Holistic Wellness Strategies to Use Daily: Meditation, Breathwork, Belief Audits, Nootropics & Postbiotics

Nick Urban [00:00:05]:
Are you confused by the whole world of health and wellness, not really knowing where to start? If so, this podcast episode might be exactly what you’re looking for. Some of the topics we cover include the domains of wellness, breath work, meditation, stillness practices, the importance of sleep Mind some quick tips to optimize it, movement, routines, how your surroundings, your environment, your beliefs Mind stories, mental, and values ultimately sculpt where you will go in life. Plus, we discuss some ways that you can figure out the highest impact area for you to personally focus on. Our guest this week is David Reveles. He’s a holistic health and wellness coach as well as a corporate consultant. Through his platform called Origins Unity, he has provided tens of thousands of people around the USA with the tools, frameworks, and resources to overcome life’s challenges, achieve happiness, and enjoy good health in the process. David takes a holistic approach and uses a wide variety of tools such as breath work, qigong, meditation, mindfulness, fitness, yoga, nutrition, genetics, epigenetics, and self quantification to help his clients optimize each of the domains of wellness. He’s an entrepreneur and soon to be author as well.

Nick Urban [00:01:30]:
For the links to anything we discuss, you can check out the show notes, which will be at mindbodypeak.com/thenumber156. And if you’re interested in joining us for a retreat where we will cover some of the best of the modern technology and biohacks and combine that with some of the time proven ancestral wisdom, the modalities from traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and other ancestral medicines, go ahead and leave your contact information in the form in the show notes. And if you’re a good fit, we’ll reach out to you. In this retreat, we’ll be finding ways of integrating these practices into simple daily routines to help you construct your own sustainable set of practices without spending your full day biohacking. Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, and enjoy this conversation with David. David, welcome to the podcast.

David Reveles [00:02:24]:
Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Nick Urban [00:02:26]:
I’m excited. Today, we’re gonna demystify the world of holistic and integrative health. And before we get there, let’s warm up with the unusual nonnegotiables you’ve done so far today for your health, your performance, and your bioharmony?

David Reveles [00:02:44]:
From the get go, I have quite a good morning routine, and I’ll expand it or contract it as as much as I needed or constrained or depending on how I’m feeling. And that’s what I do with with folks as well. I give them routines, they can expand or collapse. If you only got 5 minutes, you can do your routine, if you got 50. So this morning, per usual, I awake Mind I don’t rush out of bed. I implement it implement the meditation, the mindfulness right away. Slow down. The pace that you start your day with is the pace that you’re gonna try to be keeping up with and catching up with the entire day.

David Reveles [00:03:21]:
So I’m careful this the pace I set for the day. I lay there, I body scan, I make sure I’m Body, I make sure my breath is in my low health, my intention is setting gratitude, perhaps I’ll do gut yoga, gentle yoga, get out slowly, no rush. That’s probably the most important thing is how fast I get out of bed. And then sit up, little silence, stillness, little gratitude. Maybe that’s all I get Mind I gotta go. Today, I had a little more time. I was able to really think deep into the intention, the gratitude. I was able to then sit meditation in my office here for about 5, 10 minutes.

David Reveles [00:04:02]:
I was trying to prep for this interview. I thought about kind of little bit of vision work, little bit of prep, kind of seeing the day through, a little bit of day outlook. Breathwork, that’s really that’s very vital and important. Breathwork, I did my meditation gratitude nutrition setting, getting into breath work, getting into cold exposure, and then very importantly touching the earth, being Outliyr. I’m getting that earth contact as soon as I can. I didn’t have time to do my red light. I know we’ve been talking about my red light yoga breathwork stack, but didn’t have time for that. Getting some nice weather, so it was gorgeous Outliyr.

David Reveles [00:04:46]:
Cold exposure was good. I’ve been doing a lot more ACV, apple cider vinegar shots. I’ve actually recently I think I’m about a year or so into delaying my coffee and caffeine for about an hour or so after wake up. Because I used to get up, have my morning routine, boom, boom, boom, have a coffee, take the day away, but that’s been a major, achievement, delaying the caffeine in the morning, starting with teas first.

Nick Urban [00:05:18]:
I really like the way you mentioned you start your day specifically because I haven’t thought much about this. But if you roll over and quickly check your phone or jump up out of bed even if it’s because you’re excited about doing things, there is the dark side of that is that you’re in training your brain, your nervous system that when this certain time comes, it’s no longer time to relax. And even if you wanna sleep in that point, you have that surge of the stress hormones of the cortisol, the epinephrine, all that stuff. And all of a sudden, you lose control of your sleep. And I see the wind down period in the evening as the same way. If you’re on your phone till the last second, you put it away. You’re, like, just jacking your neurotransmitters Bioharmony up and down, up and down, and then associating that with sleep. So that’s one that I hadn’t thought about, like, just slowing down my literal speed that I get out of bed, but it’s gonna be one that I try implementing after this to see what difference I notice.

David Reveles [00:06:20]:
Controlling your speed. It’s very important in the the high caliber athletics, highest highest level athletics. They’re able to control velocity, and then you start applying that into life. And, yeah, the mindfulness has been the the number one tool, just being aware and slow with my surroundings and being to stay embodied, to stay in the driver’s seat, to stay in neuro, and not get out of, the window of tolerance or, you know, very far out deviation variability. Yeah. You set the pace, and then you just kinda glide through that momentum. And then you have different pace checkers and setters throughout the day too, different intervals where you’re gonna stop, check the pace, set the pace, Mind meditation breaks, techniques. You know, that’s why, like, I emphasize the morning routine.

David Reveles [00:07:13]:
That’s you have some control and power over that. Then maybe the day takes off, and then you’ve got too much going on, and it makes sense that, hey. I better have neuro practices or small things, but I’m not gonna have this time to myself. So protect that morning time.

