I never thought the day would come where exhaustion would be my fiercest rival. As an entrepreneur living with the shadow of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and long COVID, my journey has been anything but ordinary. The latest episode of Breaking Boundaries podcast peels back the curtain on this invisible battle, a candid sharing of the relentless fatigue, mind-numbing brain fog, and other life-altering symptoms that challenge even the most determined business owner. We dive deep into the critical importance of pinpointing an accurate diagnosis, understanding the complex layers of CFS, and how the pitfalls of misdiagnosis can lead to prolonged suffering and hinder the road to success.
Join us as we explore the saving grace of integrative health and the power of a personalized wellness plan. Navigating the daily struggles, I've discovered the profound impact of supplementation, antioxidants, and the power of the subconscious mind. The conversation then shifts to the art of tuning into your body’s needs, accentuating the preventative measure of omega-3s, the detoxifying escape of infrared saunas, and the mental clarity found through deep breathing and hypnosis. This episode isn't just a sharing of experiences; it's a toolbox for any entrepreneur to safeguard their well-being and ensure their business isn't just surviving, but thriving. LINKS:
Looking for daily support for your wellness, weight-loss and longevity questions? If you're the kind of entrepreneur that values your health as your greatest asset, naturally you’ll want to join, and invite your friends, family and colleagues to our thriving community where you’ll feel loved, supported, seen and heard! JOIN HERE!
I never thought the day would come where exhaustion would be my fiercest rival. As an entrepreneur living with the shadow of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and long COVID, my journey has been anything but ordinary. The latest episode of Breaking Boundaries podcast peels back the curtain on this invisible battle, a candid sharing of the relentless fatigue, mind-numbing brain fog, and other life-altering symptoms that challenge even the most determined business owner. We dive deep into the critical importance of pinpointing an accurate diagnosis, understanding the complex layers of CFS, and how the pitfalls of misdiagnosis can lead to prolonged suffering and hinder the road to success.
Join us as we explore the saving grace of integrative health and the power of a personalized wellness plan. Navigating the daily struggles, I've discovered the profound impact of supplementation, antioxidants, and the power of the subconscious mind. The conversation then shifts to the art of tuning into your body’s needs, accentuating the preventative measure of omega-3s, the detoxifying escape of infrared saunas, and the mental clarity found through deep breathing and hypnosis. This episode isn't just a sharing of experiences; it's a toolbox for any entrepreneur to safeguard their well-being and ensure their business isn't just surviving, but thriving. LINKS:
Looking for daily support for your wellness, weight-loss and longevity questions? If you're the kind of entrepreneur that values your health as your greatest asset, naturally you’ll want to join, and invite your friends, family and colleagues to our thriving community where you’ll feel loved, supported, seen and heard! JOIN HERE!
In the competitive landscape of entrepreneurship, resilience and energy are key ingredients for success. However, the formidable adversary known as chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS, often adds an unexpected layer of complexity. Today we'll explore the various aspects of CFS and its potential misdiagnosis, the different stages it manifests and, most importantly, how integrative health can provide holistic solutions to support entrepreneurs on their journey to success. I'm grateful you're here yes, always grateful for you joining me here. Welcome to another episode of the Breaking Boundaries podcast. For purpose-driven entrepreneurs like yourself. This is episode 61. And, of course, you'll want to stay to the end when we bring it all together on how to avoid failure and reach that next level of success with integrative health. And for all the show notes and links, visit jeffremortcom and click on that podcast button. Shout out to our latest listeners today in Edmund, oklahoma, in Belton, texas, and in Farmington Maine, just a few miles west of Skowhegan. I'll make sure to send good intentions out my driver's side window Next time I'm heading north on 95 on my way to Melanocket, maine. I'm so grateful for all of you listening and today you're going to discover the possibility of breaking yet another health boundary as we explore the challenges and the triumphs of entrepreneurs breaking barriers in the dynamic world of business, and in today's episode we delve into a topic that affects many entrepreneurs chronic fatigue.
