The Health Bridge

We're in the high heat of summer! Pedram Shojai just got back from a vacation and Sara Gottfried is about to head into one. We all love them. The idea of going somewhere and getting away from work and our regular lives. But different people have different ideas of a perfect vacation. How can we try to create a vacation to please the varying opinions within our familes? And how can we get the most out of our vacations so that we return to work with gumption? We here at the Health Bridge will be taking a month to relax ourselves and we'll be back in August with fresh episodes, but will still have other content releasing for you through the month of July. We want to wish you all a fun, safe, and relaxing July!

Direct download: HealthBridge42Vacationing.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:00am MDT

This week Sara Gottfried and Pedram Shojai welcome Katie, the Wellness Mama, to The Health Bridge. Katie is a mother of five children and in this episode all three share their ideas of parenting and how to make sure their children know how to make proper choices regarding their health and food. How can we make sure kids (and perhaps even the adults) are eating well when the kids' menu is filled with items like mac and cheese or chicken fingers? Is it possible to adjust the taste palette of a kid that won't eat vegetables? And how do we make sure our kids are getting enough activity if all they want to do is play video games?

Direct download: HealthBridge41WellnessMama.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:00am MDT

What does it mean to have too much estrogen? This is an issue that can affect men as well as women. What can cause a rise in estrogen? Sara Gottfried and Pedram Shojai discuss the causes and how they've changed their own behaviors and actions to ensure they maintain proper hormone levels. What are the proper levels of estrogen women and men should maintain? How can we tell if our estrogen levels are too high? Can foods affect the level of estrogen in our bodies? What about the amount of exercise? Pedram and Sara also explore how aging changes the way our bodies produce hormones.

Direct download: HealthBridge40EstrogenPollution.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:00am MDT

There was a study from last year that showed that sugar can have effects on the brain similar to cocaine (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23719144). We get our diet our order, we exercise, but we may still find ourselves craving that chocolate bar or package of cookies. What is it about sugar that is so addictive? How are we affected when we eat too much sugar? Sara Gottfried and Pedram Shojai discuss the addictive power of sugar and stage an intervention.

Direct download: HealthBridge39SugarDrug.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:00am MDT

This episode was recorded while Pedram Shojai was visiting Sara Gottfried at her home in Northern California. Pedram has been known to be heavily involved in multiple projects all at once and Sara asked him where he finds the time and energy to perform multiple jobs and be in charge of multiple projects without burning himself out. How can we garner the willpower to go about our lives without draining ourselves of all energy? Sara asks Pedram about his practice of gongs. What is a gong? How can a gong help move people towards their goals, whatever it may be? In our world of instant gratification, do we set realistic long-term goals? What discipline is needed to make sure we stick to a 100-day gong?

Direct download: HealthBridge38GongChallenge.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:26am MDT

Did you know microbial cells that inhabit the human body outnumber human cells 10 to 1? And yet, the entire microbiome of a person only weighs about 200 grams. There is a fully functioning ecosystem inside of us that needs as much attention as the world around us. This week Sara Gottfried and Pedram Shojai welcome Tom Malterre to The Health Bridge. Tom discusses how important it is to set up a properly functioning microbiome, especially if you are or are considering becoming pregnant as the microbiome of the mother sets up the microbiome of the child. What symptoms can manifest and what are some things that can be done to help an unbalanced microbiome?

Direct download: HealthBridge37TomMalterre.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:27am MDT

Pedram Shojai recently visited Sara Gottfried in NorCal so they went ahead and recorded a special episode of The Health Bridge in a car ride up to Napa. Also there was Sara's husband David Gottfried. The three have a fun conversation about gender roles and whether or not certain aspects of gender identities are hard-wired in the brain or if it's something that can adjusted. Now that people aren't actively hunting for food for surivival, what does that do to the mind? Is the need to hunt still embedded somewhere in people's mind? What are activities that can replace those embedded instincts? This one's explicit for language as the trio get pretty rowdy during their car ride.

Direct download: HealthBridge36GenderRoles.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:14pm MDT

Sara Gottfried had a minor emergency shortly before recording time and so for this episode Pedram Shojai is driving solo! He welcomes guest Tristan Truscott to The Health Bridge. Tristan has a background in martial arts so this episode is very stacked to the eastern side of the bridge. Tristan and Pedram dive into the concept of qi. Tristan talks about his first experience of getting in touch with his qi and how people can use qi to feed the energy for life. How important is it to find purpose in life?

Direct download: HealthBridge35TristanTruscott.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:40am MDT

Though we may try our best to get enough sleep, some of us still fall victim to fatigue. Sara Gottfried and Pedram Shojai discuss the varying reasons being fatigue. How does an unstimulating 8-hour day job followed by an episode of 24 which can turn on the adrenaline affect the quality of our sleep? Our evolutionary ancestors engaged in very different daily cerebral activities than the engagement many of us get at our desks. Our ancestors had to worry about hunting for food and not being hunted themselves. Now we have to worry about whether we have enough to pay the bills this month. How does this shift in engagement create fatigue?

Direct download: HealthBridge34Fatigue.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:21am MDT

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