Dr Melissa Grill-Petersen - Ignite greater states of Health, Wellbeing and Human Flourishing

In this episode Dr Melissa is going to discuss the core areas that you can focus on today to turn back your biological clock by years!! 

Learn how to achieve greater states of thriving to a ripe old age. Its time to discover your true limitless potential.

Dr. Melissa Petersen is a sought out expert in thriving! For over 20
years as a best selling author, speaker and thought leader in the
wellness industry, specializing in epigenetics and longevity, she's
been delivering precision lifestyle solutions to help people live
longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives.

Transcript

Chris Barnes: 0:12

Hey guys, and welcome to Amplified wellness podcast, Chris Barnes here. I am absolutely thrilled with my guest today she's coming to you all the way from Asheville in Carolina over in the States. She is a lady with over 20 years experience in the health and wellness industry, a transformational coach, a best selling author of the incredible book codes of longevity. I'm halfway through that book at the moment. So yeah, I've got some some interesting questions to ask. Also, Chief limitless officer at appear on Academy of epigenetics, which is a really interesting field that I can't wait to discuss as well. So grateful to welcome Dr. Melissa grill Peterson on to Amplified wellness.

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 1:00

So it was really interesting, I'll never forget when I finally left for college, and then, you know, there's kind of like, you could have access to therapists and counsellors and all these things. And I thought, Hey, I am really feeling stuck. I feel less than I grew up with a certain way of perceiving myself, and I'm gonna go talk to a therapist. And I'll never forget the moment I went to this particular therapist, I'm not making a judgement about all therapists, because I know there's amazing ones out there. But at this time, in my life, the one I went to, was exactly what I needed. Because she's told me all the things, she wasn't listening, I didn't feel heard. She was like, Well, you know what your problem is? And she's like, this is all about money. I'm like, No, this isn't about money. This is this is about my identity and how I've grown up and my point of sharing this is that very moment, I realised, I'm beans, I felt like I was listening. And somebody is seeing me even less than I saw myself, and they're not understanding. So I've got to go figure this out. And when I had to go figure it out for myself, figure out my own well being take accountability for myself that had to start with myself first, I became my first client. And I think that happens for many of us, right in our own kind of personal growth and development, our own health and wellness journeys, whether it's starting with a physical ailment, you know, there is that that moment, the hero's journey, where we are called into the story. Well, that's really my moment, I had already been struggling, I was already dealing with issues and things and perception of self. But I innately knew that there was more than I'm so glad right for people in their limiting beliefs about how they viewed my own potential. I knew something more was possible. And, and I've never looked back, Chris and what I gained at such an early age in my early 20s Was this knowing even though I didn't have the words, I didn't have the science I didn't have the research back then. I just had this knowing like, wait a minute, too many people are trying to put us in boxes, too many people are trying to impose their view their limitations, and there's something much bigger going on here. And that's when I fell in love with uncovering, unlocking and truly igniting a limitless potential within

Chris Barnes: 3:17

Beautiful beautiful. Was this pre or post nitro dancing? For those not aware Dr. Mel was spice spice in the WWE is the Nitro girls dancing.

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 3:37

Yes, this was pre and yet it's what actually led me there. And so interestingly enough, the one thing like I told you, I had that poster. And so I started dancing when I was about two and a half years old. Dance was my first love and dance to me was through all the trauma and drama of life as a young child, adolescent teen, it was the thing that gave me my place of empowerment, my place of where I was able to just find myself and find my creativity and express and and so it was interesting. I actually on this kind of path to more I thought I was gonna go to law school now I was dancing, I was in fitness, I was doing all that kind of stuff and and I had moved to Atlanta with my then boyfriend who was going to become a doctor of chiropractic and went to this to the university. And, and Shortland I was gonna go to law school and then I had kind of this identity crisis going I'm in my I'm like 22 And I don't know who the heck I want to be like, I don't I love dancing. I love fitness. I love wellness. I love nutrition. I was a personal trainer, like doing all of it. But I thought I had to be you know, some type of a degree. And he's just like, we know they have a dance dividends team. He's like, Yeah, and you get paid. Like you didn't get paid to be on a dance team. I was like so I went I audition. And it was interesting. I actually part of what led me on my journey into getting my doctorate in chiropractic. And then, you know, natural health was dance. And it was there that I was on. I was on this dance troupe, and I actually was a choreographer. And we got into the 1996 Olympics. I'm totally dating myself, but but it was through this journey that I found my way to wrestling. So here I am in the 1996, Olympics Xanthine, a piece that I had helped to choreograph in front of like all the, you know, people of the world. And I was nine months away from graduating with my doctorate, to go out and be this doctor. And I thought, I've only got a little bit of time left, I want to go do as much dance as possible. I want to do every audition that I can I want to go out and just, you know, be told a gazillion times and be told yes, as many times as possible. Like, I just want to go do it and have that. Yeah. And it was in that window. When wrestling found me, actually because I was at where I lived, where it's just so happened. I live in Atlanta, Georgia at the time, I trained and I was a fitness instructor and a personal trainer at the gym. Were all of the professional wrestlers. Were Yeah, wow. And I had actually choreographed I was the choreographer for Ben Diamond Dallas Page, his wife, Kimberly, for her fitness competitions. And so she was like, Oh my gosh, And so long story short, it kind of was just through this whole fitness connection that we met, and my my ability, my love of dance, and then being a choreographer, and helping her that all of a sudden, the crazy wild world of wrestling found me and, and there was a whole other dimension of going, Wow, there's so much more to life, like, you know, we each kind of show up. We're in our normal, everyday world, and then you get a new exposure, and you're like, everything, I thought I knew I was totally wrong.

