Stop Stress Before It Stops Your Heart - How Mindfulness Can Help Men Combat the Silent Killer with Dr. Fernando Lamounier, MD | Men Talking Mindfulness: Mental, Physical, and Emotional Health for Leaders Under Pressure

Description

Are you ready to tackle the biggest threat lurking in every man’s life?

Here we unravel the real connection between stress and heart disease—a link that most doctors warn about, but few know how to fix. Stress and heart disease aren’t just words in a medical textbook; they’re the silent killers stealing happiness, health, and longevity from men everywhere. But what if the key to defeating stress and heart disease isn’t just exercise or diet, but something deeper—mindfulness?

Heart surgeon Dr. Fernando Lamounier, MD, joins us to share eye-opening science, practical advice and the latest research that shows how stress and heart disease can be stopped in their tracks. Drawing from the American Heart Association’s findings and his own work in the operating room, Dr. Lamounier explains why stress and heart disease go hand in hand—and how men can use mindfulness as a game-changing weapon. Discover breathwork, daily presence practices, and the simple shifts that strengthen your heart against chronic stress.

Let’s get real: loneliness, depression, and anxiety drive men to unhealthy habits, substance abuse, and sedentary living. Our guest reveals how stress and heart disease can start with the mind—and why cultivating emotional resilience through mindfulness may be the only way out. If you want to feel connected, energized, and build a powerful heart (inside and out), Dr. Lamounier’s science-backed techniques could change your life.

Whether you’re coping with work pressures, relationship stress, or past traumas, this episode is full of actionable tools for men who want to prevent stress and heart disease for good. Calm your nervous system, strengthen your body, and lead with confidence—your heart will thank you!

Feeling stuck? If you need help getting out of your rut, Will can help - head to willnotfear.comto learn more about his coaching to get you off the hamster wheel.

