366: Break Bad Habits the Body-Friendly Way
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Welcome to the Ancient Health Podcast, where East meets West in the world of medicine. I'm Dr. Chris Motley, and here we explore how modern Western science and traditional Eastern wisdom come together to unlock the body's full healing potential. Each week, we'll dive into powerful tools, techniques, and approaches from both sides of the world to help you optimize your health and live with vitality. Let's bridge the gap between ancient practices and cutting-edge medicine. Let's get started.

Hello friends, welcome to the Ancient Health Podcast, where East meets West. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Motley, and in this podcast episode, we want to discuss habits. How to change habits according to Eastern medicine, and trying to find a way to break those chronic habits that make you upset at yourself.

Do you ever find yourself saying a phrase like, I wish I did not drink this much coffee. I wish I did not have this much alcohol. I wish I would actually try to work out. We've all had these sayings in our brain, and this podcast is not to bring shame or make you beat yourself up.

But in fact, to give yourself a little more grace because when we're talking about habits, I know there's some great books out there that discuss habits and I am all for them. I found that many of the books have great information. So I encourage you to check out books such as Atomic Habits by James Clear. And there are many ways to change a habit.

according to a person's personality. And many research projects have shown that certain types of patterns can change a habit. So I encourage you to read those books and to check them out. But in this episode, I also want to talk about habits in the Chinese medicine, Eastern medicine world, and how habits can be formed differently.

Not only in the brain, but also in the organs as well. The connection between the organ and the brain. Emotions can be trapped, making it very difficult to break the habit. And we're also then going to talk about how the organ responds to the trapped emotions and how it basically causes the organ to get stronger in the habit and it makes physical chronic problems occur. Physiological problems.

So then you have to work on changing your physiology, your biochemistry, along with the habit. In fact, to help you completely change the habit. Your body does all it can to adapt to a habit. So it's adapting all day to the habit you wish you could get rid of, but it's basically causing you to become very adapted to the habit.

And your body will change its physiology in accordance with that. So let's put that in our head. So we're also going to talk about the herbs that can actually help you with breaking the habits. So first of all, let's talk about how habits are formed in the organs. Now, according to many of the research projects and books out there, we talk about how you can use small steps to change a habit. Neurophysiology says,

And neuroplasticity. Plasticity of the brain would tell us that basically our brain can change its shape according to how much we use the brain. You can actually recharge the brain and grow new nerve cells. It's been shown. Habits, if they're done repeatedly...

will etch their own network of nerves in your brain. Does that make sense? The more you do a habit, small habits, small continuous habits can create new neurons in your brain and it creates a neuronal network, a network of nerves that carry only that signal of that habit. So it takes space in your brain and now your brain has one area devoted to this habit and

And it makes it easier for that habit to travel through that nerve network because if the road is traveled continuously, it's like smooth riding on a paved road. The more a nerve is used, the more you basically pave the road smooth.

The less you use a nerve or its signals, it becomes rocky and almost like gravel. So you don't use it that much. But if you're using it continuously with this habit, you're getting your brain used to and accustomed to taking that pathway in everyday decisions. So I hope that makes sense. You are using that neuronal network of that habit and it's incorporated into your daily decisions. If you wanted to drink less coffee,

But you've had a habit of drinking coffee continuously, chronically every day. Nothing wrong with coffee, but maybe you're saying, I want to drink five cups of coffee. I want to go down to one. The more you drink the coffee and increase that neuronal network in your brain, all your decisions have five cups of coffee involved in it. So you go down, you're going to the store, you're driving down to the store, and then all of a sudden you think, man, I could stop and get me a coffee real quick.

Because that whole area of your brain is taking up space and now it's bumping into your everyday decisions saying, hey, you're used to me being here. Why don't you go get a cup of coffee? So when we see the habits formed by neuroplasticity, this is a great book. There's a book called The Brain That Changes Itself by Dr. Herman Deutsch, The Brain That Changes Itself. And it talks about how the brain changes in that manner.

Not only can we do it for the habits that we don't necessarily like, but we have to start to do the habits we want to incorporate. So then if we don't want to drink five cups of coffee a day, we have to learn how to drink one cup of coffee a day. Now, if we do that, it's very tough. You have to get your physiology, your body used to drinking only one cup of coffee, reducing the amount of caffeine in your bloodstream, getting your liver used to not pulling the caffeine apart.

telling your body not to get the high dopamine hit from the caffeine and so you're going through this pattern of going through all these biochemical patterns and habits and you're trying to tell your body hey all of a sudden we're going to just stop five cups of coffee a day and we're going to go down to one and your body's physiology freaks out it says i am not used to this

I am used to a certain amount of dopamine release. I am used to a certain amount of caffeine getting my arteries opened up to get the blood to my brain. I'm used to my muscles feeling a little bit energized. I'm used to that afternoon cup of coffee. And when you take that away, you reduce the dopamine. You change your blood flow. You feel tired and lethargic. You'll get grumpy and eventually get angry and you snap at people. And if you're driving out there or listening to this, you're shaking your head saying, yes, that's me. Yeah.

