#615: Dr. Andrew Weil — The 4-7-8 Breath Method, Cannabis, The Uses of Coca Leaf, Rehabilitating Demonized Plants, Kava for Anxiety, Lessons from Wade Davis, The Psychedelic Renaissance, How to Emerge from Depression, Tales from 50+ Visits to Japan, Matcha Benefits, and More

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A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoscal. Hello, boys and girls, leemers and squirrels. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. My guest today is Andrew Weil MD. He is a pioneer in the field of integrative medicine. He has also been named one of the one hundred most influential people in the world by Time Magazine. So let's cover some backstory. Dr. Wile received a degree in biology, in this case botany, that was the focus, from Harvard College in 1964, and an MD from Harvard Medical School in 1968. I'll skip some of his bio, which we cover a lot in the first ever conversation we had on this podcast. But from nineteen seventy-one to seventy five, as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, Dr. Wild traveled all over the place, in North and South America and Africa, collecting information on drug use and other cultures. Medicinal plants and alternative methods of treating disease. From 71 to 84, he was on the research staff of the Harvard Botanical Museum and conducted investigations of medicinal and psychoactive plants. He really knows what he's talking about. Dr. Wile is the founder and director of the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, where he also holds the level

Jones endowed chair in integrative medicine. He is a clinical professor of medicine and professor of public health. He is a fantastic communicator. Through its fellowship in integrative medicine and residency curricula, the center is now training doctors and nurse practitioners all over the world. And New York Times best selling author, Doctor Wil is the author of fifteen books on health and well being. I don't know how you have the longevity and endurance to write fifteen books. I petered out after five, but he has written many, and I'll just mention a few. Mindover Meds, Fast Food, Good Food, True Food, that name will come up again, spontaneous, happiness, healthy aging, and eight weeks to optimum health. He is also co-founder of the restaurant train True Food Kitchen. I go there often in Austin, Texas, and co-founder of Matcha.com. That is M-A-T-C-H A.com, which offers extremely high quality matcha that is difficult to find outside of Japan. You can find him on all the socials, Dr. Wild, that's D-R- W E I L. That is also the website, drwall.com. You can find the Matcha.com Company at said URL and also on Instagram at Matcha Carri K A R I. And without further ado, please enjoy this wide ranging conversation with none other than

Andrew Wile. M D. Andy, welcome back to the show. It's nice to see you again. Yeah, thanks, Tim. Good to see you. And I thought I would start with a little revisitation to one takeaway from our last conversation. And for people who didn't hear the first conversation, I want to recommend they do go back and listen because we cover a lot of biographical information and many different nooks and crannies that we won't cover this conversation. Okay. There's one

Which was the four seven eight breath that I believe you learned from Doctor Robert Fulford, who was, if I remember correctly, an osteopath. Am I getting that right? Correct. Correct. Yes. Do you still use the four seven eight breath? Well, I do it myself regularly. I do it a a number of times a day. I teach it to almost everyone I meet. I teach it to all the doctors I train. I teach it to patients. Well, whenever I get the chance I do it when I give talks. I often end by doing it. I don't remember whether I told you last time I was invited by the NSA To come in. And uh this was a few years ago out of the blue, the NSA asked me if I would come and talk to them about stress.

And how to manage it. So it was an audience of about a thousand and then it was telecast to remote sites around the world and I had them all doing the four seven eight breath, which was very satisfying. Could you recap just for folks? what the four seven eight breath is, just the format of it, and then what it accomplishes. Because I did it earlier today and found it to be such a rapid state change mechanism. I had felt neglectful for not doing it more often since our last conversation. But if you could just do a recap. Sure. First of all, if people just will Google my name in four seven eight on YouTube. You'll find videos of me doing it, which gives details. And the last I looked, there were millions of of hits on that. A YouTube thing. Anyway, the the basic technique is to breathe quietly in through the nose to account of four

Hold the breath for a count of seven. and then forcibly blow air th out through the mouth for a count of eight. And repeat that for four breath cycles when you're first learning it. Eventually you can go up to eight breath cycles, but no more than that. And to do this religiously at least twice a day. And the real effects come after doing this regularly for

Four to six weeks. And they're really remarkable. This is the most powerful method I found to access the relaxation response. And it's the most powerful anti anxiety measure I've ever come across.

Let's talk about perhaps another tool that people might associate with stress alleviation, or at least some people use it for that. But you were one of the earliest public advocates of cannabis. and advised Congress on early cannabis policy and also conducted and published human trials with cannabis, your personal relationship to cannabis has changed over the decades and I'd be curious to know

what your current use, if any, looks like and for what purpose you use. Cannabis. I don't use it at all, Tim, and I have not used it for probably Twenty, twenty five years. And my relationship's changed so dramatically over the years. In my twenties, late twenties, early thirties, it was A source of great fun and pleasure, and really stimulated my creativity, helped me write. Then I think gradually it turned into more of an introspective experience.

And then somewhere in my late thirties, early forties, I really stopped getting useful effects from it, and I found that just made me groggy and sedated. And I kept using it even though I wasn't getting any Valuable effects and finally stopped. And now, you know, I I just haven't used it in a long time. It has no interest for me. Are there any particular tools that you use, plants or otherwise, for writing? I imagine you still do a fair amount of writing. Is there anything that has filled that gap for you? One is matcha green tea.

And the other is coca leaf. As you know, I'm a great fan of coca leaf. And I've worked for many years to try to rehabilitate coca, to teach people the differences between coca and cocaine. And I'm delighted to see finally after all this time there is some momentum building around Legalizing coca making it available.

