Pathways to Peak Performance — Part 2 with Dr. Karolina Pras

What if healing was the real high performance?

In this raw and revealing episode, Dr. Karolina Pras opens up about her personal battle with Lyme disease and mold illness—and how it completely transformed her approach to medicine, success, and life.

She challenges the “symptom → drug” loop of modern healthcare and reveals why Functional Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine are reshaping what true healing means.

This conversation goes deep: the emotional toll of chronic illness, the courage it takes to slow down, and how finding peace can become the ultimate form of strength.

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 Every view, like, and share supports the Lymelight Foundation — helping Lyme patients access the care they can’t afford.
🎥 Watch Part 2 now → https://youtu.be/ewMltpwb1zA?si=LgRnwQg4e8YX5jq2

💡 What You’ll Learn
The difference between treating symptoms and healing the root cause
Why chronic illness is often a call to slow down and reconnect
The overlap between Lyme, mold toxicity, and immune dysregulation
How redefining “peak performance” can restore balance, peace, and purpose
Why humility and open-mindedness are medicine’s next frontier

✨ If you’re an entrepreneur, creative, or anyone navigating life’s curveballs, this episode is packed with insight, grit, and inspiration.

🔔 Subscribe for weekly conversations with innovators, athletes, and leaders redefining peak performance.

📍 Connect with The Lymelight Foundation and support their mission: https://lymelightfoundation.org

Transcript

 We just currently going through this collective detachment from what we truly are. So I invite everyone to really come back, you know, to reconnect, to find yourself the intense stress that peak performers put on themselves. You've found a way to sort of mitigate that. Yeah, it's redefining. What big performance it means to you in society?

It's usually, people understand it as productivity, producing, producing, producing more and more outcomes. But for me, big performance is not about that. It's really doing things from your heart at peace. Hey, let's go deeper into Lyme Disease. Ah, okay. What would you like to hear now? Lyme has been a huge learning curve, like I before, if patients would say, I have.

Lyme or co-infections. I, I wouldn't take them, I would send them to someone. The years of experience, some Lyme literary doctor, because you have to be good at it. Uh, there are so many nuances, it's so complex. And now here we go. Like for me, it's been a huge learning curve. I've just been diagnosed four months ago and it explained so many symptoms, so, so many symptoms.

It's been a missing piece to the puzzle. Why I am not healing from mold. And it's very common that people who have mold illness, they have Lyme or people who have Lyme, they are super mold sensitive. Eh, I mean, mold is so spread out. It's everywhere. So it's, it's more common than not opposed two things. So you have, when you're healing, you have to address both of them, usually in most cases.

So yeah, I was not responding well to my mold protocol and my doctor said, you know what? You probably have Lyme. I see that in patients because you're not tolerating your treatment and I'm like, Lyme me. Like I had some thoughts that I may have Lyme or co-infections three, five years ago based on my symptoms, but I did what every conventional medicine doctor would do.

I did all the tests available. I went to every lab I tested, and because these tests are so. I'm complete. They all gave false negative. Hmm. And then it tricked me into thinking that, okay, this is not a root cause, I don't have it. And it happens to so many people. They always do the most available test, test that their personal care provider runs, or infectious disease doctor, and they all false negative, but you need a specific test you need.

Good test. Lyme is such a great imitator. It also over the time damages your immune system to the point that if you are looking IgG IGM, if you're looking for it, you won't detect it because Lyme suppressed it. The bacteria is so smart, it doesn't want your immune system to fight against it. So that's why it's uh, it's undiagnosed, misdiagnosed for so many people.

So. I still got my diagnosis. I mean, it's probably been around, as I said, for 15, 16 years, but only last year. It's been the worst because COVID also contributed to that also. Why some people get long COVID and other people don't. It's also because they have some priming events. We probably had some dormantly, they probably had some mold.