Nick Urban [00:07:29]:
Let’s go more into your meditation and mindfulness practice. Specifically, like, what do you notice about your doing your morning gratitudes? How do you do them? Like, what kinds of things would you put on there? Are they always the same or different? And if you ever, like, miss a day, what do you notice? Or when you’re consistent and you have a good session, what do you notice?

David Reveles [00:07:49]:
Yeah. Living in gratitude, we’ve all heard it. Creating abundance for ourselves, creating opportunities, being open to opportunities, creating the life that we wish for, being in a state of gratitude, appreciated gut we have, you know, grows it Mind brings more towards us, attracts more to us. And I think I’ve seen that out, I’ve lived that, that’s true. Mind, yeah, if I’m kind of off kilter, off base, it you know I can still get things do done, I can still plug through, power through, but it doesn’t feel as good. I definitely will achieve less, it wellness affect performance, my interactions with others because I’m not purely production, driven. I mean, I am an entrepreneur. I am very metric focused, but also I’m very, you know, qualitative as wellness.

David Reveles [00:08:43]:
And I wanna have good I I I will judge a day based on my interactions with others. If I’m smashing goals, but I’m just, like, irritable or not engaging well with others, I don’t know if that’s a full success in my mind. I wanna be open and engaging. I wanna stay in the, what is it, the ventral vagal. I wanna be able to interact, connect, and collaborate. I do all these mind body practices, and we’ll get into Mind of the community stuff I do as health. But, you know, ultimately, it’s to better relate and connect others and create more collaboration, improve communication. I think that’s what’s gonna take me the furthest and what has been most most vital to my success.

David Reveles [00:09:23]:
If you’re isolated and you can’t relate and connect others, it gets difficult to take things further, or as, you know, as far as you would like. So that’s the tidbit.

Nick Urban [00:09:34]:
So what does it actually look like when you’re doing your gratitude session? You’re sitting there, maybe you’re writing something out, maybe you’re just thinking it. Are you choosing or noticing the same things every single day, or do they change? What’s your protocol for it?

David Reveles [00:09:48]:
Yeah. You know, you wanna make it as simple as possible. Like, whatever comes naturally. Like, hey, I’m just grateful to to feel somewhat rested from this sleep. I’m just grateful to to have my body intact. Grateful to be breathing, to be calm. I’m grateful for a new day, a new opportunity. You know, I’m grateful for the person next to me, or I’m grateful that I’m not next to anybody and being bothered.

Nick Urban [00:10:13]:
Yeah. Some days when it’s hard, it’s not always easy for me when I do that. I do it every morning Nick. But I’ll, like, just force myself to come up with things, and I’ll put my attention on them for a minute, such as the fact that I have limbs. Mind I’ll put my attention there, but, yeah, it’s actually pretty great that I have these. And I find that if I do that, the day seems to flow a bit easier. Everything just feels subjectively like a a better Performance, and we all had the opposite effect where you something happens, something goes wrong, and then you’re in a bad mood, and things just go wrong one after another, one after another. And all of a sudden, it’s like, well, I might as well just give into at this point because I’ve already gone deep down the spiral.

Nick Urban [00:11:01]:
But this is a way of stopping that pattern before it even starts and creating the pattern that we do want.

David Reveles [00:11:07]:
You’re safeguarding yourself. What is that Alexander that book we used to that childhood book, Alexander’s Very Bad Awful Day or something, and he just kept reinforcing it, and diet just spiraled out of control. Like, you know, the natural world is occurring around us, but the way that we interpret it, the way that we choose to react, respond, and engage with the world is ultimately gonna determine our experience. And we have so much power and control over the, you know, the not the stimulus, but the reaction to the stimulus in Viktor Frankl’s terms. We have to hold that power. That power should be empowering, that we can always choose how we respond and react. And we have these micro practices or these mini embodiment, methods that allow us to do so.

Nick Urban [00:11:53]:
Yeah. Exactly. I’m partial to all the things that you can do anywhere in the world, anytime, and with minimal to no required resources. And one of those that I know you’re a big fan of is breath work.

David Reveles [00:12:06]:
Breath is life. We come into this world. We take our first breath. We depart. We take our last. The life cycle is the breath cycle. That’s the most important thing that we’re gonna do. You get, you know, if you’re in great health and there’s optimal conditions, maybe you can survive 2 weeks without food.

David Reveles [00:12:26]:
In very rare cases, if you’re lucky. Probably not, but we could stretch it. Water. In ideal conditions, with the best of circumstances, if you’re fully healthy, maybe you can get 2 days, maybe 3. How long can you go without breath? I’ve been doing it for a while. You know, I’ve been immersed, very dedicated for, you know, maybe a decade and a half. I mean, I’ve been doing conscious breath work, diaphragmatic deep breathing for at least 20, 25 years. 20, 25 years ago, I didn’t I didn’t I mean, I knew it calmed me down.

David Reveles [00:12:59]:
I didn’t fully understand until I started getting certified the last 10 years and and diving deeper, but you control your breath. The other analogy that is not mine, the kite is the mind, the breath is the string. This is how we’re controlling things. Put yourself back in the driver’s seat, breath control. There’s techniques, you distill breath work down into 3 categories, strong, activating, opening, energizing. That’s Wim Hof. That’s mental this should be understood too. This is really important to listeners.

David Reveles [00:13:42]:
Wim Hof is more medium to active opening form. Now, we know of holotropic breathing. Stan was an incredible, you know, scientific investigator of altered conscious states, and I wanna emphasize this right now with the whole plant medicine craze. You can induce the highest states of conscious being. You don’t need any plant medicine. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I think it’s a good thing, but if your conscious capacity does not need it, then you need to honor that and listen to that. You can bring yourself to the higher states as as far as you believe in naturally.

David Reveles [00:14:22]:
Stan, from the holotropic breathwork, created an entire institute and giant following, and I’ve done holotropic. I love it. If you wanna do that in a half time, neurodynamic. Nick the 19 seventies, we had rebirthing, and he was doing what is called conscious connected breathing, circular breathing, fully in and gut. That’s all it is. There’s at least a dozen or more distinct forms and it’s the same thing. It’s active opening breathwork. Wim Hof breath work.