Chris Barnes: 7:00

So much more.. So True, what an incredible Yeah, story there. I, I love your work at the moment you're dealing with helping people thrive and flourish, I often have a conversation with friends around just the meaning of great health, extraordinary health, in your own words. How would you best describe a thriving , limitless individual?

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 7:37

That is a great question. It's, it's personal, it's personal, right for each of us. But if I were to just give my opinion and my perception on it, to me, my wish that I have for each person in expressing their greatest thriving state, is expression an expression of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual capacity. So the words that I would say is, it's the moments where you touch those spaces in places that energise you, that fill you, that lift you up that call you forward, and expand you. And to me, it's not just about certain blood markers, or biometrics or trying to fit to the norms. As you know, I think that this thriving life is so deeply, intimately personal for each of us. And what we're not often invited to do, is to truly dream, our biggest dream 10 exit 100 exit, if I had the courage, if I had the energy, if I had the capacity, if I had the vitality, if I had the will if I had the desire, if I had just the the notion that it could be possible. What would I desire for myself? And I believe that a thriving life at our fullest has to start with asking ourselves, some bigger questions, some heart opening, life filling, Soul giving type of questions. And that's, that's where we start to get really curious. And we start to feel the pulsation and go and realise that a thriving life is the impulse that calls us forward into the next into the next. It is what is literally embedded in our genetic code. It is that evolutionary drive to know more of our truth, more of our capacity, more of who we are, and you're here to be

Chris Barnes: 9:32

beautiful, absolutely beautiful. gives me chills in in your book, codes of longevity, there's a little excerpt in there that I was reading, and it was super interesting talking about lifespan, and I'll just read it here. So basically, it says the idea of living longer is at zero interest if it means we experienced a decline in the quality of our health. That's such an interesting one. Because like, you could speak to anybody and most people want to live as long as they physically can. But lifespan isn't the only piece of the puzzle, isn't it? Because often we're finding that people are living longer and longer these days due to improvements in quality of health, medical fields, but they're not necessarily thriving longer in age are they, and we're seeing this, this increased lifespan but a declining, later years in life. How important the concepts that you referenced in your book about healthspan and WellSpan. Can we can we talk about those a little?