So it's also connected and one, it's a cascade. So, and other people who. Not exposed, let's say, to mold did not have toxicity. They don't develop long COVID. So when you have one of these chronic conditions, you wanna get the full picture. Not only, oh, it's only long COVID, it's only line. There is a full picture and few things at play.

Lyme, again, it doesn't come. In one infection. People think about lius, Borrelia, it always a bouquet of infections, viral and bacteria. It's Babe Abella, uh, HA HB six, like there are so many of them. Uh, Epstein, uh, Epstein Bar Virus is one of the major contributors as well. So you have to address it all and there's no one way.

It's so, so complex because there are so many different protocols. There are amazing Lyme literary MDs who created protocols better out, highly effective. They are still not effective to everyone. For some people, and antibiotics save their life, brought them back to life. For some people, it made things worse.

Way worse. Maybe they felt good for the first few months while they were on antibiotics, and then we. Started feeling really bad. Even worse when before. I'm talking all about chronic Lyme. Acute Lyme, it's different story, but you wanna treat va. If there is a recent tick bite, you wanna address VA right away.

Um, before I wasn't that convinced if you should do an, an antibiotics, if there's, let's say no rash, even if there's no rash. It's better to treat it because rash does not show up. Uh, the Lyme rash tremor, um, it does not show up in many cases. So you wanna go on antibiotics and not one week longer. You wanna do it longer.

Um, but when it comes to chronic Lyme, these infections perhaps been weakening your body slowly for years. So then it's a whole different treatment. Wow. So acute Lyme and chronic Lyme. That's what it's, you didn't realize you had it. Yeah. Now you're in this, you've got it and you're dealing with it. You don't know what the symptoms are.

Yeah. Let's go back to that. Just that is the only way that you, a human being can, that can contract Lyme is through a tick bite. No, it's very common from, uh, the pass. For mom to pass to her child. It can be. So let's say Ella, it's considered. Lime coinfection and takes carry it, but also fleece carry it and cat scratches and transfer it to you, uh, with its snails.

So through like nail scratch. It's tricky. I grew up so many pets and probably I got this tonnel not even from tech. Perhaps even earlier, but bertinelli is the most difficult to diagnose and to treat it. It's called cat scratch disease. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it could cause issues with vision and all sorts of things.

Yeah. It can cause similar neurological symptoms like ly borre, like mold symptoms are so overlapping. There are no actual very specific symptom that you could pinpoint. Oh, this is actually, this is actually il. There are symptoms that. Could tell you more that yes, if you have, uh, pain in your feet, like burning pain, that's most likely Ella.

But it can happen with other co-infections. Ear hunger most likely is bo It's Babesia and severe anxiety. Most likely's, Babesia, but not necessarily. It can be Ella, it can be there ever. So it's, it's very wait, ear, ear hunger. Yes. What is this? When you can't inhale, you inhale and you still want more oxygen and you're never satisfied.

You never feel like you've got enough oxygen. I had episodes of that on up. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. Like you get to a spot where, I remember one time I was on the stationary bike and I'm riding and all of a sudden I'm like, I can't catch my breath. Yeah. I had to get off. I go to the window, like that's gonna make any difference.

Like the, you know, the window was already open. Yeah. And I was breath completely breathless. Yeah. It freaked me out. Right. But mold can do the same, you know, let's say if a person is more sensitive and a person visited and the airport or some of a facility with lots of mold and same day or next day having, experiencing ear hunger.

So that can happen as well. So there are multiple forms of Lyme. I didn't know that. It's called ly and co-infections. Yeah. So it's co-infections. It's number one infection. Wow. Yeah. So that's what makes them so difficult to treat that and people really suffer from it for so long. Yeah. So it brings us back more to a terrain theory versus germ theory because it's, uh, the abnormal terrain.

It's not functioning. How it should your immune system is not keeping them at bay. This pathogenic bacteria and letting them manifest and overgrow. So we have to address also immune system. And cytokine storm. Cytokine storm is what? Many people suffered so badly during COVID. They learned what a cytokine storm from the experience.