David Reveles [00:14:56]:
Fully in and out. Breathe. It’s all the same stuff. Energizing breathwork, rebirthing, conscious connected, circular. There’s there’s dozens of forms, and it’s all the same thing. Let’s simplify it. Then you get into the rhythmic breathing, the medium breathing, and that’s like bastrika. It’s like the pranayama stuff that you’ll use to settle yourself and organize yourself to to get into meditation.

David Reveles [00:15:27]:
And then you’ll use gentle breathing techniques, soft breathing techniques, ujjayi, alternate nootropics, single nostril, low belly breathing. I’m into the oxygenated advantage, and they’re doing the the LSD breathwork. Light, slow, deep diaphragmatic breathing. So you go from the you smooth it out, and I have to add here too. So we have 3 distinct categories of breathwork, strong, medium, gentle, soft. You’re using this to get into meditation or create mind states ultimately or to regulate physiology internally. It’s biological governance, is how I like to put it. And holistically integrative living using all the techniques in one, you need a little bit of rid yourself of the loose energy.

David Reveles [00:16:25]:
It’s saves thing in qigong. You’ll take a walk. You’ll do some light warm ups, meridian tapping, stretching, or you’ll do the asana, the physical yoga practice. You’ll do some, like, active breath work, a stretch, you’ll do some yoga, and then you’ll get into medium, then you’ll get into gentle, then you’ll get into meditation. Meditation is not, you know, elimination of thoughts, it’s more so observation and embodiment and being, resting in your being, training attention and focus. And then you’ll periodically use breath work and a little bit of yoga to sustain the meditation.

Nick Urban [00:17:07]:
Yes. Exactly. Back in ancient India where not breathwork, but yoga originated Mind breath work was given a special Performance, it was because they all work together, the gentle movements Optimization, your breathing. And I like to think of the body like an nutrition, say, imagine a guitar. If one of the strings is a little bit too long, a little like, not quite taught enough, it makes a very different sound. It can be a jarring sound. But if you get it just right, it sounds perfect. It plays perfectly.

Nick Urban [00:17:42]:
And by physically manipulating the body, whether it’s through breathwork or yoga or just clearing the mind like that, you’re able to bring the whole biological system back into balance so that it has that perfect sound. You’re able to have downloads, you’re able to move through your day with ease, new opportunities just magically seem to flow your way. It all goes as well as it possibly could.

David Reveles [00:18:08]:
We don’t wanna get esoteric or new age, but being on the right vibration, that’s there’s something measurable there, and we’re talking like brainwave states. We’re we’re all biohackers. We love our brainwave states. Do you wanna induce high performance brain wave states? Well, you can use tech and and measurement, or you can do meditation mindfulness breathwork and induce the proper brain wave saves and have the high performance.

Nick Urban [00:18:33]:
I don’t think I told you this, but I’m a big fan of one particular brain training and neurofeedback system called Sensei, and I recorded a podcast with their founder and science team a while back. But I had a recent call with the CEO, and I was talking to her about how do you guys, like, calibrate the scores. Like, you’re giving us a score at the end of the session. What’s it based on? Like, what’s what’s the calibration from? And she told me that it comes from, like, the world’s best neurofeedback users. People have been doing it for decades with the top of the game. But then also, meditators. The meditators were the very best at accessing desired states on command and just holding that state. Mind it might be a gamma, like, a high performance ability to connect the dots and I mean, the flow state, that’s, like, essentially gamma.

Nick Urban [00:19:25]:
Or it might be a theta where that’s where most people attempt to drop into when they meditate, or maybe it’s even just a beta to get more worked on. And so the best meditators can choose what state they wanna be in and just hold it. And because they’re so adept at that, the neurofeedback companies actually tune and calibrate their scores based on those meditators. So I’ve recorded a number of episodes on breathwork. I love the idea of being able to very quickly within 30 to 90 seconds shift your state anywhere, anytime, just using your breath. It’s incredible you can do that. But then breathing is just one of your pillars of wellness. What would you say if someone wants to understand the landscape of wellness, the 10,000 foot overview? How would you break it down?

David Reveles [00:20:15]:
Yeah. I just wanna, close out with the the utility usefulness of the meditation and inducing mind saves. Because saves that you’re I just saves to close that out. Say that you’re working on a large problem, and you’re hitting a wall, hitting a wall, hitting a wall. You’re not breaking through. You’re getting drained. You’re getting burned out, but you’ve gotta get this deadline done. People think the attack and I used to be like that too.

David Reveles [00:20:44]:
Attack, attack, attack, attack until we finish. That’s not gonna work. If you back off, let things settle, the unconscious mind is much more powerful than the conscious mind. Say that you’ve attacked it 10 100 times Mind you start giving yourself supplemental meditations. In one of those meditations, the answer may reveal itself to you, come to you naturally.

Nick Urban [00:21:10]:
And to add to that, also, when you’re going to sleep, that’s another great time to have your final thought be whatever it is that you need a breakthrough on, and your subconscious gets the chance to mull it over all night while you sleep. So during meditation and during sleep or before sleep, I should say.

David Reveles [00:21:26]:
Yeah. Sleep is, I think, the most important thing. We’re gonna spend a third to a fourth of our life. If you’re gonna start hacking and focusing, getting good sleep, if that’s all you can achieve, that’s wonderful. I think that’s one of the biggest missed opportunities. I’m not a sleep expert, but all the stuff that I do will allow you to sleep health regulate. I love to come back to the sleep in my routines, and I think that’ll come out as I’m explaining the way that I do holistic health. Now leaving my undergraduate, a lot of people will say, like, undergraduate’s a survey.