Unknown: 10:46

Yes, they are everything. And I'm so glad you asked this, because please put a hand up, interrupt me if I go too long. Because this is like my sweets. So here's the thing, we can absolutely look and we see unequivocally lifespan has been increasing year over year for the past 100 years. And yes, much of it is modern, you know, it's sanitation is modern medicine. It's just some of these like simple advancements, really in hygiene and kind of how we're protecting ourselves in our environment. And yet, we're living longer. But the big question is, are we living better, because, you know, I'm getting ready next week, my second season of my longevity summit airs. So this is a very timely conversation, we can look and see, especially in the US, which is where I'm living right now is at 45%. And these are pretty standard numbers, we're now seeing unfortunately, globally, than about 45% of our population has a chronic disease. And what we know, as we age chronologically, is that from 30, on decade, over a decade, that risk of chronic disease increases. And by time we hit our 60s decade, it radically, it really amplifies us. So it's kind of a little bit of slow crawl is graduated a couple of percent each year. And once we hit that, you know that 60 And by the time we hit 65, there's this really big shift of going like you're in that kind of danger zone. And so but here's where it gets that there's so many interesting pieces to this, Chris, because so we can look and say, Okay, well, we're not necessarily living better, lots of chronic disease. And we're seeing that it's really starting to have the most major effect when starting 30s and a slow drip over time and really amplifying in our 60s. And yet we're living longer. So that means we're not necessarily like who wants to go from 60 to 80 or 90, miserable, right symptomatic, like struggling with disease living on medications, that's not exciting for anyone. And, and with this, there's something else really interesting happening simultaneously. So what the research has been showing us since about 2018, that we're living in a time where population is slipping. So while many people are like we're overpopulated, oh my gosh, this pandemic, they're trying to kill everybody. And we can actually decrease. And by 2030, there's going to be more 65 year olds than 18 year olds, in many pockets around the world, there's going to be one, one out of every five people will be 65 and older. And, and part of that is just because many of us I mean, I know I've only got one kid, you know, my parents had two of us. Well, actually, my dad and stepmother had another two steps, four of us in total. But I had one right. And so I've already have two what my parents did. And that's kind of the trend is that many families today are having instead of five and eight children, they're having 123, you know, and so just even that change over the past 2030 years, is what's adding to a lot of this. And so so now this is where it gets really interesting. And why does healthspan and WellSpan actually become really important is we're living longer are we living better? Have we really thought that we could live longer? And now that we know that we can, the real question becomes, well, maybe we haven't been living longer because we haven't really defined a life worth living. This is kind of a big idea. And what I mean by this is you're like, well, Melissa, we want to live as long as possible. We do of course, but think about how many of us get up and get out every day. And it's more of the same more the same. And even if we're intentional, we take the time to journal. You know, we do a little meditation in the morning. The moment we get into the routine of the day, so much of it is on autopilot, right and so much of it becomes even if we start very intentional. It becomes reactionary. And so for most of us we're going through the motions and life is we're reacting Responding to the next and the next and the next. And we are not often enough, invited into a conversation within ourselves, within our families within our communities, within our politics, our governance, to say, hold up. Like this is today, and it's feeling kind of crazy. But let's get out ahead of this like, like, who's really there are some governing bodies like it was really sitting back right now go, Whoa, let's get out ahead of let's get out ahead of the pandemic. Let's look out five years, let's look at 10 years, let's look out 100 years, what is the type of world we want to be living in? You know, like, This is no fun for anybody, right? Being in lock downs, and all the kinds of things so we clearly know what we don't want. So now this gives rise to us going okay, so we don't want that. What do we want and, and so, longevity, lifespan in and of itself is about life extension. But what's happening? And Chris, here's a really big thing. This is like this, just it's been blowing my mind as well, because although I've known this, and I've been talking about this for years, I teach a tonne of continuing education or certification courses to my fellow Integrative Health and Wellness clinicians. And I've been saying, we are in the precipice of a shift. Well, this July this past July. So a little over a month ago, there was a huge new research study that came out, it was published in Nature. And David Sinclair, one of the you know, holy grails of longevity, you have to publish this paper, which what they really looked at was that, hey, let's look at the economics of ageing. So we typically think of the economics of sick care of disease, and there's a cost to it. The 45% of the population here in the US is 3.7 trillion, that that costs us every year. But what this is, it's a it's a it's a mess, right? Like not just billions, huge, real, Yeah, huge to true. And so this study said, Okay, let's look at the cost of IP of ageing, the economic value within it, could there be a value to ageing was the kind of hypothesis and they looked at several different examples after we just want to compress it like they went through ml save kind of all the variables of the study. But here's the big thing that's really important. Is it where they landed in this was wrecking realising, through running these algorithms in these programmes and these scenarios and these models is that by slowing down the rate at which we age, and and in so doing, extending life span, the quote, the length of life and the quality of life by one year, we put $38 trillion into the economy. Now what that means is that wipes out the US national debt, like that one. Wow. And so so this so here's why this is really powerful. Like, what I don't know what I don't think many people grasp yet is this, this this study is the paradigm shifter. And here's why. We have for so long created models and and consumer and financial and revenue models based around sick care. And that looks at lifespan that looks as if the body in a traditional model is mechanistic reductionistic a piece and apart in Oregon, a system, a cell in a petri dish in an isolated environment, in a research lab. But we're so much more than that. We're complex, dynamic systems, right? We're not just living in a lab, we're not isolated, we're not just a single pathway. There are and this is where my passion, of course, for epigenetics comes in this dynamic interplay between the outer world and the inner world constantly unfolding. And so here's why this study is huge. It's about to turn the traditional model on his ear. And the reason why is because all we're really looking at, through our research lens is the biology and we still need to do that, like the body does need support, there's no doubt about that. We want to understand pathways we want. We want to understand biology, we want to understand how we can slow down and reverse a so we can have more years, but but they're saying if this isn't just about life extension, we need to look at how we increase the quality of life. So that now raises a much different question. And this is where healthspan how healthy we feel, and WellSpan which is our well being our purpose, our joy, what are why what gets us out of bed, what makes life worth living. Now, these factors, more than ever come into the equation, and the money and the research dollars that are going into all this. These are not from government, these in pharmaceuticals, these are from private sector. These are billionaires As and you know, investment funds that are looking to say, how can we democratise and bring solutions direct to consumer? Because we can't wait on, you know, these these outdated paradigms to kind of catch up with where we're actually. Yeah. So I know I just talked for a really long time. And I That's why I kind of said, Hey, like, please wait. No need a timeout on me because there's a couple of really big points in there, right? Like this is this is some big stuff. We are truly at this game changing point. Where lifespan Yes, but more importantly, we have to look at and really contemplate for ourselves individually. But then collectively, what does this mean for us, and then all of a sudden, we are considering healthspan and WellSpan also.