But I want you to know that emotions and habits can be formed and ingrained in an organ. Now, this is the flip side. That was a neurological aspect of it. And yes, we have to incorporate these habits. We're going to talk about in just a few minutes. But I want to talk to you about how habits and the emotions get trapped. Now, I'm going to put down in the show notes, I'm going to put down a chart that shows the organ and the emotion relationship in Chinese medicine.

I'm going to show you that there's organs and that there are certain emotions that are related to those organs, the 12 main organs. Also, you're going to get a chart that shows you the physiological action of the organ. So the emotions affect the organs, and that will cause an effect on the organ's natural physiological function. Does that make sense? Your emotions can change your physiological function. So when we look at this,

We're thinking about neuroplasticity. But let's say you do have your cup of coffee, your five cups of coffee. And the reason you drink your five cups of coffee is because you feel overworked. You have to keep up your energy. You have such low dopamine response in the day that you use that hot cup of coffee to raise your dopamine levels and to give you some form of satisfaction and accomplishment.

If only I get to the afternoon till part of this day, I can hand me a cup of coffee and that's my reward, which is nothing wrong with that. I love coffee. But you have to realize that when habits get formed in an organ, it increases the strength of the organ. For instance, if I drink coffee, it affects, let's say, the stomach and the gallbladder and the liver. But we're going to pick on, so let's say the liver and the gallbladder. The liver and the gallbladder are

If you can remember, is the wood element. They are basically the green colored organs in our body. And they're associated with the wood element. Now, in Western physiology, the liver has everything to do with the CYP gene and the NAT gene. So you don't have to go look those up, but those are two big genes that help with you basically cleaning up and metabolizing caffeine.

So your liver has to use these enzymes. Your genes basically become enzymes. They're interchangeable. The gene slash enzyme attached to the caffeine breaks it down, allows it to go into the bloodstream, and allows it to do the function it needs to do, which is increase blood flow, which helps you with dopamine release. So your liver gets used to this, and you tell your liver, okay, I need you to increase your function.

Because I'm going to keep drinking caffeine every day and I need you to increase your ability to metabolize liver, I mean metabolize caffeine. Now, if you have the genetic structure to tear apart lots of caffeine to metabolize it, you're very lucky. If you have dominant homozygous dominant genes of CYP or NAT or any other gene that metabolizes caffeine, you can metabolize tons of caffeine and you can drink a few cups every day without any problem.

But if you drink a lot of caffeine and you find that you have heart palpitations, your hands sweat, you get sweaty, you're noticing that your head gets foggy, you notice that your body feels different and weird after you drink a cup of coffee. Like I can't drink coffee anymore. It gives me anxiety. It gives me stress. It gives me that caffeine anxiousness, not a caffeine buzz anymore. Then you may not metabolize lots of caffeine according to your genes. You may not create a lot of those genes in your body.

Your genetic makeup may not allow you to have a lot of those genes that turn into the enzymes to help you attach to the caffeine, help you metabolize it all. So you may be one of those individuals that could drink caffeine for a while and all of a sudden it stopped. I can't drink it anymore. OK, so you have this genetic factor, right, guys? So if you can metabolize a lot of caffeine, you can probably do this for a long time and just flush your caffeine into the liver and your liver can handle it.

But if you keep on putting caffeine into the liver, eventually over time, if you do not put good nutrition in your body, good food, good minerals and vitamins and good supplements, your body has a problem breaking down caffeine after a long time. But since you're checking on your liver and you're telling it to do this, the liver grows. It literally gets stronger. It grows in size. It grows in cell proliferation. It grows in its – basically its area.

