sexuality and redefine what love is that kind of is exploring and don't really do a way of thinking about it. I read a book called All About Love by Bell Hooks, who's

• 53:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  recently died, a woman who was really insightful, talking about the nature of love. And it kind of was great because it kind of taught me that a lot of the ideas, the concepts, the beliefs, the conditioning, the, the norms are kind of fabricated. And, and what would love look like if we kind of shed those? And we ask ourselves, you know, what do we want? How do we create a different way of being with someone? And, and to use all those opportunities, whether they're triggers or things that cause us to kind of have some physical sensation or body of fear or disconnect as a gift, as an opportunity to look at ourselves and to look at what's happening and to be able to transmute that into a really different

• 54:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  way of relating to somebody.

• 54:23Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. And we need skills. It's about upskilling, right? I didn't know about conscious communication, right? I didn't know about regulating my nervous system. I didn't know about being hijacked by my emotions, my reactions and my triggers, or how to get space from that. Like, that's my aim is to upskill my clients, right? Not just the systematic healing work, but also to give them and upskill them in relationships, in sex. Like, what are the skills we actually need to succeed? Because, and also this healing relationship, it's not about perfection. But you do want, as you're, as you're sharing, what is the vision and intention for your relationship? It might look totally different. Is it that you want to spiritually evolve together? Is it that you want to create a safe space

• 55:05Speaker 03

  to do your own healing, such that your relationship becomes a healing presence for your kids, for your family, for your community? Like, what is the intention of even being with one another? Like, why are you together? So that when you forget, because Lord knows you will. Hopefully, one of you can remain in your mature adult and can help to empower the other to remember why we're here, to remember what is the style of communication we've agreed on. We don't use name calling. We don't use raise voices. I love you, but I won't allow that. That's not within our framework. We have different skills. We have a different intention. And learning how to repair after rupture, because even if you have all the best intentions, me and my husband have, we still, I still act like a petulant child sometimes.

• 55:50Speaker 03

  And I think, oof, wow, still got work to do, but I have the skills now to repair.

• 55:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think that's right. I think, you know, a lot of us, it's almost like, you know, we wouldn't imagine getting in a car where, you know, everything was unpredictable, where the car was for right, was for left, the brakes was on, the gas would go forward, you know, it would flip around and backwards. I mean, we wouldn't, we'd be terrified, but that's exactly how we navigate emotionally in relationships. It's like, it's like some crazy person driving the car.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  Right. And blaming, and blaming the other person in the passenger seat for, you know, how it's driving.

• 56:27Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Exactly. And, and so learning how to kind of get a hold of the control, a control switch is on our amygdala, which is our ancient, we call it our fight or flight response, but in medicine, we learned there were the four F's. The feeding, which is our baby around food, fight or flight and reproduction. That was the fourth F.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  I thought you were gonna say fawn, flight, fight, freeze, flight, fawn, but no, I like that. The fourth F, yes, very important.

• 56:57Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And so our behavior really is often triggered by these ancient survival mechanisms that, that aren't really serving us anymore. And I'm sort of curious about a lot of these ancient techniques around, you know, embodied sexuality and there, there's more and more talk about it. There's more courses that people can take, you know, there's things that actually help people discover that. And I'm, I'm super curious about it and. Exploring it myself, and I think that, you know, it's sort of almost criminal that we don't have a cultural narrative of how to get through these challenging aspects of love, relationship and sexuality. And that's why your work is so important, sort

• 57:39Dr. Mark Hyman?

  of gives people a roadmap, you know, to figure things out, which, which really, we don't have a language for, we don't have a framework for, and yet, and yet it exists. I mean, it's, it's been there throughout, you know, historical cultures, you know, whether it's Tantra or other, you know, ways of thinking about love, relationship, healing the mind, perception, Buddhism, all of it. You know, I think a friend of mine wrote, Susan Pav wrote The Four Noble Truths of Love. You know, it's like, it's all about how do we, how do we get out of this sort of projection of our, of our conditioning, our trauma, our lineages, and bring that into relationship and, and actually start to heal that. That, that's really what seems like the work that we have to do. Because right now, we're in such a

• 58:22Dr. Mark Hyman?

  divisive society. There's so much conflict, you know, not just in relationship, in love relationships, in family relationships, but in society as a whole. I mean, I, I just sort of staggering to me the amount of conflict. I mean, there always was, I guess, throughout history, but it just seems to be ramped up and, and polarized more than I've ever known. I mean, America didn't seem to be two Americas before. And now it seems to be completely two Americas, which is so tragic.