Chris Barnes: 20:49

Huge points, based on your experience and the research. I know that you you host the longevity summit with some absolutely incredible minds in this field of human optimum optimization, longevity? What are some of the core areas that people can focus on to increase their health span? And WellSpan? Understand, you could probably speak for hours on this. But I guess just from your own viewpoint, what are the key ones?

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 21:18

I'll keep it short? Because I know there's

Chris Barnes: 21:22

there's a lot of it's complex

Unknown: 21:24

to remember, I love all this, but everybody else may not geek out about as much as some bullet points. So yeah, no, and I think I think really, I'm gonna follow, I'm gonna follow Sergey Jung on this. And I think he has really divided it in a great way, as a doctor, I think of it from a triage standpoint, immediate, short term, long term, he calls it now near and far horizon, so is the same kind of concept. But it's, it's what is what is within our grasp right now today, that you and I can do for ourselves that absolutely will move the needle and help us to reverse age. I'll talk about that in a moment. The next part is, okay, short term, what's coming in the next five to 10 years, that, that we can leverage that will add to enhancing the expression of our health and, and really enhancing our capacity to thrive in more facets of our life. And then the long term in the far horizon is Sergey calls, it is really more as we're looking out towards that 15 to 25 year marker. And and so so when we break this down, if I'm going to talk about longevity, step one, you know, there's really I'm going to take a moment and say, we have to say why do we age, right? What what is really going on, if I have to give it one name, I gotta call it inflammaging. This is an all the research and the documents, but all the different inputs to the system, when there's too much for too long, or foot is on the gas for too long. And let's just call that chronic stress in the form of physical, mental, emotional, chemical, environmental, too much for too long, without time to rest, to reset. to rejuvenate to regenerate, the body is going to be in a constant breakdown state. And the longer we are in this chronic distress, then the byproduct of this Metabolic chaos is inflammation is inflammation, which has been termed inflammaging. And when you look at the nine hallmarks of ageing, which is what science has said, hey, here are the nine main reasons of why the body's going to age why it's going to break down why it's ultimately going to, you know, stop working. And so of course, what research does is that well, here's the mind Hallmark. So let's find the solutions to to, you know, mitigate those paths, like to support to stop it to slow it down to reverse it. So. So from this standpoint, when we think okay, inflammation, and we if we were just given that simple name, and go, well, stress. So what are the things that we can do right now, today, that cost us nothing, that we know in the research, absolutely slow down the rate of ageing, helped to reduce the inflammatory response in our body, which will ultimately increase our energy, our memory, our focus, our concentration, our performance, the things that we need right now just to show up today. And so the easy things, our lifestyle, and I will be even more specific here in just a moment. What we know through the research is that 75% of what drives this inflammation process are lifestyle factors. And while I'm sure you talk about this, a tonne on the show, I really want to invite your listeners right now to just just have a you know, let's just have a truth moment. Because we all get what we tolerate. Whether we like to hear that or not. Like if we really turn the mirror on ourselves. We get what we tolerate. And if we truly want Let a different outcome, we have to be willing to just without judgement and blame and shame to ourselves, we have to be compassionate to ourselves and go, Okay, I know more today than I did yesterday. So cool as I know that I can do better. So what is it that I want today? And the moment that we kind of turn that mirror? And we just say, what have I been tolerating? And what have I been enabling? What have I been allowing? And what do I keep saying, I'm going to do tomorrow? Tomorrow? Tomorrow, tomorrow? And how many more times? Do I need to hear that lifestyle alone? 75% of the solution. I keep hoping there's going to be a new pill, or a new peptide, or a new treatment, or a new laser or a new piece of biotech, like game. Come on. Like if we really think about it, Chris. I mean, you and I know we've both been to paleo. It's fun to go geek out. And like unhackable. Yeah, but what is all that really trying to do? It's trying to hack and make up for what we are out of balance within our own body.

Chris Barnes: 26:01

Yeah. Right. Such a such a good point.

Unknown: 26:05

here's what the research says. So here's something really cool. This is a pretty new one, peer reviewed, . It was an eight week study, they looked at four lifestyle factors. They looked at in eight weeks, this group, there was 49. participants in this study, that what they did is they looked at sleep seven to nine hours a night. Sleep gang, you want to know how to age and reverse. You want to know how to be healthy how to live a long life well and actually thrive. You have to give your body sleep. No video game is worth staying up too late. No. Like all that stuff is compromising the very thing. Right? So let's just be honest with ourselves, what and what kind of stuff are we watching before bed is keeping our system amped up? How many drinks are we? There's plenty too much sugar right into the bloodstream. So it's okay, I'm not judging. I could get it.

Chris Barnes: 27:02

We're all guilty.

