Kevin:  [00:00:00]Have you ever heard the expression that laughter is the best medicine? If you're a longtime listener of this podcast, you may have heard me refer to food or exercise as medicine. But many of us think of medicine as pills and surgery, which is perfectly appropriate for acute cases, such as a broken leg or pneumonia.

But what about chronic disease? Things like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, arthritis, dementia, and Alzheimer's and many types of cancers. What is the best medicine for these diseases? Modern allopathic medicine does very little to address the causes of these. And instead focuses on controlling the symptoms.

But what is the best medicine for preventing arresting, or even reversing these chronic diseases? What if you are your own best medicine.

[00:01:00]Hello and welcome to the over 50 health and wellness show. I'm your host, Kevin English. I'm a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach in my mission is to help you get into the best shape of your life, no matter your age. We have a great show for you today. Dr. Kien Vuu is here with us to talk about how we can achieve optimal health, longevity, and peak performance.

But before we get to that, I want to let you know that today's show is brought to you by the silver edge.

The silver edge is my online personal training and nutrition coaching business. Where I help you get off the exercise and diet hamster wheel and start making permanent healthy lifestyle changes. So that you can enjoy the second half of your life with strength and confidence and show up as the healthiest, strongest, most vital version of yourself. No matter your age.

If you're interested in learning more, send me an email at [00:02:00] [email protected]. And we'll start a conversation. My promise to you is no hard sales pitch. No annoying incessant follow up emails. Just an introductory conversation about your personal fitness goals. Okay. Enough of that let's get on with today's show.

My guest today is Dr. Kien Vuu. Dr. Vuu is one of the most sought after anti-aging physicians in the country. He is the author of the book, title, thrive, state your blueprint for optimal health, longevity, and peak performance. And he regularly works with celebrities top corporate executives and high functioning professionals to optimize their health, performance, and vitality.

He is a health media expert, and speaker sharing [00:03:00] knowledge to raise health consciousness on platforms such as ABC news TEDx, the doctors and access Hollywood. Dr. VU is passionate about empowering people to reclaim their health and live life with fulfillment, abundance, and purpose.

Despite being a medical doctor. Dr. Vuu struggled with chronic disease himself, diabetes and high blood pressure. Until an encounter with a patient, changed his life and set him on a new course. During a recent TEDx talk, Dr. Vuu commented, I chose my chronic disease, it didn't choose me. And i asked him to start our conversation today by sharing a bit about his personal health journey

Kien: For everybody in the audience, I am trained as a conventional medical doctor  in a specialty called interventional radiology. And for those of you that don't know what it is. Well, radiology is a medical imaging, so ultrasounds, x-rays CT scans, MRIs. They are all these advanced technologies.

You're used [00:04:00] to Pierce inside the body to sees what disease looks like.  As an interventional radiologist, I was a minimally invasive surgery. Using the technologies to do minimally invasive surgeries or procedures on people. So I can go into a blood vessel, open them when they're closed, close them up

when they're bleeding, I put electrodes into tumors and burn them and freeze them. So I've worked on a multitude of people with end stage   chronic disease, even early stage chronic disease from diabetes to cancer. To hypertension or high blood pressure. So I really got a spectrum as a radiologist and as an interventional radiologist to see the spectrum of disease.

And it wasn't until I had to come up with my own    challenges when it came to health that I really started to look a little bit deeper and I recognize the limitations of conventional medicine, not to be able to address a lot of the root causes of what causes chronic disease. And so five years ago, I was overweight.

I was diabetic. I had high blood pressure. I was on prescription [00:05:00] medications and really, I was the beginning stages of the patients that are ended up in my operating room table. And, you know, I remember looking myself in the mirror and I didn't like the man I'd become, you know, I had spent so much time Building up my career and chasing success. And here I am, this doctor giving medical advice who has become a chronic disease statistic, you know, himself. And when I look back and as I started to understand what are the root causes of disease I have. Actually go way back to my own personal history of a boat, refugee escaping post-war Vietnam  coming to America.

You know, I, my parents were, were born Vietnam. They were Chinese immigrants to Vietnam. I was born there a couple of years after the Vietnam war. And once that new  communist regime took over, my parents were like, there's no future for him here. And we actually escaped by boat. In a refugee boat for eight months, I spent another three months in a Philippine refugee camp.

That was the only [00:06:00] infants. And you would think now, okay, well, Dr. V can survive on this boat. He is now in the land of the free, the land of opportunity. He will grow up feeling very, very grateful.   not really the case, you know, I was, I grew up very poor and, you know, I was fortunate to be bused to a more affluent area for school.

But when I was at school, I was constantly teased for being poor for being an immigrant for the holes in my hand-me-down clothes, for the sneaking food. My mom, you know, sent me to school where people would always say, go back to your home country, chinky and  And those experiences really shaped me. You know, I didn't like the skin I was in.