But, uh, Lyme infection, flareups cause the same thing. Then you get brain inflammation, mold causes similar things. So yeah, you have to regulate immune system too. So when we say terrain, are we talking about the gut and the brain connection too? Is that or, or, or terrain. It's all the bacteria, viruses, everything within us, you know, human body has over 3 trillion viruses.

Something like that is like crazy amount. I would say 3 billion just to be correct, but I think it's more. That, and then so much bacteria in it. But everything has to be imbalanced. It's impossible not to have any like, um, pathogenic bacteria, but it has to, yeah, it has to be balanced. So many people got tick bites during the lifetime and never realized and never got a single symptom because their immune system is functioning as it should and keeping both infections from.

So when it never manifests in something that your body cannot keep up any longer. So for those people, let's say they do extensive testing, just out of curiosity, but not experiencing symptoms, they may find Lyme, they may find Ella Babesia, but there's no point to treat them if a person is feeling well.

So you see a lot of patients, what in your panel of patients comes to you and they're kind of lucky to get in? Who are the patients that you typically wind up seeing? What are they, what are they trying to achieve in their health? So patients are usually already somewhat familiar with this model because integrative medicine is basically integrating Western and.

We call it alternative, but it should not be called alternative. It's the medicine. So it's integrating is both, I would say pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical medicine. So these people are usually somewhat familiar. They've probably been dismissed by western medicine. They could not find answers with their personal care providers and they're still experiencing these, these, their symptoms like star born weight, uh, hormone imbalances.

PMS. Um, most of my clients have the men, but I do work with men as well. Uh, gut issues and, you know, puff swelling, like just being, feeling unwell where it bothers you or you see that your body's is, uh, like something wrong is happening more and more, but you don't have answers. So that's, that's the people I work with.

And they usually find through, they do their own search. Um, they find me through all the courses I've taken through these networks or word of mouth, like even from close circle. Almost everyone needs a little bit of help. Almost everyone. Uh, it just, of course it's very. Difficult to work with like family because they don't listen.

So super close people to me. I don't take my, as patients, I give up on that. Like I give all the medical advice to my family, but I'm not any like authority and it's not paid. So they don't listen for things they don't pay for, you know, so when patients come to you, you, you, you start working with them, um, they usually have some sort of condition or have some sort of goal.

In mind, you start out with the testing and then you know this long kind of getting to know them. You develop a relationship with the patient, which is hard to do sometimes with people. Do you feel like patients always tell you the truth about everything that they're doing, or do they withhold you?

Withhold and that's okay. Maybe next consultation they gonna, they're gonna tell about it. But yes, it's a process. It's a commitment. Myself, I'm on both sides. Um. I'm a doctor, but I'm a patient because of this last mold exposure and Lyme disease, and I would love to bring more doctors on board, even for myself.

Every time you start with a new doctor, it's a process. It's uh, it's like a relationship in a way, you know, you get to know each other. It's not, it's not cheap and so on, and you get time. And then also trying their protocols. You dunno if it's gonna be right for you or not. So, um, what best way. To find out if you are a good match is first 15 minutes free consultation.

You see if you are a good match with a client. I see. I ask them if they are committed and if they're willing to put work and effort, because there's gonna be a lot of lifestyle changes. We are not going to medicate symptoms. And then I see if I can help in their cases because their are cases, you know, let's say oncology like I, I don't work with that.

If they want, I can support with some. Other parts, but everything is so delicate and oncologist. So I, I usually don't take these patients, but if there's a demand in the future, I'm very willing to learn and then, you know, open bad possibility as well to other people. So it's really an honest conversation if I can help you and if you are willing to commit mm-hmm.

And work. So what's, what's for you and your pathway to peak performance? You've achieved a lot. Um, it seems like you're on the cusp of something really big. I don't know what it is. And, and I'm not trying to like, um, guess the weight of the carnival here. Um, but what I'm, I, what I'm sensing from you is that there's something that's big that's about to happen for you.

