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'Downtime' is a Must For Proper Tissue Healing - Preventing Cancer & Inflammation · Doctor Turned Health Coach

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Doctor Turned Health Coach Podcast.
• 0:03
  My name is Dr. Ashuri, a board-certified family medicine physician who does
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  health coaching and primary care.
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  So, in today's episode, I want to talk about downtime.
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  In my trend framework, an important concept, the last one, the D, stands for downtime.
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  Downtime is the ability for
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  us to recover to restore our
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  body so the way our human body is designed physiologically
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  is that it has many built-in mechanisms for repairing and restoring everything
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  from the cells to the different components that make up the cell we're just
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  designed to heal, unlike a car.
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  A car is designed for somebody to have to go in and replace parts,
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  but most cars are designed in a modular way that you can take something out
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  and put it in, and the car can continue.
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  The human body, each piece, can technically recover and repair itself.
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  Sometimes that repair mechanism can go out of control, especially in cancer,
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  when that repair mechanism fails, then you can get a cell that goes out of control
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  and unfortunately that can develop into cancer.
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  Everything we do as human beings ideally should help this repair process go
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  along as smoothly as possible.
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  This is how we can help our liver heal after any kind of damage.
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  This is how we can recover from infections, this is how we can recover from
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  pneumonia, from broken bones, from torn ACLs, from traumatic brain injuries,
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  from stroke, heart attack, you name it.
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  In order for this to happen, we need downtime. The reason I chose downtime for
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  this framework, obviously, I've talked about trend in a previous podcast episode,
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  so hopefully you know that I'm getting these topics, these ideas from very good sources.
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  I know these are scientifically true, factual.
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  Downtime is necessary because in order for our body's repair mechanism to function,
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  it needs that bit of rest. it needs that bit of recovery time.
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  And that can only happen when we stop all the stimuli to the body.
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  If we're constantly bombarding the body with,
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  exercise, moving around, eating a lot of things, and being under stress,
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  or everything else you can imagine that we consider insults to the body.
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  If we're constantly bombarding this human body with it, it won't be capable
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  of having that downtime necessary to repair the cells, to recover from an injury.
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  Sleep is obviously one of the biggest recovery tools that we have.
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  It's one of our main downtimes for the day.
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  And sleep quality matters. So if we get good sleep, it's more likely that we're
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  going to recover for the next day.
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  And in fact, poor sleep has been associated with many types of cancers, inflammatory states,
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  damage to multiple different cell lines, including the brain that can potentially
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  lead to dementia, and even exercise.
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  When we do too much of it, it's difficult to recover.
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  For some people, excess exercise can cause some changes to the heart,
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  fibrosis of the cardiac cells that can actually lead to atrial fibrillation
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  later in life. It doesn't mean you shouldn't exercise.
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  It doesn't mean that if you love exercising so much that you're willing to have
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  some degree of side effects, that's okay.
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  All of us will make our choices based on what's important to us,
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  but we do need some downtime.
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  We do need some downtime for that pre-fibrosis of the heart cells to actually
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  heal so that they don't go on to develop anything major or irreversible.
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  And food is an important part of our recovery process.
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  Not only do we need food to give us the downtime necessary, in fact,
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  eating a meal is a downtime process because we sit, we relax,
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  we lower our breathing, we're in the moment, we're calm, and that's a great
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  way for the body to digest, to feed the healthy bacteria in the gut.
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  It's a downtime process.
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  But the gut itself needs a downtime process. That is probably why food has to
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  be such a big ordeal. We have to chew it, we have to swallow it,
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  sometimes we have to drink some water with it.
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  We can feel acid reflux or really full if we don't rest because the body knows
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  that we need this downtime. We need to have some time away from food in order
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  for the body to be able to repair itself.
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  So, yes, some people can go to the extreme and say you must have some fasting time.
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  Perhaps that's true but I think if
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  you're eating three to four to five meals a
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  day you'll naturally get some downtime between meals but if every meal is very
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  heavy in calories so very calorie dense but maybe not as nutrient dense it is
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  possible to override that downtime window that the gastrointestinal tract needs.
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  So in summary, we need downtime to heal and repair.
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  When a mutation happens in the genes, the body knows how to repair it.
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  If we can create that space and window for that repair to happen,
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  it's much more likely to prevent any precancerous cells from developing into
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  an actual malignant cell.
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  I hope this is of value to you guys. Go to my website, drrashori.com.
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  The website information is in the description.
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  And thanks for listening.