I constantly remember being not enough that I didn't really fit in America. And I remember coming home from school many, many times. Like I just wanted. New skin. I wanted not to be an immigrant. I wanted not to have my family. And so there was a lot of shame and a lot of, again, feelings of not being enough, not being worthy.

When you carry that energy [00:07:00] into adulthood is somebody that uses always chase uses something external  outside of yourself. And for me, it was just chasing that success. When you're not feeling good inside and you're chasing this thing on the outside thinking it'll make you feel good. Well, it puts a lot of people in stress and when people are in a stress state, they'll tend to choose pretty, poor habits, not sleep well, not eat well and all those things.

And as we'll talk about probably in a second it's these choices and how you live your life and your daily habits that ultimately drive how our cells behave. Which is why, as a doctor who didn't learn any of this stuff in medical school, mind you got chronic disease. And when I start to really started to evaluate what dictates disease and what dictates optimal health, and performance.

And longevity, it's really our choices, our habits, and how we show up. And it was really that journey of discovering myself again, of really nurturing my body, that I was able to reverse those [00:08:00] conditions in four to six months. And I did a lot of additional work in anti-aging and regenerative medicine.

What we could dive into that in a second, but now I'm really.  Left with the question of not just how do we reverse disease, but how do we be at our best? How can we become the superhero versions of ourselves so we can show up every day for our neighbors, for our family and for the community at large.

Kevin: That's quite a fantastic story. And in your book, thrive state, you mentioned that  Was it Ishmael hill. I think the patient made a comment one day and folks, if they want to hear that story can certainly check out the book. But  I made a comment and really turned your life around.

So you mentioned that you went from a chronic disease state to getting rid of that in a short amount of time. I think people might be surprised that these lifestyle diseases can be reversed. It depends on where you are and how far down the line you are in a short amount of time. And then the journey continues to, okay.

I went from being sick to not sick, but there's this next step? There's this peak performance. There's this optimal [00:09:00] health that we're going to spend the rest of our time here talking about, but before we go there, let's just back up and let's just lay a little groundwork here. Can you define for us, what is chronic disease?

Kien: Well, chronic disease has a multitude of disparity options. They range from one, you could have a lot of symptoms, you know, like brain fog, like, rashes in your skin, like low energy, like pain and joint symptoms. Those are symptoms. But once they start to, go into certain systems, they're linked into something called chronic disease.

And they are in the realm of maybe arthritis, atherosclerosis, or chronic plaque. Diabetes is a big chronic disease. High blood pressure is a chronic disease. Cancer is a chronic disease. When it affects your immune system, you have, chronic infections, autoimmune disease  when chronic disease hits your nervous system, it's dementia, it's all simers.

But the main thing for these conditions are.  Once these [00:10:00] systems start to fail over time is when these diseases start to get labeled,  And this is, this is the difference between  two conditions. If you were to get into a car accident, you start bleeding.

That's an acute condition. If you happen to catch a bug like a pneumonia, and you've got an infection in your lung, that's an acute condition. Mobern medicine is really, really good for that.  It's not so good for treating chronic condition.

Kevin: Yeah, I think there's, a lot there.  With the chronic conditions, we're hearing a lot more about that, right?

Because it's so prevalent. But talk to us a little bit about what are some of these causes is it lifestyle or is it genetic? Is it a combination?

Kien: Yeah. Very good. So, you know, a lot of people, the old dogma of medicine is that,  you have DNA, which is which encodes, basically the entire blueprint of all the genes people have in their body.

You get one strand from mom, one strand from dad, and people think, okay, if mom or dad had a disease, if they're in my genes and they're going to show up in my life. That is [00:11:00] partially true. I mean, the genes contain, basically all the code to, to make a, a human body, but every cell is different in the body, but you have the exact same DNA in every single cell of your body.

So what makes the eye cell different from a lung cell, different from a heart cell? Well, at any time, there is a specific amount of genes that get turned on and a certain amount of genes that are turned off and  I give the analogy of a playbook in the game. The playbook has all the plays in there, but you're not playing every single play at the right time.

You've got to play the right gene at the right time to win the game. Very similarly. It's how these levers and genes get turned on and turned off the dictates what a cell becomes. So when we talk about, start talking about disease, human beings have a remarkable capacity. Inherited the ability to heal ourselves in so many different ways.

Okay. And we have the intelligence, the cellular intelligence to do that. We've inherited those things.  But [00:12:00] what ultimately causes disease. Now, when our cells are in their optimal state cells, form together through energy to make tissues, which also band together and communicate with you to make organs, organs, form systems together.

Those systems went optimally functioning because their cell is optimum. When you're functioning, that will give you optimal health, longevity, and peak performance. What is the flip side of that? When a cell is not given what it needs, then all of a sudden you've got sub optimal cells leading to the suboptimal

tissues, suboptimal organs, and then suboptimal systems. A sub-optimal cardiovascular system will give you atherosclerosis heart attack and strokes a sub-optimal immune system. Again, auto immune disease cancers, chronic infections, suboptimal nervous.  Dementia or Alzheimer's disease. So really it's the state of ourselves, optimal cells will give us optimal health suboptimal cells will give us chronic symptoms and then chronic [00:13:00] disease.

So the next question is what makes a cell. And again, it's no longer the DNA. The DNA is all the plays in the playbook. So how then does our cells decide to play the right plays in the wrong place? Well, this is all. Actually the cell and the DNA is constantly listening. Moment to moment to moment to the energy field around the cell.

And this energy fields is made up of, hormone molecule, signaling molecules, growth factors, peptides. And what is that made of it's all made of the things that we're exposed to in life. And here's the thing I've worked with epigeneticists and some of the top researchers around the world actually.

And they boiled down the 80 20 rule to determine what I call this bioenergetic state, the 80 20 rules. This, there are seven major things. I call them the seven bioenergetic elements that make up the majority of this bioenergetic state of ourselves. This state that [00:14:00] tells our DNA how to respond. And those bioenergetic elements, sleep nutrition, movement, or exercise, stress, and emotional mastery relationships, our thoughts and our mindset.

And then finally purpose. Having those seven things actually creates the environment that speaks to our DNA. And if you master those seven things, your ability to have optimal health, longevity and peak performance are at its maximum. And when you're not, that puts you prone to getting chronic symptoms and then chronic disease.

Kevin: Okay. So there there's a lot there, and I definitely want to dig into those seven bioenergetic elements. Now you had mentioned the DNA and there are levers that are turning this on and off. And then we went right into these bioenergetic elements. So it sounds like what you're saying then is that there are these lifestyle factors that are critical

for our DNA to express itself one way or another, either in a sick state or a healthy state, is that a fair way of putting that?

[00:15:00] Kien: 100%? There are basically two main pathways that our cells really take.  And then within these two main pathways, there's, there's a lot of gray in terms of, you know, what genes get turned on and.

But you give a cell exactly what it needs. It's going to heal. It's going to have optimal immune system. It's going to create the beautiful humans we were meant to be. Anything outside of that. The cell thinks that it's in danger in fact, for human being that cell, when it's in that dangerous state, when it's in that stress state, it's.

Take all the energy for growth and healing and put it into protection. And one of those main mechanisms there is inflammation and also a part of that stress and danger response. We lower our immune system and that combination of increase inflammation and lower immunity again puts us in a suboptimal cell state suboptimal cells and puts us really in the environment and background of getting chronic symptoms and chronic disease.

Kevin: Okay. Absolutely. And that's a wonderful, precursor to what we want to talk about here today. We want to talk about not [00:16:00] only not being sick, but how do we really thrive? Right. So let's dig into these, elements here. You said they were sleep nutrition, movement, stress, mindset, relationships and purpose.

Woo. You got them. That's right. I like this because you got a couple of keys that maybe aren't so intuitive, at least coming from a medical doctor. Right. Certainly these days we'll say, okay, stress is absolutely. We understand that that certainly has some biological implications, but I think that maybe mindset, relationships, and purpose when we get there are going to be interesting.

So let's start with one of my very favorite ones. Let's start with. Why is sleep important?

Kien: Well, sleep really regulates our circadian rhythm. This is the ebb and flow of how a human being or an organism will go throughout the day. You need certain energy to, to perform during the day. You need a certain energy

for rest and recovery  you need to be able to digest and that, is  optimized during certain parts of the day. [00:17:00] And then there's the part of the day. You just need to detoxify get rid of all the junk in your cerebral spinal fluid. All this is an in, in rhythm and that rhythm dictates our hormone production and hormone production.

The right way is what's necessary for us to have optimal health. So if you're not sleeping regularly, you throw your hormones off and you're going to start feeling like crap. so many of my patients want to lose weight for example, and they can't lose weight because they're not sleeping well.

Well, why is that? Well, cortisol. When cortisol levels go up, your body thinks you're you're in stress and it's going to start to store    some energy in fat stores. So that's one of the things sleep is so important for basically every regulatory body people wanting to lose weight.

People want better performance when cortisol is high, it also increases your risk of getting insulin resistance and diabetes. So this is why sleep is so important.

Kevin: Sleep is one of my favorite subjects to talk about in that whole recovery realm. And you're right. People that are looking to lose [00:18:00] weight, people that are looking to gain muscle can all use more sleep.

Now, speaking of sleep.  What are some good practices for improving our sleep hygiene? What, can we do to improve our sleep? What are we really looking for here?

