The Groundbreaking Science Behind Reprogramming Your Genetics | Dr. Jeffrey Bland

Jeffrey Bland (0:00)

With this whole concept of making what used to be called soft science really become hard science, that these constructs of how we think about ourselves, how we vision ourselves, how we communicate internally to ourselves about our identity in the planet, are influencing in real time 24-7, how our genes are marked, and how they will create our function going forward. That is a huge revolution.

Michael Gervais (0:34)

I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here.

I'm going to stop here.

I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to stop here. Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast.

And after spending the last four decades deeply studying the improvements of human health, Jeff has earned his nickname as the founder of functional medicine. So his pioneer work has created the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute as well as the Institute for Functional Medicine. Both recognize as global leaders in functional medicine education. Jeff's latest project, Big Bold Health, is on a mission to transform the way people think about one of nature's greatest innovations, the immune system. Jeff, I'm really excited to sit with you. How are you?

Jeffrey Bland (1:28)

Well, I can't tell you how pleased and excited I am to have this opportunity to talk with you. What you're doing is right where the tip of the spear resides in terms of people making positive changes that really impact their performance, their health, their wellness, and the ability to give to others. So I'm really very appreciative of the opportunity to have this discussion with you.

Michael Gervais (1:48)

That surprised me. And I'll tell you why that surprised me is because one, like honestly, and I feel like I'm bending knee a bit here because of what you've contributed to the field. And then if I took me out of that equation and I just listened to the way that you reframed it, like are you fundamentally optimistic and grateful? Are those two of the leading kind of character traits that you work from?

Jeffrey Bland (2:14)

I'm unbelievably grateful. I've had this, as you mentioned, this four decades of life experience. It has taken me 6 million miles of travel around the world. And I've met the most amazing people in those travels. They've seen a lot of hotel rooms too that I can't say are that exciting. But the people that I met during the travels were unbelievably stimulating. I'm kind of a composite mosaic of all these experiences I've had with people. I've been pretty good listener, I think, and I've tried to incorporate a lot of the learnings that I've had the privilege of being associated with, both in the people that work with me, for me, and the people that have been my educators.

I've learned from all sorts of individuals and tried to bring those learnings together into kind of a, I guess you'd call it a style that can be delivered to improve people's function. And I see function as being encoded in four different categories. One is their physical function. I think all of us want physically to perform throughout the course of a hundred years of living or more.

Second is our cognitive function, being able to think and act rationally and responsibly and quickly and process have high processing speed. Third is our metabolic function. And my formal training both through medical school and my PhD was really in the whole aspect of metabolism.

And so I think physiological health is a functional importance. And then lastly is our behavioral function, how we interact with this complex socio-political, economic, cultural environment that we're living in a world that's really undergoing a transition in how people interact with one another as a consequence of the internet and social media and so forth. So all of these behavioral constitutions are other variables that relate to our function. When you aggregate it together, then become us and our function as a whole organism.

Michael Gervais (4:06)

Okay, so you took the words right out of my mouth is like asking you for a flyover for functional medicine and you just did it. How do you conceptualize the role in nutrition for functional medicine?

Jeffrey Bland (4:17)

Yeah, thank you. So, you know, as I try to simplify the complexity of life, and we all know that there's always more questions to be asked and more answers to be found. But when I try to look at principles that aggregate human experience together, there are some that I think are reproducible across all human beings that have lived on the planet. And that is we breathe air, we consume fluids, principally hopefully water, we eat and we move.