Ana Howe 0:04

Welcome to Vitality by Design, the podcast where we explore what it really means to live longer and better.

Carey Howe 0:13

We're your hosts, Anna and Carey, coming to you from Costa Rica, home to one of the world's blue zones, where longevity isn't a trend, it's a way of life.

Ana Howe 0:24

Each week we dive into the science, strategies, and mindset behind optimal health and intentional living, blending modern longevity research with the rhythms, values, and wisdom of life well lived. Because longevity isn't just about adding years to your life, it's about adding life to your years. Let's dive in.

Carey Howe 0:52

All right, so welcome to another episode of Vitality by Design. Today's guest promises to be a very interesting conversation. Uh, it's Dr. Michael J. Hall. And without further ado, I'll let you introduce yourself. Okay. Dr. Hall.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 1:05

Well, hi, I uh I'm here in Miami Beach, and I'm a physician, trained as an ophthalmologist, and then retrained as a generalist. Did an integrative functional medicine fellowship and a traditional Chinese medicine fellowship as well. And then I spent uh uh a substantial amount of time in other healthcare systems around the world, including New Zealand, Sri Lanka, and Africa. So uh-huh.

Carey Howe 1:35

So I practice I'm born in Africa, I'm South African.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 1:38

Okay, well, I I I practice medicine in Tanzania. I took care of uh President Kickwitty, and I take care of uh the King and Queen in Swaziland. Uh-huh. I take care of a lot of people in Africa, I love Africa. Um, but anyway, so I I um ended up spending about a year and a half in New Zealand studying their healthcare system, and I have a a master's in basically the science of healthcare development and management of systems, basically. So I studied sort of what makes the best healthcare system. That's why I went there because I wanted to study what their system was like and and try to understand how a small country like New Zealand is quite healthy and obviously very proactive, uh, maintains their health. So what I did is I kind of encapsulated what I saw and worked with there and brought it back to Miami.

Speaker 3 2:39

Okay.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 2:39

And then in doing that, I created Hall Longevity, which is really kind of uniquely based on proactive integrative functional medicine. But I have my office is set up sort of like what you'd expect for a general surgery, and you know what that is in South Africa. Yeah, it's a doctor's office, but doesn't look like a doctor's office, it's more uh holistic, more personable, and and more inviting. So I really take the patient and put them sort of first, and I take, you know, kind of a very uh you know, holistic and more integrative approach toward you know discerning what the patient needs. And I also look at the element of really thinking outside the box. You know, I don't practice just prescription medicine, which a lot of medicine is. I just don't write, you know, for an RX and send people out the door. I really try to get to the core element of the issue at hand and not treat symptoms. So it's more uh you know focused on well-being and and uh health span. Uh and obviously you look at there's health span versus lifespan, and you know the difference in between the two, but the audience may not. But the point is that yeah, when you look at someone through their timeline of health, you know, from zero, you know, or actually conception up until you know their their age at which you meet them, there's a lot of things that happen. And of course, you know, part of that is emotional and psychological, part of it is is uh their epigenetics, you know, their environment. And we try to look at all those things and and put together a program for people.

Carey Howe 4:21

Very nice. So one of the things that sort of stood out, you know, when I was sort of researching you um before today's conversation was that um, you know, the solving the aging equation, right? Everybody's super interested in, you know, uh, you know, how much control do we really have over aging and and what is the future of aging? And and and like you know, you said here, there's a quote, you know, extend your prime, not just your lifespan, right? And so, you know, how did you it seems you started this long before it was really like in style to sort of go down the wellness road and not do the traditional medicine and whatnot. And so it seems like um long before others you were into this. And so, how did that happen? What was it in your life that sort of made that change?

Dr. Michael J. Hall 5:13

Well, I think it probably happened when I took my trip to New Zealand, really. I think that you know, I was practicing American-style medicine when I was in New Zealand, I saw sort of this different approach, and part of it involved food and of course activity, and those were things that were kind of incorporated into the lifestyle of the Kiwi. And most of the folks I saw, you know, of course, now there's diabetes and hypertension, all kinds of things in all cultures, but generally speaking, they're a very healthy group. And part of the reason why I wrote my book was that, and and this kind of ties things together, throughout all my training and experience and and going to conferences and attending, you know, the undoing aging conference in Berlin with Aubrey de Grey and going to Monaco for the World Congress on anti-aging, I was around the really the smartest people that could possibly be in a room. We're talking about people from Japan and Korea and all over France and Germany, the best minds. And what I found is that everything led back to lifestyle. Lifestyle is the key element behind health and wellness, and it's not a magic bullet, right? It's a consistent sort of play on the things that I talk about in the book, and it's and I talk about the essence of sort of like these Ten Commandments of longevity. And part of it is being psychologically present, part of it's your spirituality and how you relate to sort of this other innate form of energy and whether or not you even have that, and getting to the core elements of sleep, movement, you know, nutrition, all these things really kind of buttress what I think is the most important part of health. And so, yeah, the longevity piece, you know, I called it longevity just because that was a term that I felt, and this is before there was even, you know, there wasn't even an iPhone when I started the practice. So, I mean, these are things I kind of created on my own and developed, you know, kind of a relationship with with uh a mindset that I wanted patients to be able to get. And a lot of people didn't understand what longevity meant. They thought that I was selling dickhard pills or that I was, you know, a guy just slinging TRT or you know, testosterone and estrogen or whatever, and they just they didn't understand, hey, Dr. Hall actually looks at you know this sphere of health rather than just you know one linear axis. And if I have you know a problem, you know, he's gonna solve the ultimate reason for the problem rather than just treat the symptoms. And I think that is really kind of where this is led because I think now, and if you and if you read the book, you know, you read into the book, the the aging funnel is sort of this, it's a it's an abstract idea of, you know, aging is abstract, right? But the idea of trying to put a funnel sort of into this milieu of what aging is, and the aperture, you know, at the top of the funnel is wide. And of course, when you get down to the end of the funnel, the base of the funnel, that's where it becomes narrow. That narrowing is the entropy, that's the the aging and oxidative stress that people experience throughout their lives. And the idea is that you want to keep the aperture of the funnel open as wide as possible as you can throughout life, and then and that's done, and we have you know an epigenetic component, which is your environment. You know, it's kind of the exteriorization beyond what your genetics are, right? And then you have the genetic. So those two things are constantly sort of need to be in balance, and that sort of then allows that that aperture to stay open as you get you know older and as you go through life, that you know, obviously things you know affect you, whether genetic or epigenetic things, and the the funnel narrows, and then people start adding things. Oh, I'm gonna add a peptide. Well, if you're not keeping that that aperture wide through these lifestyle modifications and and differentiating yourself that way, then if you start adding TRT or peptides or whatever it is, your nutraceuticals at the base of the funnel where it's more narrow, you're not gonna change anything. You know, that there's not you're not gonna move the needle, so to speak, you know. So that's sort of the the idea is to take people and say, you need to intuitively understand that these other things are important that you already know and maybe you don't recognize or you don't consciously participate in, and then and then you can do the other things as you need. I don't think there's any problem. There are tools in a toolbox, you know. And if you have uh a health issue, you know, obviously we have different tools, whether it's you know, hormone replacement or or peptides or whatever else or or drugs, you know, for that matter. It's just we want to be as holistic as we possibly can and let the body do most of the work, you know, and that's the goal.

Carey Howe 10:09

Yeah, I think that's so important what you just said there. You know, a lot of people sort of mistake the the whatever term you want to give it, you know, wellness, biohacking, longevity. There's all these terminologies, but in the end, um it's not like a magic pill to overcome bad diet, bad habits, bad sleep. You know, it's and and my wife and I joke, we're like, yeah, you can't put rocket fuel in the in the moped and expect it to deliver results of a Ferrari, right? That's right.

Speaker 3 10:43

That's exactly right. Yeah, that's what I mean.

Carey Howe 10:45

A lot of these things are are fairly inexpensive and it's and it's um it's not a money thing. You have to be, you know, like one of the, you know, one of the the people you treat, you know, stars and all these, they have a lot of money, and people think that it's a money thing, right? And but if you get good sleep, um, your recovery is good, you you get sunlight, you walk, you enjoy nature a little bit, you you keep your mindset, your emotional intelligence, you know, well, I think that that helps. You know, now peptides or or hormone, you know, taking testosterone, these things, they they add to it, you know, it's not a magic pill, right? And so many people, I think, get that wrong. They're like, yeah, you know, I want to party all week or weekend with my friends, and then I want to, and during the week, I want to take these magic pills, and suddenly I should be in optimum shape or or or health.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 11:39

Well, let me let me give you an example. A lot of people in your neighborhood, you know, they take ayahuasca or they're going on their plant-based journey with San Pedro or whatever they're doing, you know, they're they're they're toad venom. And I know, you know, yes, and and they go there for their rehab because they they want their digital detox or they're they're they're strung out on drugs or alcohol. And then they say, Oh, I'm going on this spiritual journey, but they're short, they're short circuiting and trying to bypass what the real hard work is. And I have clients that don't want to do the hard work, they want the quick fix. And the hard work is what I would said before, spirituality, lifestyle, social you know, awareness, being in groups, not being alone. All of that really has you know significant impact on health that you know oftentimes probably uh underestimated by most people. And they think, well, I'm doing okay, you know, I'm only 30 pounds overweight, or I'm gonna have another burger, I'm gonna go have you know, barbecue this weekend and watch the football game. Well, but what are they doing to themselves? You know, I it they're obviously not self-aware uh enough to be cognizant that those things are gonna negatively you know impact them. And that's a simple thing. I mean, I can tell patients, hey, you know, we can lose weight by doing this or that, but everybody wants a peptide, right? They want a GLP one. I have people that are very smart and sophisticated that are on GLP ones and they can eat their pizza and burger. It's ridiculous, you know. So they they use it sort of as a again, as a shortcut uh to bypass sort of self-control and discipline and what you need, you know, to maintain good health.

Carey Howe 13:17

Yeah, it's unit's unfortunate, but we you're right. We see a lot of that here, you know, here in Costa Rica. Uh, we have a longevity clinic here, and we get people coming in that you know, they're always it's the term, oh, I came here to heal from this, that, or the other, ayahuasca, whatever. Yeah. It's like, but you can't, you know, it this is a long process, you know. You got to start with healthy lifestyle. You know, number one thing that we find is that people drink alcohol and believe that they're gonna get on this life, you know, make these changes. It just it's it's conflicting uh, you know, it's conflicting paths, right? There is no there is no wellness plan for bad diet, bad habits, bad sleep. It just you can't get to it, right? Uh it has to have all those things. And and and you seem to focus on one thing like the mentality of it, you know, the mindset, which is huge, right?

Dr. Michael J. Hall 14:13

You can't um I have a chat, I have a couple chapters that actually really emphasize that. And so I don't know if you you read into the book at all, but that that is so important, you know, it's really training your thinking and mind to redevelop patterns, you know, they're healthy because society distracts you from that, right? It it programs you to behave uh sort of in a fashion that's more groupthink and the gaslights, you know, people will believe certain things, uh, you know, the cognitive dissonance, you know, you you know, and I go around, you know, people you know, believe things. You're like you, you know, you can't believe your lying eyes, right? You know, it's like all this stuff on Instagram. I need a peptide, I need this, you know, I just got you know, uh a stack of of Wolverine and this and that. It's like, but what are you doing? You know, what are you treating? You know, it's just because you jumped on the bandwagon. Uh and and you probably know that. And it's just partly trying to, it's it's education. A lot of what I do is education, and and my clinic is really highly educational for people because I'll come in to you know, a consultation with someone and spend two hours explaining sort of who I am, what I do, but also emphasize the things we just talked about. And sometimes that's enough, you know, to kind of trigger thought process, you know, that might might change someone's uh overall mindset toward their health. I do believe that's important. You can't spend five minutes with a patient and in an institute any kind of real change, you know. And I I really believe that laying hands on a patient, being there, you know, being the old style doctor is super important too. I take my patient's blood, I give them an IV, I do the procedure, I don't really let anybody else touch the patient. And the patient really respects that because this is Dr. Hall doing it. Dr. Hall's taking, you know, my life in his hands. We just had a woman from San Francisco, and she she was like, I really trust you because you have my life in your hands, right? And that that's a significant statement. And I take that very seriously. That is a big statement, right? It is so I think we've bastardized healthcare and we've been through the marketing and SEO and all the e-commerce. It's just it's been diluted, right? And you have these these peptide bros, you know, out there slinging this stuff, and everybody wants to make a buck. And it's it's really, we were at the PepMed conference in DC with actually health and human services people. It was a pretty tremendous experience of having the bureaucrats, the regulators, you know, the lawyers, the providers, the researchers, all in one room. And peptides are here to stay. You know, peptides have been around. Insulin's a peptide, HGH is a peptide, obviously, the lot of peptides that the body makes. There's some that are synthetic that obviously we use too. But the point is, this is a field that's growing, and these are tools that can be used and deployed. You know, we would want to deploy them, you know, intelligently, but the system is so skewed now that we have to be super careful not to get shut down, you know, and the FDA could do that.

Carey Howe 17:27

Yeah. Yeah, super important. I mean, a lot of these people that we get that, you know, want, you know, at the clinic that want peptides or want this, you know, it's like, well, what what are you trying to accomplish? They don't even know, they just know they need them. They've heard on on social media. They don't want to take a blood test. They don't, it's like, well, how it's how do you measure what's immeasurable? Like you have to know where a baseline, we have to take your blood, we have to see what your body says, and then we'll we'll, you know, number one, we got to get to the the basics, right? The sleep, the recovery, the exercise, the diet, and then you can go on to things. And you know, some of the peptides, as you know, don't even work that great unless your cells are in better shape. So there's a process to it, right? So you got to get your mitochondria in shape before you're gonna take other peptides, and the peptides will work much better once you do get your mitochondria in shape, right? So I think people don't understand this.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 18:28

Well, they've been, you know, like I said, they've been you know, around their friends who have it and they want it and they want the shortcut and they don't want to get, like you say, the blood work or they want to do this. They think it's sort of like uh taking a vitamin in a lot of ways, you know. Oh, I just it's like a vitamin, you know, it's normal, it's normal, normal, natural to have a peptide in a syringe and put it in your belly now. But but we don't, you know, listen, I mean, I I think what's happened, and I I'm not poo-pooing any of this because a lot of people just they're followers, right? But as myself, I have to be a leader. I that's part of the reason why I'm speaking to you, part of the reason why I wrote the book. You know, I've been in this space a while, I have a certain amount of experience and and and awareness, and I think there are people that want to know kind of what's best for them, and that's why maybe they'll listen to this, you know.

Carey Howe 19:19

Yeah, so let's talk about that. Like, so for people listening to this, you know, they're gonna say, Well, yeah, what if I wanted to, you know, I have the I want to get on track, I want to do this. You mentioned something, the Ten Commandments of Longevity, right? And can you speak to that a little bit, like briefly explain each principle and why it matters? Just sure, for someone who doesn't understand anything.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 19:44

I mean, basically the the Ten Commandments of longevity kind of stem from what we just talked about, having sort of this I want to say dialogue with yourself about how you're treating yourself, you know, looking at the community that you live in and your social experience. That's definitely one of the top ones because being alone and being disconnected from others uh creates obviously uh emotional disconnect, right? And and then that creates you know mood disorders and things, and people get anxious and they can't sleep. And and we live in a very atomized sort of world now where people are very individualized and they live that way, and and it's hard for people even to relate to one another now through regular conversation because everything's done through text or some kind of DM or something, it's it's really accepted that you know we're not interacting as we we should. I talk about of course, spirituality is such an important thing to me because I believe that if we don't have some base of spirituality, we're not grounded, you know, we're we're we're somewhat adrift. And you can be a Jewish person or Islamic or a Christian or Hindu or Buddhist, whatever, you know, whatever your flavor is, I don't I don't judge any of that. I just basically say, you know, you need to connect with a higher power or purpose because that's energy. And I I live in a frequency of love as much as I can because the other frequency is fear, right? Correct. So so if you're in fear, your adrenal system is kicked in, you're in fight or flight, you have high cortisol, you're not well, right? Your mind isn't at rest. When I'm in in the spiritual zone or when I'm living in that moment, and I and I live in the moment, and that's really what I try to impress upon people too, to live in the now. You don't have tomorrow, you know, yesterday's gone. You live today and make it as positive and purposeful as you possibly can. And that that for me has it's been a journey because I'm a I'm a Virgo, I'm a super analytical, I critique everything, I'm super, you know, sometimes too judgmental about myself, and I'm always trying to perfect. And that makes me the doctor that I am, but also makes me imperfect. Right. So I work on that and I work on myself. And I try to do that, like I say, spiritually and appreciate through meditation and prayer, you know, in a more kind of seasoned way, what it is that I need to do. It aligns me with my purpose. And that's where spirituality comes with your purpose, your mission. Why are you here? Why, if you believe in incarnations and lives and this and that, and you know, sometimes it's karma related, you know, or whatever. But the point is, you know, everyone has a mission. I think everyone's here to serve another. I think that's that's part of it. And and if you understand that and you appreciate that, I think it makes life much more uh enjoyable and rewarding. Of course, the base other concepts, you know, the the commandments, sleep, and this idea of sleep hygiene and how do you get to sleep and why sleep's important. I talk about it in the book. I talk about how really regenerative sleep is and how it resets and reformats our cells, uh, our mood, you know, how the brain is the master control center of all our organs through the spinal cord and through the hormonal system, right? So there's a lot of different interchange there, and people don't realize their system, if it's activated through the blue screen, right? Their television or their their computer, which we all have in our bedroom, and I am the guilty of that. You know, I'll have a phone on. I have four phones in the house, you know, two cellular phones, the computers, all the laptops, you know, I've got all this gear because I take care of people and I write books or whatever. But the point is, I've got to disconnect. I've got to shut it down. Yeah. And sometimes I put on a candle, I put on some soft music. I have, you know, special drapes around my bed that sort of filter out any ambient light that I can't filter out. I try to keep the temperature right, you know, all that stuff that I do to try to create an environment, a cocoon, almost like a womb, to sleep. Because actually, believe it or not, I tell people this the way that you you position your arm or your body is how you lived in your womb, your mom's womb. So yeah, the way that we use the arm or whatever, they found studies that show that that sort of is probably the position you were when you're a mama.

Carey Howe 24:27

Yeah, my wife and I were religious about sleep. We but you know there's nothing more important in all of this sort of um things we talk about in longevity and wellness, like sleep is literally the uh it becomes before anything, right? You can't get anything right without sleep. And there's good sleep and bad sleep. You can have stressful sleep or restorative sleep, right? And and you gotta get good at getting it, and and you gotta measure that. That you have to have some kind of well, I I you know, I'm I'm a little bit old-fashioned.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 24:59

I think that if you dream, that means you're an REM. If you wake up with an erection, you know, that's a good sign, right? You know what I'm saying? Like those are barometers or or you know, feedback loops that men and women have that indicate the hormonal system. Obviously, you know, we peak our testosterone a certain time of day, and that's why that happens. And I get in all of that in the medical, you know, detail that. But the point is, I think the aura ring and the Fitbits, and I I did all that. I had the Apple Watch, and I think some of that just it it's TMI. And if it's not, it's not and I'm not saying, and I and I'll tell you something that I'm on different you know, level is I have a AI system, so it really was before AI, it's called Well Score, and it follows all that, and you can have an API and fit all that information into that system, and it basically is designed based on my aviation experience, where Garmin took sort of a black box and put aviation information in there. So you have communication, navigation, weather, all the stuff that you need to fly, right? Because I'm a pilot, so I wanted to do that and give human beings situational awareness of themselves. So they would have a black box with all their information, and then that would then give uh them, like you say, if you can't, you know, measure it, you can't manage it. So the idea of taking that information and taking your sleep and analyzing it, I think super important. But the point is, you have to have a platform. If you just look at it, unfortunately, you know, it gets to be like, well, my heart rate went down or went up, or what does that mean? You know, you get all these kinds of quasi-other questions, and and you know, your temperature changes throughout the night, and and obviously all the other things that go on with uh hormonal changes. So, but sleep is important, nutrition. I cook most of my own food. I would say 95% of what I eat, I I I actually prepare myself. I rarely go out to restaurants. If I do, it's kind of kind of forced upon me because I really don't like to eat out that much.

Carey Howe 27:03

What I do, yeah. I think that's an important thing too. Um, my wife and I would grow most of our our well, you're so lucky because you have all that beautiful and we and we buy our protein you know from the grass-fed, we know the farm where they we know we know exactly what's going on, right? You're lucky so it's a little bit easier maybe for us here. And um, you know, something else you said was you know, community and and and that's very big here in Costa Rica. You know, you have to be involved in the community and be kind to people because you know if you're if you're rude on the street, you know, yelling out your window of your car at some guy, you're gonna find out you go to get your license down the road, and there he is across from you. The guy's gonna give you your license. I said so it teaches you to be a little bit well isn't that isn't that karma? That's karma, yeah, correct, right? And so it teaches you just to be a little more patient, a little bit more accepting of others, and and you know, live like you said, living in in the love sort of frequency, right? And so much, you know, and life, everything's on frequency. You know, I'm very much into the frequency thing and sound and and sound waves, and uh every single measurable thing on earth is at some kind of frequency, whether it's the waves, whether it's it's the weather, whether you know, just every little thing, right?

Dr. Michael J. Hall 28:19

Well, you know, so that's they have the Schumann resonance of the earth, right? And that's that's a very interesting thing. I'm I'm a big believer in how we're related to the sun. And I've studied the sun for most of my life, the cycles of the sun, the aspect of of solar uh interaction with with human behavior, with disease, with financial markets. Uh, I look at what's going on with the sun now, with the sunspots, the solar cycle that we're in. It's very important because if the sun wasn't present, we'd have no comprehension of time. Everything we know is based on time. And interestingly enough, the diet that I talk about very importantly is a heliotropic diet, which is how we should eat based on the movement of the sun through the horizon during the day. And I'm also because you know, partial to Africa, it's interesting. I watch the lions eat, right? Lions will make a kill, they eat, they don't eat unless they're hungry for another couple of days. Why do we need to eat three or five or ten meals or whatever it is you know we're eating in a period of time or have snacks? You don't need it, you know, if you're not hungry, don't eat.

Carey Howe 29:29

Yeah, no, that that's a that that's a huge thing. And I I think that um you know, practicing restraint and all these things, people are just so uh you know addicted to having everything right now and and and lots of it, right?

Dr. Michael J. Hall 29:45

And so well, it's you know, it's instant gratification and and it's we're programmed, like I said, we're we're put it as a baby, it's put in our mouth, you know, from early on. You know, if mommy puts a teeth in baby's mouth, I think that's like the first step toward health. A nipple in a baby's mouth is like that's the first thing that that initiates health. And the reason is beyond belief. You know, you get the amino acids to build the brain, you get mommy's immunoglobulins for the immune system, you bond with the baby energetically. I mean, it's just so crazy how important that is, and it's so many women don't want to do that, they don't do it. Oh, I I couldn't latch, or I didn't have milk, I couldn't do whatever. It's like you're designed for that. Why do we take that out of the equation of health? I mean, and I'm very much into children, I don't have children myself, but I I take care of children, I take care of some autistic children, and I'm really sensitive to that because that's our future, you know, and and having um you know a child that's autistic, and I have a dear patient that has an eight-year-old, I I don't know what to say to him, you know, and I know that you know the continuation of life, you know, is is is obviously that's done, you know, with with a certain amount of intent. And if a person uh has a child like that, it's like, what do you do? Like how how do you manage, you know, that relationship and and and and the guidance for that uh little thing. So, you know, for me, everything's important, but childhood, and and that's not talked about really very much in longevity medicine. Childhood's super important, the inner child, your relationship with your father and your mother. I talk about Bowen family theory, the relationship, the triangles that are made, and the family dynamic. I mean, I can get into a whole, you know, another discussion about that, but it's just so important because those relationships form who we are and then who we seek, you know, kind of woman or man that we want in our life very much resonate from those relationships. And people don't realize that. Like they pick, you know, a father figure or something that may not be healthy because they're trying to amend that relationship, right? Instead of trying to move on from that. So, you know, my feeling is that if you're a doctor, you know, healer, uh you are practicing longevity medicine, you just don't know it. You know, a lot of times you know what I'm saying.

Carey Howe 32:09

And if you want to it's funny you say that because I mean, doesn't that relate back to the you know, faith and prayer and meditation or whatever your practice or whatever your religion or or faith? Um, so much of that is getting your mind in the right spot. Well, you know, everything comes you know over trauma. There's trauma you gotta get over, and and things like that.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 32:31

But see, that you know, I like you know, I used I practice in Hawaii for a while, and I work with the native Hawaiians in Hana, Maui, and I've worked with the native Hawaiians that are Polynesians in in New Zealand, the moderate, and the Ha'opano Open. Thank you, I'm sorry, please forgive me. I love you. Those those phraseologies are super important, and they've done studies on that, and that realigns you with spirituality and yourself and actually heals you. And and and any any kind, and I tell people, any kind of grudge or anger or grievance you hold against someone, that's poison for you, not for them.

Carey Howe 33:14

Yeah, it's rotting the container that's held in it.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 33:16

That's right. So that you say, listen, okay, and I believe this is what you know Christ taught too. It's like, why if I forgive you, why can't you forgive the other? If I forgive you, then then why would you hold a grudge against someone else that's lesser, right? If I'm I'm here and you're here and I'm taking care of you, well, then you you must do the same for the other. Well, so many people on religious or whatever, but I I hate my my parents or I don't like this or that. It's like you can't live that way, you know, you can't hate anyone. You can't be you know, you can't you can be angry, and anger is a normal emotion, and and and that's sometimes you know just happens. But to carry that anger, it's in the nighttime, and you can't sleep because you're mad at your brother, your sister, or whoever. You know, you go to bed forgiving everyone, you sleep better. You wake up, you know, in awareness and being thankful that that moment in time you're awake because you may not. In the Bahamas, yeah. I I have a home in the Bahamas, and um one of the sayings out there is thank God for life. They say, Yeah, they say they see and say, Thank God for life, you know, and it's it's that simple because life is short, and you have that moment, and and it may not be there for tomorrow, you know.

Carey Howe 34:35

So we think uh nothing's guaranteed. That's kind of a you know really exciting thing about life, and and how you had mentioned living in the moment, right? It's kind of hard for people to do. They they future trip, they they they they foresee problems that are never gonna happen, like whether it's 20 minutes ahead or one hour ahead or one day or one week or one year. And there's too much worry. And I think that if you are more spiritual and in touch with with your faith, that you sort of, you know, in the Christian faith, which which is what I am, is um, you know, you give your battles to God, you know, and and if he is who he's supposed to be, I'm just getting in the way of how it naturally should be. You're right. You're getting in the way.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 35:21

And we do we get in the way of ourselves a lot. Yeah, and uh, yeah, yeah.

Carey Howe 35:25

And and I think in that meditation in the morning or whatever your routine is, it's you know, you always want to talk to yourself about, hey, make me, you know, help me talk to people in a more loving manner, more respectful to help me do those things because we can all fall back into the human way, right? Which is you know, we know everything and it's my way or it's very selfish, right? But if you keep pushing your practice, practicing in your meditation on what you're really doing in your thought process, right? That that really helps, like in a in a lot of things.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 35:59

Well, I know I had a you know, I talk a very little about mindfulness, but I think that's a super important topic. One of my ex uh office managers' mother, they're Swedish, and she was one of the first mindfulness teachers in the world. Uh, this is like back you know, 35 years ago. And and it's just interesting how mindfulness and and these ideas, you know, we talk about people say they people most people don't even know what mindfulness is. You know, it's kind of like when you think about this conscious sort of living presently and in and with intent, we don't talk about it in the West, you know, not in our West. Yeah, you know, people don't talk about it. I talk about peptides, they talk about what what's sexy and fun and can be sold. And we were at I was at a little gathering last night, and it was not a medical gathering, it was a gathering of of entrepreneurial people, and every corner of the area that we were in, like it was a restaurant, and this literally we heard peptide brews every corner, their marketing strategy, what their ROI was, their cost of pro all of this stuff was just literally flying it through the ether. And then I had people coming to me asking me, you know, I had one gentleman asked me, like, well, he's young, he's probably in his mid-30s, like, hey, well, you know, everybody's on TRT, you know, what do you think about that? And I said, Well, it's not good for everyone. He goes, Well, what do you mean? I said, Well, if you go on testosterone, if you're young, you could shut down your sperm production. I said, You want to have a family at some point, don't you? He goes, What are you talking about? What is that forever? What? You know, it's like these guys are on it, all these young guys are on it because they think that that's gonna make them a super bro. They think they're gonna be, you know, like these masters of the universe by all their stacks, right? And they're maybe not using anabolics to get big, but they're using hormones to have an edge. And and I and I'm he's like, Well, yeah, that's a really important thing. You should speak about that. It's like, yeah, obviously, you know, I mean, that's what I what I do. But, you know, the theory is this, you know, humans often want a leader, and very often in medicine, and I don't know who our leader is right now in medicine, but often like see ever coop was a leader, you know, at one point in American, you know, society. We had surgeon generals that were sort of the spokespeople of health. Do we have one now? I don't think we've had one for since Trump's been in office. You know, I don't know who the surgeon general is. It's a female, I think, but they're I don't know what they talk about. We don't have the kids going to these presidential physical fitness routines, which I remember in in grade school, they don't do that now. Remember we did that? Yeah, you know, I mean, I think that that in the you know, maybe not in South Africa, but fitness for child was super important. Activity was super important because they knew that that helped control ADD and ADHD. Activity is super important. If you if you don't let a child activate itself, the child you know involutes into you know bad behavior. But that, you know what I mean, it's kind of common sense, but that's the thing, and then it's a reverse, you know, a feedback of a bad behavior.

Carey Howe 39:03

So you you you bring up something that makes me think, um so a doctor in your position, you've gone through a lot of schooling, you've gone to these practices, you've had um mentors and people you respect in the field that talk to you in these traditional ways. And it seems like a lot of this longevity stuff goes uh against maybe some of the traditional thinking. And so, how does that change the relationships with with those people, or do they look down you know, on on you trying these methods that aren't necessarily Western methods of of medicine? And and and that's kind of you've got to have a certain thick skin, I guess, uh and braveness to to do that, especially 20 years ago. You're talking about you started this, right?