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 27:04

that's all these moments ago, cool. 79 hours, okay, I can do that. I can do that. I can do it. And then the next piece was nutrition. Well, you know, there's always fun things around nutrition. But guess what, this was pretty simple nutrition. This wasn't any crazy diet. It was really just looking at a more Mediterranean when I'm just going to call it clean. So it had lean protein, healthy fats, you know, non processed foods, just fruits and veggies. That's it. That's all they did. And they they ate normal calories. There was no calorie restriction. It was just more whole food based. Sleep, whole food. Movement. Not even a specific type. I'm not gonna say do CrossFit. I'm not gonna go tell you to go freakin you know, like, just move. mild to moderate intensity 20 to 30 minutes a day. And mindfulness now mindfulness, we can call that stress, resilience capacity. But what I love about mindfulness is it's so simple, right? It's all it is, is just coming into a single minded focus in this moment. We can all be mindful right now. And I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you a way to be mindful right now, Chris. Chris, I want you to really notice what your right foot your right big toe what's happening with your right big toe right now?

Chris Barnes: 28:26

raised up to the sky.

Unknown: 28:28

But what does your brain do? And to the right big toe and it knows it? Raise it. Right? Yeah. Mindful, all you did was you bought your mind to that point to one fixed directive. And you everything else went away. And that's all mindfulness is getting like it doesn't have to be complex, right? It's just gone. Oh, what's one thing I can focus on? So the 20 things of multitasking in this moment? So these four elements for eight weeks, nothing extreme. They aged in reverse by three years, biologically, your Wow logical age reversal in by three years in eight weeks. And that's just lifestyle. I will tell you fundamentally, Chris, from the research movement, if I had to tell you just one thing, I mean, there's a couple of big things. But in the right now what you can do and you can make a non negotiable for yourself is to move your body and to in nature. So move outside in natural sunlight get reconnected to your natural environment and circadian rhythms. If you can go move, you know, in the morning and you can break it up. It doesn't have to be constant. Can you go move for 10 minutes in the morning, early in the morning and get some natural sunlight coming in. Get that sun gazing that's going to prime you that's going to prime that that those natural clocks within your body. It's going to already set you up for a good night's sleep. So you want you're not sleeping? Well. Let's get some morning sunlight. Let's get a little bit of morning movement. You know, so if you can get out and move in nature, that's going to help everything else to really fall into place. Because when you get that sunlight exposure, it sets your clocks eating is on a clock. Like if we get really whether we're doing a 12 hour time restricted window, we're eating every four hours, we're eating every eight hours, like whatever. It's about finding that rhythm and that rhythm, because life is cycle. So the immediate is lifestyle, move, nourish, rest. Best thing I can tell you for yourself. Those are the immediate, immediate places I can go into you want to get

Chris Barnes: 30:37

that? No, no. Honestly, they're the lowest hanging fruit for people. They're attainable, manageable. Yeah, just to habits, right, just developing those habits.

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 30:50

And Chris, you know, it's fascinating to me. And look, I go through times, myself, you guys, I teach this I live in a breathe it, I love it. And there are days that I am in front of this computer from 9am until 7pm. Because I'm doing interviews back to back I'm working with my patients and my clients and telemedicine. And, and as much as I want to be out plane moving, relaxing, resting and resetting, it doesn't happen. So I may not be able to get even 10 minutes. But guess what I do, when I come up from my home office and I go up in his time for lunch, while I'm preparing my lunch, I go out and I stand on my desk. And I just take even 60 seconds to get some sunlight 60 seconds to just close my eyes. And slow down my breath. I may not get 30 minutes that day, I may not even get to go out for a walk that day. So sometimes I'll sit here at my desk. And in between meetings, like I will literally do, you know isometric contractions, I'll be like are gonna squeeze I'm gonna like do a little bit. Sometimes I have to just visualise and give some feedback to my body and let it know, it's as if we're moving. So that I'm still not being I'm not being sedentary per se, I'm still being really life giving. So I think that the best thing we could all do is have a little grace and courtesy with ourselves a little kindness and go it's not, it's not this regimented thing, it's not 20 minutes on and 12 hours off, and we get too rigid, and many of us just want the answer. Yep. The biggest breakthrough in one of the biggest breakthroughs in longevity, and health and wellness, in this shift of the paradigm is that it's we're completely moving away from the pieces and the parts and the one size fits all approach. We truly are in the land of precision and guess what precision and personalised medicine actually means. Guess what, you know, just wearable technology gives us is the ability to all of a sudden be participatory, in our health and to go, you know what, actually was telling the story earlier. When I first got my Garmin. It was, you know, this was a couple of years ago. And it was it was the end of the year, I had been doing so many conferences I like so much was going I was travelling all the time. And it was Christmas. You're trying to make everything right, good for kids. I get my watch and my stress level was elevated at a 79. And I smoke Yeah, well, right. And my son is like, Yo, I'm like, yeah. Like not said, let me show you this, let's do this together. I said, I'm gonna do a little coherence for 60 seconds, and go slow down my breathing, and bring my breath and my intention to my heart. I'm just gonna let some feelings of gratitude and appreciation flow in and out of my heart with each breath. And I'm going to do it for 60 seconds. And I did that for 60 seconds. And my stress score went from 79 down to 23. In 60 seconds. Yeah, wow. So we forget that these little moments add up. It's the little moments that we may not have 10 minutes, we may not have 30 minutes, we may not have a week to get away. And so I think if I could really impart anything to your audience right now, Chris has the power in the toggle switch the power in the micro moments. And instead of feeling like we have to do it like everybody else, to really dial in to our own biometrics to our own physiology, to our own response, and just realise like, Oh, I'm really powerful in 60 seconds, I completely changed the state. And I went from a state of fight or flight, chronic sympathetic, dominant stress distress into a state of parasympathetic rest and digest, the two systems cannot be on simultaneously, right? So I toggled out of the overdrive into the ease. And even if it's 60 seconds, that can be enough to give your body just that little. We got to get out ahead of all this stuff gang, right? Like, just like we haven't gotten far enough ahead to really stop and pause and look back and say what kind of world and life is worth living to 120 150 and 200. That reality is here. So let's not be reactionary anymore. Let's start to pause and realise that these little micro moments can give us get us out ahead and get us out ahead. And we want to keep stacking these micro moments to keep getting out further and further ahead. So we can go when we look back and be intentional, hmm, yeah, makes sense.