David Reveles [00:21:58]:
It’s very basic. You know, sometimes when we’re in college, it’s so hard. I’m like, how am I ever gonna get out of this and pass? And then we get out of it, and we go, that was kindergarten. Like, bring on more. And a lot of folks will tell me, like, you know, the biggest realization I had in my undergraduate was be skeptical or, you know, know that you have to get a stamp of approval Mind it’s not always about learning, it’s about getting a stamp of approval or, you know, other things. And I felt like frameworks. Now I had some other teachers Mind other supplemental education and training, but frameworks were the way that I was able to enter any knowledge domain, any area of expertise, and have you know, say, like, you’re in economics. You’re gonna start economics class, and they’re gonna be like, we’re gonna begin this field of study through these assumptions and frameworks.

David Reveles [00:22:50]:
To enter a field of study, you have to have those parameters to navigate. So why don’t you have that for your health, your well-being, and the design and your life design, the way you’re gonna live your life? So that’s where I come in as a coach and consultant, whether it be on the individual group or corporate level. I’m coming in Mind I’m giving a workable, tried and true, proven framework that you’re gonna use to navigate. It’s gonna be the backbone. The most common frameworks that I use, the way that I overcame my, you know, detrimental holistic health risks and adversity was through the 5 key categories of wellness by doctor Terry Wahls, The way that I worked on my autoimmune, my mental health, you know, other things, I used the 5 key categories of wellness, sleep, diet nutrition, movement mobility, detoxification, and stress management. And I work this framework Mind I work this framework and I work this framework. That way I don’t go too far in one direction and and get lost or get consumed. You always bring yourself back to the high level.

David Reveles [00:24:02]:
Five key categories Mind wellness. Very powerful. It’s how I work with people. But that’s so health orientated. So then Nick expanded and I thought, what is a life well lived? You know? What is true fulfillment? How am I gonna look back? And and, you know, I I got overly obsessed in in optimization and and health and stuff, and there’s just more to life. So I used the 8 domains of wellness. Big on, you know I think Tim Ferris talks about lifestyle design. A lot of serial entrepreneurs, a lot of folks talk about lifestyle design.

David Reveles [00:24:37]:
Like, what are you waking up to each day? What are you looking forward to? What’s the trajectory? So lifestyle design can be distilled down into the 8 key categories of wellness. Physical, as we talked about, I had that 5 key categories of wellness that really addressed the physical. It bled into other areas, but it was primarily physical health. And I feel like that was limiting. I wanted to be connected well and, you know, making contributions to the world. So physical, social. We’re social beings. I think the biggest risk in COVID was the social isolation.

David Reveles [00:25:16]:
I think, personally, I don’t wanna get my head bitten off, but I think that was the the hardest thing, what killed the most Peak, personally. We need others to coregulate. Our internal, you know, being Mind physiology is not gonna be intact without connection and regulation with others. I have been in social isolation. I have disconnected so much so that I saves lost my conscious contact, my ability to relate and connect to others, and that’s true Health. Emotional emotional intelligence became a buzzword 15 years ago, and now it’s huge, and that’s vital. We need to raise our emotional intelligence. We need to be, you know, cognizant of that.

David Reveles [00:26:00]:
Environmental. I’ve taken environmental a little bit different. Yeah. I’m really concerned with being a steward of the Health, preserving natural resource, being mindful of the impact, mindful of my consumerism. All this is vital. But sustainability is also tying into social, tying into, you know, routines and stuff, the environment that I’m in most frequently. I’m gonna talk about my office, my home, my yard, when I go to school, when I go to work, when I go to these, you know, extracurricular or entertainment places, when I’m out in nature? What environments am I frequenting the most, and what impact do they have on me, and what impact do I have on them? Leadership, you go into a room, and you don’t have to say anything, but your energy can up the level of that room. Your output and how you decide to show up can change everything.

David Reveles [00:26:55]:
You don’t have to say a word. So environmental wellness, I saves expanded, and as well as sustainability, sustainability, I have an article on my blog. Sustainability is simply put, what can we keep up with each day? I’m not gonna obsess and say that I have to have a completely sustainable living home that’s off the grid, that has permaculture, that has the perfect cycle, everything’s interconnected. I have friends that can do that. I’m not there yet. That’s not practical. In wellness, it’s always about what’s practical, what’s accessible, what’s within reach. So environmental and sustainability is what can I actually keep up with, what makes sense for me, And there’s other components of resourcefulness, of environmental stewardship, respecting, loving the Health? That’s there.

David Reveles [00:27:46]:
But I expanded a little bit. You know, ultimately, my goal is to create an expansive definition of wellness so we all have something to reach into, to draw from, and to make our own. It’s gonna look different for everybody. But these frameworks are pretty universal, and you can make your own way through them. Physical, emotional, social, environmental, personal values. I do a lot of corporate wellness, so I don’t talk about the spiritual. People come to me for spiritual wellness. People highlight me for that, but I’m very careful because I don’t wanna appear to be some guru, some mystic, or this or that.

David Reveles [00:28:22]:
My goal is to demystify health and wellness, mindfulness meditation, these practices, higher being, it’s actually measurable and scientific, and that’s my greatest endeavor, is to prove that to people and teach people in a way that they can understand. So your wellness in your life starts with what matters to you. The governance of your life are your values and virtues. Once you know your values, nothing can come in between you and your values. That’s gonna shape and drive the rest of your life. That’s how you’re gonna achieve what you wish for. Number one practice is virtue practice. Drilling virtue again and again, compassion, tolerance, truth, love, courage.

Nick Urban [00:29:05]:
What is drilling those

David Reveles [00:29:06]:
things together? Thank you. What’s the difference between an intention and a goal? A goal is what’s physically what’s going to be realized? What’s maybe measurable or what’s going to happen or take place? But the intention is how am I going to feel? What is that experience going to be like? Gut of the first mindfulness and meditation techniques I learned was visualization. Scientifically proven, the greatest athletes, the greatest CEOs, great leaders, you have to have a vision. We always, in humanity, we always hype up the visionaries. You have to have a vision guiding you. Vision work is important. You have to see things in the future. Otherwise, you’re only gonna achieve what you can see.