Speaker 1:
Now I'll give you my disclaimer right up front here this podcast is not medical advice. We don't claim to treat, diagnose or cure any disease. So what exactly is chronic fatigue syndrome? It's a debilitating condition characterized by persistent, unexplained fatigue that just doesn't improve with rest. Imagine that you rest, you have your intention for laying down and waking up refreshed, you're restoring your body and when you wake up, you just still have this presence of this fatigue. Imagine navigating the challenges of a competitive business environment while grappling with the physical and mental toll of chronic fatigue syndrome. The symptoms extend beyond fatigue, encompassing sleep disturbances, cognitive difficulties and muscle pain, creating a substantial hurdle in both personal and professional life. And as your guide, today we get to the root cause of the problem, and how I know is about this one in particular is through my personal experience with long COVID, or medically myalgic encephalomyelitis, which is also chronic fatigue syndrome, and I dealt with this for about 14 months after having COVID around the beginning of 2022. So basically, all of 2022, half of 2023, I was tired.
Speaker 1:
Upon waking, I had body aches and pains. I had brain fog all day. So frustrating. I had low mood, low low ambition. I had no ambition. I was anxious, which is entirely unlike me. I was depressed. Libido was non-existent. When the body is in that fight or flight mode, it is not in reproductive mode. I was extremely aggravated, especially in the afternoons. Mornings weren't so bad. I was in a, you know, a decent mood in the morning. But in the afternoons every little, every little sound or light or you know, a noise or disruption would just put me over the edge for aggravation, and that is unlike me. That's unlike me as well. And then you know repeat that day after day after day, and I'll share what brought me back from that very gloomy place in just a few moments.
Speaker 1:
Chronic fatigue syndrome is notorious for being misdiagnosed or overlooked due to its overlapping symptoms with other conditions. In the entrepreneurial world, where time is a precious commodity, misdiagnosis can lead to prolonged suffering and hinder business growth. Accurate information is crucial, and that's where integrative health practitioners come into play. We may not diagnose conditions, but we do emphasize the importance of accurate information to custom tailor effective recommendations. Now let's talk about the different stages of CFS. Understanding the often overlooked seven different stages is vital. Most, you know, most healthcare modalities look at it as just three stages, but they're actually seven stages and knowing all of those is vital for implementing appropriate recommendations. The condition progresses through alarm, resistance and exhaustion stages, and those are the typical three, but with those first two stages having subsets of initial, ongoing and chronic phases and each phase presenting unique challenges. So early discovery and action are emphasized to prevent CFS from reaching severe stages, as it significantly impairs daily functioning, as I described, and overall productivity, which is important in entrepreneurship. Integrative health offers a holistic approach to addressing CFS, focusing on, let's say, the interconnectedness of physical, of mental and emotional well-being and, at our private wellness practice love, energy, wellness.
Speaker 1:
We advocate for the use of at-home functional medicine lab testing as a very powerful tool for uncovering those underlying imbalances. These advanced tests they they provide personalized insights into nutritional deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, toxicities and other key factors contributing to CFS that can be different from person to person. And I'll give you an example when I was dealing with long COVID that wreaks havoc on the gut microbiome. So when I would run my what's called the organic acids test it's the Candida metabolic and vitamins test, it looked like a snake trail. Nothing was in range down the middle where it should be. Things were either high or low and I had a lot of work to do to be able to rebalance my gut. So it's you know it affects the entire body in different ways and again, you know I'll get into more of what I did to to course correct some of those things. But testing let me know specifically what I needed to work on while I was dealing with this condition.
Speaker 1:
By applying the valuable day data from these functional medicine labs, we can then work what you've heard me talk about before, the de-stress protocol that's taught to level one integrative health practitioners, and that is, of course, the acronym for diet, for exercise, for stress reduction, for toxin removal, for rest, for emotional balance, for science-backed supplements and success mindset. And if you want to learn the de-stress protocol, you can check out integrativehealthpractitionerorg and you can see what that program is all about. I'll put a link in the show notes if you're interested in becoming an integrative health practitioner yourself. So I'll highlight just two promising supplements in clinical practice for addressing chronic fatigue syndrome, and that is something that's called NMN, which is nicotinamide mononucleotide that's a fun word to say, nicotinamide mononucleotide. And another one is D-ribose. You may have heard of D-ribose because it is a derivative of cranberries and it's often used for urinary tract issues. I don't want to say the other word, but so NMN supports cellular energy production, combating fatigue at the molecular level, and then D-ribose enhances energy reserves. Clinical success stories highlight the positive impact of these and other supplements which I'll talk about some other supplements in a minute in restoring vitality and resilience. So it's my job and I took oath to do no harm, and I made a promise to myself to help as many people as I can as an integrative health practitioner, and it's my job to guide entrepreneurs in incorporating specific supplements into their personalized wellness plans. Now I will link up the research to the NMN and the D-ribose in this episode, because that's where this information comes from PubMed articles and clinical research.