The liver can basically regenerate itself after so many months. I mean, so many years. And what you're finding is that your liver is, since it's being bombarded with the caffeine and it's growing and getting bigger, you're sending a signal to that liver and you're connecting it to the brain. So the brain records this and the brain is growing an area in the brain to show the capacity that the liver has within your nervous system. So the more liver that grows and gets stronger, the

The greater the signal, the greater the strength, the greater the area that the liver occupies within brain space. Does that make sense? The connection wire. So your brain has this big area now with the liver. And so you start to grow the liver and the liver is used to this whole thing occurring. But in Chinese medicine, if you look at that chart I gave you, the liver and its perimerydia and the gallbladder,

is associated with the emotions of anger, frustration, resentment, hate, stubbornness, basically being taken advantage of or being angry about it. Somebody taking away your property, your identity, somebody taking something from you, and you do not have boundaries and you get angry and upset about it. And if you're raising your hand right now or shaking your head while you're driving, you're saying, yes, that's what happened. Now, what happens to the liver is this.

The bigger the strength of the liver, the more capacity it has to actually process anger. But some of us do not process anger very well. Some of us store it. So not only does it give you the greater capacity to process it, it gives you the greater capacity to store it. Looking for a natural way to boost your energy and hydration? B-Minerals offers plant-based, all-natural minerals that support your body from the inside out with essential nutrients that work right at the cellular level.

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But the habit of drinking coffee every day could possibly cause the liver to have more capacity to store anger. Looking for a natural way to boost your energy and hydration? Bean Minerals offers plant-based, all-natural minerals that support your body from the inside out with essential nutrients that work right at the cellular level.

It's hydration, gentle detox, and energy support, all without stimulants. Give your health the upgrade it deserves. Head to BeMinerals.com slash Dr. Motley. Use code DRMOTLEY, all one word in capital letters, for 20% off your first order. So as long as you're drinking enough caffeine, you're probably pushing that anger down and shoving it away. Now, I want to say this. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with drinking caffeine or coffee. I'm just saying that this is an example for a habit.

I'm having coffee right now. So please, everybody out there, listen to me that I'm saying I like to drink coffee. Too much can be too much though. So now you have these emotions being trapped heavily within the organ, the emotion of anger. So you're getting a neurology connection up in the brain, a big capacity of area space occupied by the liver and the brain plus high occupancy of anger in the liver. So now –

If you start to decide to let go of that caffeine and that coffee, then what happens? You'll get angry. You're not getting the dopamine release. You're not increasing the blood flow to your brain. You're actually taking some of the work that the liver was doing away, the thing it was being built up for to process the caffeine. You take it away. The liver does not have a certain job it's used to doing.

The brain reads it. The brain gets screwed up. The liver says, I'm not processing caffeine. I can't metabolize. I'm not putting it into my body. So essentially, the liver is not going to grow in greater capacity. It could shrink. Now, if you can go cold turkey, that's great. But what happens is you do not have the capacity to store anger since the liver is going to start to what? Decompress. Furthermore…

Your body will add in certain types of microbes. It will add in some forms of yeast and bacteria to help you metabolize excess toxins, caffeine, hormones, heavy metal toxicity, because now the liver is decompressing. It doesn't have the capacity it once had. So your body will allow microbes to go in there to help try to clean up. So you have more anger coming to the surface, plus you have more infections in the liver that normally would not have bothered you.

But now you have to allow – your body has to allow them to be there to actually help you metabolize certain toxicities out of the liver after you stopped drinking the coffee. So then you're saying, Doc, what's the point? Should I never stop drinking coffee? No. I'm just saying that when we go in to start breaking a habit, it is not the best option in my opinion to try to do it all at once and to go cold turkey.

I want you to see that there are so many small interlaying, intertwining layers that I just mentioned that you can't just go, I'm going to just stop caffeine and do one cup of coffee. Unless that's your personality. If you find yourself getting angrier and more resentful and frustrated, you're doing it too fast. Cut down by one cup of coffee a day, down to four. And they say that if you repeat a pattern, even quotes in your head, 400 to 500 times, it becomes a program that you can

collaborate with. I'm not saying you have to wait 400 or 500 days to get this to work. What I am saying is they say, honestly, two physical habits can take 30 days to actually retrain your body. So whatever book you read, and they'll have different types of timeframes. I'm just saying if you reduce by one or maybe two cups of coffee and you try it for 20 to 30 days, it's a lot easier on your body than trying to just go down to one. Your liver's physiological function

is not going to be screwed up. Your brain's not going to get very wary if you go down by just one cup of coffee. So the emotions, the anger is not going to rise as quick to the surface. Does that make sense? So you give yourself a little time. So maybe it's 20 or 30 days. I went down to four. I did it for 20, 21 days, four weeks maybe. And then I went down to three cups. You're getting your liver used to the amount of caffeine that you're now reducing it to.