Chris Barnes: 35:50

Melissa, I think that's probably one of the most powerful messages that our audience can take away today, just those micro moments. It's like, I'm so guilty of that as well, just with the dad hat on the business owner hat and everything else. Sometimes we're just so frantic, going from A to B, that we just don't take a moment just to dial in, breathe deeply. I've actually started leaving the phone away from me when I'm eating meals now just so I can actually sit and be present and ate and because yeah, just like me so many others are checking emails while they're eating food. And yeah, just not truly resting and digesting and assimilating all that nutrition. So I think the biggest takeaway goes, micro moments, you do have time to go out and get some sunlight for a moment, you can check in you can be mindful for a second. Take a deep breath. Yeah, hug somebody. Yeah. Huge,

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 36:51

huge help to gang we can still, you know, obviously just realise getting, we have set the bar so high for ourselves. And the higher we set it, the more we disappoint ourselves every day. And what's happening at an UNK, I've chills thinking about this, and I've gone through this awareness myself. So I'm like, holy crap, I'm letting myself down every single day because I'm not keeping my word to myself. Because I can get a lot done. I'm a high achiever, I do a lot for myself. And for those that I'm here to serve, yet, it's like, oh, I can do more, I could do more, I could do more to realise like, crap, I'm letting balls drop. And even if I'm getting all to dues done, am I really honouring what I need first, because I cannot show up and serve, given love and serve them the most fully, for everything that I love. And every one I love in my life, if I do not begin within myself first, right. And so we do have to recognise the power. And the micro moment the power in saying, instead of trying to overload myself, let me underload myself, let me do one thing really well, and like crush it. And when I do that, then if I've got more bandwidth and more capacity, then I can say, Great, now let me do this next. But then everything becomes a win. Because I think we're all drowning Chris in this feeling of not enoughness and not there yet. Because we keep putting too much on ourselves. And we don't say whoa, and we then we break the promises to ourselves left and right and listen, unconsciously. You know, trauma is a big conversation right now globally. And then the biggest trauma that so many of us have gone through is the trauma that we have, and we don't want to hear this. I mean, this was one of my big aha is this year is the trauma that we have imparted on ourselves. And what I mean, is on an unconscious level, many of us have a split within ourselves. There's a part of us that who we don't trust, who we're protecting ourselves from, is ourselves. Because I'm the one consciously going come on, there's more, there's more. And let me show you let me do this. Let me do that. I'm gonna do that. And we keep going and going, Oh, my God, we got to do this. And we're gonna do that this is expected of us and, and this is what this person is to us. That means I have to do it too. And we keep going and going. And there's part of us going do you just don't get it. You're not listening to me. You're not honouring me. You are You are just like, who are you? Like, I don't want anything to do with you. And so this very part of us that is our most powerful part starts to close down. While the other part of us is trying to go no, come on, it's gonna be great. Like we're just gonna go 10 exit. One more thing when there's one more thing is in it, and we feel like we're one step away from either greatness or crashing and burning. Right. And like so many of us it to a greater or lesser extent. It's like, oh, and it's just gone. Yeah, just simplify one thing, one thing today, one thing in this moment Take a micro moment. And and let yourself really appreciate how you are showing up and quit meeting it to be more and more and more like, go full in on this thing now savour it, get your power from that, that's going to expand your capacity. Take even five minutes, you know, like to go ahead and let's rest, reset, do nothing for five minutes. Go daydream. And then let's go into our next chunk and start again.