Kien: Yeah. Let's start at the beginning of the day and then go all the way, because you know, really you need for optimal sleep. You need to be able to treat your day  right. Because. Really sleep. It's that place where our body starts to relax and all those things. We want to make sure that throughout the day, we're preparing our body for that.

So let's start in the morning.  One of the things that is great for sleep is  getting up early in the first thing you do, walking outside and getting some natural sunlight on your skin and into your eyes. What it does. Raises cortisol, which helps you wake up naturally. So you're not digging for caffeine necessarily.

And what it also does is it resets your circadian rhythm. So your body says, okay, it's daytime, it's morning time.  I'm going to start the clock now. And then, you know, when nighttime rolls around  we'll get the cues and [00:19:00] signals for you to go to bed. So that's. The other thing is regular physical activity.

I like to do it in the morning because it puts me in a good state. I'm not thinking about other things. I'm moving my body and that's so important moving your body, you get the endorphins going and things like that. But regular exercise will also help you fall asleep. Well, going on a little bit later during the day, you'll start to notice that the day is going to creep up at you.

It's not a matter of if things will happen. There are things going to be hitting your life that, you know, will, will activate your stress response. So throughout the day, it's important to just be able to kind of check in, and there's some practices of putting yourself in a more parasympathetic state to not have that stress gets you.

Those could be meditation, breathing techniques. You could even gaze go into nature and start gazing out. They'll actually bring you into the parasympathetic state. So you have different practices like that. cryotherapy, I think is great. The next thing is. 2:00 PM is my curfew for not having  any more [00:20:00] caffeine.

So I do drink a cup of coffee anymore.    and I used to drink like six cups of coffee during the day. Now I only drink a cup of coffee in the morning. I make sure I don't have any caffeine intake after 2:00 PM. I stopped drinking altogether, but alcohol also plays into a factor.  If you're drinking alcohol late at night and might help you fall asleep, but it will disrupt your deep sleep and you're gonna be waking up.

So  avoiding alcohol would be great. Tuning into the evening. Now, you know, we'd have a lot of artificial junk light, you know, from our phones, from, you know, our labs to our TVs, that blue light suppresses melatonin or the hormone necessary  for us to be able to fall asleep and for us to be able to get deep sleep.

So, turning off your phones, you know, having a phone curfew like before 6:00 PM, 7:00 PM, and maybe using some blue light blocking glasses can, can help too. And when you're, when you're ready to go to bed, just make sure you put yourself in a state for bed. Don't be checking your phone or, or getting yourself into a stress state.

Let your body know you're ready [00:21:00] to relax. a great technique is, you know, also journaling putting everything, from your brain onto paper so that you're not renumerated over it. When you're trying to go to bed and having a good sleep routine and a good sleep environment is really, really key.

Kevin: Yeah. I love all of that and I liked the idea of preparing for sleep when you wake up. I think that's a great take on that. Yeah. Okay, we're going to leave sleep for now. And we're gonna talk about nutrition. This is a hot one. You spend a lot of time in your book talking about this. So talk to us about nutrition.

There's so much information out there. How do we parse through all this and make sense about what would we eat for optimal performance and

Kien: longevity? Well, there's so many diets that are out there and, you know, I feel like there's a lot of diet dogma and people fighting over, over on the internet. And now I understand if you choose to eat a certain way because of religion or your beliefs and things like that.

And I think, I think that's fine, but I think, you know, one of the things a lot of the diets have in common that that are good for [00:22:00] them is also, very, very good. And I don't think people should really be arguing over, things like that.  And honestly the distress that comes from all that arguing that energy there.

And when we get to emotions actually drives a lot of the stress response, which is bad for our body, but I think there's a lot of sensible things people can do. And if you boil it down to this, that here's a couple of points. One, there's no universal diet that's right for everybody, our genetics, our activity levels, our, our  exposure to toxins and things like that are all different.

Therefore we all have different nutrient requirements. So we got to have to listen to our body but as a whole, if you follow these rules, you're poly going to be very, very, you know, do very well. Number one, avoid processed foods. you pick up,  food. And if you're taking a look at the ingredients and you're seeing all these things and you can't pronounce, that's not real food.

So. stay away from the processed food tries to eat whole real foods. Organic. If possible, if you eat meats, I would stick with grass fed grass, finished meats and [00:23:00] sustainably raised   animals.  So stick with that. If, if you're going to go there. So eat whole foods, get rid of the sugar. I mean, the sugar is what is the, the culprit in, the alarming rates of diabetes, of chronic disease, because it increases inflammation in your body.

and sugar really wrecks it. So get rid of the foods   processed food, get rid of the sugar, eat whole foods, including. Good healthy fats in your diet, avocados, coconut oil, nuts and seeds get rid of the trans fats and the vegetable oils, which are very, very inflammatory.