More from MTM at: https://mentalkingmindfulness.com/

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction

01:44 - The Role of Meditation in Cardiac Surgery Outcomes

02:01 - How Mindfulness Supports Patients Undergoing Heart Surgery

07:38 - Mindful Techniques for Surgeons in Action

16:36 - Visual Tools After Heart Surgery

17:36 - Visualization to Ease Pre-Op Anxiety

25:02 - How Feelings Shape Physical Health

36:26 - The Hidden Health Risks of Male Loneliness

37:53 - Social Bonds and Heart Resilience

38:49 - How Relationships Influence Cardiac Wellness

40:25 - Vulnerability and Healing the Heart

42:18 - Creating a Life of Purpose and Belonging

45:17 - Strengthening the Mind-Body Link

50:08 - Embracing Personal Transformation and Healing

51:54 - Struggles and Successes in Meditation

52:44 - Meditation as a Path to Resilience

01:01:15 - Forgiveness as a Gateway to Connection

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Transcription

Speaker #0
The American Heart Association does have a document on mindfulness and heart disease and whatnot, and loneliness, which leads to depression, which leads to consuming substances that you shouldn't and not exercising and yada, yada, yada, yada. I screamed so loud at him that I heard the sound reverberate that sheet of metal. The guy may be just ready to put the pistol in his mouth, but he would not. pick up the phone and call a brother and say, I need help. That's something that needs to change.
Speaker #1
Raw, uncut, and unapologetic. Welcome to Men Talking Mindfulness. Hey guys, ever think your heart is just a boring pump chugging along while you grind through life? Until one day it decides to pull a dramatic stunt on you? Today we're cracking open the chest of truth with heart surgeon and friend of the show, Fernando Lemunier. who's not just fixing tickers, but teaching his patients how to supercharge them. This episode is your blueprint to turn your heartbeat into a powerhouse of calm, connection, and courage.
Speaker #2
All right. Hey, guys, we're excited to have Fernando here. And if you want to know more about Fernando, head to the link in the show notes. And hey, if you're curious about attaining a better mood, physical health, and mental clarity, check out our new show sponsor, Nourish. And that's spelled N-E-U. R I S H. It's a powder supplement that can upgrade your health from inside out. Head to mentalkingmindfulness.com for more. And now we're going to get into our opening grounding practice. Just one simple breath together. Fernando, super excited to have you join us. So let's, yeah,
Speaker #1
brother.
Speaker #2
Yeah. It's, it's been a long time coming and we're going to get into how we met and a whole lot of other things here shortly and how he's helped us more ways than one.
Speaker #1
Oh, not that one, Fernando. I'm just kidding. There's nothing to fucking hide. I know.
Speaker #2
Oh, yeah. All right. So let's go ahead and get comfortable, whatever that looks like or feels like for you. And if closing your eyes is available to you, then I invite you to do so. Otherwise, just soften your gaze and let's breathe out and hold empty for a moment. And then a nice, long, slow. Deep breath in, holding full at the top, and relax, relax, relax. Release that breath and move around a little bit, maybe rolling your shoulders, rolling your neck, opening your eyes. And here we are, my brother, Fernando. Good to see you, man. Good to see you. Will and I, I don't even remember what we were talking about recently, and we talked about... It came up in the conversation that the heart can actually be changed through meditation. And discussions that we've had, I think one of the first discussions that we had was how you actually had encouraged your patients to meditate before surgery and you meditate before surgery and how that's changed. So what, for you, what first got you into meditation as a heart surgeon, and how has it changed the way you've been doing it? that you handled the high stakes in the operating room.
Speaker #0
I have to really go back a while as far as the memory lane here. Try to remember, because I've been doing this for so long.
Speaker #1
Meditation and heart surgery?
Speaker #0
Yes, I think. I've been practicing for 17 years. Wow. It took me 10 years to become a heart surgeon. So, no. Wow. You add that. It's been a while. I just disclosed my age here.
Speaker #2
Well, you look better than I do.
Speaker #0
But yeah, so during medical school, nothing. You don't learn anything about that. And you're just grinding, trying to survive and succeed and all of that. Then during my training, during my general surgery training, which was about six years, I don't remember doing any of that. the same thing during my cardiac surgery fellowship. Then when I started practicing, although meditation is to some degree ingrained in my faith and all of that, I had some, you know, I did some relaxation techniques and all of that and prayer, but not truly meditation. And then I got into yoga and I had this absolutely fantastic instructor. And every Wednesday and every Saturday, I did either an hour, hour and a half. And it was not, no, frou-frou yoga. Like you get out of that truly. you know, like drenching sweat. It wasn't hot yoga either, but it was a workout. And at the same time, it was like a mental meditation. She was really into the spiritual side of yoga and she would bring those messages and whatnot. And I started doing that. And I learned about the, how do you pronounce it, Will? Ujjayi breath?
Speaker #1
Yeah, Ujjayi. Yeah, it's the one in and out the nose. Yeah,
Speaker #0
that's correct. And I became very good at doing that during my whole practice of yoga. And then I was fresh out of training. And that was when I started practicing. And it's a completely step up in intensity. You know, when you're being trained, there's always the guy across the table from you training you and whatnot. And then you're on your own. You're it. And I started to bring that to the operating room with me. You know, and the things got intense. So I just started breathing. One of the messages that we got every time was like, okay, I actually hire her to be my personal instructor because I had to start very early in the morning. So 5 a.m. I'll have a yoga session with her. Then I go to work. And she said, I will bring that with you to your workday. You know, that feeling, you know, when you lay down in Shavasana after you are like completely exhausted and whatnot, and you just got that energy back and the peace. And that's how it started. That was the beginning of it. I never looked back.
Speaker #1
I mean, when you're doing that Ujjayi breathing, it's very deliberate. It's very calming. And it's also your exercise in the Ujjayi breath. If you're doing like a flow style asana yoga practice where you're moving through different shapes, like you're constantly breathing like that in for four, out for four. And it becomes a moving meditation. And I can see, I mean, with heart surgery, it's another, its own kind of physical. practice. I mean, you have all the knowledge in your head, but I mean, but you're, you're literally holding the heart of somebody in your hands. Right. And I can imagine like that can be super high stakes, like John had said in the beginning. And just to use that breath to, to, to stay calm, because that's what really is so great about taking on a practice like that is we get to understand, create that reference to calm on the inside. So therefore, when things are going, when we're not calm and we get off center. and we get into an excited state, whatever that excited state is, we understand that, oh, wait, this is calm because I've experienced calm. I work for calm. How do I get to calm? I do my breathing. And here it is, you being a mindful heart surgeon because you're continually accessing the breath. I mean, I just love that. So... What do I got here? So what does it feel like, you know, mentally and emotionally, like right before, you know, you're holding someone's heart in your hand? And well, I guess we kind of already did. So do you feel more sharp? You feel more relaxed? Like when you're kind of in the midst of a surgery by finding your breathing and also like even preparing like you had mentioned, you know, you have like a yoga and like a breathing and a meditation practice even before you kind of hit the day.
Speaker #0