Chris Barnes: 40:32

Awesome, awesome. Melissa, I'm really interested to learn, from your experience, how you because you're your mom, you've got a son, how you approach parenting through the lens of epigenetics.

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 40:49

Chris, if you and I spoke two years ago, at paleo is much different. Now I have a high schooler

Chris Barnes: 40:59

High School. Wow.

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 41:02

You know what, but I will say this, I love it. It's so fascinating. And I only have one. So it's a little different. I think when you only have one, you know, like, good, bad and ugly, they get all of you. And sometimes it's all of them until you until they become a teenager, and then you're cut off you know, but my son, like it or not, he's he's grown up with him this and so part of it is laughable to him. Part of it's cool. I think in I think intuitively he's a shaman at heart. And he's like, we do, he'll come into that zone in some time. You know, but since he was old enough to communicate, verbally, when when they're super little, and they don't quite have their words yet. They're there. They're experiencing something but they don't know how to emote haven't given a name, what that emotion is. And so that's why the terrible twos are so terrible, and threes, because they just don't know. Yeah, this is right now and they seem like, but they're just that they're learning. And so to age, from an epigenetic standpoint, we really started with giving him the capacity to exercise emotional intelligence, and to give him permission to know it was okay to to actually feel whatever he was feeling, even if he didn't know what to call it. And so I do a lot within neuro linguistic psychology. So NLP and so you know, one of the things that it teaches you this is all the science of linguistics, but there's a whole science of, of words, beyond words, like words are so primal, they do not really express the capacity of emotions, right, but we try, we try to label what love is we try to label with passion, joy, like, but it doesn't ever give it enough. And so at a so one of the techniques in NLP is to kind of go abstract. And when you just don't know what something is, or how to wrap your head around it, you can do things like give it a shape or a colour. So the very young age, I started to use this technique with my son when there weren't quite words yet. So we would, we would give these feelings these things that he didn't know a shape and a colour. And then we could talk in the colour. So it gave a little bit of dimension, and a little separation. So it didn't feel like it was him or on him or in him or he was doing something wrong or failing. So it gave some preparation, which then gives us perspective, the moment we have here versus right up here, we can see more, we can access more information. So my point of this is that we started a lot of this when he was really young, you know, helping him to understand and feel really confident about his choices, although now as a teenager. It's interesting, because there are times like he's like, Yeah, I want macaroni and cheese. I'm like,

Chris Barnes: 44:08

No, he was out there like having a slushie no like

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 44:22

it's really, it's a stress for me, it's not for him, right? He's just like, mom, like, for him. It's not like he's doing it every day all the time. Right. And he's like I said, he's 14. And you have to give them autonomy. So what it comes down to from an epigenetic standpoint, this, one of the most important Levers is our power of perception, and our cultural perceptions, what we've been raised with what we know, and my son is incredibly intelligent. He has so much emotional capacity and it's in there and when I just stepped back, and I watched from afar, he handles things like a boss You know, when there's too much mom around, then it's a little different. And so it's about going, alright, let's help them to understand the why. And let's give them some tools to experience and practice it for themselves. And know that there's going to come a time that they're going to use it other times that they're not. But that's how we all learn, right? We have to go through the contrast. And so it's really quite fascinating that the more I try to control, so perception, if I'm telling him something's bad, I'm informing his very biology. So I, you know, so this epigenetic phenomena is the foods we're eating the air, we're breathing, the environments, we're in the thoughts we're thinking, and how we are thinking of something stressful. Is it good for us or bad for us? And so I don't have it right at all, Chris, I mean, I mess it up every day is inherent. We all do. We all do. But they teach us as much as we teach them. And I think that's the biggest lesson my husband and I have had to learn like, Wait, we are not my parents, you know, our parents all do our best when we're parents. But we don't want to parent the way our parents did, because it was because I said so. And from an surgery genetic standpoint, that's a constriction, right? That's, that is a lockdown on those that that is creating a distress in the system was which is going to increase the potential for more methylation marks, inflammation ageing. So I'd rather even around a longevity principle is this mindset of resiliency of flexibility of anti fragility. So I think what I've had to come to and like I said, I have some days, this is really easier to embrace than others, is to say, if I can create a container, and provide as a parent, the knowing and the resources and the access to buoyancy, to choice and resiliency, to let him fall and to let him know it's safe. And it's essential to get back up. And it's okay to like he's going through high school is brand new in high school. And today, we literally have this talk, it's like, for me says, A hormetic stressor. There's certain kids in this class is he's not he's kind of like, a mom or some kids. And I was like, okay, you know, and he had a challenge the other day, and today, he didn't, you know, I'm like, Hey, each day you face it each day, you, you let yourself just feel those uncomfortable emotions or those great emotions. You experience it, and you move through it, and you know that you did it. And it's okay. It's, it's, for me, it's, it's like we're exposing ourselves to a challenge, then you come home, and you rest, and you reset. And guess what that is, that's you stress, that's the good stress for the system, that then allows us to actually grow. And so epigenetically, I am just trying to create the container where he can feel what he needs to feel, have his experiences, move through challenges with success, have success, with joy, to celebrate it all the good, the bad, and the ugly, and to come home and rest. And sleep is a non negotiable. Because when we sleep and we rest and we unplug, then we can reset and get out and, and keep that genetic code as optimised as possible.