I'm curious, what do you feel that it is? Ooh, I'm also very curious. And now, um. This, honestly, this chronic illness I haven been through the hardest times, but it's been blessing in disguise as well. It's been extremely transformative. I'm not the same person I was three years ago. I'm not the same person I, I was a year ago or six months ago.

I'm still changing and I'm just fascinating to see this. I'm finding so much peace on the wall. I was always with high achiever. Go, go, go. Do it, do it, do it. It's slowed me down to such peace that I'm enjoying so much. I started living slower, doing everything slower. Um. We'll see, but I accomplished just as much as you know, and I was like running around and all over place and besides medicine keeping so many other interests and hobbies and traveling like didn't almost to cement the countries and most of them, like many of the multiple times.

So like always exploring. I had so much curiosity and I still have so much curiosity for life, but I explored outer world and then I really last three, four years, I explored inner a world, inner traveling and all those realms. It's been so interesting and now I'm just. Being, you know, just, just being, observing, doing things in harmony, truthful to myself, like really coming back to myself.

Because growing up and through life, when you're discovering yourself, you get so conditioned by other people's lives, ideas and everything. And some people can be huge inspiration. Which is incredible because they encourage you to accomplish great things or at least try. But there is a fine line when it becomes, when you realize, oh, I'm living someone else life.

I'm not living my own life. My life is different. Even with family members, I have such, such beautiful and close relationship with my sister to the point where like, am I living their life on my own life? So I really had to like this chronic illness. Has been isolating. It took me out of that like it's been a lonely and isolating place because no one can see what you're going through.

No one can relate. I would have never been able to relate until couple years ago what really means chronic illness, what chronic fatigue means. It's not being tired. It's like it's beyond. And um, probably it was needed for my. Soul to rebuild myself from, from zero, and it's still in progress, but it's unfolding so beautifully that I'm in a way grateful to this, to whatever happened.

I'm at peace. Before it was a little bit, I would say traumatic and parts of it. It can still be if I would have to go from mold again, although I would know how to deal with it much, much better. Um, but I'm at peace with everything. What happens? So what's next? We'll see, but whatever it is. It'll come from, from the core, from like really what I am not other's ideas.

Not from other, what other things, what success is, what doctor's career should be, what, you know, successful women's life should look like. Having career, having 'cause, having everything figured. It's not everything but, um. We'll see. It's a good question. Yeah. So cool. Right. I mean, I think the secret to life and somebody, I can't remember who it was, but just recently said to me like the secret to life is figuring out who you are.

Yeah. Really getting down to knowing exactly who you are and just like the patient being truthful with the doctor. If people could be truthful with themselves about what they really want, break free of, oh, I need to do this because. I need to please my parents, I need to do this. It could be amazing. Right?

Right. And these programs run subconsciously, consciously. You think you're doing everything you, uh, right for yourself, but it's not necessarily, you really have to ask deeper questions. You really, really go to this uncomfortable place. And. I was never avoiding it, but chronic illness brought me so deep to that place.

Like it brought everything to the surface. I mean, I wish there was either path, but it is what it is and it's still like, it's, it's a never ending process. I can't say like, oh, like now I have everything figured out. I just approach things. Differently and with so much curiosity and peace and acceptance.

Um, but things are still unfolding. Yeah. So do you think you'll stay in the United States? What do you think? I mean, I didn't know that you had gone to 70 different countries. That's pretty wild. 70 different countries. I had so much curiosity. I think everything worked out perfectly. Like growing up in.

Relatively small country population is 3 million. I was super outgoing during my, um, teenage years, and I think I took everything I could from the country maximized all the experiences, activities. Everything. And then it happened that they started to these extremely cheap flights. So me, I was like 16 years old.

Instead of going to a bar and spending, I dunno, a hundred euros, you can do a weekend trip somewhere, you know? Or like couple trips, like me and my friends, we would book, oh, this is like this month. Going here and there and the next month here and there just for a few days. In medical school, I squeezed in every, we did not have a lot of time off, like at all, but I would squeeze in wherever I could so I could travel, see the world and yeah, I, I've been really fascinating.