Yeah, so there's a couple of things that I do. I have... My morning and my evening ritual, I try to do that every day. And that's before I leave home, right? That's part of it. It involves usually a guided meditation, prayer, breathing, and visualization. Then I go to work, and let's say I'm going to start surgery, and there is this process that we... wash our hands, you know, it's called scrubbing. And there's a time for that. You need to scrub for a minimum of three minutes. A lot of times people use that time to yap. And if there is a guest, someone who came to, either a student who came to watch an operation or someone from the medical industry who, you know, brought a device or something that we need to use, and they use that to kind of catch up or have some sort of conversation. I don't do that. When I go to the scrub sink and people get close, I said, I just need a moment. We'll talk in a minute when I'm in there. And that is my time. A lot of times I close my eyes and I'm just scrubbing and I'm visualizing the operation, what I'm about to do. Sorry if I get emotional. I really give praise and thanks to God for the privilege that I... I have to have this life in my hands. And then, and that is it. And then off I go. You know, sometimes if, and that is more an elective kind of environment, let's say, no, there's an operation. that was scheduled and whatnot. I always have to scrub no matter what, but if someone came from the door, from the emergency room or the cardiac cath lab trying to die on us, and things are very dicey, I still have to scrub. But now, or if I got an emergency call, for example, I'm in the hospital, they call me from another area of the hospital, say, hey, this guy's about to die here. Can you come and help? That's what I call the elevator time. That's what I'm going in my head. all the different scenarios. Okay. What this guy can have, you know, possibly have that is wrong and what I'm going to have to do, what their step, who I need to call, activate the team and this and that. And then when I get to scrub, then I go back to that, to that moment again, sometimes it has to be quicker. There's a lot of stuff going on through my head, but I am the guy setting the tone. If I lose my shit, everybody will lose it. Right. Wow. So I need to stay calm and centered and deliver the message. There's no screaming in my operating room. You know, everybody maintains the tone of voice and there's no throwing things or anything like that. You know, that's how I try to operate. Obviously, it didn't start that way when I was, you know, fresh out of training or even when I was being trained, I saw people doing different things. But, you know, as you get more confident. and more experienced, then things get a lot more under control.
Speaker #2
You know this. Becca, my wife for the audience, Becca is in orthopedics, and she's in surgery, and she says just that, how the surgeon dictates the atmosphere within the OR. And she's worked for different surgeons, and she comes home sometimes from working with a good surgeon where the atmosphere is set and it's... you know, one of calm and everybody's kind of working together. Whereas she's coming home and she's exhausted. I mean, she feels great from working with those surgeons. And then when she comes home from working with a surgeon that is less calm, it carries forward, carries forward for the whole day for her. And I'm sure everybody else in that OR, and then it comes home with her. So I love that you're doing that, not just for yourself, but you're setting the tone for the rest of the folks in the OR. Now I want to take it one step further. You're doing, or rather you're having your patients do meditation before surgery. At least that's what I understand from conversations we've had before. What inspired you to start doing that? And then have you seen outcomes, positive outcomes through that?
Speaker #1
Yeah,
Speaker #0
that's a great question. What inspired me was, quite honestly, was Dr. Joe Dispenza.
Speaker #2
Oh, yeah.
Speaker #0
Because he showed it to me how possible it was to help that with the healing of our patients. Until then, we thought, oh, the meditation is something more individual and this and that. But in that kind of scenario, connecting the two dots, he's the one who showed me that. And then, obviously, we know there's a couple of things that I've noticed is that, and we know that now. 95% of maladies are psycho-emotional, so to speak, right? And the same way that you describe that, that Becca comes back home exhausted when she worked with someone who was more intense or the screaming type, it's exhausting for the person too. Like if I were, I realized when I'm calm, collected, my day goes much better. I have a lot more energy, it's a lot less exhausting, right? And then translate that into... like the problem that led the patient to have the disease or whatever there is. So I usually really take my time trying to understand, okay, what got this patient here, right? And the beginning, let's say they got the diagnosis, or you have coronary disease, or you just had a heart attack, and now you need surgery. So there's that shock and whatnot. And then you go talk to them. They think they eat healthy or whatever. There's just things that we already know, right? But then after we go through the technical conversation, I then ask them, how is life? You know, sometimes then that's when the eyes start to wander. You know, they look to the corner of the room or they look to the spouse or the tears start to come down and whatnot. And so then I, you know, that's, you know, OK, this is what brought you here. Right. And then I have a very honest conversation. I tell them. What I'm going to do, it's not a fail-proof no treatment. I'm just going to help you fix what brought you here today. But moving forward, we're going to have to make a few changes and this and that. And so we'll talk about that. I'll give you plenty of resources. And then I start talking about what do you do to relax? How are things going? And have you ever meditated? Some of them say yes. Some of them say no. Some of them say, oh, I pray. Well, that's a meditation too. But nonetheless, I said, okay, how about if I do a five-minute... crash course in meditation with you right now? Are you open to that? And they say yes. So I close the door. Usually, you know, hospitals can be very noisy and whatnot. Sometimes if there is a nurse, I tell them don't let anyone come in the room. It's a very sacred and private moment. And then I take them through this very simple exercise. And you guys want me to describe what I do? Yeah,
Speaker #2
please. Yeah.
Speaker #0
So what I do is I have them close their eyes and just breathe. First, I take them to about three to four cycles of box breathing. Then I let them really exhale in a sense that not forcefully, but I have them take a deep breath in. And I said, now I want you to get all this feeling that you just got from the diagnosis. And I want you to let it all out. and then they just do that about three, four times and then they just exhale. And then I said, now I want you to imagine that you have your surgery is done and now you are waking up in the intensive care unit and you are pain-free. How does that feel? Oh, great. Okay. What is great? I want you to describe. to me, how do you feel? Tell me you're, I'm relieved. Okay. Relief. What else? So then I go through a couple of, let's say like elevated emotions. Right. And then, uh, uh, I said, like, I tell them, remember that I want you to remember that feeling. Then I said, okay, now let's say that you're going home. Everything went fine. You had no issues. You're ready to, you're like, you were being rolled out in a wheelchair out of the front door of the hospital. How does that feel? And then I have them describe that again as precisely as they can. And then I said, tell me more. Not only how we feel, what do you see? What do you smell? And they say, well, it's a sunny day. There's a little breeze. I hear the birds and this and that. So then I said, okay, now you can open your eyes. Then I tell them. Until the time of your operation, every time you feel anxious, I want you to stop and do this. What we just did. And at the minimum, I want you to do that three times a day. Mainly before you go to bed and when you wake up in the morning. And that's pretty much it. Like if it's an urgent or semi-urgent situation, like I'm going to do the surgery tomorrow kind of thing. And the guy just got the diagnosis or the gal. And they're very antsy. A lot of times I'm looking at the monitor and I'm doing this and I see the heart rate come down, the blood pressure come down. You know, the other thing that I've noticed, although, you know, I don't have like thousands of patients that I'm studying under that umbrella. But the other thing that I noticed that they wake up usually with a breathing tube in their mouth, right? They just woke up there in the intensive care unit, they're on the ventilator and just coaching them beforehand. And I... go over in more detail, going to wake up, you can talk, there's a nurse at your bedside and all of that. Then, you know, they, a lot of times they say, yeah, you know, I remember you telling me when I was coming to, and at the beginning I was confused and agitated. Then I remember you told me just to breathe and whatnot. I had the wife of a cardiologist that I took through this whole process. And after she left the hospital and whatnot, she called me and said, you are not going to believe this. I'm leaving the hospital and everything was exactly as I thought it would be. You know, sunny day with the birds or whatever, no debris, whatever that was.
Speaker #1
Wow.
Speaker #2
That's awesome. And, you know, for, I've got a follow-up question, but just for our audience, when Fernando mentioned Dr. Joe Dispenza. Dr. Joe, he was a chiropractic doctor, right? A chiropractor. And then he got injured in a cycling accident. I think he was training for a triathlon or half Ironman or something, got run over. And then was in the hospital, was told he will never walk again. And correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, Fernando. But was told he will never walk again and basically used his mind to heal his body. And since then, he's been out there promoting meditation, teaching meditation, running a lot of retreats and very intensive classes. One of which I went through with Fernando here in Denver. You know, I think it was a two or three day event. And I mean, learned a ton. from Dr. Joe. Open to have him on the show one day, Fernando. We will.