David Reveles [00:29:49]:
If you can’t see it, then you’re not going to believe it. It’s never going to happen. So the intention is how are we going to feel Mind what’s surrounding that? The goal is the actual concrete achievement. We we’re tying that back to personal values and virtue. A virtue, a value can be observed and potentially achieved. A virtue is something that can’t ever fully be achieved and that you’re striving towards. You’re embodying. So you have to keep drilling it.

David Reveles [00:30:23]:
You have to keep going.

Nick Urban [00:30:25]:
What does that actual drilling practice consist of, though?

David Reveles [00:30:28]:
Putting it into practice, making it applicable. Okay. I wanna be courageous. That’s great. I’m concentrating on I’m doing exercises. But you know what? I went and told a family member something that I had been holding back for a long time. I got that off my chest. I went and addressed a problem with my employer.

David Reveles [00:30:46]:
I told my friend something. I said no to his social constraint. I spoke up about something that I feel like is, you know, wrong in the world. I went and stood up for somebody that I didn’t know. How am I embodying courage? How am I embodying the virtue? It’s infinite. You you have to look for the opportunities to actually embody them. It’s 1 to meditate, to drill on it, but you have to live it out.

Nick Urban [00:31:12]:
Yeah. That’s where the real value is. I mean, the knowledge itself is never enough. It’s the actual meditation, nutrition into life daily life that’s the hardest and the most valuable.

David Reveles [00:31:25]:
It all starts with what matters to you. Your life should be designed around what brings you joy and what fulfills and is meaningful for yoga, and that might not be straightforward. But once you figure that out, you’re gonna be able to take yourself a lot further.

Nick Urban [00:31:38]:
Yeah. And being over here in India, I’ve seen firsthand that it’s might seem obvious or intuitive that it should be to you to be what you want, But there are a lot of times social pressures, cultural pressures, whether it’s from family, it’s from society, it’s from friends, pushing you or pulling you in certain directions that even if you do achieve the highest level of success there, oftentimes Peak turn around and see that the actual mountain they wanted to climb is the higher one in the background, not the one they just they just climbed. And then they have to climb down the one they just climbed up the the second mountain to get to the one that they actually wanted the whole time. Do you have any tips on that, especially if there’s the pressures, whether they’re familial or social, like, when it’s not always as easy as it seems to navigate gut? Like, it seems easy to me, and then I hear other people’s meditation, and I realize it can get a lot more complex.

David Reveles [00:32:34]:
I think overall wellness is required to do anything well or to achieve anything, especially when it’s higher stakes or say you’ve got your family pressures, your societal pressures, you know, you might have to ready yourself up and be ready to disappoint somebody. And getting to know yourself through meditation, disappoint Body. And getting to know yourself through meditation, through mindfulness, through exploration, experimentation, through wellness will bring the best version out of you. And if you can keep showing up as that best version, then people will naturally accept whatever else comes with that. But being confident, being embodied, if you’re embodied, if you’re in your breath, if you’re well, if you’re taking care of yourself, if you’re at your highest being, you’re gonna be able to do more and influence others and show people that, you know, you’re not going against the brain. You’re not being congregational or anything. You’re just living out your truth.

Nick Urban [00:33:33]:
Yeah. And sometimes when I’m confronted with something tricky or challenging that I don’t necessarily wanna do immediately, even if it’s something large or it’s something small as small as getting in an ice bath, I think through, like, the only thing that’s more painful than trying something and failing miserably is wanting to try something and just not trying it. And then every single day, day Mind, day out, living with that burden of the potential, the what if I had done this.

David Reveles [00:34:05]:
Do you know where hell is, Nick?

Nick Urban [00:34:07]:
Go ahead.

David Reveles [00:34:09]:
Hell is where you go to meet the person you could saves been. Hell is on earth. You know? You you yeah. I’ve been to hell. You can be you know, it’s not achieving your potential. It’s not being true to yourself. It’s living a lie.

Nick Urban [00:34:22]:
Alright. Let’s get back on track. Remind me of the next pillar of wellness.

David Reveles [00:34:28]:
Physical, emotional, social, environmental, personal values. Getting into all of this allows you to do occupational wellness. It it our contributions matter. So meditation, vocational, mental, what we wish to contribute to the world, valuing that and making sure that’s in alignment with who we are and not overbearing. We all have to do some sort of work, some sort of economics, and have some offering, and and we should appreciate what we’re doing and giving to people. Perhaps we don’t get fulfillment in work. Well, maybe we have volunteer, we have other projects, other things we do. There’s a way to work it.

David Reveles [00:35:07]:
And then trying to work with people and organizations that are aligned with your values. Then we get into intellectual, being lifelong learners, making sure that we’re developing our mind. That’s huge for longevity. I’m huge to reversing cognitive aging and fighting cognitive decline. I have Alzheimer’s, dementia, clients that I work with, and I have so many protocols that I’m fighting all these age related illnesses. I don’t wanna say aging is a choice. I don’t wanna sound too crazy, but, there’s a lot that we can do and there’s a lot in our power. And keeping the mind sharp like me, like, mental, my morning routine, this is a big thing.

David Reveles [00:35:50]:
We’re glued to these screens. I feel like they take my breath away. They suck the life out of me. They consume me. They’re addictive. This is all true, but I I can’t get off of them. So I try to make sure I have a healthy relationship, and I amount of screen time, I have a ratio to book and reading page time to offset Because I get kinda sick and irritated from my phone, the fastest way for me to get back on track is to do a phone fast. All my neurotransmitters, all my focus, you know, everything, all my fragmentation will come Mind centralize through phone fasting, through getting off electronics, getting into nature, easiest way to reset, easiest way to be well, and a lot of reading.

David Reveles [00:36:39]:
I read in, you know, 3 different languages. Then finally, financial, which I’m not teaching people how to be financial wizards, but it’s all about your relationship with money, how you see money as a medium of exchange Mind the intention that you put into money. Money is vital. You have to have money. You have to earn money. You’re gonna want to do your best to earn it. And, you know, maybe meaningful, maybe not. Maybe impactful, maybe not.