Dr. Michael J. Hall 39:50

Yeah, I mean, I've had some resistance, but you know, most people when they get to know me and they listen to me, it doesn't matter really what age or what you know background they're in. And uh, you know, people from all walks of life come to my clinic. And I think it's just it's compassion and empathy and sort of bringing awareness and education, and they get it, you know. I think that, you know, the interestingly enough, my book, you know, it's a very small little book, it's a primer, really for people, and it's not about whizbang crazy science, right? It's it's really just kind of an encapsulation of all the things that we just talked about. And I think people um need to start there. They need to start, you know, with the basics, they need to start sort of understanding what makes you know sense for them. They can pick and choose, sort of like you know, whatever it is that they want to take from it. But yeah, I don't I don't really worry about what people say. I've never worried about what people say. I've never had, I mean, I've been criticized, you know, probably more than anybody for lots of things. I was a whistleblower uh at the federal level in New York because I saw patients that were black that lost their eyes unnecessarily because white doctors wouldn't treat them. So I spoke out and I got into a lot of trouble, and they came after me viciously and attacked me physically in the hospital. Physically, yeah. I went through quite an ordeal, but I prevailed and I made myself sort of a warrior. You know, you become you when you go through the gauntlet, you become a warrior. And then that probably was also part of what propelled me to develop. I've created a new healthcare system inside a healthcare system, in my opinion. I'm creating sort of an ecosystem of healthcare that doesn't exist inside a healthcare system that's failed. That's sort of what I see myself as. And I've had discussions with people like Dr. Fauci and in a way that when they were spraying Miami with a poison, uh, organophosphate neurotoxin, I stopped it in federal court. Right? That was a Zika epidemic, which was bullshit in 2017. So I I've done a lot of stuff, you know, just uh on my own to try to rewrite what health is for people.

Carey Howe 42:18

You know, yeah, I I I think there is a certain braveness to that, and you know that's recommendable, by the way.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 42:24

Well, I don't I don't know. Brave brave is is for the book, you know, it's for it's for a story. I I I think being able to get out and speak, and if you if you take a sling and arrow, that's fine, but you've got to speak your truth. And truth to power is really the most important thing, and I think that's where I live. Truth to power, you know, speaking, speaking your truth to people. And the book, and I've written actually, I've written two books. The first book was called The American Gentleman, and that was about behavior and how important being a gentleman is in our society, and how how if if we don't have that behavior, we we lack you know social civility and grace. And anyway, sort of the next level of that would be going to health, right? So behavior and health are sort of you know, kind of in the same you know, fish tank. So I I think that we're we're at a point where consciousness is rising, people are becoming more aware of what it is that's important to them for their health, for their well-being. And if I can help guide and shape, that's my goal.

Carey Howe 43:37

That's very interesting. So but I want to have to a lot of great points. I'm I got all these questions.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 43:42

Well, we're gonna have to do another, I've got a hard stop now. We've got a we've got a another conversation with actually a doctor in London uh trying to treat a patient that's having some pretty severe issues. So um we can circle.

Carey Howe 43:54

Not a problem. So let's finish off with this. Um, if someone was lucky enough to be able to get treated by you, uh, Dr. Hall, how would that begin? And and and what would they do? Um, and what would it look like? Like what how does it look when someone says, Hey, I I've heard you treat all these great athletes and these these celebs and whatnot. I want to get on the path. I don't know how to start. How does that work?

Dr. Michael J. Hall 44:20

Well, you know, the the first thing would be for them to go to my website and they can do a little bit of you know, educational understanding of what I do and who I am, and then they can reach out directly through that portal and and make an appointment with telemedicine, or they can call, or I'm always available, honestly. I have 1-866-9 Dr. Hall. You can actually give that number out, and I'm happy to talk to anybody.

Carey Howe 44:46

Okay, great. Yeah, and then well, thank you for having us. I know we're at yeah, uh, we went over a little bit. Uh you had another um engagement, but thank you very much for for being on the show. I'll I'll send you a copy of um of this, obviously. Okay, and um it'll get edited down a little bit and we'll take out obviously what I'm saying right now. Okay. But uh thanks again for coming on the show, and um I look forward to reading the book and finding out more about you and your practice.

Dr. Michael J. Hall 45:16

I appreciate you. Okay.

Carey Howe 45:18

God bless you.

Ana Howe 45:23

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Carey Howe 45:38

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Ana Howe 45:46

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