Speaker #0
It will happen.
Speaker #2
Yeah, it will happen.
Speaker #1
We're visualizing it right now. Right. I'm just kidding. I'm sorry.
Speaker #2
But my follow-on question for you, Fernando, is have you ever had a patient say, no, I'm not comfortable with the meditation. I don't want to do that.
Speaker #0
I don't think I've ever had anyone saying no, but to some degree. And actually, that's a good point. It may be more on my end. I noticed that some patients, I said, he or she may not just be open to this right now. But most of the time, I try to do it.
Speaker #2
Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you, if I'm a few weeks out or a day out from heart surgery and my surgeon is telling me that I need to do something, I'm going to be doing it.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. We're also in that situation, you're more of like an authority in there. And I really, you know, and I'd imagine, hopefully I never have heart surgery. And if I do, Fernando, you're gonna be my guy.
Speaker #0
I really hope you don't. Yeah,
Speaker #1
I guess I mean, right, right. But I'd imagine in those situations, like you're kind of looking for answers or looking away to calm down or looking for a way, you know, to have a better experience. And I could see them like lending themselves. All right, you know what? I'll try. And just even your sheer presence and even the way you're conducting yourself. You talked about being honest. These are all like energies of the body that come through the heart and that are influenced by the mind and the mind that's influenced in the heart as well. And there's a lot of fascinating science out there between like the mind and the heart connection. And I've actually been waiting to talk on the show about this for a long time. And I know you're not an expert on this, but we're going to talk about heart math a little bit. OK, but I can help. Oh, yeah. I'm going to add a little context here. So like we're all kind of everybody is on the same plane from their website, their information. It says HeartMath has been studying the heart brain connection for over 25 years to understand how the heart influences our perceptions, emotions, intuition and health. The HeartMath system, quote, empowers people to self-regulate their emotions and behaviors to reduce stress, increase resilience and unlock. their natural intuitive guidance for making more effective choices right i mean powerful like really really powerful and they've they've so much deep science on this like uh you know you can i'll actually will add in the show notes here you can check out what heart math some of the heart math um stuff for yourself but i thought it'd be good if we kind of dive into with a heart surgeon here and a man that you know has has studied some of this but not like a heart math uh you know ambassador if you will um you know so What has been your experience with heart math? And what do you kind of know about it? And give us some of the ins and outs that can help inform us why this heart-mind connection is so incredibly powerful.
Speaker #0
First honest answer is I wish I knew more. I really do. This is not tongue-in-cheek. This is very honest. And I think this was taught in medical school. I really hope that it was part of our day-to-day. treatment arsenal and it's not okay uh as far as my uh involvement or knowledge of or with uh heart math so uh uh this part of you know i i use a lot of their tools almost daily that's part of you know because you can name it different things but at the end of the day is you know heart brain coherence and in all of that right So that is one thing. The other thing with the programs that we offer at Give to Give Foundation for veterans and incarcerated and whatnot and the indigenous, we have those tools in there. We actually have a, you know, we have heart math certified trainers and all of that. So that is one thing. The other thing is, I think the. science behind it and the knowledge behind it is fascinating.
Speaker #1
Yeah, fascinating. Fucking fascinating.
Speaker #0
It truly is. You just think of some very simple things, right? If I ask you a question, hey, who did that? Or who are you or whatever? You're going to say, you never say me. You say me, right? You always point the heart. No one points here to the brain.
Speaker #1
Great point.
Speaker #0
I'm Will. I'm John. I'm Fernando. No, like here, right? How do you feel? Oh, I really feel this way. Don't say I feel this way.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
So that is one thing. There's this whole thing. Oh, man, I can go on and on. You know, you just cut me off. But there's a couple of things.
Speaker #1
We'll go to EMF. Like, I think it's great to talk about the mind mind. What is actually my heart, mind coherence and whatever else you want to add. But I think the EMF is fucking mind blowing that like you like we have a certain vibration about us, you know, and it's really determined by how we're feeling our moods. And you can feel someone else's heartbeat like. three feet away, even 10 feet away, depending on how much energy they have in their heart. It's just phenomenal. Like when, if you really look into heart math, like, and what they've studied, um, the energy around the heart and how it really affects us, but also affects, uh,
Speaker #2
animals can pick up on that too.
Speaker #1
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker #2
Horses are huge. Dogs are really big. That's, that's why if you're feeling a certain way, they will respond a certain way. Like if you're anxious, Yeah. Old Bill. a lot of time, they'll feel anxious or maybe they'll feel the other side. They'll be compassionate towards you. It's wild. But sorry, I cut you off there. Yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
No, no, no, not at all. So there's a couple of things. So one of the things to say is that medicine has become very stale. Everything is about the next pill or the next procedure. And we have forgotten about the human spirit of the soul inside that body. Okay. Why am I saying that? Because to me, you know, mainly taking people with heart issues to the operating room is the ultimate matter to matter treatment. I'm putting stitches in tissue, right? But we have to think about what brought that person to that situation. And it's usually... Something that we cannot put in a cup or in a pita dish, right? Because it involves the feelings, the reactions to the environment and so forth and so on, right? And everything, we know that now, everything is energy at different rates of vibration. Even my hand, right? If you go at the subatomical level is... 0.9999999% empty space and the rest is matter, right? And that is vibrating at a certain rate, right? You can know, quoting Dr. Joe, he says, thoughts are electric and feelings are magnetic, right? And everything like our cell phones, right? It's electromagnetic frequency. Everything, everything in the world is electromagnetic frequency. Just one last like scientific example you guys may have heard of channels of uh calcium sodium and potassium that we have in the cells right yeah i don't know so it's a gate so no we have for example for us to contract a muscle yeah you have calcium that needs to bind to the to the molecules of actin and myosin or whatever or to have the heart rhythm and the heart cell to function properly. There are charges of potassium and sodium that needs to be exchanged. Okay. How does that happen? There are not physical gates like doors of your house. They are electromagnetic channels. So everything is electromagnetism. Everything. How come that is not really used in our armamentarium for treating people? Right. So the HeartMath Institute really got into. uh studying that and hopefully we can get uh you know rolling mccready in the show for you know and talk about uh that because he's going to be way more qualified than me but in the beginning we thought okay the brain sends the signal through the heart mainly through the vagus nerve or whatever to control the rate and when we have you know we have the fight or flight response the adrenals release all of that adrenaline in the circulation and blah And then we thought everything was here. Now we know that there are a lot of pathways from the heart to the brain, to the ratio of about 10 to 1. To be more precise, it's 9 to 1 more information from the heart going to the brain than vice versa. That also controls how we react. So there's a lot of communication between the heart and our frontal lobe. What does the frontal lobe does? is our discernment in terms of behavior, of reaction, of being in the capacity of planning or achieving goals, and then being grateful for the goals that you have achieved. So that is all connected. So that connection is essential. So we need to have to be in a point where the heart and the brain aren't in alignment like in a symphony. If you've ever been to an... like a symphony when they start they have all that noise like the violin and the viola and the cello they are all like until the conductor comes in boom, everything is this beautiful sound how could someone compose that? How could someone think of that beauty and all of that? So I hope that answers the question.