Speaker 1:
So you might be wondering what did I do? What did I do personally to overcome my CFS, my ME, my long COVID issues? One product that helped me absolutely immensely is called the Advanced Renewal System, and this has two products in it. Actually, one is cell boost and the other is in flammasoothe, and ironically enough, it doesn't have D-ribose in either one of those, but it does have something that's called similar to NMN in its nicotinic riboside chloride. And it also has other things like alphalipoic acid, astragalus root, which has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries, alkyntine, coq10, trimethylglycine, pqq, corsatin and a big one, transvress varitol. Transvress varitol, thank you.
Speaker 1:
And so this product works on rebuilding the mitochondria, because anything like LC we'll call it long COVID, me or CFS that is a cycle and that cycle is mitochondrial damage which causes inflammation, and then that inflammation in turn causes more mitochondrial damage. So this becomes like a flywheel that just builds momentum because of that cycle. That continues to build from one to the next, to the next, and not in a good way. So we need to break that cycle. So the cell boost helps to give the mitochondria what they need to be able to produce ATP, which is the energy currency in the body, to be able to help have energy and vitality and mood and brain function and things like that.
Speaker 1:
Now the other product in the advanced renewal is called inflammasouth. Now every one of these ingredients in these products have clinical efficacy and there's research. I'm not gonna link up all the research to these here, but the inflammasouth does just what you would think that the name does is it sues that inflammation. So it's breaking that cycle, that inflammation and mitochondrial damage cycle, and it has things in it like Indian frankincense, which has been used in Ayurveda for centuries, as well. Things like bromelain ginger root extract, a green tea leaf extract, which is a good one, holy basil leaf rootin purple sweet potato root, which has been used in you know, purple sweet potatoes are a key component in the blue zones for longevity. It also has a trypsin turmeric, which is a big one. It's got a whole gram of turmeric in it and then also black pepper fruit extract to be able to help absorb that turmeric, and so this was a key component to my healing from my issues. Now I can't link any of those products up because the FDA doesn't allow that, but what we can do is tell you where to find it. You can find it at lovinadjewelannesscom slash shop over there on our shop page and you can check that product out.
Speaker 1:
And so something else that was very helpful for me in my healing journey was to tune in, to tune in to my body, to listen to what my body needed and not push through. So many entrepreneurs have that mindset where I just got to push through this because I'm a one person show, and if I don't show up for myself and my family and for my clients, who else is going to do it? And I had to learn to listen to my body and not push through. I had to put my pride aside and be able to ask for help, especially with my kids. You know I'm a single parent of three teenagers, although their mom does a huge role in raising them as well. But I had to ask for help to be able to rest, and afternoon naps were naps. Don't let them be overrated. Naps are absolutely amazing, whether you're dealing with something like CFS or not. A 20 minute power nap in the afternoon, some non sleep, deep rest, is certainly helpful.
Speaker 1:
What else helped me Keeping up? So not just the advanced renewal, but keeping up on my daily foundational support. So you know, this was my multivitamin, a multimeneral that I take on a daily basis our daily, daily nutritional support powder from our partner, equalife, and also their fruit and veggie blend. Why is that important? Because of the antioxidants the name of the game from healing, from LC, cfs, me, antioxidants. Antioxidants help to squelch those free radicals and help the cells to have the nutrients that they need and create balance in there. You know a couple of episodes ago that we talked about on the Breaking Boundaries podcast. We talked about mitochondrial health. We also talked about age reversal and redox. So you know that's a reactive oxygen species is what we talked about, and antioxidants can help to balance those out.
Speaker 1:
Now also, omega-3s. I doubled down on an omega-3. And you might be thinking well, I take fish oil or I take krill oil. I can almost guarantee that it doesn't pass my litmus test for what an omega-3 should have, and I will do an episode specifically on omega-3 because that's a topic has been coming up. I made a few posts about omega-3 on social media and it got a lot of comments and people asking for recommendations or reviews on what they were using. And I said it just it simply doesn't pass this test and personally I wouldn't recommend it and I wouldn't use it for myself or my family.