So you'll have less of a tendency for those emotions of anger to just pop out and you'll give your body enough room to allow low levels of microbes to go to the liver to help balance the new biochemistry within that organ. You won't have an overgrowth of yeast. You won't have an overgrowth of Clostridium bacteria or strep or staph. You'll be able to handle it. Now this is in response or this is in relation to all organs. Let's say...

genetically delivers your issue. But let's say it was the stomach. Maybe coffee hurt your stomach because your stomach is the weak organ in your family line. That means if you drink too much coffee, it could cause a buildup of the stomach and it can cause a buildup of worry and basically pensiveness, worrying about what's happening around the corner or over concern. That could be another organ. So when you look at the chart, you have to look at the chart and go, oh, that's the organ my family line had a problem with. And here is the emotion.

That is being built up in it. And you always will see that if you look at that organ and you notice that you have pain or tenderness in the organ, after you're doing a certain habit for a long time, it's going to build up the emotion related to it. So that's how you look at the chart. So habits, after you form them for a while, build up emotions and they change your biochemistry like we talked about at the very beginning. And so now you have to deal with higher amounts of microbes like fungus and yeast and bacteria.

plus higher amounts of anger. So when you start to reduce slowly, that's your first step. Remember, give yourself grace. You're going to reduce your cup of coffee or your habit by one cup or one habit for every three to four weeks. That's one way to handle it. Read the book Atomic Habits. They talk about small changes. Small physical changes in your everyday activity are some of the greatest drivers of complete habit changes.

So if you reduce one cup of coffee a day, that's a small step. Also, when you realize that you're starting to build up yeast or microbes, not only are you going to take the small steps to reduce like a cup of coffee, but you're going to take habits and start to reinforce other habits. So you don't use that neuronal pathway, that nerve network associated with the high amounts of caffeine. You're going to start using other pathways and create new ones.

Small changes where you throw in a small creation of, let's say, adding in a probiotic, adding in some bone broth to help heal the leaky gut in your stomach or in your liver, adding in some good liver herbs such as schisandra, milk thistle, or glutathione, or NAC. These are just suggestions.

You use small changes in your everyday habits of these herbs or supplements to actually help detoxify the liver to help it. So you start to change and reduce a cup of coffee. Plus you throw in there maybe one liposomal glutathione capsule or maybe one schisandra. And it actually helps produce antioxidants in the liver, helps it flush.

And the liver starts to flush and get some relief. And you're actually helping it get rid of excess caffeine. And so you reduce one cup of coffee and then are actually adding something into the liver. The liver goes, man, this is great. You guys are helping me out, man. And that liver starts to flush excess toxins because you helped it. And now your body will be able to handle and process any extra anger.

It will help your body let go of extra biome, microbiome inhabitants such as yeast or bacteria because your liver now has some extra capacity to do what it was supposed to do because you added in an extra habit. So you add in schisandra or glutathione or something like that once every day while you're reducing cup of coffee for 21 days or 30 days or whatever you choose to do. You get to that point and you're like, well, I'm going to go to two cups. I'm going to reduce two cups of coffee.

Then you may stay with schisandra. Maybe you stay with milk thistle or maybe you look into liver detox programs and go, man, if I detox my liver, maybe I do a little bit of gallbladder flush or do some coffee enemas. Those are suggestions, coffee enemas or –

colonics. Maybe I start doing a slight low level liver flush, nothing extreme. Don't ever go to the extreme. Remember, we got to do it by small habits. Maybe you look into and go, well, I'll do a little liver detox. Maybe I'll throw an extra amount of milk thistle, just a little extra out milk thistle. And maybe I'll put

That with my glutathione, maybe I'll take two of those and maybe I'll add some schisandra. Nothing that keeps you in bed in the morning and makes you feel sick or toxic. And maybe you have that in your body and you're like, OK, my body can handle that. And now I'm going to reduce, you know, down to two to three cups of coffee in your liver. Again, has a capacity to see the process. You're changing your physiological habits by taking in an herb or a supplement.

And you're reducing another habit. So you're growing that nervous path, neuronal pathway in your brain. And then you hear these sayings about red light therapy, red light sauna detoxification. You're hearing about bounding or using a trampoline or using some form of lymph movement, using exercise. Those all create dopamine. Those all help flush the liver. So you add in those habits, red light therapy, red light sauna, any type of rebounding.