I would go to random places. I just open a map and. Oh, this looks like in the middle of nowhere. Let me go there. Let me see how people live there. Like I am, stayed by myself in Asia. First I went with my sister. When I stayed there by myself, I'm like, oh, this is interesting. Let me get a scooter. Let me like explore, let me, let me do this.

So always had this curiosity and you learn so much about yourself. People think, oh, traveling is to learn about other cultures. But it's really, you learn about yourself, your own culture. You have something to compare it to. Instead of. Only seeing one version of life. When you see how people, let's say live, I dunno, in Indonesia, then you understand your people in your country better because you compare, you have a reference point.

And same with your own personality. When you see how life can be approached differently, you know what we label as good and bad in other places, it's not necessarily good and bad. So it taught me a lot, but as I said, uh, I slow down and then. It was more like inner, inner traveling and inner reflections. I still have, like, I'm still very passionate about all these things.

It's just I. Don't have this like energy of like hungry, 18 years old. Like I could travel s sleepless like without, without any rest, hop from country to country. Like now I need some rest and in between, which is like normal. And that's really interesting, that inner traveling. Yeah. Fascinat. Because we can hyper focus on outside world, but we still have to come back to ourself and, and focus on that too eventually.

Yeah. It's a must. Very true. Um, alright, so I have a question for you. Favorite country in Asia? Uh, many of 'em. If you had to pick one that you would say, let's go there right now, which would only be. I don't know. I would love to go back to China. I lived there and it's so like underrated when people think about China.

They might think about factories or like politics or something, but there's so much culture, so much beauty, so much nature. Incredible, beautiful. I'm fascinated how rich our culture is. The people, the food. There are so many places to explore and I went to some, but it's uh, it's limitless. I went to Shalin Temple to learn kung fu to train with monks.

Like that was such a unique experience as well, and tough and, uh, so cool. Um, I went to some crazy mountains, you know, where we got idea to avatar. It's really like avatar, just like not, um, uh, hanging in the air. These mountains actually, actually there. Um. Many fascinating places. Definitely a beautiful country with lots of, lots of things to check out and, um, that's why you hope in the world that we can come to some sort of way for everybody to coexist.

It's 2025, the notion that we're still fighting wars, um, or hum not supplying clean water to people. Um, there's so many things that we could be doing that are so, you know, good for the world, good for people. It's, it's almost, yeah. Hard to imagine, right? It's hard to believe what's happening. It's really hard to believe.

Yeah. But at the same time, I feel like there's also this opportunity for, I, I feel like we're on the cusp of a breakthrough. It's so easy to slip into the negative. Yeah. Um, because it's, I feel like we're bombarded with it every week. We are. You know, we are. And the thing with fulfillment, happiness, content.

It's Ava baseline and the, uh, get used to that, to the point where we don't see that magic around us anymore because it's Ava baseline. Because magic enjoys in every little moment in a cup of coffee and like everywhere in a butterfly, in a bird song. And because it's the world, life is so full of these moments.

We don't see that anymore. And then our primal brain, reptilian brain is its job, is to focus on dangers to protect us. So when we are bombarded by media about all this information, and of course we focus on that and we always in this stress mode and we even forget the beauty outside that. Yeah, it seems like everybody's stressed out.

Yeah, I mean there are so many tools and there've always been tools. We are not referred, like yes, we are bombarded, um, excessively nowadays, but it's not that people didn't have, didn't get into those loops. Ages ago, but they had tools and we still have same tools. You know, being in a nature, being still not distracting yourself, sitting with yourself, sitting with your thoughts, your feelings.

For some people it can be meditation. For some people it doesn't work. Some people need active meditation. Maybe it's, uh, running maybe something, you know. Same weight lifting, I've been saying, yes, it's high lead and muscle exercise, but then it's so meditative as well. It's um, huge benefits. Um, cardio, like all cardio activity can really clean, clear your mind.

