Comfort is Destroying Your Health: Why Stress is Not the Enemy | Jeff Krasno

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (0:00)
How can discomfort and stress be the key to reversing chronic disease and living a longer, healthier life? Hi, I'm Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, and on today's podcast, we will be digging deep into the science of health, wellness, and longevity. Today, I'm joined by Jeff Krasno, the visionary behind Commune, a wellness platform and podcast that's redefining how we think about health. Jeff's personal journey of reversing, yes, you heard that, diabetes, losing 60 pounds and transforming his life is nothing short of inspiring. Together, we'll explore how, quote, good stress, like fasting and cold therapy, can revolutionize your health. Why nearly all Americans face metabolic dysfunction and practical ways to escape the comfort traps that are sabotaging our well-being. This is an episode you won't want to miss.
I just wanted to jump on here with an exciting announcement I am hosting. The second ever Forever Strong Summit, April 26th, 27th in Houston, Texas, 2025 There's going to be two days, the VIP day on April 26th. You will learn from former Navy SEALs, from former Secret Service, from individuals that you do not want to miss. Myself, my inner tribe will be there to support you to learn everything, from muscle health, to science, to nutrition. You don't have to be an expert. You don't even have to have a background. All you have to have is a will to win and stay strong. I will put a link in the show notes below. Please go to my website, drgabriellelyon.com. We sold out last year and I would hate for you to miss this opportunity. So if you're waiting for a sign, if you're thinking you need to change something up and you need community, friends, we've got you covered. Jeff Krasno, welcome to the show.

**Jeff Krasno** (2:07)
Thanks so much for having me. It's such a treat to be here. You've built such an amazing community and I'm just honored to be in your presence and to be able to connect with them.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (2:16)
I have to say that you are a forever student and when I was researching you and your book, Good Stress, to bring you on to really talk about this, there was a few things that struck me.

**Jeff Krasno** (2:28)
Okay.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (2:29)
Number one, you have three girls and you've been married for quite some time. How long?

**Jeff Krasno** (2:37)
So I think, well, it depends if you ask my wife or me. I've been with her for 36 years. I think she's been with me for 35 This is a subject of great debate.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (2:49)
And that is amazing. A large portion of our audience is female. And you are taking care of an entire female tribe. We have also your information, inspiration. The other thing is that you yourself have had a health journey. And that has truly made you this student of, and I'm going to read this quote, it is, chronic ease breeds chronic disease. I truly just, that resonated so much.

**Jeff Krasno** (3:24)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I hit rock bottom from a biopsychosocial perspective about five years ago. And I really had to do a very serious personal intake form, I guess you might call it, in your language. But an inventory of what was going on in my life. I mean, first of all, I was a chronic insomniac. I was depressed. I had very unflattering physical presentations.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (3:54)
You said you were almost 80 pounds heavier?

**Jeff Krasno** (3:56)
Almost 80 pounds heavier. So I was about 210 at that point. In fairness, I'm about 165 now. So I've actually put on a little bit of muscle weight, thanks to you, candidly. But I was experiencing all of these symptoms of modernity, and they're so anodyne on some level, just like chronic fatigue, brain fog, a little adiposity around the middle, inability to concentrate, can't read a book, need to check my phone all the time, just perpetual agitation.
These conditions and presentations are so normalized in our society, but they're completely abnormal, and they exist just barely upstream. This is what I discovered across my journey from all of these chronic diseases, particularly for me, metabolic dysfunction and diabetes. But we've completely normalized the abnormal, and that is what I had to untangle for myself. As you say, I was kind of a citizen scientist. And what I ended up putting my thumb on was, yeah, this idea that chronic ease in my life was leading to chronic dis-ease. And everywhere I looked, I saw evidence of this. And so, you know, what I began to understand is that humans, Homo sapiens, evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, and then our hominid ancestors, for millions of years before that. And we evolved in relationship to our environment, and nature in its glorious brilliance selected for the best of us over that unfathomable period of time. And so we developed adaptive mechanisms in relationship to our environment. And a lot of these adaptive mechanisms flourished in the presence of some degree of paleolithic stress.