Speaker #1
Yeah. We get into harmony as symphony. We get to understand. I think the reason, and I'm probably pretty accurate on this, the reason we really only thought of the mind and looking at the heart and studying the heart from the mind is we didn't understand when we really started to have the capability to really affect the heart I mean, and actually go in and. work on the engineering of the heart, like the energy of it was never really understood. Like, I mean, heart math has only been out for 25 years, you know, and plus like, yeah, a lot of, until I think the last, you know, also the last 25 years or maybe the last 40, like the energy of the human body, the human mind and how it infects our experience is finally in the conversation now. I realize like how we feel, you know, the social, you know, energy around us has a big effect. you know what we're saying to ourself has a big effect um you know how we're conducting our lives has a big effect on us energetically and it all really comes down you know and eventually filters through the heart and has an impact right on our uh what we do i mean they say here in heart math it's like uh to make more effective choices so you can be heart led right and heart full right and heart energized and heart connected uh and therefore you're you're going to be you're going to live more of a, and from the heart, there's more. kindness, patience, compassion, so many wonderful things. Whereas like the heart, the mind is just, it's very transactional. It's all like give and get, it's all, you know, it's all like ones and zeros, if you will, instead of like, it is right. I mean, instead of the heart, just having a huge, incredible impact on our entire being, not just our being, but obviously it affects or not, obviously, like you can see it, it affects other people. And once people start to wake up to that, And we're going to get into a little bit later. It's just like we can actually affect our entire experience by actually speaking to our heart, being with our heart. Part of that heart-mind coherence is really speaking to yourself in a way that brings forth the energy of the heart that makes you and optimizes you as a human being.
Speaker #0
And there are two points there, mainly because, you know, this is a show for dudes, right?
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker #0
The ladies that excuse me for a little bit.
Speaker #1
Everybody does.
Speaker #0
But you can be heart-centered. That doesn't mean you're going to be a pussy or you're going to be a doormat.
Speaker #1
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
Speaker #0
You can be heart-centered and be firm, but with compassion. Speak the truth with compassion. Yeah. Right? Yes. It's the same thing when I'm talking to my patients. What I'm going to do, like chastise him or her and say, you've been an idiot because you've been eating McDonald's and doing this and that, and you can't control yourself.
Speaker #1
Shaming people. Shame works. No.
Speaker #0
It's a point of, you know, everybody's trying to do the best that they can with what they have. Right, right. But I have to say, you know, the sages of old, they were right, you know, and to some degree. The same line that what I was saying, that this path that our medical industry and environment took from whenever it was, that, you know, all that was alternative or there was not a pill or a procedure, not only was labeled as charlatanism, whatever it is, but it was actually banned and if you go that route you lose your license like what yeah yeah you know it's just like it's crazy so it's good that people are waking up to that and uh you know and hopefully
Speaker #2
you'll get more and more and that will become a mainstream yeah yeah it's slowly happening i feel it is we're starting to see that you know we we see that in people who listen to the show A friend of mine who, well, he's become a friend of mine and a business advisor. He reached out to me a few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago now. And he mentioned that he was a distance runner and he ran a 5K. And at the end of the 5K, he had a heart attack. And they medevaced him in the helo. I forget, what do you call that in the civilian world? We call it a medevac in the military.
Speaker #1
We get it. We get it.
Speaker #2
Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm talking about. It was a fucking helicopter. It was in the helicopter.
Speaker #1
All right. Helicopter. Yeah. What a layman like me.
Speaker #2
No, no, no. Yeah. So he was in the helicopter going to the hospital. And he remembered a meditation that I taught him, which was nothing but simple box breathing. And he did the box breathing on the way to the hospital. And he attributes that to saving him. I mean, certainly I'm sure what the surgeries or the stints or whatever that was put in afterwards helped. But he says the meditation is what changed it. And I love hearing that and knowing that people's hearts and minds are changing to be open to this stuff in all sorts of situations and all sorts of scenarios. But I want to change the kind of the flow here. I want to talk about for men, we've talked about loneliness in the past and social isolation. And this is where I'm going to bring in how Fernando and I met. We just got introduced via text, and it was literally the day that my wife had our third child, our youngest daughter. And Fernando reached out that day. He's like, how can I help? And I was like, Fernando, I don't even, I barely know you. Who the heck are you? And he drove to our farm, which is not close to where Fernando lives. It was, you know, quite a bit. Drove to our farm with a huge dinner. and and took care of us didn't ask to come in he just showed up texted me hey i'm here and i went out and got so much food and brought it up and uh you know he took care of us and then since then we've connected a lot of times clearly but we connected over coffee once uh early in our friendship and fernando is is both a heart surgeon and a marketing expert uh so he was talking to us talking to us about how to market the show and how to market x y and z that we're doing and uh then he says hey where do you think i'm from i don't know if you remember this from then and i was like i was like uh i was trying to guess from your accent i was like uh i don't know somewhere in europe uh italy uh portugal he's like okay closer with portugal and i was like oh okay portuguese oh brazil and he's like yes i'm from Brazil. And then he went into his hole. story about, you know, how he came from Brazil. Again, correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, Fernando. I'm drawing from memory and my memory isn't always great. But you came from Brazil, if I remember correctly, not speaking English or very little. And you're a self-made man, created, you know, what you've created, the foundation of who you are, both in your professional life and your personal life. And you've developed friendships through it. So that was a very long-winded way of coming to the friendship that we've developed, you know, with the three of us here and the work that we do and how important that friendship is. And I want to go, if a man is lonely and his heart is kind of closed off to developing relationships or to making new relationships, how does that loneliness affect the heart or potentially even lead to heart disease? based on what you've seen.
Speaker #0
No, I didn't remember exactly that conversation, but, you know, it's funny now that you're mentioning it, you know, but I do remember when I reached out to you and... And I said, what can I help? And it was fine. I said, you just came back from the hospital. You guys have something to do.
Speaker #1
Literally.
Speaker #0
You know? Yeah. So, yeah, great. When I came to the U.S., I came to the U.S. as a, I said, I'm a damn foreigner. So I came here to have, for my surgical training. I did speak English then, not as well as I do now. I remember I got a scholarship. once at a hospital in the U.S. and I was afraid to pick up the phone. You know, I'm in the intensive care unit and I could communicate. OK, but then, you know, all the jargon and the acronyms here, they were very different. My wife, on the other hand, she's totally nuts because she married me and came with me, not speaking much English. Oh,
Speaker #2
man.
Speaker #1
Yeah.
Speaker #0