And then also know that, our ancestors didn't eat three meals a day.  And there were times of feast and there were times of famine.  I intermittent fast myself and I wouldn't say that there's a hard, fast rule of doing it, but just recognize, maybe if you're not hungry, if your body's not calling to you to eat  it's okay to skip meals.

And what you might start noticing is that if you start skipping the meals, you're less groggy during the day. You actually have a little [00:24:00] bit more energy. the great thing about skipping a meal is it's free. You just save yourself some money. And that was a part of the process that helped me reverse my diabetes and, me being overweight.

Kevin: Yeah. So there's some great advice in there. So anybody who's wondering what to eat. And because there's so much noise out there taking that advice of let's get rid of that process, food, eat whole foods, let's greatly reduce or eliminate sugars, get those healthy fats and then consider fasting.  Lots of good points in there. So moving on from nutrition. So now we've got our sleep dialed in. We're eating better. Let's talk about movement.

Let's talk about

Kien: exercise. Yeah. So our ancestors moved all the time.  And it activates things in our body. One, it increases something called brain derived neurotrophic factor. This is the molecule that's like miracle grow for your brain and helps your brain develop. It keeps your brain sharp.

So that's number one. Number two.  Movement also  [00:25:00] activates your lymphatic system, which drains out toxins from your body. So that's a great thing to do it also, not only the lymphatic system, but it, activates a sweat pathways, which is another detoxification system when your move. Movement and exercise also builds lean muscle.

Now for everybody over the age of 50. Sarcopenia is loss of lean muscle. And that ex actually a major, major risk factor for early aging for, accidents and for you getting chronic disease. So maintaining lean muscle, particularly as we get older is going to be super important  for longevity  and for optimal health.

So for all those reasons   exercise and movement is so important and it's, it doesn't really matter what you do.  You know, I, I have a little blueprint as to what people do. I include a little bit of high intensity interval training. I'll sprint once a week. And I'll also weightlift that's my routine, but honestly, it's whatever routine gets you moving every day.

[00:26:00] And remember if you've got a desk job  getting up every 15 minutes helps parking, you know, the furthest away from, where you work, so you can walk that helps.  And just making sure you're just very cognizant of if I'm like, you know, very sedentary for  an extended period of time. Use a standing desk.

If you can just get up, move around, inactivity is seriously the new smoking. So people just have to remember, they need to move every day. Yeah.

Kevin: And I love that.  People do need to move every day. And  I think the best exercise is the one that you'll actually do, right?

The best form of movement is the one that you enjoy. if you dread going to the gym and doing a certain routine, maybe that's not for you. There are a lot of different ways we can move our body. And certainly our ancestors weren't walking on treadmills or lifting barbells, right? Find something that.

That you like and enjoy. Okay. So now we're going to start moving into some of these other things I think people would say, okay, I can understand a medical doctor. Talk to me about sleep and nutrition and movement. [00:27:00] That makes sense. Let's talk about stress. We alluded to it a little bit, but let's talk about stress and the state of chronic stress.

Kien: Yeah. So very good point. We go through stresses in our body.  Our ancestors went through stress. What, why did they stress out? They stressed out because yeah, saber tooth tiger running after them. They stressed out because neighboring villages wanted to come attack

you. But after that attack was over and after the saber tooth tiger leaves, we go back into states of relaxation. What happens in that state? Now we've developed this state where we can prepare for danger, just so that we can handle it. So if a saber tooth tiger was running after you, you're going to one need to run.

So you divert blood flow away from your visceral organs, into your skeletal muscle so that you run away from that. Well, guess what? For a short period of time, that's fine. But if not, then you're taking blood away from your gut, from your kidney, from your liver that has very important functions. Your blood also thickens because Hey, if you become a flesh wound for somebody  [00:28:00]  you're going to need to clot.

That's not really good for your body and your circulation, your immune system goes down because Hey, if you're going to be a Tiger's lunch, why worry about fighting off cancers or chronic infections? Right. And then inflammation inflammation is that thing, if you were to get a flesh wound, you want your body cells to come in and attack, all the bacteria that's in, in the space.

So you bring up this inflammatory response that goes up. That's also a part of stress. So all that is great when there's actually a real threat, or if you get into a car accident and you need your body to start bleeding. That's okay. Unfortunately our modern day world, we interpret stress very differently.

It might be a tweet that you read. It might be somebody, you know, running in front of you and the highway. It could be a mean boss and we interpret all those things. And guess what, when you put that stress and danger response on all the time, that sets the stage for chronic disease. Again, normally our bodies, when [00:29:00] we're resting and recovering we're in that parasympathetic state, and we're also treating our body well, It's going to be in a state.