So we just became a little bit too lazy and we are not doing these things enough when we really need both people say now. I'll go to visit. Nature as nature is something we go to visit. It's part of us. Like we came from nature. We are not concrete and buildings and technology, we are nature. We, we came this way.

So we just currently going through this collective detachment from what we truly are. So I invite everyone to. Really come back, you know, to reconnect, to find yourself and find that peace. Because yes, I have a brain can get on fire and with, uh, physical stressors, they add up a lot. Like now, some days I feel like a little bit of anxiety and I can distinguish so clearly that it's physical.

It came from symptoms. Probably I ate something. My body's too sensitive right now. Um, and that food sensitivity translated as physical inside. Uh, so I just learned how to distinguish it and how to know when, what caused, and then you know, what tools you can use for that powerful. One thing I would like to ask you is something I ask a lot.

Could you give me one peptide that you feel nobody's talking about, but you love for, for any reason? Oh, I mean, everyone, I'm in this world, so for me it feels like everyone is talking about each of them. Yeah. Um, but what's the one that you like? I mean, we could talk about Lon, we could talk about thymus in, we could talk about, I would say G-H-K-C-U.

It's, people label it as a beauty hormone, but it's really my guy friends. They're so happy with hair growth, with skin, with everything. And it's not only. You know, for women, or not only beauty, it also contributes to like all the tissue repair and other processes. But you could see the effects. Like you can see the glow, so just hurts like heck when you inject it, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, no, it's, uh, coppers big stuff. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Um, that's a good one. Any other one you wanna mention? Um. In my world, in chronic illness world is KPV. KPV is everything. It's anti-inflammatory. People with, uh, chronic inflammatory response syndrome, they have low MSH melany assimilating hormone, and KPV is actually a fragment of fat.

So it gives you what your body is missing. It can support it while you're healing from the impacts of mold. Um, it regulates your mast cells anti-inflammatory immune system regulating. It's amazing. So KPV, what about KPV? From a trauma standpoint, is that something that is good from trauma? From a trauma standpoint?

Physical trauma? Yeah. It would be more than B, PC 1 57 for repair for tissue repair. So if you're using B PC 1 57 in combination with Thymosin Beta four for somebody who over trains. Yeah. Um, you think KPV is a more potent version of, uh, than BPC 1 57 for just General Lake gym recovery. I wouldn't choose KPV for gym recovery per se.

If you have some of inflammation that is slowing down your gym recovery, then yes. Like a twisted ankle or something? Yeah. Then PPP C 1 57. Interesting. Yeah. All right. What do you think about hyperbaric oxygen therapy? It's incredible. It's one of the only few things, but actually then studied to show that it has such great effect on longevity.

Reverse engaging. Um, I'm thinking to buy one for home use because you need many sessions. 10 sessions, 30 sessions won't do much. So you have to, you know, you have to commute. It's, it's time, it's a commitment. So having it at home really helps. Here in the US it's so much easier because people can rent. So if you wanna do, you know, a protocol for a month or two every day, you just rent it.

It's so much better. And then you don't need to keep something bulky in your living room anymore once you decide what you are done with it. 'cause you're not gonna do it for entire year every day. You know, you'll do maybe two months and then another couple months. You know, the funny thing is, I, when I go in and I do a session, I can't have my phone.

So I'm in, you know, at like 2.4 atmospheres. Yeah. It's just like, you know, it's an hour and a half of basically total digital detox, and I find that that is so potent, so powerful, just to be away from that. I, I can't, and it can really slow down. I, you know, meditate. Sometimes I just fall asleep. It's weird.

Yeah. You know what I mean? I, if I'm really tired. Right. I also use that time to slow down or to meditate. Um, unless it's not a seated one, but a lay down one, then I fall asleep. Yeah. Yeah. That you get into that chamber and it's like, yeah. Once you, once you reach, um, I mean, I, I can fall asleep. It's kinda like I could fall asleep on an airplane right before we take off.