Yeah. But it has been an amazing journey and I would not change it for anything. No, with all the ups and downs, it's been truly fantastic. Loneliness is proven, actually. The American Heart Association does have a multi-page document on mindfulness and heart disease and whatnot. And loneliness, which leads to depression, who needs to consuming substances that you shouldn't and not exercising and yada yada yada yada they all lead to you know increase in not only heart disease but all cause mortality okay so it there's no doubt about it i think uh we guys try there's always this thing i'm not sure if this is the pride or whatever it is that we need to be tough, right? We need to show that we are tough and we can't know showing any vulnerability is a sign of weakness, you know, and I can't cry and I can't this and I can't that. And that is just, you know, is just a spiral down that will lead us like nowhere, nowhere. So I think it's, you know, building that network of people. that you can trust. It doesn't matter. You don't need to talk every week, right? Sometimes, John, we just catch up, right? And how are you doing? And we'll have the most open conversation, sometimes for 10 minutes, because that's what we have, but that's enough, you know? And I have friends like that too, you know? And we need to be more open to that and understand that that is part of being a healthy, thriving... human being, being able to use those tools and the connections to overcome our own obstacles. And a lot of times, like, holy shit, you're going through the same thing that I was or that I am now, you know, or yeah, you know, and I think it's fantastic.
Speaker #1
Well, it makes me think of the blue zones that are out there in the world. And one of the one of the key metrics that actually creates a blue zone blue zones are areas uh across the planet where uh people are um you know sentient centenarians sentient or a hundred and live in their hundreds or 90s and uh one of the key elements that is not just the food not just how they exercise the body but how much social connection they have on a regular basis and this is what qualifies a place like italy is is very is a very high rate of blue zones throughout italy because they have so much family built in so it How to... takes us out of that isolation and reminds us that we're connected to something greater than ourselves. And also we're connected to kind of a whole, um, and share a lot of common humanity with other people, which just gives a natural sense of release, you know, to, to the mind, to the body and to the human experience. Um, what about, um, what about stress and anxiety and like, and overworking? Like, how does that tax the heart and what are somebody, and what not, well, what does that look like down the road? If you keep kind of. living that lifestyle. Well,
Speaker #0
I was just thinking of when people get constantly stimulated by the adrenal response of stress,
Speaker #1
right? Yeah.
Speaker #0
Yeah. A lot of people like to use the thing of, oh, you're being chased by a cyber tooth tiger, whatever. We are in 2025. I haven't seen one yet, you know, but we have the proverbial, no cyber tooth tiger, which is. this environment that we put ourselves in. You know, it's the anxiety of, I need to have more, I need to do more, I need more this and that. And that in itself, yeah, I'm not downplaying the stresses that we have in life, but I think it's very important how we react to that. You know, if you let that put that in that spiral and we're constantly being stimulated, there are two things that happen. One, in broad strokes, is we end up getting addicted to that biochemistry. So we learn not to relax. not to allow ourselves to be in that state of peace, of relaxation, of accomplishment, of gratitude, because you were addicted to it. Literally, like, you know, all your receptors have said, give me more. You were a druggie, right? So you need to break that path or that habit, so to speak. The other thing that will lead then to hypertension, stiff arteries. poor eating, cholesterol imbalance, and you know, and the list goes on and on and on. So, and that automatically or eventually will lead to heart disease. But one of the things that I tell my patients a lot is that, but you need to own this. in a sense, not in a shameful way or in a blaming way, you know, they say, well, you know, I have that running in the family and, you know, the genes and this and that. Yes, there is a genetic component, but the way that I explain to them is like, the gene is like the gun and the environment pulls the trigger. In other words, the environment that you put yourself in, the environment that you put your cells in, that's what's going to put the trigger. Because you may have the gene and the gene. Well, we have a bunch of genes. Some of them are doing nothing. Right. Until they get activated. So it's important that everybody needs to own that. Yeah. I understand there's something that I can do. There are things that I can't control. We can't control everything, but at least do the best that we can in controlling the things that we can.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Control your state of peace. You know, control how you're showing up. Control. the energy that you're putting in your heart and the energy that you're expressing from the heart. I mean, it is all doable, but this is like, that's why we practice. That's why it's important to have technique. This is why it's important to even listen to information like this. Cause it's like, that's where it starts. It's like, Oh wait, like I should look into that. And then you go and do some box breathing, UJE breathing, or, you know, work on some heart coherence through heart math. And then you have this experience like, Holy shit, like this really makes a difference. And then you're potentially addicted to something else. that is healthy and you begin to change your habits.
Speaker #2
You talked earlier about, so we just touched on isolation. We talked on relationships and we talked about how, you know, there's so many messages coming from the heart to the mind versus the other way around, you know, nine to one ratio. When a man opens up his heart, rather let's flip this around. When a man doesn't open up his heart to do this kind of energy work, how does that, how does that hurt relationships? with their spouse, their kids, their buddies. And then I guess that's tied very much to the last question, by hurting those relationships, that hurts the heart. But how does that hurt the relationships that you've seen?
Speaker #0
Well, that's a profound question. I think every relationship to some degree is a mirror of what and who we are.
Speaker #1
Wow. Yes.
Speaker #0
One of the reasons that I... Bye. went to look for more meditation and also, you know, mainly that I dove into Dr. Joe's work was that I walked home one day, I was going through a very difficult phase in my career where taking care of my patients was not a problem, but the politics around and everything surrounded was very cutthroat. I was on call every night for I don't know how many years. Which means like, even if I'm not, no, even if I was not officially on call, I'm still getting the calls at three in the morning and this and that. So it goes through several things there. There's the stress. There is the lack of sleep. No, a lot of people say I sleep when I die. No, you know, you're going to like kill yourself, but not doing, you know, sleeping properly and having good sleep and whatnot. Anyways, I walk in the house one day. And my son, two-year-old at the time, he wants to do what a two-year-old wants to do. And he comes close to me and he's not doing what I'm telling him to do. And I just snapped, man. And we were in front of this door that has like this powder room that had on the wall, there's this piece of art. There was a sheet of metal, whatever. I screamed so loud at him that I heard the sound reverberate that sheet of metal. Wow. Sorry.
Speaker #1
Oh,
Speaker #2
no, man. I understand how you're getting emotional over this. I've been there. I felt that. So totally get it, brother.
Speaker #0
So I got to my knees and I got tears rolling down my face. And I apologized and I hugged him and I said, I'm sorry. And I said, this is not going to work. So I know the next morning I'm having a conversation with my wife at the kitchen table. And I said, I don't know what I'm going to do. But if I continue like this, I'm going to be dead in a year. And I quit my job. The house was for sale the next day. We reorganized our lives. And, you know, it took a lot. People said that I was crazy and what are you thinking and this and that. But crazy was for me to continue in that environment. And it was the absolute best thing that I did in my life. I don't regret one bit. I went through. It wasn't all rainbows and unicorns after that. All of a sudden, yeah, you know, it was hard. But and that was part of my relationship with my son. That was not acceptable to me. And I had to make a change. You know, I also brought, you know, I grew up in an alcoholic family, you know, kind of weird environment. When you're growing up, you think like, well, like, what do you mean that your house is not like my house? You don't know, right? You don't know any better. You're a kid or a teenager. That's the only environment that you know. But then I learned that I brought a lot of behavior from that environment, survival behavior, that was also translating into my relationship with my wife and my son and others around me. So I had to go to work. Was it pleasant at the beginning? No, but the results were freaking amazing. So that's all part of it. And meditation was involved in every single step. And not every meditation is bliss, right? You sit down and you see angels and what? No, some of them are freaking hard. You're wrestling with your mind and with your thoughts. There's someone that I don't want to forget to mention, which is Commander Mike Devine. I don't know, John, if you ever worked with him or will, if you're familiar with him. So he is a-
Speaker #2