David Reveles [00:37:08]:
But we have to use our resources well and, you know, design our life in the way that makes sense. Now are we making trade offs that we’re making so much money that we’re never gonna be able to enjoy it, Or do we have limiting beliefs around money that it’s evil Mind now we’re not gonna have it, we’re gonna have other problems? Or are we somewhere in between? Finding the right balance Mind this really, I emphasize, your relationship with money and your money Mind. You don’t have to be a high income earner to be wealthy. There’s plenty of high income earners that they’re not wealthy. They’re in bad shape, and they’re not enjoying life the way they could be.

Nick Urban [00:37:44]:
When I was in high school, my dad had me read a book called The Millionaire Next Door, and it was a case study of a bunch of different millionaires. And the author went on to show that the vast majority of millionaires in the United States never had a very high salary and at least the ones who maintained that throughout their life, they didn’t have a huge salary, and they continued to live the way they wanted to live, and they just were more savvy with their spending Mind their habits and everything. Even though they weren’t having even though they didn’t have a huge salary, they were able to accumulate more than people who were making $1,500,000 a year and spending 1,480,000 a year. And what’s really interesting about that too is that I thought that I had, like, a good mindset around money. And then I sat down one day, and as part of my men’s group, we wrote down all of our thoughts, our feelings, everything that had to do with money Mind where it came from, like, trace it back up the lineage and everything. And I realized, like, that I had some work to do. And it’s not just financial life, but if we sit down, we look at what each of these things mean to us and our beliefs around them, whether it’s our, like, family risk of degenerative disease or it’s emotional health or all these different things, just to do an audit of our beliefs, our notions, our thoughts around them. That’s, like, the fastest way to see things Mind really understand that what we think is our experience often differs from what is our actual experience.

David Reveles [00:39:34]:
Yeah. Take inventory. That’s important. See where you’re at. Assess. All of that is is vital.

Nick Urban [00:39:39]:
Any of those domains you just mentioned that you find people either benefit the most from working on universally or they tend to be areas that people struggle with universally?

David Reveles [00:39:51]:
I think the most vital and most important is personal values. That’s gonna determine the rest of your life. That’s where you should start. People ask me, is there a sequential order? I’m big into sequence because I’m a lean 6 Sigma person, and I I think you should start with the personal values. I think that’s gonna drive you and push you, and and then maybe areas of areas of growth. But I think the intellectual part, a lot of people struggle with because we’re so, on technology and phones and fast paced, and we’re not, like, learning things concretely or wanting to go back to school because we see school as something like, that’s something we already did. I already did that. Or, like, I checked that box off or, oh, I don’t wanna do that again.

David Reveles [00:40:31]:
I already got through it. It’s not like we don’t have joy in learning and growing.

Nick Urban [00:40:36]:
Reading for me is one of those things that, like, it was a practice I did for every day for an hour, and then it slipped a bit recently. And now when I sit down again, each Mind every time within a few minutes, I get a bunch of just new ideas. Like, I open the book. Within minutes, I have a bunch of new ideas even that are often completely unrelated to what it is that I’m reading or at least not directly related. And it’s, like, the most productive times I have often come when I put down the work Mind I go read and do other things like that?

David Reveles [00:41:07]:
I have that exact same experience. I’m not gonna be able to be as creative. I’m not gonna have the heightened capacity. I’m not gonna be able to do these bigger breakthroughs without my reading, without my reflection and learning time. When I start learning, oh, I connect dots. I create greater trajectory. I start breaking through. It’s it’s amazing.

David Reveles [00:41:25]:
And without, yeah, I can power through. I can keep going, and I think I’m productive. But you said it.

Nick Urban [00:41:31]:
To me, the highest impact area to to focus on initially is the environment Mind, specifically, your living and environments you spend time in. Because when you optimize those, you fix the air quality, the water quality, the ether or EMF, the health element that you Mind, you get all those optimized and really dialed in the lighting. I mean, artificial lighting is a big one. Gut once you’ve transmute those into something that’s instead of biologically destructive, it becomes something that’s biologically constructive. It builds you up. That’s either working with you or against you 247. So it’s like you get that right. It’s dialed.

Nick Urban [00:42:15]:
Your sleep environment’s dialed. That’s the most important environment of all to get right is your sleep environment. But then that’s making everything else easier. Like, you’re not doing anything after you get it set up. You have, like, the home that can be or the the bedroom that can be blackout curtains, cool, minimal light. Instead of overhead light, you have light down low that’s red and not too bright at night. Like, these things you set up Mind they’re optimizing you pretty much on autopilot. Then it makes finding all the other answers easier.

Nick Urban [00:42:46]:
Like, you can figure out your values better when you’re not exhausted, when you’re not cognitively drained, when you’re not physically drained. And that’s the my first one is the the environment, and then after that, it would be the values, and then it comes probably sleep and a bunch of other stuff after that. But that’s, like, the the simple one, the simple tweet. It takes a little bit of, like, budget, a little bit of allocation initially. But at the very least, you can do some of the natural things like getting outside, getting light exposure, getting your feet on the ground, turning off your Wi Fi when you sleep, some simple things like that. Where in your own journey did brain supplements, mental nootropics, fit in?

David Reveles [00:43:25]:
I had learning and development disorders. I struggled with mental health. I was overemphasizing athletics, sports development. I’ve been a lifelong martial artist. I’m still training, competing, teaching at a very high Reveles, but I kind of showed that I had some, like, greater ability early in mathematics, but then I had anxiety. I struggled with standardized tests. I don’t know. I just got in my Health, and and it just kinda took off.

David Reveles [00:44:01]:
And that subsided, and I’ve worked through it through my holistic health journey, but nootropics have been vital. So when I started college, you know, I was struggling with my mental health. I struggled with school because I had prioritized partying, friends, and athletics more so. I didn’t have my intellectual wellness, and I suffered from it. I got into school, and I really struggled with reading. I would read a page in English. It’d take me, like, 25 minutes to read. I didn’t even remember what I read.