• 58:52Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, Ken Wilber, who I mentioned earlier, describes expansion of consciousness as the ability to expand what we are aware of and care for. So to both be aware of and caring of. And I think that for me, that looks like, and what I see people learn how to do through the somatic healing work is hold more complexity with care. That I can make a mistake, I can hurt myself or someone else, and I can still be a good human being. I'm still worthy of love. I'm still, I can have a really period of low of depression and be overcome with sadness, and I'm still valuable. I still have value. There's this complexity, this ability to hold more with more care. And I think if

• 59:37Speaker 03

  we each were able to do that on an individual level, we'd be able to hold more complex human beings in front of us, that people can say something you don't like and still be worthy of love and belonging. People can have a different opinion to you and still be worthy of your time and connection, you know?

• 59:54Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, it's so true. I mean, I deal with all sorts of people as a doctor. I can't choose who comes in my office. I can't choose what they believe, what their religious beliefs are, their political beliefs. And at the end of the day, everybody's a human being. And that's where I start. And, and you know, I, you know, I remember one day my office had a Muslim, a Christian, a rabbi, I had a top Republican, a top Democrat. It was like, it was like the United Nations of medicine or something. And I, and I was like, you know what, this is all so crazy. We're all just struggling with the same things. We all care about the same things. We all want to be happy. We all want our families to be good. We all want a limited better world. I mean, you

• 1:00:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  know, we all have different views of how to get there for sure. But I think that, that our common humanity has been forgotten. And, and that just really breaks my heart. And it seems to me that your work is really about getting connected to your own humanity and your own

• 1:00:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:50Dr. Mark Hyman?

  center of the universe, where you're actually an embodied human, that's looked at yourself carefully, that's healed the things that need to be healed, that's learned how to love yourself and others in a more integrated way. It's, it's the most important work we have to do. I, I remember reading a quote, I can't remember the exact one from Dalai Lama, but essentially it's like, we want to heal the world, we have to start with ourselves, you know, and I think it may seem like a narcissistic pursuit, but it really isn't. If we don't take care of ourselves, we can't be there in the world to show up for others. You know, and I think that's what it's all about.

• 1:01:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. And the body doesn't discriminate. You know, your body, if whatever mistakes you make, you know, your body's just striving, even when, even when we're sick, the body's always striving to try and deal with the toxins and the stress and everything to try and create a homeostasis. It's like our body doesn't discriminate. And what's so beautiful about the body is it's always right here, right now. Your body is never anywhere else but right here, right now. And that's what I really love about this powerful path of body-based healing. And I think that when we get in touch with our body, we do become more present. And when we're connected to our body, I believe we're connected to the gift of getting to be alive, of you, this moment,

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  this body, this life, exactly as it is right now. And that's, for me, has been the most profound Pathway or gateway into better sex and liberation and truly allowing myself to be seen by my husband, which I found excruciatingly vulnerable, right? I knew how to do the fourth F, but did I know how to make love, how to be seen? No, that took me learning and developing and better relationships, learning how to love my darkness and still say, wow, okay, that was not kind or I lost my temper there and I'm still worthy of love and belonging to take responsibility for. And then that allows me to do it with other people. I look, okay, wow, that person lost their temper, that didn't feel good. Okay, they're still worthy, can we repair?

• 1:02:54Speaker 03

  So it's like all of this work internally that does bleed outward and that is really tangible. That's what I love about the body too, is you have an experience of it. It's not just ideology, it's not just concept. You feel it in your own way, through your own lens, whether it's spiritual or religious or secular, and then you have that experience and no one or nothing can take it from you.

• 1:03:15Dr. Mark Hyman?

  When it comes to supplements, you only want the best for your body, the kind with the highest quality, cleanest and most potent ingredients you can get. That's exactly what you'll find at my supplement store, where I've hand-selected each and every product to meet the most rigorous standards for safety, purity and effectiveness. These are the only supplements I recommend to my patients and they're also what I use myself. Whether you want to optimize longevity or reduce your disease risk, or you're looking to improve your sleep, blood sugar, metabolism, gut health, you name it, drhyman.com has the world's best selection of top quality, premium supplements, all backed by science and expertly vetted by me, Dr. Mark Hyman. So check out drhyman.com because when it comes to your health, nothing less than the very best will do. That's drhyman.com, D R H Y M A N dot com.

• 1:03:59Dr. Mark Hyman?

  If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. Please reach out, I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the Dr. Hyman Show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health, where I am Chief Medical Officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor

• 1:04:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center at ultrawellnesscenter.com, and request to become a patient. It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public. So I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening.