The Hidden Hormone Disorder: How Isolation Disrupts Cortisol, Sleep & Emotional Stability

Shawn Stevenson: [00:00:00] Social isolation is deadly. Loneliness and social isolation were effectively like a chronic stressor on the body, and triggering the activity of all these inflammatory related genes and immune system related genes because they weren't getting that human connection that we all deeply needed. We produce oxytocin when we are around people that we care about.

Apparently a 22nd hug can dramatically increase your oxytocin levels and reduce cortisol. 20 seconds. 

Dr Brighten: What is contributing to this loneliness? To the point researchers are like, we need to look into this. 

Shawn Stevenson: That's a great question. This circles back to Sean Stevenson 

Narrator: is a bestselling author and creator of the Model Health Show, 

Shawn Stevenson: the number one health podcast in the us.

Narrator: With his EAT Smarter series and a science-backed approach to nutrition, sleep, and performance, 

Shawn Stevenson: he's helped millions transform their health and rethink what it truly means to thrive nature human behavior. They found that people who frequently experience loneliness were 14% more likely to [00:01:00] die prematurely from all causes, but they found that individuals who frequently experience social isolation were.

Dr Brighten: What are your thoughts about the male loneliness epidemic that's being reported? 

Shawn Stevenson: I've never talked about this before. I just wanna say that. 

Dr Brighten: Welcome to the Dr. Brighton Show, where we burn the BS in women's health to the ground. I'm your host, Dr. Jolene Brighton, and if you've ever been dismissed, told your symptoms are normal or just in your head or been told just to deal with it, this show is for you.

And if while listening to this, you decide you like this kind of content, I invite you to head over to dr brighton.com, where you'll find free guides, twice weekly podcast releases, and a ton of resources to support you on your journey. Let's dive in Our toxic relationships shortening our lifespan at the genetic level.

Shawn Stevenson: This is how we're gonna kick it off. 

Dr Brighten: This is how we're gonna start it. 

Shawn Stevenson: Yes. Um, the data's [00:02:00] pretty clear right now. Our relationships are deeply impactful on all manner of our physical, mental, emotional health. But you, you know, today, more than ever, one of the greatest. Things that we're dealing with as far as a, a conflicting thing for our health is actually loneliness or lack thereof relationships.

And so this would give us a good base to build from. One of the biggest studies ever conducted, it's over 2 million people and 90 cohort studies all compiled, and they tracked these people for six months, up to 25 years. All right. And this was published in Nature Human Behavior, just two years ago. And they were looking at our social connectivity and how relationships impact our health.

And they found that people who frequently experienced loneliness were 14% more likely to die prematurely from all causes. 

Dr Brighten: Wow. 

Shawn Stevenson: [00:03:00] Alright. That's level one. 

Dr Brighten: Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: But they found that individuals who frequently experience social isolation were 32% more likely to die prematurely from all causes. Social isolation is deadly.

It's deadly. And what the researchers found was that if we're talking about genetics and epigenetics in particular, 

Dr Brighten: mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: They found that loneliness and social isolation were effectively like a chronic stressor on the body and triggering the activity of all these. Inflammatory related genes and immune system related genes.

Alright. So basically their defense against what's going on out here in the world, susceptibility to infectious diseases and chronic diseases was skyrocketing because they weren't getting that human connection that we all deeply need. 

Dr Brighten: What is contributing to this loneliness? I mean, to the point where we're now studying loneliness and social isolation in terms of how it's impacting our health.

How did we [00:04:00] even get there to being so socially isolated and lonely that researchers are like, we need to look into this. 

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, that's a great question. And this circles back to toxic relationships as well. Mm-hmm. You know, so now that we have so much education around this, one of the common approaches is avoidance.

Right? And so not being able to deal with the things that come up in a lot of relationships. Mm-hmm. Right? And also. Our culture has not been very good about educating us about how to have healthy relationships in the first place. Right. True. Looking at this is, and by the way, just to put a cherry on top of the data, so I had the opportunity to, to talk with Dr.

Robert Waldinger, who's the director of the longest running longitudinal study on human longevity mm-hmm. At Harvard. And their research concluded that the number one determinant, the number one factor that determines how long you live is the quality of your relationships. The number one factor they looked at everything.

Obesity, [00:05:00] smoking, behavior. You know, what do you do for a living, uh, socioeconomic status, everything. Mm-hmm. Relationships were significantly more impactful on how long we live. And so with that being said, shouldn't we be educating around that from the very, very beginning? Mm-hmm. Right. We're, we're learning about all this superficial stuff.

Yes. We, doing a little math can help us in life for sure, but it's not going to impact our success, our longevity, any, anything to of great esteem, more than learning about how to have healthy relationships. And so many of us, myself included, we're born into dysfunctional conditions. And, you know, there's a, there's a spectrum of what that looks like, of course.

But we generally, you know, of course with the mirror neurons, we're just replicating behavior. Mm-hmm. We're just doing what our parents did, what the people around us do, and what we think is socially acceptable. And so growing up in toxicity [00:06:00] like I did, you know, and seeing violence in my home on a consistent basis and.

Seeing this kind of lack of, um, family dynamics in communication. Right. Communi, there wasn't communication. There was no piece of a democracy. It was all just dictatorship. You know? And I, I remember, and I got in big trouble for saying this, but I told my mom, you had me just to do the, do the dishes. That's why you had me.

Right. That was wrong of me to say that, you know, my mom loves me, of course. But just like I didn't have any choice. There wasn't any conversation. If I didn't do these things, I'd get beat or, you know, and or, you know, get in trouble some kind of other way. And so this, these attributes we tend to take on unconsciously and then replicate those in some form or fashion.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. It might not be that I'm abusive, physically abusive to my child, but I might be significantly less impatient. Right. Or I might be verbally [00:07:00] abusive or. I have to understand that what I was experience was what, what I was experiencing was abnormal. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And to find a better way. And for that, it takes study.

And so all that to say

it's tough. It's just, it's really, really tough. There isn't a handbook for this. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: We were talking before the show. It's all, it's situationally dependent, you know? But the most important thing for us to do right now is to proactively get educated people listening to this tend to be the people who beat themselves up the most.

Yeah. And you're proactively working to learn how to be a better parent, to learn how to be a better spouse, to learn how to be a better person. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And that, in a strange way, can backfire because we become, become so self-critical of what we're not doing. Being a conscious parent is just being aware that this stuff matters.

Right. But also being aware that. [00:08:00] Nobody. I mean there, I know people personally, they did all the right things and their kids seemed to be amazing. You know how they raised them. But then they got out into the quote real world and they made some terrible decisions and yeah, it really took their life on a different path, right?

Mm-hmm. And so there isn't a perfect way to go about this. Even if you do everything perfect, something crazy can happen. What we need to do is train ourselves to be resilient and to be compassionate, and to be patient, and to have this capacity of figuring things out because it matters more than anything.

Dr Brighten: You know what's interesting about what you brought up about your childhood? So I also have high ACE score Adverse childhood events, is that we know from the research people with high ACE scores, they have worse health outcomes. So more incidents of autoimmune disease, depression. I mean, you list it, you name it.

And this is associated with these high ACE scores. However, what you just bridged for me in something I hadn't considered is. How having [00:09:00] grown up in that toxic environment actually impacts your community and your connection to other people. And I think we've missed that in the conversation. Like when we look at ACE scores, we've missed the, it's more than just a.

Healing yourself, healing your inner child, uh, you know, trying to be a better parent and all that. It's also what skills have you unlearned. Mm-hmm. And then what have you relearned so that you can have that community aspect. 

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, that's so well said. So well said. We're dealing with another massive change in our culture, which is our.

Interconnection interconnectivity with technology. Mm-hmm. Alright. Like never before, you know, I just as of this recording, you know, the new meta glasses are coming out and they're like, it's like a neuro tap type of connection where you barely have to even move. Like you move your fingers a little bit and you could change what's on the screen.

You could watch certain things, you could answer messages. So 

Dr Brighten: we're going full Wally, like we saw that movie. Yeah. We, we, we think that's a good idea. [00:10:00] 

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. Is this life imitating art. Art imitating life. But we know where this is headed. And my advocation for us more than ever, like, you need to focus on being more human than you've ever been because this is not stopping this technology.

Mm-hmm. And AI is here in a, in a big, big way. And it's, AI is in preschool right now. And so with this being said in this culture that again, how does toxicity affect our gene expression? Mm-hmm. And our health. Unfortunately, most children, they're growing up in an environment where interpersonal connection is like, it is so distorted.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. It 

Shawn Stevenson: is so abnormal, it's so unusual. And just being able to pick up basic social skills, like we spent a lot of time just being around people and being with our thoughts because we had to. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. 

Dr Brighten: It was the best of times. 

Shawn Stevenson: It is the best of times, but for us at the time, sometimes we could think it was the worst [00:11:00] of times, you know, tale of two cities because we, we are bored, like we get bored.

Mm-hmm. I'm bored. Mm-hmm. Today there's this huge, uh, amount of data coming out about the importance of being bored. Yeah. Right. And the different parts of the brain that it affects the default mode network and all this other stuff. But it's really fascinating because today if we even have a, a, a free second, we pick our phone up mm-hmm.

And we distract ourselves and all the, the neurochemistry that's taking place, you know, the, the different changes with our hormones. And so something I've been talking about for, you know, about 15 years now and the field has exploded, psycho neuroendocrinology, psycho neuro immunology, and just looking at how our thoughts and our beliefs change what's happening with our hormones and our immune system and what happens when we're constantly just out of our bodies and just at the mercy of whatever is showing up on our phone.

Mm-hmm. Right? And we know that these apps are creating vacuums, they're creating these bubbles that whatever you might tune into, you [00:12:00] just start getting fed this stuff and you start to get en entrained in a certain way of thinking. So it becomes. Ever difficult or ever more difficult to perspective take to question yourself, to question your biases.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. And to be able to self-assess because the world that you're getting fed is all affirmative. Like, this is the way to think about things. This is what is real, this is what is true. And so all of these things lead to, and I, I've got, uh, a kid who's in middle school right now, and I've got two adult children.

And so I've seen how all of this has happened at different generations. And I see my youngest son, uh, his friends in particular, because we created, I, I knew what we were dealing with, so we created a culture in our home, our own microculture. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. To 

Shawn Stevenson: where there's a lot of time we're offline, where we're not on our phones, where my phone, a lot of times I don't know where my phone is.

Mm-hmm. But on purpose, like I'll leave it upstairs, I'll leave it in the [00:13:00] car, I'll leave it, you know, it's like in the bathroom. I just keep it away from me. Because just seeing it, we got data on this too, just seeing your phone changes your neurochemistry as if you're like, you're distracted. You can't fully like, engage in a conversation if it's within sight or if it's touching your body as well.

Interesting. Right. So there was a study, and I, I actually put this study in my most recent book, and they used Smarter Family Cookbook and they had people that completely put it outta sight in their book bag. Right. And that was the only way to really have coherent or like, um, this kind of neuro coherence when they're engaging with another person.

Because when we're talking to another person, our brain sync up. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. So there's this, and this was, uh, first noted by researchers at Princeton. Like it's so unconscious, but we are connected. We're all connected, of course, but the fact that our brains sync up. We kind of get into a flow or a rhythm, and we're [00:14:00] always looking for that.

It can get off, but then it finds a, a pace and a rhythm too. It's like a dance that our brains do. We have a weird hive mind in a way. Mm-hmm. Like, you're queen bee. You know what I'm saying? So it's really fascinating. But we are, our, our children are not doing this. We're not doing this. And being able to really sync up with other people.

And so who do you see predominantly that's not in your little bubble? You see the ops? 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: You see opposition, you see imminent conflict and Yeah. It's just a whole different medium that we're, that we're forced to deal with. But there are ways to go about this for most people right now. And there's a, there's also, we have the tipping point theory where if we get enough people to wear this stuff, we could do something about it.

But for most people right now, it's Wally. Yeah. You just said it like they're headed there. They don't even know that it's happening. That they're addicted. They're addicted to their technology, and this is what's really destroying their health. It's just [00:15:00] being immersed in all this stuff all the time and not having time to process.

Last thing I'm gonna say about this, in that study, uh, affirming that social isolation, loneliness, you could be lonely and still be with people. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right? But that social isolation, that's why it's so important to proactively get around other people, even if you feel lonely, because you're twice as likely to die prematurely if you're socially isolated.

All right? What the researchers affirmed is that being lonely, being socially isolated, was functioning like a form of chronic stress. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Making all these epigenetic changes that are accelerating your aging process. Alright. Now more than ever, we have to be proactive. In getting ourselves around people in the real world.

So all that stuff is great as a supplement, right. FaceTime, it's, it's awesome. Mm-hmm. To catch up with your loved ones. But we need each other. [00:16:00] Our genes expect us to be around other people. That's how we evolved. And there's certain things that cannot be replicated, especially right now. Maybe there's some way to, again, tap into our brain, make us to think that we're around other people, 

Dr Brighten: pharmaceutical industry.

Right. Taking notes right now. Right. Wait, what can we do? What can we formulate? 

Shawn Stevenson: Gotta get this in the matrix. All right. But when we're here together in this room, we are also sharing like microbial data. Mm-hmm. There's a, a file exchange that takes place when you're around other people. And we know how important, it's basically like giving our immune system some light exercise.

What happens when you're away from other people? We saw that with everything shutting down and being socially isolated. Mm-hmm. Get back into everything. All this stuff goes up. Yeah. Right. And we have that exchange and also. The impacts that it has on our, our hormone cascade. And so, you know, this women do oxytocin really well.

Dr Brighten: Yes we do. It's wonderful around each other. Right. 

Shawn Stevenson: But, and I might not have understood that with my wife, like, why you gotta go, [00:17:00] like, you know, stay with me, like, let's hang out, whatever. But she needs her girl time. She needs to be with her friends and, and it always benefits me by the way. Like it, she comes back better.

And, um, but we produce oxytocin when we are around people that we care about. Mm-hmm. It's gotten this nickname of like, the love hormone, cuddle hormone. We've got so many hormones and neurotransmitters related to those feelings of love and affection, but oxytocin, the reason I'm bringing that one up in particular is that it's been found in multiple studies to have this kind of counter effect on our biology, uh, as cortisol.

So it has the ability to kind of like stop cortisol in it tracks, get it to tamper down, and we have that instantly. If we are around people, we care about our hug, especially a hug. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: All right. So, and I'm just sharing the data, purely a 22nd hug. Can dramatically increase your oxytocin levels and reduce cortisol 20 seconds.

That might, [00:18:00] that's a long ass hug. And some people will hug you that long. 

Dr Brighten: It's also not a one arm little hug in there. It's a bear hug. Get in it. You gotta like, ah, stimulate the receptors. 

Shawn Stevenson: Yep, exactly. You know, and so this is great. Our kids need this. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: You know, we have a, we have a very, we have a culture of hugging.

My mom didn't hug me until I was an adult. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: All right. And that's, that's a fact. You know, when I was a kid, of course, like, like a little, little kid, she would like, you know, like kind of hug me of like walking around, that kind of thing. But because of the, the environment that we grew up in, that I grew up in, it's very tough.

She wanted me to be tough. 

Dr Brighten: Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: And so, again, I could be mad at her about like, you didn't hug me as a kid. Like I needed, I needed my mom. Well, the 

Dr Brighten: study wasn't even out about the oxytocin, cortisol Right. For her to access. Right. She 

Shawn Stevenson: didn't know she was doing the best that she could with the knowledge that she had.

Mm-hmm. And she wanted me to be tough in this environment so I could survive. And so, you know, but today, of course, like I, I know [00:19:00] better. And so we have a culture in my family. We're very close every day. When my son gets up in the morning, my 14-year-old, he comes and hugs me immediately. Mm-hmm. He hugs me before bed.

You know, it's just like the, it's the culture that we have and I love that. I'm grateful for that same thing with my older son. Right. Soon as he sees me, he comes and hugs me. Um. We get to create the culture and these are those microculture changes. And so he feels a sense of love. He feels it in his body.

Mm-hmm. He feels it. And it's like an added defense out here when you, you might not feel seen. Right. A lot of kids are looking for those likes because they're looking for attention. 

Dr Brighten: Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: And so we'll talk about like how we can use the dinner table. To help to improve all this stuff as well, but it's our opportunity to help him to feel seen.

Dr Brighten: I hug my son every day when he comes home from school and he gets, he, even when he's like, mom, I'm hungry, mom, this or that, and I'm, I hug him and it's yes for him, but it's [00:20:00] also for the rest of the family because I find so often at the end of the school day. He's held it all together. Right? He's, he's held it all together and the point of breaking will be when he crosses the threshold of the door and he becomes more dysregulated.

Like, I can unravel now I'm in my safe place. And I found that if I just grip him, do the 20 seconds, probably longer sometimes. And you know, when you're 12, that's so lame. Your mom's doing that. 

Mm-hmm. 

But I'm like, we can co-regulate. Like I am, like every day I try to make sure even if I, I will schedule my meetings around it to take time, be calm, greet my son, be there, hug him, and then I know the rest of the afternoon is gonna be a lot easier.

And I can honestly at that point be like, Hey, so tell me about your homework. And it's very smooth. Whereas like when he was first, you know, integrating back into school and he'd come home and we would just be like, Hey, how was school? Do you have homework? Da da da. And it was like. More on the agenda. Yeah.

Complete dysregulation. So I [00:21:00] love that you're doing that with your boys. Something that came up that I wanna ask you about when we were younger, the Blue Zones came out. Do you think the Blue Zones have contributed to this lack of awareness and lack of valuing community and connection? Because what the Blue Zones initially told us was diet, this is how everyone eats.

If you wanna live long, if you wanna be healthy, it's just about diet. I feel like for us, like that had an impact and it made some people negate that actually wedges at the crux of Blue Zones is community. It didn't actually matter what their diet was as much as it mattered is do they have people they can rely on?

So I'm just curious your thoughts about that. 

Shawn Stevenson: That's such a great assessment. Of course, because I'm a nutritionist. Mm-hmm. Right. And so food is obviously like a big driving force for my thinking a lot, especially coming into the field. Food was everything, right? Food can fix it. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And where I'm at today and even [00:22:00] where my work.

And what I foresee just the next decade, or you know, for the continuation of my career is centered around family and community because it is the most impactful thing on what you're eating. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. And so with the Blue Zones, obviously, and these are my friends and colleagues, you know, but it was as a, as it continued do, it created like this, this silo or this vacuum about what we should be eating and actually having the data and being able to talk to, and to go to different places and to see what are people actually eating in these blue zones, for example.

Mm-hmm. The diets are wildly varied. Yeah. And first of all, that's the sidebar, but the biggest thing, the most consistent thing, physical activity, they're moving a lot. And community. Mm-hmm. Community is the hallmark, the most important thing? We, we now have so many [00:23:00] studies on how having a sense of purpose is tied to our longevity, right?

And one of the biggest, another, we're just dropping the big studies here, but one of the biggest studies on human longevity besides that Harvard study, this was conducted by researchers at, at Brigham Young, and this had over 300,000 study participants. They looked at all of their lifestyle factors, track them over time.

Um, so again, smoking habits, diet, uh, exercise habits, the list goes on and on. After compiling all the data, the researchers found that people who had strong social bonds had a 50% boost in longevity versus people who don't. 

Dr Brighten: We all want that 50%. 50% is great. 50%. Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: Said another way. People who do not have strong social bonds have a 50% higher risk of dying prematurely.

And this is the thing from all causes. Mm. From all causes. They looked at beating obesity. They looked at, [00:24:00] at, uh, exercise habits. They, the quality of relationships was the, the most powerful determinant. Mm-hmm. Is so freaking powerful. In talking with Dr. Waldinger, I asked him why, why are relationships so impactful and how long we live?

He said specifically to me that it was because, and again, he did. I like him because he's skeptical like I am about stuff. And so he digs a little bit deeper and from his data, he, what he could gather was that it would, it had to do with stress. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And having healthy social bonds helps us to metabolize stress.

And it's like having somebody just to be able to be there for you, somebody to talk to at the end of the day, this doesn't mean that they're helping you to deal with the problem. And I also asked him, so like as far as like healthy relationships, does this mean you guys don't fight? Like, what does that look like?

He's like, no. He's like, we have these people, we've tracked these people for 80 years. We have videos on them. We have all their family members. We've test their blood. [00:25:00] We track them down every year and all this stuff. We have videos demonstrating exactly what I'm about to tell you. He said that some of our healthiest relationships and, and longest living people, and this was his quote, he said, they fight like cats and dogs.

Dr Brighten: Mm. 

Shawn Stevenson: But the difference was he said they have a bedrock of affection, even if they're like. Talking shit to each other. You know, they're in a little conflict. They touch each other, they hold each other's hand, they rub each other's back. And there's this closeness and there's this ability also to let things go.

Dr Brighten: Mm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. And so these are all qualities that we can pick up and, and utilize. And, you know, again, there isn't a perfect way to go about this, but we do have a pretty good, uh, success leaves clues type of mm-hmm. Situation with this. So 

Dr Brighten: I wanna get into, we're gonna talk more like specifics and around the dinner table and things that people [00:26:00] can do to start to approve on all of this.

But since I have the opportunity to speak to a man and we're talking about loneliness, what are your thoughts about the male loneliness epidemic that's being reported? 

Shawn Stevenson: From my perspective, the reason that our relationships are so impactful on our longevity in our health is that our relationships impact.

These life lifestyle factors mm-hmm. That we have, that we think are about living a healthy life more than anything. Your husband and your kids influence your sleep more than anybody. 

Dr Brighten: Oh, I could tell you that. I don't need a research study for that. 

Shawn Stevenson: They influence your exercise habits. They influence your eating behaviors.

They influence how you process and metabolize stress. Every single aspect of your life that we attribute to longevity, health, or lack thereof, the people around us, our closest relationships are the biggest influence. Alright. That's why we need to focus on that. It's the top down thing. If we can get a culture of wellness and support and like these [00:27:00] principles and characteristics that we want, that's when we have stuff that happens on automatic, not perfect.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: But more stuff on automatic. Now as far as the loneliness epidemic with men in particular, um, this is, this is tough for me to answer. Because I don't like to speak about things that I don't have firsthand experience with. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: But as I say that, and before I decided to, you know, how I was gonna answer this question, I remember a time that I was 

Dr Brighten: mm-hmm.

Shawn Stevenson: And this is when, you know, I was 20 years old. 20 from 20 to 22. And there's a distinction here. Okay. So I had this chronic health issue, uh, so-called incurable spinal condition, which is since been resolved. Of course. I said that's [00:28:00] what got me into the field. But at the time, deeply entrenched in that, uh, definitely depressed.

I was not moving around. I was eating. 95% ultra processed foods. I was living in Ferguson, Missouri. I was living in poverty. Uh, the list goes on, just checking all the boxes of like, the conditions are stacked for you to feel like shit. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And to feel alone. And my mom, again, she's a survivor. Uh, the reason I was able to pay my rent in my college apartment in Ferguson was because I would get like a, I had scholarships and grants, and I would get a, a refund check like every semester.

Mm-hmm. And that's how I paid my rent. My mom reached out, she said she needed help with her bill, I think it was for her rent. And she's like, she'll give it right back to me. And I was like, mom, like I have to pay this rent, or, you know, you know what's gonna happen. And so she's like, I'll give it right back to you, you know, [00:29:00] at the, you know, first of the month.

So I give her the money and then. When the time came around, my mom ghosted me. I couldn't 

Dr Brighten: completely ghosted you, 

Shawn Stevenson: ghosted me. She wouldn't return my calls. Um, my own mother. Yeah. And so I'm already down and out and just feeling terrible. I'm only taking three credit hours now. I, in school, I went from a full credit load to just one class, barely hanging on.

'cause I was embarrassed to walk around campus. Mm-hmm. Could barely walk. I was in chronic pain and now my mom left me to get kicked out on the streets. And so how I got in touch with her is that I called her from another phone and she picked up and she said that she, oh, she, she mailed the check to the leasing office.

Dr Brighten: Mm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And me, but I know my mom, I know she didn't. But my hopeful self, still hoping I went to leasing office. Like, Hey, did, did my mom, her name's Linda, like, did she mail the check in? Like, and they were like, no, sorry. They looked through everything. Like, no, sorry. [00:30:00] And so I felt like my own mother wasn't even there for me.

You know? And, um, again, she was just trying to survive. She knew that I was strong. I'd figure it out in her core, or maybe she didn't, but that's what I choose to believe. And so to say that I was lonely is an understatement. Mm-hmm. Like it was, it was dark. Dark period. Now, all the while I had these little, you know, little relationships, you know, like different girls I was messing with and that kind of thing.

But I was still lonely. I felt by myself. Mm-hmm. And what that did, it made me very self-centered. It made me very much concerned about myself, but I didn't want to be that person. Like I felt, and I had a good example for my grandparents. Like I want that kind of love, like as an imprint when I was younger.

So it stuck around, but also, you know, I didn't feel. Yeah, I just was doing, I was basically acting like my mom. [00:31:00] 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. Like if this 

Shawn Stevenson: girl can help me to do this, I'll be like, I'll spend more time with her, whatever. You know, that kind of, it's terrible. It's terrible. 

Dr Brighten: Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: But this is what I was living through, and I'm saying this to say that I was deeply alone and I couldn't have even seen the possible connection if I wanted to, because I was just mentally not equipped to accept it.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right? And so I know what it's like to feel deeply alone and this darkness that you could feel with that. And it was hard just to get out of bed. I also know for a lot of men today, it's so much more complicated because of technology and how we're meeting people and not, not to mention not you being seen, but you being prejudged and just all this stuff like.

We're rarely seeing the person in front of us, like actually seeing them. Mm-hmm. You know? [00:32:00] And so it creates another layer of feeling isolated and feeling alone, feeling like you're not good enough. We're constantly measuring ourselves against what we see on social media. You know, it used to just be tv, you know?

Dr Brighten: Yeah. But now 

Shawn Stevenson: it's just constant, you know, comparing yourself. And so it's more and more isolating us and I get it. I get it. And sometimes because of that, when we do find some attention, it's not the right attention and, but because we're not, it's not even looking for love. We're just looking for something.

Looking for connection. 

Dr Brighten: Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: And we'll start and we'll settle. And what that tends to do is feed back into that loneliness because we didn't address the real thing. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. And which is, and I'm just gonna say what it is, because I experienced it, the remedy for loneliness and that social isolation for me was changing me.

I didn't know that getting myself healthier [00:33:00] was going to lead to me thinking differently. It just made it easier for me to think more aspirational. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. For 

Shawn Stevenson: me to start to see the potential opportunities and good people that were in my life. Just around, I walked past these people, right. And I started to see differently.

And as you know, like our perception is our reality and even the solution for myself, you know, getting healthier and feeling better. The, like first quote, health food store that I went to, I went there with a girl that I've been like messing with, you know, but we never went anywhere. Mm-hmm. She was in chiropractic school in Logan.

Shout out to Logan in, in Missouri, one of the top schools, uh, chiropractic schools. I just thought she was so weird, like super weird. 

Dr Brighten: And did she take you to the health food store? Let me ask you, did it smell funky? 

Shawn Stevenson: It was, they had the wheat grass right on the counter. Yeah. It, it smelled like wheat grass.

Dr Brighten: This is the thing, like people talk about like health food stores now. I'm like, you have no idea back in the day how funky they [00:34:00] smelled. I remember just like, and like if you went in there, like you were a special type of person Yeah. To like even go there. Yep. 

Shawn Stevenson: It was wild oats. Mm. So like it was ins the incense were blending up.

Dr Brighten: Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: Crazy. You know, the wheat grass and um, but that health food store I had driven past literally, I'm not exaggerating a thousand times 'cause it's right off the highway going back and forth. I didn't know it existed. And there was a book there that changed my life. 

Dr Brighten: What book was it? 

Shawn Stevenson: It was called Nutrition Prescription.

Dr Brighten: Oh, I know this book right where you got, I bought that book at a health food store in like my twenties. Oh my God. Like with the orange, white cover. Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: It's one of those like quintessential health books. And for me it was because like I was in college and I. Had all these different aspirations, but I was, I'm very analytical and I'm very proof oriented.

Mm-hmm. I want to see like, is this re, is this true? And so they had, there were studies in there that was affirming the data. I looked, went and looked up my condition with this degenerative [00:35:00] disc disease. Mm-hmm. And previous to getting that diagnosis, I broke my hip at track practice. 

Dr Brighten: Oh my gosh. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right from running.

Yeah. Like, there's no, I didn't fall, just my bone density was so low. And so one of the studies in the book was on Omega-3 fatty acids because I thought I was like, calcium, I was deficient in calcium, my body's breaking down and I, so I'm guzzling milk every day. It's just like, and just getting worse and having all of these like allergy symptoms, asthma, all this stuff.

And, um, so this study was, it was, it was done on, there was like, uh, 500 women in the study. There was hundreds of women in the study. And they found that when, when these women were deficient in these Omega-3 fatty acids, their bodies, their bones, their bone disting, their hips and their spine was degenerating.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And so by increasing their Omega-3 intake, they were able to resolve this issue. And that was my two problems, my spine and my hips. And I'm just like, this is [00:36:00] crazy. Like, what are the odds of this? 

Dr Brighten: Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: And so I started to take all these supplements, right? Uh, because it wasn't just that, I also asked, what if my spine is degenerating?

What is my spine made of? Right? Mm-hmm. So the omega threes are just one thing. So, you know, of course calcium, but like, is it bioavailable for me? What other nutrients help me to uptake that? Um, my body needs calcium to clot my blood. So it's a hierarchy of needs. If I'm deficient in calcium and my body needs to clot my blood, it's like, fuck your hips right now.

Like, I'm just gonna just take that. Mm-hmm. Right. And so. That, uh, the omega threes, I didn't know how important vitamin C was for tissue growth and bone density line of 

Dr Brighten: falling is like, ah, 

Shawn Stevenson: sir. Yeah. Just all this stuff. And I thought I was getting them 

Dr Brighten: Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: On my, you know, you know, having the Centrum one a day 

Dr Brighten: mm-hmm.

Shawn Stevenson: Or whatever. But the big problem for me was what I was putting into my body that was leaching and robbing [00:37:00] my body of all these different nutrients, trying to process all this garbage mm-hmm. And keep me alive. Right. And so, you know, um, long story, long, um, you know, having my awareness and my perception change about who I am, about the people around me, the world around me, help me to see the opportunities and really cultivate those relationships that I, beyond anything I could have ever imagined, but it's because I changed.

Dr Brighten: Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: And that's the hardest thing is to change ourselves. 

Dr Brighten: Yeah. What I just heard is, you know, as I frame this question about male loneliness epidemic is that there's a lot of personal responsibility in cultivating who you actually wanna be if you wanna have that connection. And I think the, the, the really big problem that we're seeing right now, and as a mother of two sons, the fear is like going, you know, you're having your child go down like an Andrew Tate pipeline, right?

Because they have loneliness and his [00:38:00] whole shtick is that it's everyone else but you, women are the problem. Women are bad. And we, we start to see that these men, they're preying on other men who are lonely. And I'm not saying that like. If you're lonely, it's because you are the problem. But there are things to cultivate within yourself to make you a desirable person, to be in community with.

And this is something I've shared with several guests, actually, just this weekend is like, I'm raising two boys. I have a responsibility to raise men that people wanna be in relationship with. Like that is part of my responsibility and how I look at those things. I mean, even. I had knee surgery. I told my husband like, you need to take the boys and get me flowers.

And he's like, are you saying I'm not doing a good job as a husband? Like I, I'm like, I don't even care about the flowers. Okay. I honestly don't care. I just wanna go home and go to bed. When I come from home, from the hospital, I want my boys to know that like there are acts that you can do things to help someone feel better.

And just the [00:39:00] act of thinking about them is important in the relationship. And um, there's times where there's just me as who I am. There's things I just don't care. I don't care if you got me flowers for that. Like I don't care about those things. But I'm like, no, but these things are really important.

Some people really value these things. And so we have to think about, you know, as parents, how do we raise them in a way and model those things? Because I mean, you have the model health show, you know it better than anyone else is that it's not enough to say words. You have to actually show. And as you were talking about before, like showing in relationship.

How you know that what you see as a child is what you emulate or what you have to break. And breaking and breaking it down and leaving a model that was toxic is so much harder than building upon one that was solid. And like you said, we're not doing everything right. I definitely have my like, and you were saying people listening, you're like, you have days where you're like, I'm the worst mother in the world, and then you're like, no, I'm, I'm not, [00:40:00] but I wanna try harder.

I wanna do better. In the same vein of talking about family, what's a belief about like health and the family dynamic that you think a lot of experts and even doctors are getting wrong? 

Shawn Stevenson: Mm-hmm. Wow. This one is tough because there's quite a few. 

Dr Brighten: Yeah. Um, and you've spent a lot of time in the science.

That's why I'm curious 'cause I know science is saying one thing, but the practice of medicine and even what experts are out there telling people it's not, it's not congruent with what the science says. Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: This is the, like the, the undercurrent of a lot of things we're already talking about. We're so disconnected from ourselves and we're, we're programmed to look outside of ourselves for somebody to fix us.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And for somebody to see us, for somebody to help us. And that is wonderful. We're, we're human. We're, we're, we're a human family and we are all connected. So that matters. But not being taught about [00:41:00] how to care for oneself, how to pay attention to your own body signals. And how to, you know, again, even on the mental health side, just basic things.

This is what we're getting wrong because we're unfortunately ending up in the doctor's office after things have broken down so badly. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. And so our physicians who I've got, I mean my friends and colleagues, top of the top, best of the best in their respective fields. I know the top gastroenterologists in the world, top cardiologists, you name it, RU rheumatologist.

Um, but they're in the business of fixing things. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right? They're not in the business of preventing things. Alright. And so what we have wrong, the biggest thing we have wrong is a lack of education on prevention and getting people out of your office to not come back. Mm-hmm. Because we're fixing the root cause.

That's number one. So that's the big broad thing. [00:42:00] Alright. 

Dr Brighten: I agree. 100% cosign. 

Shawn Stevenson: Yes. The, the number one key to that were getting wrong. I was getting wrong. Right? Because I'm just like, well, they need to educate about food more. And I was that person, like my colleagues would be referring, who were running their practices working in hospitals.

They would send them to me as a nutritionist to help people with their food. Right? Which is great, but most of 'em didn't, didn't have access to me as far as like the medical community, right? Mm-hmm. And also I was just, I was working at St. Louis at the time, and there wasn't podcasting and all this stuff to get it out in broader way.

Um, but food, wasn't it? It was our culture around food. Mm-hmm. It was our culture and our household. Because what I found was that whenever somebody would be referred to me. And I'd ask them like, okay, so we go through, so somebody comes in, we'll just say they have, they've newly diagnosed with type two diabetes.

I would take them through, I had this big whiteboard, like we [00:43:00] reverse engineer the disease. Like, and here, this is your liver. This is, you know, this is the, you know, your bloodstream and glucose and uh, you know, all these different enzymes and, and, and hormones and here's how it all works. Right? You don't just see the food and then, you know, it just does nothing.

Right? We, we go through and actually deconstruct how it works. And every time, I cannot think of a time when somebody's eyes were just like, not lit up, just like, oh my God, I can't believe that that's happening in my body. This makes sense. Mm-hmm. Nobody's told me how diabetes works. I just have high blood sugar.

Right? Yeah. 'cause of my diet, apparently, like if they get that piece and there's nothing I could do about it, they put me on metformin, you know, or eventually I put on insulin. And so we do that part. I was like, okay. So now we figured out they would go home. And so frequently if they struggled, they would come back and report to me that it was [00:44:00] because of their husband.

It was because of their kids. It was because of their wife. It was because of their friends. It was because of all these, their were relationships. Mm-hmm. Were what were deterrent them from doing the thing that they say that they wanted to do. Right. So there's a lot of finger pointing, a lot of blaming.

Not to say that that did not matter because it did. Of course there's a self accountability part, right. We have to keep that in context, but also their environment was contributing to the choices that they were making. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And so what we've got to do as practitioners in the medical field is help people to create a healthier culture at home.

So the decisions are automatic. They're sending people well-intentioned into an environment that is sick. It's just feeding sickness. And so it takes the will of like a thousand men or a thousand women to be able to make healthy [00:45:00] choices in a wildly sick environment. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And that's what I was facing when I lived in Ferguson.

Like, I go out my door liquor store, every fast food you can name. There's no organic. I didn't even know what that was. Yeah. There's no, there's no gym. There's not even a gym in my community, you know? And going to the local park, like, of course there's like a pull up bar there, but you can get shot. 

Dr Brighten: Yeah.

Shawn Stevenson: All right. There's been so many shootings up there at that particular, you know, I go up there and play basketball sometimes, but I know when I probably should, should not go right. Mm-hmm. Or head home. And so there are all these obstacles and, you know, for me to change my health in that situation, it took, it took everything.

It took so much. So much more than the average person has to give. Right. I was laid out on the floor rock bottom. I, I felt like that was, I didn't have a choice. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And my character is very like, you, you know, very [00:46:00] strong-willed. And so, but for most people it's not fair. Yeah. It's not fair to even put them in that situation.

So, um, that's the big missing piece is not treating a person, but treating the family. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Not treating the per the person, but treating the, the environment. Right. Stop sending people out to try to figure things out in an environment that is fighting against them. Let's, let's make it easier. Let's make it, let's normalize, let's normalize health and fitness.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. I appreciate what you just touched on because it is what gets left out of these conversations of like, health wellness, Maha doctor's offices, like across the board. Is that not everybody has equal access to the things that we know make them healthy, right? So, so often people are like, you just need to eat this, or you need to work out more.

And not having the understanding that there's an entire environmental piece, [00:47:00] especially within the United States, that I think is being conveniently ignored. I think it's easy to put it like on the individual and say, you need to fix this. You need to eat better. You need to exercise. You need, need, need, need to do all of these things, and negate the fact that access isn't there for everyone and the very thing you're telling them to do.

I mean, you're saying. I could go to the park, I could work out, but I could also get shot. Like we are always doing risk benefit analysis in medicine when we make recommendations. But does anyone stop to pause to think like, I could tell you to go work out, but the risk there is dying instantly. Not working out is you die in 20 years from now.

So like how do we find the middle ground there? But I just think it's a really important part of the conversation to highlight because too often, you know, you and I came from backgrounds that most of the people we interact with on podcast in the health [00:48:00] space, they have no idea. They have no concept of what it's like to have food scarcity to not know, like.

If you're going to be safe to live under threat by the people that should have loved you unconditionally, but they are the biggest threat in your life on a day-to-day basis, lighting up your cortisol. Like it's these kinds of things that they're uncomfortable, right? Nobody wants to hear about it. Nobody wants to talk about it.

And when we talk about it, they wanna say, well, but you're the success story. Like, but you made it out so see, everyone can do it. 

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for saying that. This, okay. There are very few ultimate truths. All right. But I'm from my spirit right now. What I wanna say is that the truth is it's a both and world.

Mm-hmm. It's not an either or. And why would, there's a big reason we have so much dissonance and these two incredibly, [00:49:00] um, I don't even know the word at this point. I don't even know we're so opposing. Is because it's either or it is. So it's this or that. We are programmed to believe there's this or that.

And I gotta have some context. It's, I'm grateful that we have a this or that. Mm-hmm. I'm grateful we have two choices. Some countries have, there's one. Right. But to think that it's black or white, this or that. Uh, either or is just stupid. Alright. It's both. And it's a both end world. There is a huge space for your personal responsibility and accountability.

There's also a huge space for you to understand the context of the environment and the social structures and the things that you're dealing with because they could be dramatically different and outright dangerous for somebody. Like when people talk about this stuff, I come from that. Like, I actually know what it's like.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And when we push it all the way onto not [00:50:00] having access, no, that's not true. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: I had access. I just didn't have awareness and also sometimes capacity. There's different things that can get in the hurdles to access, but I just needed to know it was possible. Right. Because, funny enough, as I'm saying, there was no organic section in the grocery store.

There was a farmer's market. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: That was five minutes from my house. I didn't know existed this whole time with the prices, half the price easily of Whole Foods. 

Dr Brighten: That's the thing. I'm like, I look back at college and I'm like, man, if it wasn't for farmer's markets, sometimes 

Shawn Stevenson: here's the rub. The farmer's market was right next door to the police station.

Dr Brighten: I was trying 

Shawn Stevenson: to, I was, that's 

Dr Brighten: wise for them though. I mean, they're like, we wanna be close proximity to like, people, people are gonna hesitate before they try to run off with my like, you know, lettuce or pear. Well, 

Shawn Stevenson: you know, whatever the context might be for that situation. I didn't want to, I didn't even want to drive down that street.

Mm-hmm. [00:51:00] Because again, I'm from Ferguson. All right. My plot, my plotted path to get to the university, uh, university of Missouri, where I was going was how do I avoid the police? 

Dr Brighten: I'm curious, like, are there things that people can identify about their health or maybe the way they're living their life that points to, this isn't a diet issue, this isn't an exercise issue, this is a community relationship loneliness issue.

Shawn Stevenson: This speaks to the importance of being able to self-assess, which is complex in of itself. Um, awareness, being able to listen to a show like this or like my show and just being able to get these different data points and things to consider is very difficult to, you know, um, identify what a problem is if you don't know what it could possibly be, if that makes sense.

Mm-hmm. Right. And so being able to tune into education, get educated. Start to turn over [00:52:00] some stones that you normally might not turn over. You know, like it's so unfortunate that for years so many people didn't know that various chronic diseases were diet related. Right. And the biggest data set that we have on chronic disease in America is published in JAMA Journal, the American Medical Association, 2018.

Affirmed Poor Diet is the number one cause of our epidemics of chronic diseases. Right. Diet is a huge thing. I didn't know that. Mm. I had no idea that the food that I was eating had any impact on this degenerative condition that I had. Right. My physician told me that I had the spine of an 80-year-old.

He told me that this was incurable. He said that he's sorry that it happened to me. It's so young. He's never seen a case like this before. We're gonna get your back brace. We're gonna get you some medication. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. We're 

Shawn Stevenson: gonna write you a, um, a note so that you don't have to work. Right. Nobody asked what caused.

This accelerated aging condition in a 20-year-old body. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. And [00:53:00] so being able to, um, get the relationship where this thing even matters, right. So we know that diet matters and that's changing right now, thankfully is a bigger part of the conversation just in conventional medicine is it's it's amazing.

Yeah. It's amazing what's happening, the, how that happened, technology. Mm-hmm. So it's not either or earlier that we were making technology sound pretty bad. 

Dr Brighten: Yeah, it is. Well, it can suck sometimes it can suck, 

Shawn Stevenson: but it can also be incredibly life affirmative. Mm-hmm. You know, this is how people are listening to this or watching right now.

Right. It's such a valuable gift. It's a both end world and it can also be something incredibly degrading. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And so the right use of technology has really helped to change what's happening in medicine. And I've never seen, I mean, it happened very quickly. Where we have so many integrated physicians 

Dr Brighten: mm-hmm.

And 

Shawn Stevenson: functional medicine docs and 

Dr Brighten: Oh, trust. Just like five years ago I was still a quack because I [00:54:00] talked about nutrition. Yeah, yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: That, 

Dr Brighten: that, like, that had no bearing on anything. I mean, it was the biggest, um, I remember when I was studying for my nutrition degree and hearing doctors saying like, nothing that you eat has any impact on your health.

And I'm like, I eat something. It becomes me. It makes me run like every, you know, like a little machine that I am, like everything runs on what I am eating. Tell me how that makes sense. And literally they're like, there's no science. And I'm like, but there's common sense. Imagine that. Like, and there was science, but there's the choice to ignore science.

That happens. 

Shawn Stevenson: Exactly. When I was in college, you know, studying biology, looking at the cell parts, cell and brain mitochondria, nucleus. We are not taught that that nucleus is made from the nutrients you eat. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: The cell membrane is made from your meals. Right. Your mitochondria is made from the menu that you choose to eat from.

Our parts don't happen outta [00:55:00] nowhere. It's coming from the food that we eat and the quality of the parts that we make can be dramatically different. The energy that is all running on can be dramatically different, but our bodies are resilient. That's the cool thing about us. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: We can, we can do like the most messed up stuff.

We can eat straight up fake food for years and years and years and our body will find another way to operate. Yeah. And what we will label that as is insulin resistance. It's just trying to protect us from all this abnormal amount of fake foods, sugar that we're bringing to the body. It's just finding a new way to, to operate.

Mm-hmm. Right. It's a, it's an adaptation, but we are calling these adaptations incurable disease. That is so unfortunate. So self-inquiry on, you know, nutrition, my sleep habits, right? Being able to self-assess,

jumping right. To [00:56:00] taking whatever I, you know, peptides incredibly popular. But jumping right to that, if you're not sleeping well or testosterone therapy 

Dr Brighten: mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And you're not even trying, okay. Sometimes that can help you to sleep, right? Taking a various peptide or hormone replacement therapy of some sort.

It could be helpful in you sleeping, but if you just don't give a shit and you just want to binge watch TV all the time, be on your phone. Mm-hmm. And then take this thing outside of yourself to try to make you better, we're missing a point. All right. So your sleep quality. Um, being able to honestly self, self-assess that, getting education around that.

Uh, obviously the tip of the spear for me is, is, um, I was gonna say exercise, but your relationships. Right. Our relationships and investing in that, getting educated about that. You know, read a book on it, you know, um, tune into podcasts that are helping to get some education and being careful about [00:57:00] not buying in completely to one way of thinking about any of this stuff.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Because what I found to be successful over time is that for most people, they'll find something that works for a certain amount of time, and, but then it'll change. And because they're so bought into that thing that initially worked for them, they'll punish themselves. They'll, they'll start psychologically breaking themselves down again, beating themselves up.

I'm just doing it wrong. I'm not doing it hard enough, whatever the case might be, instead of understanding that life is dynamic, constantly changing. You are dynamic, constantly changing. You have infinite potential, but learning the tools, having tools so that you can self-assess and change whenever the situation calls for it, that's the most powerful thing you could do today.

Mm-hmm. By far. 

Dr Brighten: Well, let me ask you, you have talked a lot about family meals and how those are impacting the health of the adults and the kids in the family dynamic. Why are family meals so important and why are they basically on the endangered species [00:58:00] list? 

Shawn Stevenson: Hmm. So according to researchers at Harvard, only 30% of families eat together now on a regular basis.

Right. This is something that's just a part of our culture mm-hmm. For centuries, right? For thousands of years really. And it's quickly devolved just in the last few decades. And my question was, is there, is there a negative impact on our health by not eating together? And one of the most interesting studies.

That I came across was published in Journal Pediatrics and they were looking at family eating behaviors and they found that kids who ate with their parent or caregivers just three meals a week at minimum, at least, that was the minimum effective dose. Mm-hmm. Three meals per week eating with their parent or caregivers had dramatically reduced risk of developing obesity and disordered eating.

There was something protective against chronic illness by eating with their children. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Alright. [00:59:00] This is the first time I get to talk about this and have context set and it's, but another study was done on minority children mm-hmm. Who are generally in the context of this low income environment because for me, when I heard this, the study about being protective against whatever, I'm just like, what about access?

Right. What about access? Like they, maybe they have the means, the money, whatever they can eat with their kids. Mm-hmm. Right. They have the life structure. So they looked at minority children and what they found was that eating four meals per week with a, with a parent or caregiver, and it could be any meal.

It doesn't have to be dinner, lunch, breakfast, any meal. Mm-hmm. Four meals per week led to these children eating five to seven servings of fruits and vegetables at least five days a week, and dramatically lower intake of ultra processed foods, namely chips and soda. But the researchers noted it was when the TV was never a rarely on.

Dr Brighten: [01:00:00] Interesting. 

Shawn Stevenson: Alright. That was the key. And so I'm saying, I'm saying this in having this context because if my mom would've known, I think she would've done it. She would've done it more frequently. I can count on my hands how many times I ate with my, with my family. I ate with my brothers and sis, my brother, sister a lot.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: But most of the time we just get food and kind of scatter, you know, get in front of tv, play video games, whatever. But it's usually on that outside of holidays, by the way. Holidays, yeah. We keep a family meal, but we just, it wasn't a part of our culture. And I feel that if my mom knew that it was protected for us, she would've done it.

But she had no idea. Mm-hmm. No idea. She loved her kids. Whatever expression that looks like she loved us and if she can find a way to give us an advantage. 'cause we're all eating anyways, why not sit down and eat together? And so it doesn't matter the, the income status, the environment, if we are, if we know this and we're intentional about it, [01:01:00] is protective for our children.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Alright. And we can structure that in a way that works for us. Again, it could have been breakfast, maybe that's the only time you see your kids. Maybe you work the late shift. Right. If you make it a mandate to do that, because you know it matters, you can do it. Uh, lastly, so what about us for as parents.

Big study was done with tech workers at IBM and they found that when parents were able to make it home in time to quote, have, you know, make it in time for dinner, quote. Mm-hmm. They had, uh, dramatically increased work, morale, productivity, and when they were not making it home in time to have dinner with their families, their work morale plummeted how productivity went down.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: And overall job satisfaction went down. And what it was, goes back to Dr. Waldinger researches as well, eating with their family, was helping them to metabolize stress, to process stress. [01:02:00] Again, they don't have to go and talk about their work problems, it's just being around people that you care about.

Uh. Other than consciously, unconscious, subconscious is metabolizing and processing stress rather than just go, go, go, go, go. Dealing with these problems at work. 

Dr Brighten: Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. And so it's good for all of us, and we've already talked about some of the reasons why, but truly that table is a unifier it psychologically for our kids.

It gives us a chance, it gives our kids a chance to feel seen and how rare is that in their lives today we wanna make it a phone free zone, a tech free zone, if at all possible. Mm-hmm. Now there's a, I love watching a game with my son, like he's a basketball player. We, I love to do that, but we also have to make sure that we carve out time to have technology outta the picture.

We talked about how it distracts our brain just having at the table, so. My kids already know, like we just created a culture. But I know that one of the things you would ask about is 

Dr Brighten: you're like, I'm [01:03:00] predicting you already. I learned your patterns, lady. 

Shawn Stevenson: What if our kids are like, they're mad about it. Like, I wanna be on my phone.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: What do you do? Alright, so number one, they're addicted like we are in dealing with, uh, kind of, I'm not gonna say superficial, but I'll just, I'll just say that superficial addiction, we have to utilize a principle of let's replace it with something of equal or greater value. Don't just say, we're gonna have dinner tonight because I heard this on, uh, Dr.

Jolene's show that we need to sit down and eat together to protect your health. This be you all right. Um, 

Dr Brighten: you're like, I have kids trust it will not work. 

Shawn Stevenson: So we have to come to the table literally with something that is attractive, because here's the thing, we know our kids better than anybody on earth.

We know them. [01:04:00] We know what motivates them, what demotivates them. The same thing with our significant others. Win to nothing. I don't wanna have to, I just want you to just do this and that's okay. But the truth is, if we have, if we take care of ourselves a little bit more to give us us a little bit more mental, mental reserve, we can literally come to the table and know how to get everybody to, to get together here.

And so, um, it's definitely easier if your kids are born into it. Right. And whatever age bracket, it can be more difficult. But knowing my motivation, like for my, my, my oldest son, he loves to dance. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right? And so. However, it turned out our, when we start having frequent family dinners together, we end up putting our music and having like, dance battles or, and then that evolved into rap 

Dr Brighten: past, well, him and I not seeing this on social media.

Shawn Stevenson: I was posting this back in the, he's 25 now, but I was frozen in this back in the day. Okay. 

Dr Brighten: I remember you guys dancing. But I'm like, I wanna see [01:05:00] dance offs and battles and like, 

Shawn Stevenson: and it, but then it would, sometimes it would be collaborative. Most it, it evolved into being more collaborative most of the time than a battle.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Um, but it became, like, it got to the point where I bought a microphone. Off Amazon that would, after dinner, we break that out. Somebody who created a beat on the iPad and then like, we just passed the, the microphone around and we freestyle. Mm-hmm. You know, it's just like a part, it was a regular part of our family dinners.

It was something creative, it was something fun and funny or thoughtful. Right. But it just worked for us. I'm not saying everybody should try to, you know, whatever, but it might be music, it might be board games, it might be asking, you know, really fun or funny questions. Right. But it's just getting everybody, uh, in a collective energy.

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. And so, you know what that is for your family, it might be different for different family members. It might be leveraging food, right? Which we don't [01:06:00] necessarily want to use food as like a reward per se. But if you tell your kids like, we're gonna have family dinner tonight, and um, it's gonna be at seven, what dessert do you want?

Oh, I'm invite, I'm involved. Mm-hmm. In this, you know what? Oh, can we have the, whatever, you know, from, from our cookbook. We've got some, um, uh, these pumpkin muffins. Mm-hmm. Oh, we wanna have the pumpkin muffins. Alright, cool. You know, um, this could be utilizing technology as well. So sometimes after dinner.

Yesterday actually, I went and played, uh, PS five with my son, like 2K basketball. Which is, it could get, we can get chippy with each other. That's the one thing. Um, but we played after dinner, we knew that we were gonna game together. So it was like something to look forward to, like, let's, let's eat and then we go and game.

Yeah. Right. Uh, some people play, I didn't know this because I always thought about board games after dinner. Some families played board games. [01:07:00] Board games during dinner. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: Right. And this could be something fun. There's so many, there's so much new stuff now. Like you and me, we play like, sorry, sorry.

Not believe, you know, we played life, uh, we played trouble, you know, shoots and ladders. Did you know, shoots and ladders is called something else in other countries. 

Dr Brighten: What's it called? 

Shawn Stevenson: Snakes and Ladders. 

Dr Brighten: Oh yes, I did. We came across that, I think it was in, uh, the Netherlands. We stayed at a family's house and they had all these board games and my son was like.

Snakes. Right. And it's like, that's kind of, that's a little edgy, right? 

Shawn Stevenson: I found out from my wife, she's from Kenya and Snakes and Ladders. I was like, no, this, it shoots and ladders like slides and whatever. But you know, and, but now there's so many cool games. You can even use technology play heads up. We play heads up a lot.

Mm-hmm. Just right there on your phone, you could download the app. There's different topics that you can use and you can get on teams. Uh, there's a time, like my son was really, really, he's still into Marvel, but like, he was really into Marvel, so [01:08:00] we like got the Marvel kit. 

Dr Brighten: Yeah. 

Shawn Stevenson: And we play like, uh, basically trivia with Marvel.

Mm-hmm. Right. And so. Whatever that looks like I just threw out and I'm just hammering 'em out. But there's so many different creative ideas that you can do as a family to get everybody together at the table. 

Dr Brighten: So let me ask you, with all of this in mind, if you could challenge the listeners to do one thing every day over the next seven days that's gonna have a big impact, mealtime community, you know, family mealtime, whatever it is, what would you challenge them to do that's gonna have a big impact on their life?

Shawn Stevenson: I'd go right off the data and use that minimum effective dose, three family meals per week. 

Dr Brighten: Mm-hmm. 

Shawn Stevenson: But how do you do that? You have to make it sacred. Like I, I'm sure you use some form of a calendar. We've got all this stuff on our calendar that is often not about our family. Mm-hmm. Right. And so, but most of us, ironically we do all that we do for our family.

If they're that important, schedule that time, put [01:09:00] it on your calendar, family meals. Whatever works for you. This could be family dinner on Monday and Thursday and family brunch on Sunday. This could be, you know, breakfast together Monday through Friday. Like whatever it looks like for you. Put it on the calendar because for so many of us, if it's not scheduled, is not real.

And it's just like you can start to debate yourself about it. Putting it on the calendar also starts to activate the planning, right? That comes along with, oh, we know we're having family dinner, so we plan a little bit more. Right? So that's my biggest ask. Biggest homework, most important. It's gonna have so many great impacts in your life.

Schedule those family dinners or family meals, whatever that looks like. Three meals per week. Put it on the calendar. Make it real. 

Dr Brighten: I love that. Well, thank you so much for sitting down with us today, delivering some mind blowing science about loneliness and community, but also giving us actual items so that we can actually move forward to [01:10:00] cultivate better health.

Shawn Stevenson: It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

 

Dr Brighten: Thank you so much for joining the conversation. If you could like, subscribe or leave a review, it helps me so much in getting this information out to everyone who needs it. If you enjoyed this conversation, then I definitely want you to check out this.