David Reveles [00:44:32]:
I was like, how am I gonna graduate college? So I, you know, got into holistic health, got into biohacking more and more. I had a basis because, I was just always naturally inclined to be a healthy person. My grandmother was a mentor. She taught me things. I wanted to be an athlete. So I had driving, and I had a lot of influences and mentors and Peak. But on my own personal level, I really, neglected this. And I was like, if I don’t figure out a way, you know, I’m I’m in big trouble.

David Reveles [00:45:02]:
Coffee was one thing, but then the coffee jitters. So meditation has always been a big thing. Breath work has always been a big thing. Taking care of my health, all of that. I won a state championship when I was 12 years old, and I started getting into vitamins, getting heavier into nutrition. Before that, it was just like Peak Health, you know you’re gonna be well. That was easy enough. Vegetables are a priority.

David Reveles [00:45:26]:
But then got into the vitamins, meditation. In in high school, I was huge into sports nutrition. And now I look back and think, what did I ever poison myself with sports nutrition? What was I going to GNC for? Is it you know, I was a bodybuilding giant, you know, wrestler kid. It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot. I I knew a ton about sports nutrition, but, like, that’s not sustainable or necessarily good for you even though it can have short term and fun gains. Getting into college, I was like, what else am I gonna do? Started understanding nootropics early on. There’s more than coffee.

David Reveles [00:46:01]:
You know, I had to have Vyvanse, ARRRL, these amphetamines that are a 1000% dopamine surge because I couldn’t study and get through college without it. And I knew, I was like, this isn’t gonna last, and I started supplementing. I started experimenting with compounds and teas and was really into the natural things first. And then my nootropic knowledge and ability just kept growing. I understood what brain derived nootropic factor was Mind I was trying to get more of it. And then I started using compounds, you know, I got beyond the the herbs and the adaptogens and the stimulants because that’s what a lot of people think nootropics are. In college by the end of college, I was starting to get into my favorite category, the racetams, and that I just kept learning and growing and tweaking and improving, and I was able to get off amphetamines, it’s a huge life achievement, and I, do help folks, work towards that same goal. And but, yeah, over the last, like, 14 years, my nootropic knowledge has really brain, and I consult with it.

David Reveles [00:47:07]:
But it came out as perils and dismay of, you know, I wasn’t gonna get anywhere in life without it. I couldn’t keep taking amphetamines, couldn’t keep taking stimulants. Like, I had to find other means.

Nick Urban [00:47:19]:
Yeah. I get that. And your own journey back with sports nutrition in high school mirrors my own, and I hadn’t connected the dots, but I now realized that my interest in nootropics and those substances that can enhance human biology and physiology actually came from there. And there was a product, a pre workout, very popular back in the day, which has since been banned called Nick 3 David they had all kinds of very strong stimulants in it, one in particular. And I guess that was what got me interested in that world, like, how can this one molecule make this pre workout leagues more powerful than the rest. Mind, yeah, I guess, then in college, I looked for a natural alternative to the classic study drugs that everyone around me was using and came across, of course, the adaptogens Mind herbals and botanicals, and then eventually the racetams and other things. And still like them to this day, still use nootropics. What are you are you still using them?

David Reveles [00:48:23]:
So my stack today was taurine, alpha GPC, half a gram of Piracetam, and 300 millis of, aniracetam. I usually do, like, 6 week cycles and then cycle off. Sometimes I take breaks, but you know what I’m really trying to get into? Again, the whole idea is bio harmonizing. We’re trying to get back to the Health. I’m really trying to connect with my local herbalism, use the adaptogens that are available right in my backyard. Specifically, more so, we’ve got a lot of fungi here. The mushrooms are pretty plentiful. So I’m trying to work a better adaptogens and, natural nootropic regimen right now.

David Reveles [00:49:07]:
Yeah. Rasa teams are amazing. I mean, I, you know, something really personal, I partied a lot, and I think I did damage. I had concussions. I had mental health issues. You know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, life was really different, and I’ve been able to transform myself, and I attribute a lot of that from sensible nootropic usage.

Nick Urban [00:49:31]:
Yeah. I get it. I played collision sports for a lot of my life also. I played American football for, almost, like, 10 years through high school before high school, and then through high school, and then college, and American not American, but rugby also. And at the time Mind college, I was, like, I should probably look for something that’s gonna be neuroprotective or at least have some of those types of mechanisms because it’s impossible to get through a season, let alone a career, without any kind of head banging. And so that was a big one for me. And one of the things I love about nootropics in general, whether it’s for sports or it’s just to excel in life, is that they can provide a temporary boost of motivation and drive and energy and the things that you’re looking for when you’re not optimized, when you’re having the hardest time building the new habits that you need to stay that way and get that way, to drop the weight, to then have less inflammation, to then be able to accomplish all your goals. So they can serve as, like, a short term booster while you make the underlying changes.

Nick Urban [00:50:33]:
And then if you decide to taper off them or just stop them, of course, after working with someone who’s knowledgeable about them, then you maintain the benefits. And I also think it’s smart for you to look locally because I have a feeling that the things you find in your backyard will confer benefits and advantages to the current climate, the current environment. So if it’s, like, very cold there, perhaps stuff growing there that will give you a more thermic effect, stuff like that. And that’s why, historically, humans have always consumed large amounts of the botanicals in their backyard aside from the obvious lack of shipping and transportation and everything.

David Reveles [00:51:19]:
Yeah. I’ve got some important points to make about this. As far as gut health strategies go, I think the most stratified best thing is to eat a variety of plant species. My goal on a regular basis, can I get 50 different unique plant species in a day? I’ll drink 10 teas, I’ll take 10 herbs, and I’ll work through a lot of vegetables, have vegetable powders, but, like, I think that, ancestrally speaking, is what allowed the gut microbiome Mind, you know, ancestral human to evolve and to create this, you know, brilliance that we have today. So that’s a major strategy, is working with natural wellness, working with ancestral wellness, gut health priority. And then locally, locality is a huge holistic Health thing. That’s gonna help you better, you know, self regulate, be attuned, and synchronize to where you are. Similar to the effect of grounding, being in the natural cycles, being cyclical, being in sync with the natural patterns.