I'm, I'm out but in the chamber and say before I'm even, I'm so used to. Regulating my, the pressure in my ears. Yeah. And you know, when the first time they ask 'em, have you ever been, you know, how, how deep have you gone diving? I'm like, this is gonna be easy. Right. So, um, so basically you go in and all of a sudden you're just like.

It's, it's really blissful since we started recording my, my thing has been beeping, nonstop, going crazy. Apple Watch lasted one message on my wrist. The first message I got was buzzing. I'm like, never, I'm not wearing this, but it said it's still in my drawer and. And what do you think about that too? Also, all of this, this tracking and when I first got my Apple Watch, I was like, oh, this is the coolest thing ever.

And I was like, setting all these goals and I was really into it. And yeah, I was like, making sure. Then over time I'm like, hmm. But that's why you have to do it short term intentionally. You track yourself for a week or two, you make conclusion, you adjust your habits, and then you track again yourself maybe after four months or six months, you know?

Same with continuous glucose monitor. You don't wear it all year round. You wear it for 12 days or a week, and. You see what's working for you, what's not in your diet. You make adjustments and then you don't bear it until, until the next time you feel like you need to tune in again. So it's great for short-term use intentionally.

I don't like any devices on me traveling devices because of everything. It's, we can go deeper in my, but like, I dunno, there's so much we don't know. There's a green, it's emitting green light to your like. Uh, meridians, a very important meridians. It's still a stimulation and there are so many other things.

Yeah. That, you know, it is weird to think that like you've got a 5G connection on your wrist Yeah. With emitting green light. Yeah. Constantly to very sensitive points in your body. Yeah. That is really true. So, um, let's go back to the CGM. So you advocate for somebody, anybody, just to do a CGM and, and track how they, you know, because some people, there's so many different diets, right?

I mean, there are people that are like keto, there are carnivore, there's Mediterranean, there's all of these things. Do you feel like it's important for you to figure out which, which foods actually work for you as an individual? If you don't have health issues, complaints, and you're eating relatively clean and healthy diet, then I wouldn't worry now because we are bombarded with all the marketing, they try to convince you that you need this, you need tracking, you need this.

I think you need, people need to relax more. It's really, the longevity is more and, and not necessarily in overdoing and over tracking and losing your mind in this game of like staying forever young. But um. If you have symptoms, if you have sugar crashes, if you're feeling weak after meals, tired, if you are snacking, feeling worse afterwards, you don't know what to snack on, you don't know how your body responds.

You feel weird after your naps, you wake up in the middle of the night. It can really give you a lot of information. Like it's very common with people who wake up, let's say. From two to three o'clock in the middle of the night. It's because they have this dip in, uh, in the blood sugar and glucose. So it's interesting to see that what's waking you up and um, and then, you know, maybe like a light protein snack before going to sleep would help you to avoid that crash.

So it can be super, super informative. And let me ask you a question about that. 'cause that happens to me all the time. Could you take essential, you know, those. Um, I don't wanna name the brand 'cause I, I'm not here to endorse any one particular brand, but there is one brand and they say that it is the perfect combination of amino acids, essential amino acids.

Could you take that in, in replacement of that, in the sense, in the notion that it might digest slower and give you a more steady stream? Or is that something that you test with a CGM? For that particular product. I dunno it, we should look in the caloric value. It's very decent. So you say it's no, no calories.

Yeah, but I always choose Whole Foods. For that to avoid, to prevent that crash. You may want some chicken breast or something organically and just a little bit of it to avoid that crash. But, uh, the root cause, again, it's not that you're lacking a chicken breast before sleep, the root cause. It's probably stress.

Uh, and. It's very common also for people, including me. It was a case where I didn't even know I'm stressing. It's a hidden stress, you know, we're on the surface, you're chill. Everything is good. Everyone who knows me, they think I'm really chill, but it's a hidden stress. So it's just a different mechanism.