What I call the thrive state of optimal health, longevity, and peak performance. You put it in that dangerous space. You divert all that energy for growth and healing into the stress response. That milieu have decreased immunity, increased inflammation that sets the stage for chronic disease. So let's talk now.

Not from also stress, but let's talk, you know, I link them together with emotions because you've got the stress response, but you also have emotions like fear, like anger, late hate, like resentment, like worry, all those low vibrational emotions actually have the same type of stress response. And over time, if you're in those emotions a lot, you cause the same type of response, increase inflammation, decrease immunity, chronic disease.

Guess what? On the flip side. You've got emotions like joy, like gratitude, like connection [00:30:00]  such as love all those, positive emotional states. Those  are anti-aging medicines. And if you take a look at somebody's labs  when they're in a state of love and gratitude, you'll notice that their cortisol levels are lower and they're anti-inflammatory.

Markers, such as  tumor necrosis factor alpha, that's also decreased and your feel good hormones are increased, with those positive emotions that leads to being in thrive state that leads to longevity that leads to optimal health.

Kevin: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I think that's  that was surprising to me as I read through the book.

I think a lot of our listeners can relate to stress as bad and you've given some really good examples of how that's bad. But I think that maybe not a lot of us think about that, those negative emotions having that same biological effect. That's so negative, keeping us away from that thrive state. So, yeah.

Great stuff there on stress and emotion. So let's talk a little bit about [00:31:00] mindset.

Kien: No. Great. So mindset and our thoughts are, in the picture. And really, I bring emotions first because what leads us to the emotion? Well, underneath all that, or basically the thoughts, beliefs in our, our mental operating system, some of which we're not really aware that that might put us into

those positive emotional states or that negative emotional state, we're all different will. We respond to things differently. And we come up with those thoughts and beliefs because as children and as infants, we get programmed from our parents, from media, from society will create. And, you know, and from our past traumas, have things that, might put us in those negative emotional states now, unless.

you actually have a saber tooth tiger running behind, right behind you, that chronic activation for those negative emotional states are, it's not very healthy. So it's, it's just good to be aware. And here's the other thing to us as human beings, you know have developed an ego.

We've [00:32:00] got a center in our brain called the default mode network, and this is something that we picked up growing up, all these thoughts and beliefs that make up our ego. And here's the thing is. What it does is it prepares us for all the negative. So it's going to spend a lot of times 70 to 80%. Our thoughts are going to be negative, but here's the thing.

We don't have to believe all our thoughts. And that's the key thing is recognizing not to be renumerating over those negative thoughts that put us in those negative emotional states. And then if you could start to recognize that, oh my God, maybe. You know, maybe this is coming from some kind of programming.

I don't have to believe that programming. And if instead those positive emotional states lead me to optimal health, longevity and peak performance. Are there new ways I can feel. That could put me in those positive emotional states when you can start to understand that, oh my God, maybe I unconsciously adapted all these negative ways of thinking that put me in [00:33:00] these negative emotional states.

Can I start to train myself? And in my book, you know, I talk about some techniques to train new thoughts and train new ways of thinking in your mind. So you can have access to those positive emotional states, even when the old programming took you out.

Kevin: I found that very interesting, the fact that you had linked emotion with mindset  and of course put  a biological medical  causality to it.

And the fact that we can in fact change these things right? That they are lifestyle elements and, somebody who's suffering clinical depression. That's one thing. But those of us that have just normal negative, like you said, programming running through their mind because the ego is constantly looking for ways that there could be perceived dangerous or whatever that might be.

There are ways that we can kind of break up that programming. reprogram it in that once we start changing that mindset, then.  Those emotions start to change as well into that positive state in the sets off this chain of events that [00:34:00] makes us healthier, happier people, right.

They're more likely to be thriving then say not absolutely. Okay. So moving right along. So now we've, we've worked on all these things. We've worked on our mindset and our, and that's helped us with our emotion. We talked about some stress management ideas. Where does relationships play into this healthy human?

Now

Kien: we look at how we formed as humans one cell had to say to another cell, oh my God. You know what. You've got some skills I don't have let's get together be better. And that's how multicellular life evolved was like one cell it's it was doing its own thing. All right.

But this other cell was also doing its own thing.  But actually had an additional task and the two of them together actually, formed better. Or multicellular life, all the different cells in our body basically has its own function and the whole body needs each thing to [00:35:00] work on its function and its purpose, which we'll get to later  for the sake of the entire community.

And that's what's forms, this multicellular life. And this is why we are the beautiful,  species that we are  So we were wired to be in community, as our cells were. And so those things kind of drive, natural things that happen in our body. Like when a mom bonds with child increases oxytocin levels, when you and I speak over zoom, our oxytocin levels increase when you and I start to hug our oxytocin levels increase even more.