Speaker 1:
Something else that helped me was sauna. So I have I love, I love, love, love my Therisage 360 plus portable infrared sauna. It only takes up three feet by three feet. It folds down into a nice handy carrying case so you can store it under a bed or you can put it in the back of a car or a trunk and take it with you if you travel or go on vacation. Absolutely amazing, Near, mid and far. So full spectrum infrared as well as the red light therapy. This was instrumental. I was using this probably six days a week when I was recovering and now you know that I'm well again. I still use it four to five times a week for detoxification. So absolutely amazing, amazing.
Speaker 1:
Something else I would do was deep breathing because I wasn't able to do cardio, so I wasn't able to get my heart rate up, with the exception of being in the sauna. The sauna is equal to a workout in zone two cardio, zone one or zone two cardio. But that was as much as I could do for cardio. But I would do the deep breathing, especially while in the sauna. So the nice thing about the sauna is you can habit stack and you can, you can implement, you know, multiple things at the same time. So that's what I mean by habit stack while you're in the sauna. So, for instance, you're detoxifying because of the sauna. You're getting zone two cardio because of the sauna. Now you can do deep breathing inside the sauna, which helps to oxygenate the cells of the body. It also helps to reset the sympathetic nervous system and tilt you more towards parasympathetic nervous system, because you're doing a deep breathing and I would also put in my earbuds and I would listen to a hypnosis audio specifically for healing my body from this issue.
Speaker 1:
So that was my habit. Stack right there for getting well and it, you know it, got me to where I am today. And don't get me wrong, the days were up and down, some days were more down than up, but then when the days became more up than down, I knew it was working and that's why one of the reasons why I devote my time and efforts to helping people with energy right, love, energy, wellness. That's one of the reasons why I named the business that the name that I did is so that I can help people with energy and not just physical energy. Physical energy is one thing. There's also emotional energy, there's also soulful energy, there's also cosmic energy, like these are all things. And, as you know, you know, my lead domino into wellness was Tai Chi and Qi Gong, which are based on internal energy, not external energy. So you know I'll leave it at that. So that was what I did and you may not have realized, but entrepreneurial success is intrinsically linked to well-being.
Speaker 1:
Integrative health plays a pivotal role in preventing failure by addressing the root causes of things like LC and CFS and ME and through the de-stress protocol, personalized nutrition. You know a specific plan for a person, stress management strategies, targeted supplementation, and you know stress management. Remember redefining stress, getting rid of those toxicities, because those toxins are stressful on the body. And then, of course, you know traditional stress management, for you know kids' career in cash flow, you know those can help too. And then integrative health empowers entrepreneurs to take control of their own health and overcome things like CFS and many other chronic conditions, and what that does is it fosters a resilient and thriving business environment. So, amid the changes and challenges of CFS and experienced health coach offers support and empowerment Love Energy Wellness invites entrepreneurs to explore the possibilities of overcoming chronic fatigue and other serious health conditions through a complimentary, completely free, no pressure, no obligation health consultation. And that's when you know any certified integrative health practitioner is going to be dedicated to tailoring holistic solutions that align with the unique demands of entrepreneurial and everyday life and guiding you towards a path of holistic well-being and success. So it's clear that chronic fatigue poses a significant challenge for entrepreneurs, impacting both personal and professional spheres, and integrative health emerges as a beacon of hope, offering personalized solutions at home, functional lab testing and successful clinical protocols. I am a success story myself and, by addressing those root causes of CFS, integrative health empowers entrepreneurs to navigate the entrepreneurial landscape with renewed energy, with confidence and resilience.
Speaker 1:
I thank you so much for joining us on this episode today of Breaking Boundaries for Entrepreneurs. If you found today's discussion valuable, please first of all make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and share this episode or your favorite episode with your friends, your family, your coworkers, anybody that you feel as though it could serve. And if you could just leave us a review, it only takes about 30 seconds to go to your favorite podcast platform. Wherever you're listening today, click that five-star review and leave a couple of kind words for us. And remember together we can break boundaries. Bye-bye everybody.