Was that coming from the Lyme and the mold toxicity, the, it was a physical aspect where it was probably also. Psychological aspect, putting so much pressure on myself, demanding for myself to perform, to do things, um, all of that. Yeah. You know what, um, that's maybe a good place for us to kind of wrap up in, in the last topic to talk about, which is the intense stress that Pete performers put on themselves and, you know, these peaks and valleys that we go through, you know, I see it trying, you're trying to go, trying to get up.

Then a lot of it's not sustainable. You're, you're pushing so hard, it's not sustainable to operate at that level forever. So you know, you're coming back down. Then you're trying to find your way back up to the top. That can be, um, pretty intense on, on people. It sounds to me like you've found a way to sort of mitigate that in your process and come to a place of real peace and still achieve at the same time.

Yeah. It's redefining what big performances do. It means to you in society, it's usually people understand it as productivity, producing, producing, producing more and more outcomes. But for me, big performance is not about that. It's really doing things from your heart at B, not sacrificing your health.

That's a big performance when you can still be healthy, fulfilled, when you can still have happy relationship with your family members, with your friends. With yourself, your community, everyone. So it's not only producing, it's being at peace, acceptance, going at your own pace, not what someone else said or did, and what matters that, you know, we don't wanna ve out ourself down to Graham to, but, um, other family members don't even see us in a process while we are producing, producing, producing something.

It's redefining what makes you feel fulfilled and content and uh, you can still be very productive and produce a lot when you do it from a right place when it doesn't wear you out. Mm-hmm. But it's a process. It comes for trial and error and learning and beginning is, I dunno. People for who beginning was like ease and chill.

It's always peak and valleys, ups and downs. And then later you kind find a way that works for you personally or you don't. Or you don't. Humor and humor burn, which is true, we see it every day, right? There are people out there that never figured out what exactly worked for them. Right. Sequently, they're, they're in, um, kind of a difficult situation, right?

So it's, again, it's a blessing in disguise being more sensitive person because we feel the downside of pushing too hard sooner. So we see consequences sooner. A lot of people who are not that sensitive. Physically or emotionally, they push hard and they don't feel any side effects of that until they break down.

Until it's like, I dunno, it can be any time in your life, 40, 65 years old and when some illness, some autoimmune condition, something severe, you know, and then that's really difficult to repair. Well, parting thoughts? Anything you wanna share before we go? Okay. One thing I really want to say, it's, it's not only for people to always advocate for your own health.

One thing that's really close to my heart is as a doctor is how can we do better? How can we get rid and put aside this medical arrogance? How can we, uh, step out of this thinking that we have to know everything and admit that science is constantly changing. It's impossible to know everything that medicine is.

Not black and white. There are so many nuances, and just to be more open-minded, it's really, it really hurts me seeing practitioners who become very close-minded and don't accept other information and other thinking and they think bad ways. The only way, their ways, the only way I really encourage more humility to bring in the work we do and, uh.

Be more open-minded. You know, I, I admire science and it's reading scientific studies. It's part of my daily life, but. Same. I admire frequency medicine, everything. What, it's still very hard for other brain to comprehend, but when you see that it works, it's miracles, miracles happening, the all these other methods as well.

Frequency, light, vibration, and muscle testing, how much our body can provide, how much information, so. That's my invitation, just to be more open-minded. Get rid of this medical arrogance, because I think it's a, it's a collective issue the world is experiencing. That's what I wanted to share. That's pretty profound.

I don't think I've heard anybody say that in all the years of being in healthcare. It's been a pleasure to have you here and I look forward to having you come back when you come back. Love that. We'll have tons to like, we'll, you know, we'll go over all sorts of things. It'll be really interesting. There is more than wrap, for sure.

Yeah. Such a pleasure. Such a nice conversation, really. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, thanks everyone for watching the show. Please remember to like, comment, and subscribe. It really helps us out here at the channel and share the video with someone who might be interested in supporting the charity that our guest, uh, mentioned in the episode.

Thanks again. We'll see you soon. I.