What does oxytocin do? Well, that's really the bonding or the love hormone. It lowers cortisol in our body. It lowers that stress response. It helps us to digest more. So we are meant to be in, positive  relationships that uplift us. Similarly, on the other side, We've known who may be, have some negative people in our life and negative energy.

She can be, it can be taken in also. And so we [00:36:00] just have to recognize that our relationships will, put us in some of those, again, emotional states of either love, connection, gratitude, or it could pull us away.  I actually am about to launch a course and we can actually give the listeners of your podcast access to the course for a discounted price.

But in that we do an exercise where we would take the relationship we spend the most time with and we judge it. How's it making me feel what type of energetic state am I in with this person? Right. Then ask herself, what is our intention for that person? Do I want this person still in my life? And if I am in those negative emotional states, what that needs to change, do I have to draw more boundaries?

Do I need to have a conversation? Do I need to forgive or do I need to be forgiven? And it's being very conscious of the energy that this relationship brings to you. And on the flip side, if, if, if a relationship's okay, and you want more   elevation in that, what do I need to do? Do I need to call somebody more frequently?

Do I need to get in [00:37:00] to community more? So all those things are really, really important for  longevity and optimal health. In fact, if you read the book blue zones  written by, I forgot his first name, but Beutner   the blue zone countries where the people will have the most centenarians, one of the key common

factors of that is community. They live together, they work together, they play together, they take care of themselves together and they also live longer together.

Kevin: Yeah. And I like the way that you talk about relationships and it's, it can be like your health, right. You can be not sick in your relationships.

You can be sick in your relationship in a very unhealthy relationship and you can have optimal relationships. . So you end with your seventh bioenergetic element on purpose.

Let's talk a little bit about purpose.

Kien: Yeah. Sounds good. So what's the evidence telling us about purpose? Well, it's telling us this  people with a deep sense of purpose, actually,

there's a gene cluster in our body called the conserve [00:38:00] transcriptional response to adversity. And when that thing is turned on, your body thinks it's in a stress state. What does it do? What we just talked about, increases inflammation to lowers your immunity. Well, it turns out people with a deep sense of purpose quiets down that gene.

So you get the opposite of fact. If you live on purpose, people who live on purpose, will live seven years longer. If they've got purpose in your life, having purpose also decreases your risk of getting chronic disease and cardiovascular events like heart attack or stroke. So those are all the health benefits and they're, they're all documented in research papers of having purpose.

So the next question is, well, how then do I find my purpose? And to be honest, a couple of years ago, I was, I knew the evidence for this and I, I was getting stressed out. What is my purpose? What am I meant to do? And, I boiled it down to this.  And it w which is more, it, it flows with my well, my bioenergetic model of health.

And it's not really so much about finding your purpose, but it's about remembering your [00:39:00] purpose, remembering who you are, your purpose is actually simple. You know, we've got things that are encoded in our genes, right? Puts us in those positive emotional states. Again, love, gratitude, joy connection. So you've got to ask yourself, what are the things, what are the people, what are the experiences that puts me in those positive emotional states?

And again, you know, I talked about, all the cells, you know, needing to live their purpose in this community. Well, it's really. Doing your thing,  your body's already wired to enjoy certain things.  So if you do those things and you share that and you share yourself with your community, that's your purpose.

Your purpose is also all the struggles that you've been through in your life that you have overcome. And because you've overcome it, you've become a better person. And sharing that experience with somebody who might be going through. So really your purpose is just you, as you authentically and sharing you authentically with the world is your medicine.

[00:40:00] Kevin: I love that sharing  your authentic you with the world is your medicine. That is fantastic. I think that's a great way to end there on purpose now, doctor Vuu let's let's put this all together. Can I be very healthy if I knock one or two of these things out of the park, I'm great at them, but I'm not so much on the rest.

Kien: Well, so all these things work together. So all those seven elements actually  constitute physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energies in the body. And what you'll notice that they're all energetically connected. If you work on one thing, your hormones are going to start to change in your body and you reach a certain energetic level.

All these seven things are connected and you also notice once you start to work on sleep, Hey, you start to feel about it. Or, and all of a sudden, Hey, I've got more capacity need to think better and to work on my purpose, but you need all those seven things. In fact, if you're missing one thing, you'll find that it [00:41:00] doesn't take you up to that next bioenergetic potential.

You know, I've know people who, are very religious about exercise, but they eat like crap. That's going to bring down your hormones. That's going to bring down your bioenergetic state. Some people work on, they're so fanatic about sleep nutrition, exercise. I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do this right. They stress themselves out, living that way. And then they get very angry. No, you're not doing this right. You're not eating right or whatever it might be. And those people who live for themselves and don't want to include other people in their lives. Again, don't reach that,  optimal level, these seven things are very, very crucial.