David Reveles [00:52:24]:
Maybe your nutrition, diet, health regimens will change with the seasons. That’s important too. I make a lot of seasonal offerings, in the way that I recommend holistic health to folks, and my regimens change as health. And the more in tune I can be with the environment. So all of that put together.

Nick Urban [00:52:42]:
Yeah. That’s an awesome way to do it. And when it comes to diet, for me, it’s fiber, it’s local, it’s polyphenol rich foods. You check those boxes, and you’re off to the saves. And that’s a pretty consistent trend for gut health in general too if you which you can tolerate. If you can’t tolerate, you might need an Optimization diet like carnivore or something temporarily, but humans are meant to be able to consume plants. And what’s cool about polyphenols is that they undergo, like, transmutation via gut microbes. They use those as fuel, and they create as byproducts these metabolites that are super protective.

Nick Urban [00:53:25]:
They’re called postbiotics, which are like probiotics, but they are the byproducts. And there’s butyrate, there’s urolithin a, there’s probably 1,000, and it’s gonna be a frontier of medicine that’s we’re only now tapping into, but the way you can create a lot of those is by getting plenty of fiber, enough minerals, necessary amino acids, and the polyphenols.

David Reveles [00:53:51]:
Nick, we have so many wonderful conversations on a regular basis in our entrepreneurial ship and our friendship. And we really, had this common ground where we wanted to bio harmonize. We wanted to get back to natural order. And, you know, we’re still in the works of this potential retreat offering to take biohacking and balance it out and bring it more into bioharmonizing. I just wanted to use a few minutes to Mind, like, express some of that.

Nick Urban [00:54:19]:
Yeah. And I’ll put a link to a form in this episode in the description so people can put their name, their email, and we’ll reach out when we have dates finalized. But yeah. I mean, if you wanna talk about what it is a little, David, go ahead.

David Reveles [00:54:32]:
Yeah. So as I said, balancing your biohacking from biohacking introduction to bioharmonizing. How can we return to the urge, the natural order, restore ourselves, with, you know, environmental wellness? Do we have earth based practices? Are we using what’s natural? What’s within reach? You know, all these other tools are okay. All these external means, exogenous means are okay. But do you have a good basis of natural techniques and routines? Really, you know, your biohacking could just be your routine analysis. That’s another way that I coach. We look at our morning routine, our, lunch routine, maybe we break up our work day, our closing out of work, our evening routine, and our bedtime routine. Maybe that’s all the Biohacking we do.

David Reveles [00:55:23]:
Or maybe, you know, we need to go do deep forest bathing to regulate our mental health and sleep. We need community and connection with others. There’s all of these natural means of biohacking that are vital to restore ourselves and to keep ourselves more closely related to the natural world.

Nick Urban [00:55:42]:
Yeah. And for me, a big part of it is looking through the latest biohacks, the things that are trendy, looking at it from, okay, what does the science say? Gut we also know at the same time the science is severely biased. Often gut we see published in PubMed is only a small fraction of the actual research that’s Nick conducted. And a lot of times, especially with substances 10 or 20 or 30 years down the line, all of a sudden, this new research comes out showing, oh, yeah, this actually might cause birth defects. It might cause all these other long list of issues. And that’s even with some of the most popular substances that are used. I won’t name any names here. But by looking at it through both lenses, the ancestral lens also, we can understand what the reward to risk ratio is.

Nick Urban [00:56:31]:
And doing the full audit of a typical biohacking routine, and making sure that you’re doing the right things at the right times because the what what you’re doing is one small part of what actually goes into the information your biology processes. The timing, how you’re doing it, why you’re doing it, who you’re doing it with, all these play important roles also. So during this retreat, we’re gonna be going over some of that to help everyone make the fully optimized bioharmonized lifestyle plan.

David Reveles [00:57:06]:
Yeah. Your unique routine that fits for you.

Nick Urban [00:57:08]:
And, David, if people want to connect with you, to find you online, how do they go about that?

David Reveles [00:57:13]:
Originsunity.com. Check out my blog. Let me know if you want me to write about anything, any requests, any information you provide. I love that. Origins Meditation on Instagram, I’m fairly active fairly active on LinkedIn. Email is David Reveles, r e v e l e s, at origins unity dot com. Love to connect with everybody.

Nick Urban [00:57:37]:
Well, David, a couple more questions for you before we close this one gut. And the first is, if there was a worldwide burning of the books and all knowledge on Health is lost, but you get to save the works of 3 teachers, who would you choose and why?

David Reveles [00:57:50]:
I think I’m gonna take my my chi gong studies with me Nick Mind of the Taoist practices, potentially some pranayama. Now off the top of my head, I forget, like, the best, like, herbalist person that I you know, there’s so many of them, but some sort of, like, botanical living off the land Mind of thing.

Nick Urban [00:58:10]:
Alright. And what is one thing that the Origins Unity tribe does not know about you?

David Reveles [00:58:15]:
I don’t believe in holding beliefs because your most closely guarded beliefs will define and govern you when you don’t know it. And, ultimately, beliefs can be limiting.

Nick Urban [00:58:28]:
Alright. How would you like to close this one gut? If people made it this far, any parting words of wisdom?

David Reveles [00:58:34]:
Keep it simple. Honor yourself. Respect others. Do what’s sustainable.

Nick Urban [00:58:40]:
Easy enough. Well, David, thanks for joining the podcast today. Like always, it’s a pleasure chatting with you, and I look forward to our retreat Mind talking to you again soon.

David Reveles [00:58:52]:
Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Nick.

Nick Urban [00:58:54]:
Thank yoga. And until next time, be an outlier. I hope that this has been helpful for you. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and hit the thumbs up. I love knowing who’s in the 1% committed to reaching their full potential. Comment 1% below so that I know who you are. For all the resources and links, meet me on my website at mind bodypeak.com. I appreciate you and look forward to connecting with you.