Chris Barnes: 48:27

Now, it's really, really good point that you make there because I'm a, I'm a dad of three as well. And my eldest little boys just started prep. So he's six and a half this year. And it's a natural tendency for mothers and fathers to want to just wrap them up and protect them from from the big bad world out there. But you make a really, really valid point that this eustress, the little moments that challenge them in vulnerable environments, going to a new class, new new students, actually is creating resiliency within them as well. If we just protect them and don't put them into these environments, then it's going to impact on their resilience, and I guess those epigenetic changes, as well. Yeah. Yeah. Powerful. We've been talking for a while and I could honestly talk for another hour, but I don't think our listeners probably have that. I can't wait to I can't wait to share some of those blooper blooper reels as well from earlier. But I would I would like to finish with your longevity Summit, which is next week, I believe. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about that one? The longevity looks it looks phenomenal.

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 49:49

Thank you, Chris. It is it's airing. So it's a free event for days with some of the top leading longevity, integrative health And biohacking human performance optimising experts on the planet. We're having conversations that, to me, it's really important to tell to share and show the ways where we blend the latest in science, cutting edge technology, and really showing that in conjunction with ancient wisdoms, ancient technologies, ancient therapies, to then have the perspective say, great when we look at modern and we look at future and we look at ancient and past, then that starts to reveal a bit of what it means to really be human and what's available to us. So that we can now have greater understandings of what is possible in the hearing now for better modern living solutions. So the event you know, there's there's some talks that are a little bit more clinical, we've got a lot of doctors on there. But I think what's really exciting for the for the participant, is you're really hearing just authentic conversations with these practitioners and providers about how they're how they're approaching patient care, the things that become really important, you know, if we're thinking longevity, the what I the story I wanted to tell the season was not just how do we live longer and better. But because there is already this population that is sick, let's not leave them out. So how do we heal? Because healing, it's not like you're sick, and you're done. And that's it, you're stuck with it, you have to live on a medication that is absolutely false and incorrect. You are completely innately designed to heal. So how do we feel so we can thrive, to truly live life optimise to 121 5200, all of these numbers are now we see it in the literature, we know how to do it. age reversal is a real thing. It's happening, we're tracking it more and more is coming to market. So the four day event is free. It's kind of on demand. So it's free on the date of and people can upgrade we're doing a really cool VIP experience, that after the summit, I'm actually going to be running a 12 weeks to 120 masterclass series with myself and 22 of our top featured speaker. So each week, they're gonna get to be in a really private kind of, you know, immersive experience. We're going to walk them through their own longevity blueprint. So I'm so excited about the season. i It's funny, it's like, I it first is kind of like yeah, I just want to get a few more interviews. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, some of the biggest year yet like this is gonna be Oh, yeah. So the longevity summit.com is where people can find out about that. And you know, I invite people to always come find out, you know, you can always find out what's happening with the longevity stuff. Because this event, we will probably be releasing at least twice a year a version of it, because it's just a really awesome Bewdley advancing arena. So Doc melissa.com is where people can find IDOC Melissa, Doc melissa.com is where I'll always have stuff about the summits and about our human longevity Institute, you know, so for both clients and clinicians, like we have one side of what we do certify clinicians, and then the other side of what they do, which is, you know, working with clients in a precision longevity model. So, so much going on.

Chris Barnes: 53:12

Awesome. And those dates for the summit of the 25th to the 29th of August.

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 53:17

Yeah, yeah. And if you go to longevity, the longevity Summit, let me get that right.com You'll see everything there. And you guys can get a free ticket, you'll immediately unlock like eight bonus gifts and three early sessions, depending on when you hear this and watch this. So yeah, and we'll, we will probably keep some of those free gifts up even after the summit. So if you miss it, if you're hearing this after the fact, you know, we'll probably keep a few of those interviews up so that you can get it get on the kind of early bird list for the next round of when we do it.

Chris Barnes: 53:49

Amazing, Doc Melissa, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you over the last hour I thank you so much for sharing that invaluable information for the amp wellness audience.

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 54:01

Thank you, Chris. This was my honour and pleasure. Thank you so much.

Chris Barnes: 54:07

All the best with the longevity Summit. I'll definitely be tuning in. I can't wait. And yeah, you take care. All

Melissa Grill-Petersen: 54:14

right, you as well, my friend. Thank you all so much. Cheers.