And here's the cool part. If you're low in one area and it's hard to. You know you to move in that area, work on something else first. Pick the easiest task for you to do what you'll start to know if you do that thing. Like I said, you're going to change up your hormone levels, your signaling molecule levels of making your body feel, make it easier for you to work on that next thing.

Then you start to add them on top of each other. And if you have all those seven things [00:42:00] again, your ability to have optimal health live your longest, and also have that peak performance and showing up like, like how we want to show up. That's really helpful. And again, these are all probabilities. This is the 80 20, or the 90 10 rule.

I mean, you could be following all these seven things and all of a sudden you happen to pick up, like a virus or you happen to, you have heavy metals or whatever. I mean, that's, that's when you seek a doctor like myself to work out those kinks, but you work on those, those seven things, your ability to maybe need a doctor not there.

Again, the doctor of the future is going to be you, which is why I always. You are your best medicine.

Kevin: Yeah. I love that tagline. You are your best medicine. And certainly I can relate to having this holistic view. Right. I had found in my own life when I up-level in any one of these seven areas and I hadn't really thought about it the way you've laid it out, but you're right.

When I Uplevel in one of those areas, it. Easier to Uplevel in those other areas. Right. And it just makes you a healthier, more well-rounded person to your point. I'm [00:43:00] more able to express my true self, my passion to find my purpose and express my purpose when I've got all of these things, working in concert.

Absolutely love that. So, Dr. Vuu what's next for you? Done a lot of work here and obviously put a lot of thought into this. What's what's next on the horizon for you?

Kien: Well, I run a small concierge practice where I work with, lot of celebrities, CEOs, and high-performers as to how they can maybe incorporate this bioenergetic model, incorporate this thing into their life.

But, I want to get this message out into the masses as you'll notice now I do work, I. Optimize people's hormones. I put them on very special anti-aging regimens and things like that, but that's, that's really like, like I say, the 10% or the 5% of getting to the next level.

But the fact of the matter is people have extraordinary ability to heal themselves and to put themselves in that superhuman mode. And I want to get that message out there. And there was a kid back in the day I had wanted to do [00:44:00] something. That involved, entertaining people were speaking or something like that, but none of my heroes look like me.

You know, I, you know, I had heroes like Tony Robbins, Robin Williams, or Mick Jagger, but I looked on the screen there. It was, there was no Asians that did that. And  I think the world's starting to open up again and to be able to bring this message of health empowerment, and maybe, tap into that childhood dream of maybe using media and entertainment as a platform to spread this message.

That's really what's next. I love

Kevin: that. Absolutely. 100%. So we've referenced your book a couple of times so that the book is thrive. State your blueprint for optimal health, longevity, and peak performance. Certainly folks, I would strongly recommend reading that great read. He goes into a lot of details on things.

Yeah. Glossed over today, but other than the book, what are some other ways for people to connect with you? And while somebody listening to this might think, well, [00:45:00] I would like to take the next step or I want to go deeper. What are ways that they can connect with you and work with you on the next level?

Kien: Absolutely.

So  they could  find the book at thrive state book.com and if you know, ready to purchase, I'm going to give you three free chapters for free, you know, just go ahead and leave me an email where to send it to that's thrive. State book.com.  My  website is www.kienvuu.com spelled K I E N V U U .com. In there.

I haven't officially launched it, but you can actually  First access to what I call the thrive state accelerator. We go into deep into exercises over 10 weeks into forming your own blueprint for optimal health, longevity, and peak performance. That's the thrive city accelerator. For those of you listening to the podcast  you'll get a discount by using the code.

Podcast 25  within my website, you know, people, try to find me  to work closer with me. One-on-one usually they come by referrals and, I only [00:46:00] keep like maybe 10 or 15 clients at a time right now I'm fully booked, but certainly if you will want to get a hold of me  reach out and we can get you on our wait list.

Kevin: Okay, fantastic. So I'll drop all of that into the show notes. So folks can find all that information there along with your social media  and a link to the book, to the Ted talk, all of that good stuff. Well, Dr. Vuu, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today, sharing your personal journey with us as well as all of your wisdom with us, and certainly want to encourage you to keep up your great work.

And I certainly wish you all the best in all of your future.

Kien: Well, this was super fun. Thanks for having me.

Kevin: Okay folks, that's our show for this week. All of the links to the resources we discussed in this episode and more can be found over at [00:47:00] www.silveredgefitness.com/episode65. You can also continue the conversation over there. I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. But before you go today,

I have two favors to ask one, would you please give me a five star review on whatever platform you're listening on? And two, would you please consider sharing this episode with anyone you think might be interested? It could be a family member, a friend, or even a coworker. The easiest way to do this is just send them a link to this episode. And again, that's silver edge fitness.com/episode 65.

Thanks again for spending time with me today. And until next time. Stay strong