You could go and do some form of body work like good lymphatic massage, low level, very, very slow, easy lymphatic massage. You look at ways to help clean out the liver. You may add in things that are green in color, such as green juices, healthy raw greens in a juice form that can be metabolized easy. You stop eating high processed sugars, heavily processed foods and fats, refined sugars,

Anything with fructose corn syrup, anything with cornstarch, wheat starch, soy starch, anything with potato starch that is unhealthy for your liver and it makes it work harder. So you take the pressure off the liver by stop eating certain foods, start acting, adding in some detox pathways and habits that actually encourage it. And what you're going to find is after you do this for a couple of months, you're going to be able to reduce your caffeine intake by quite a bit.

You'll wake up some morning and I'm not kidding. You'll go, I don't even think I need to have any more caffeine today. Maybe I have one cup. The reason I say is because I've seen it in my office. I've had people tell me, I don't really feel like I needed a cup of coffee today because all the detoxing and all the healthy probiotics and liver support,

Allow the body to heal its genetic coding, help heal the liver, and the liver can now do its work. Your body starts producing the healthy amounts of dopamine it needs. You start using exercise and detox patterns. You start using the food that are healthy for you to actually create dopamine and detox.

your genes start to work a little bit better and you start to get more of a dopamine high, which is perfect. You may have one cup of coffee or maybe just two, but you're going to notice that that one cup of coffee gives you so much of a good buzz that you don't need five. Sometimes you're like, I don't know if I even need the coffee. That's the beauty of using habit training along with knowing the emotions in the organs, right?

Finding out which organs toxic. Using herbal support in relationship to the organ. Also finding out about great antimicrobials like anti-yeast like Chinese skullcap or scutellaria. Using golden thread or neem. These are three of the major big multi-antimicrobials. You can add those in there with liver support. You start flushing it. You start getting rid of the excess microbes. And then...

You start to look and doing things like EFT tapping, something that's free, emotional freedom technique, which is tapping on certain acupuncture points by saying certain mantras and quotes in your head and your body. And you start to get your energetic system in alignment with what you believe. I'm just going to say EFT tapping. Please try it. You're going to notice that you could say, even though I love coffee.

I don't need five cups of coffee to satisfy my everyday needs. You can say different quotes and what will happen is you're going to start to release more emotions out of your liver, out of your organs in a nice healthy way and they'll start flushing and the body will work congruently. EFT, emotional freedom technique. Check it out. You add all these together.

You start to change your habits and you're going to start noticing that you're going to bring up to memory other habits that need to be changed and other things that you need to incorporate in your life because you're on the road to health. This is how it can work. So I hope this gives you an idea of how to use Eastern medicine, herbals.

detox remedies incongruent with your new habits. How to use small habit shifts. And you're going to notice that your habit changes can go faster. Much faster. So, I hope this helps. Short podcast. But guys, if you liked this info, give us a comment that you enjoyed it. Or if you want more questions answered, send us comments on this podcast. Please like and subscribe. And if you know someone...

That needs this kind of info. Please send this to them. And we really appreciate it. Hit the bell so that every time a new podcast comes up, you're reminded. Also, we're going to take this podcast and this info and we are going to load it into, of course, into YouTube and into the media outlets. And I want my membership members to take notes.

a look at this video and we're going to discuss it at the next live Q&A. In my membership, I do live Q&As almost every single week. In fact, it's scheduled every week. There's some times where I put a recorded video out, but mostly I do a live Q&A where I have my members come on and we actually discuss what's going on in the podcast. So if you are out there and you want more information about the habit changes and the things I talked about,

Please check out the membership. You can go on my bio and Instagram. You can also go on my website. You can actually email me at contact at Dr. Motley. You can email at Dr. Motley spelled out contact at Dr. Motley spelled out. And we can give you the information about how to join the membership. You're interested. We love to discuss it. I love to go in my community. I love to talk to people about this face to face every week. It's one of my joys and one of my passions.

So, guys, I hope this podcast finds you healthy and happy. And if you want to change habit, please take a look at the charts I'm about to give you and check out the show notes. All right. I hope you have a blessed day. Until next time. Be well. Have a great day.

Before we wrap up, please remember that the information shared in this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor-patient relationship is formed through this podcast, and the use of information here or materials linked from this podcast is at your own risk. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Always consult with your health care provider before making any changes to your health regimen and do not disregard or delay seeking medical advice for any condition you may have. Thank you for joining us today on the Ancient Health Podcast. We hope you've gained valuable insights into the harmony between Eastern and Western medicine. If you've enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, share, and leave us a review.

Remember, true health is about balance, mind, body, and spirit. So stay tuned for more episodes where we continue to explore how ancient wisdom and modern science can work together to help you thrive. Here's to your health, balance, and well-being. I'm Dr. Chris Motley, and I look forward to our next episode together.