Fellow SEAL.
Speaker #0
Yeah. He's been on your show, right? SEAL commander.
Speaker #2
Is he on your show? Yeah. He has his own show. He hasn't been on ours. He's going to come on ours.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
Mark Devine.
Speaker #2
Yeah. Yeah. That was Rich Devine. Oh, Rich Devine.
Speaker #1
Okay. Yes.
Speaker #2
Okay. Mark Devine is another fellow SEAL commander. Big yoga guy. Oh, got it. Big meditator. Yeah. It teaches meditation to... SEAL candidates before they go to training. Yeah, he's been highly successful in getting his folks through SEAL training, more so than I think anybody else in the world. Mark DeMond.
Speaker #0
So, you know, when I was truly in the dumpster, I read his book, The Way of the SEAL. And I said, wait a minute. So if you can be a Navy SEAL with a heart, I think I can do that too. You know, and I put his stuff too. to the test and whatnot. And he talks about, he has some techniques and one of them is that, no, the thoughts will come. To me, one of the things being a little more specific on the realm of meditation that I couldn't resonate with was this thing that you're going to meditate and your brain is going to be empty. I don't think the brain was designed to be in that state. They're always, you know. electrically and magnetically, the brain is always vibrating at some rate, right? And that doesn't mean you can't have a single thought, right? So that's how I learned. Yeah, it's a thought, let it go and or whatever. There are a bunch of techniques. We don't need to get into that. But anyways, that was a tremendous impact. I'm still a work in progress. I don't want you guys to think that I'm all put together and this and that. I have my moments and I struggle to this day, but I'm always searching. You know, I'm just not going to give up because every day is better.
Speaker #1
Yeah, agreed. And we have free will. And that free will, and if you want to exercise that free will, it can help us to get to a practice and ground into these practices. Or, you know, free will, even though you might not be exercising it as freedom, like you can just upload and develop a whole lot of bad fucking habits. And they're going to run your life. You know what I mean? So you can either way. I mean, you got the free will to do it. And, you know, it's interesting. The body doesn't care. Habit does not care what kind of education you're going to present it. It'll just work in one way or the other, whether it's like going to be more healthy for you and other people or it's going to destroy your health and destroy relationships.
Speaker #0
The body doesn't even know what you're thinking, if it's true or not. Right. So you might as well feed it with what you're supposed to think. You train the body, not the brain, not, excuse me, not the body trains you.
Speaker #1
Yeah, right.
Speaker #0
Put the body to respond to the way that it's supposed to respond.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Well, you mentioned earlier when you were talking about how you take those five minutes and you guide people through a meditation and you're watching their heart rate start to drop. So what is going on there between, you know, the meditation, like the meditation, we probably just think of mind. And it is like it's a it's a discipline to focus the mind, to gather the mind, get into the heart. So what is going on there between like the heart and mind connection through the practice of meditation?
Speaker #0
Well, I think there's a couple of things in that scenario. Number one is that they start to relax. Okay. So they, because they all wind up, you know, I would be the same thing. Just imagine, okay, you need to have heart surgery tomorrow, dude. Okay. That is a tough pill to swallow. Right. So there's all the tension. And then all of a sudden, all the stuff started circulating in their minds, you know. they're thinking how I'm going to take care of my family, how I'm going to work, you know, do I have the money? Do I have this? How about that? How about all the things in life that I didn't do that I wish I had done? And so just imagine, oh, there is almost like their brain is inside of this washing machine of thoughts, right? So first it brings, I think by doing that, it allows them to relax, right? Then we put them to breathe. And then I put them, you know, combining their intention of a healthy recovery with the emotion of the relief of being healed and having a second chance. A lot of patients use that term with me. Oh, I have a second chance.
Speaker #2
Okay.
Speaker #0
And I think that puts them into coherence, combining the two. Now, relaxation and coherence is not the same thing. For example, you may be, I may be in the middle of an operation when I'm not relaxed at all, right? I'm very focused and whatnot, but I'm coherent. In other words, my heart and my brain are in coherence. So I don't need to have a low heart rate to be in coherence or be totally relaxed. But obviously in what you're describing, Will, it does, you know, I think is a combination of the two. Then once they realize, they relax, they start having those emotions, then the brain starts sending, started receiving all these signals that the heart is sending up, you know, to it. You know, and then the discrimination of the thought, the abstract thinking there, you know, there's a lot of communication from the heart to the thalamus. The thalamus is the big gate to the brain, right? It controls. let's say, very plain terms, it's like the gatekeeper and the usher, you know, sending things to different areas of the brain. And then it will give that, take that stimulus from the amygdala, which is like the holy shit thought, you know, I'm going to die to, wait a minute, there is, there's something more here than that. And then the whole let's say the dial just comes down to it. It's to a different level.
Speaker #2
Yeah. Back to baseline or closer to baseline. Yeah.
Speaker #0
Yeah. Right. Or hopefully below baseline because the baseline is, you know, it's the stress baseline. True. We don't want that, you know. Yeah. And unfortunately, some people do need the wake-up call. That's what they need. Yeah. Right? You know, most people prefer the pill to the exercise. Right. No. I won't say the commercial name. There's this pill for diabetes now that people are taking like candy to lose weight.
Speaker #1
Well, I will jump on that because I just started taking that myself, Fernando, the GLP-1. Specifically, I'm taking terzapatide to help me to lose weight because I've kind of hit this plateau. But I have been doing a lot of research on that. People have... been losing muscle because of the GLP-1 is a peptide where that is a protein, right? It's a microprotein, which replaces the protein that you're taking in. So your body tries to work off that and then the muscle fades. But I've, in my mind, I guess, justified it in that I have willpower and willpower is a finite entity. I struggle with willpower against the sweets, man, as Will knows. Freaking ice cream and chocolate. I've been doing well, but the trip to Australia put me back.
Speaker #2
Oh, shit. Right. What were those things called?
Speaker #1
Tim Tams, man.
Speaker #2
Tim Tams.
Speaker #1
But anyway, I understand the point that you're going down, man, is that we're often looking for the quick fix. And I'll admit right now I am looking for a quick fix. Or at least a... I'm looking for a tool that I can use to assist me in the short term. But a lot of the time, people do use that as the only thing, right? Like a lot of people using this GLP-1s, the Ozempic, the Monjoros, whatever they all are, they're doing that alone and they're losing weight, but they're not doing anything else to live that healthy lifestyle, right? They're not doing the resistance training. They're not getting out into the gym. They're not doing a little bit of cardio. And. And you are giving them that second chance. And now they are going to take that second chance and try to live that healthier, happier lifestyle. It's kind of like the Tim McGraw song, right? When Tim McGraw asked him what did he do when he found out that he didn't have a whole lot of time left. He said, I went skydiving. I went Rocky Mountain climbing. You know, the guy who had been terminally diagnosed, he lived his life in the last part of his life. Yeah, sorry, I digress. I got off on a tangent there. So for a guy who's listening today right now, Fernando, and maybe he's stressed or facing anybody, it doesn't just have to be a guy. For whoever's listening, maybe they're facing a health scare. What is one easy, no, I don't want to say easy thing. What is one thing they can do right now to help to calm their mind? and maybe connect with their heart and start feeling more gratitude and really start to get that healthier heart through meditation or gratitude practice or whatever it may be.
Speaker #0
I think the most important thing I would say is give yourself permission to do so. Give yourself permission to be wrong. Give yourself permission to do it poorly. Give yourself permission to forgive yourself. You know, one of the definitions that I like the most about forgiveness is that giving up hope that one day you're going to have a better past.
Speaker #1
Giving up hope that one day. Say that again. I'm sorry.
Speaker #0
Forgiveness is giving up hope that one day you have a better past.
Speaker #1
Oh, man. I love that. Yeah. I love that. Right.
Speaker #0
How, you know, like what I described about my son, I had to forgive myself. the remorse and the shame that I have from that incident alone you know it's just tremendous I can't let that you know be a monkey on my back for the rest of my life you know and I had to give myself permission a lot of times and sometimes it's small things it's like give yourself permission to have fun sometimes we don't be playful
Speaker #2
Fuck yeah. That's correct. Yes. Yes.
Speaker #0
You know, like Jesus said, just be like the small children.
Speaker #2
Yes.
Speaker #0
Yeah. You know, and so many other, you know, teachings out there. I don't want to sound preachy.
Speaker #2
No.
Speaker #0
Dive into your faith, whatever that is.
Speaker #2
Yeah.
Speaker #0
You know, there's a reason that those teachings are around for millennia.
Speaker #2
Right.
Speaker #0
You know. Mm hmm. So I think that's step number one. And then, yeah, build your network. Look for help. Ask for help, too. That's the important thing. Yeah. I learned a lot. from the team guys with that, John, is that not true? The Give2Give and the SEAL Future Foundation that I have the privilege and honor to...
Speaker #1
Wearing the SEAL Future Foundation hat right now.
Speaker #2
Yeah, that's how we met,
Speaker #0
right? Yeah. So I learned that a lot, you know, is the guy may be just ready to put the pistol in his mouth, right? But he would not pick up the phone and call a brother and say, I need help. And that is something that needs to change. And understand that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It actually is a sign of absolute courage and strength. Yeah. Raising the hand. Hey. I'm drowning here. Please throw me the lifeboat, so to speak.
Speaker #1
Right.
Speaker #0
Or the lifesaver.
Speaker #1
I'm going to mess up the name. I think it's The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse. It's an old book with these beautiful images drawn of this little boy who meets a mole, then meets a mole and a fox, then meets a mole and a fox and a horse. And you can talk to them, and they talk back. And he asked the horse in the story, he says, what's the hardest thing you've ever said? Or what's the scariest thing you've ever said? And he said, asking for help. The horse says, asking for help. But then he goes on to say, the horse, he says, asking for help is not quitting. Asking for help is refusing to quit. Or something to that effect. That's powerful. Oh, man, right? I've always thought that was amazing. and that's an amazing way to look at help is it's actually a sign of strength and it's a sign to show you know what i'm not quitting i'm actually asking for help i want to continue this but i need help to do it so well man i don't know any better way to to wrap up the show uh
Speaker #2
be a stallion be a fucking stallion that doesn't have is not afraid to ask for help i'm just kidding with heart with heart exactly right and and you know and and that's where And we say it all the time. That's where courage comes from. Courage and bravery. It's in the heart. It's in the heart. I mean, it's a French and Latin word, which means heart. I mean, that's where courage comes from. Dig down in there, you know, like, and I would also say, develop your practice too. Like develop these tools, develop a relationship to your breath, develop, you know, we have our meditation courses going on now. We'll have another one in the future. You know, Find your practice, find your stillness, find your practice of meditation. Fernando, this was. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker #0
Just one thing. Oh,
Speaker #1
please go for it.
Speaker #2
Yes.
Speaker #0
You know, create your ritual, your morning ritual, your evening ritual in a way that you cannot get yourself off the hook. You know, put yourself in a corner that you have to do it. Talk to your buddy, get a swim buddy or a partner that will going to hold you accountable. You know, because one, you know, it is very hard to succeed alone. Nobody succeeds alone, no matter what. That's true.
Speaker #1
That's true. Yeah. A hundred percent.
Speaker #2
Connection. There it is all right there, right? It's the social piece. It's like what it takes to connect to other people, what it takes to connect to yourself, you know, connecting to a higher purpose, you know, and setting a, doing, having a ritual, you know, which creates like it's an own natural health value is so incredibly important. So you can start fresh and like really express that free will that you have in a way that really makes a difference to yourself and other people. Beautiful, Fernando. I really appreciate this conversation. It's nice to talk about the art. Yeah. Yeah. John, I think you were going to say something. Yeah.
Speaker #1
No, I was just going to wrap it up saying thank you, Fernando, for a fantastic episode. Very educational, very enlightening. So we appreciate you coming out and joining us and definitely look forward to airing this and listening to it again. Yeah. So we'll wrap it up, Will, if you want to close it with a grounding practice.
Speaker #2
Yeah, let's actually, we talked about the... box breath was mentioned a few times. Uh, let's just do like a few rounds, uh, you know, for the sake of time. Uh, but as I move through this and if you're feeling pretty good, uh, you know, go for like, you know, five more rounds or whatever it takes to, and to really, well, this will really help you to calm down. This will really help you to get into your heart, uh, and get into that relaxation response, which you kind of, which you spoke to earlier. And it's really simple. You know, there's a, just like a box, there's four corners or four sides of the box. We're going to, um Inhale for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for four seconds, and stay empty for four seconds. We'll do this three times. And you can also increase the volume of breath as well. You can do like seven or eight count, but equally throughout this beautiful little... what they call equilateral, not triangle, but equal, square, perfect square, perfect square, right? Square. Okay, sorry. I'm finding a rectangle.
Speaker #1
Shut up. I'm just kidding.
Speaker #0
Equilateral triangle.
Speaker #1
I was talking about that earlier.
Speaker #2
You guys are so mean. Anyway.
Speaker #1
Whatever, man. When you guys talk about technology, that's when I lose it. But if you go math, that's me.
Speaker #2
I used to be. I'm good at math too. Anyway, okay.
Speaker #0
And for those who want, you can even.
Speaker #2
add like a thought or a mantra to each side of the box yeah yeah yeah yeah okay or do you want to add you want to do this one you want to do this breathing practice fernando if you like if you want me to i would love to yeah sorry we usually ask in the beginning putting you on the spot man oh it's the honor oh he's fucking pro dude yes bro right
Speaker #0
all right all right so we'll have uh everyone who's listening and hopefully if obviously if you're driving don't do that but uh Sit down with your spine straight. Put both feet on the floor. If you can kick your shoes off, that's even better. Take a deep breath in and let it out. I'll let you know when we're going to start the boxes. Not quite yet. Deep breath in and let it out. As you keep breathing, I want you to set up an intention for this short exercise based on the conversation we just had. Relax your shoulders. Let it drop. Keep your spine straight. Connect to the God within. Deep breath in. We're going to meet all together at our exhale. Exhale. Inhale. Hold it. Exhale. Hold it. When you inhale, inhale with a sense of lightness at the top. Inhale. Hold it. Exhale. with lightness at the end. Hold it. Think about your intention. Inhale and feel it. Hold it. Exhale. Hold it. Last round, best round. Inhale. Hold it. Exhale. Now go back to a normal breathing. Through your belly. Slow, deep breath in. And out. And when you're ready, you can open your eyes.
Speaker #2
I always feel more relaxed after that. Thank you, Fernando.
Speaker #1
Me too. Thank you, Fernando. Thanks again for joining us and sharing your wisdom and having some fun with us too, man. That was a blast.
Speaker #0
It was a blast. Thank you so much.
Speaker #2
honored you guys are crazy to have me on but thank you not at all not at all man i think you you are exactly who we needed so thank you exactly thank you and uh will i'll turn it over you to wrap it up just just big thanks you know a lot of wisdom dropped here just start one thing everybody listen just start one thing do that box breathing you know take care of your heart you know um don't be afraid to open up your heart either i think is really important and connect yourself connect others heartfully and
Speaker #1
Fernando thank you thank you thank you John great to see you be well everybody thanks for listening thanks for tuning in until next time take care everyone peace yeah thanks sir thank you peace peace thank you thank you for joining us today we hope you walk away with some new tools and insights to guide you on your life journey New episodes are being published every week, so please join us again for some meaningful discussion. For more information, please check out mentalkingmindfulness.com.