What is that momentum, if you could speak to it, because I've had very limited exposure to coca, but it was given to me when I suffered from altitude sickness in South America. And I mean literally within f forty five minutes my symptoms had all but vanished. It was incredible to experience the effects firsthand, but what momentum or what changes are you seeing in the United States? Well, first of all, there's a lot of changes in Colombia and in other countries, and in this country too, there are groups forming really working to legalize coca to make it medically available, to make it available to people. to teach people the differences between coke and cocaine. One group that I've been doing some work with that you may know of is the River Sticks Foundation. I do. Yeah, and Cody Swift as directory. And they're very interested in trying to fund

Coke research to document some of the medical benefits. But it's the first time in forty some years that I've seen any change in attitudes up here and I I think it would be a great thing for people to have access to coca. It's it's not cocaine. It has distinct effects, it has unique medical effects. We should have access to it, not to mention the fact that this is the sacred plant.

Of a great many indigenous people in South America. And it has been so demonized by our society and I think given all the momentum around looking at indigenous cultures and rights That this also plays into this of of rehabilitating the sacred leaf.

I agree with that a hundred percent. And I want to give River Six Foundation, Cody Swift, and his team also a nod for their work with respect to an organization called the Indigenous Peyote Conservation Initiative IP CI. Yeah. Which purchased a tract of land. In Texas. So not too far from where I live, although Texas is effectively a country. It's gigantic. So don't underestimate drive time. And it has become such a symbol of hope. For so many Native

American groups throughout the United States, including groups who historically would not necessarily automatically get along. It's been this unifying such catalyzing project, so I want to give them a nod for that. Could you speak to and explain the beneficial plants research association? This is a f well, it's a a research foundation that I started in nineteen seventy nine. Way ahead of its time. We had a a stellar advisory board including Dick Schulte's Albert Hofmann

Alexander Shulgan. I mean there was amazing advisory group and the purpose of this was to look at plants that had been neglected or unrecognized that could be of great benefit up here. Starting with coca was one of the main ones, but we looked at other kinds of stimulants. Kava, which at that time was relatively unknown.

So the idea was to get research going on these The teach people about them. And as I say, it was just way ahead of its time. So eventually we folded, but I'm really interested in resurrecting this and a common interest. of Cody Swift and mine. is looking at

Demonized plants. And my feeling has always been, you know, a theme of my writing has been that there are no good or bad drugs. There are just good and bad relationships with drugs. And I think you can broaden that the plants as well. And coca being a prime example, we've said that is a bad plant, you know, the source of of all sorts of trouble. But the problem is how we've related to that plant, taking cocaine out of it.

and making that available. And I think if you look at a there's a whole bunch of other plants that we consider problematic and it's really how we've related to them that's the problem. And I think it would be interesting to try to rehabilitate some of them just as an example, things like ephedra And caught. Opium poppies. Tobacco even, that it's our misuses of these that have caused trouble. It's not the plant itself. I was going to mention the last.

tobacco, which I never thought in a million years I would develop an interest in because I grew up hating smoking and everything related to cigarette smoking, but after spending more time in South America and reading Fox. I'm gonna get the title wrong, but it's something like Tobacco and Shamanism in South America. I think it's Johannes Wilbert's Johannes. Excellent book. Very dense. It's not light reading for people who are looking for something to snack on before bed. It's probably not the book. But

Let me come back to one that you mentioned and that is Kava. So A friend of mine reached out to me recently to get my two cents on a new supplement that he is taking in place of his evening cocktail. So he's decided he's in his seventies and has decided to cut back on alcohol intake because he sees how alcohol affects his sleep using an aura ring and other devices. And he's switched to this supplement which contains two things.

Kratom. And Kava. And I know very little about Kava. Kratom I have some thoughts on, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on. Contains Mitrogenine, seems to hit opiate receptors, so I believe there are people who abuse Kratom who have now developed dependencies that are in rehab, at least I've heard some stories related to that, but I know far less about Kava. Would you mind elaborating

On Cover. Kava is the major psychoactive plant that's used in oceania in many islands throughout the Pacific. It's the very large root Of a large plant in the black pepper family.

And it is has unique chemistry in many of these islands people make a beverage from it. originally by chewing the root and spitting it into a bowl and mixing it with water or coconut juice, or now more often drying it and powdering it and mixing it into a liquid. And it is functions as a social stimulant and lubricant, but it is a natural sedative and calmative And probably the most important anti anxiety natural product out there.

Extremely useful and essentially no toxicity. And so It does not interact with alcohol, it does not interact with other sedatives. It's quite safe and I recommend it very frequently to people.

Do you know what effect, if any, it has on sleep quality? My friend has the subjective experience of it helping him to wind down and go to sleep, but I wonder what effect it has on sleep quality. Because you look at some, say, sleep aids like ambient and so on, which help you to fall asleep, but they affect the cycles of sleep and depth. That's putting it mildly, you know, all of these understatement. Yeah. Whether over the counter or prescribed, I think are dangerous drugs. First of all, they don't reproduce natural sleep. All of them suppress dreaming, which is uh an essential component of good sleep. they distort sleep architecture, they're addictive, and they interfere with cognitive function. So I think there's really no justification for using them unless

for very short term use because of situational Insomnia, but Kava Has none of these ill effects. It can be used long term regularly. I don't know that we have good studies on how it affects sleep quality, but I don't know of any indications that it has any of those adverse effects that the Usual sleep aids do. And I suppose I should actually just go back to my friend who is

Granted tracking. Imperfectly, but he's Tracking his sleep with the aura ring that does capture some biometric data that is interpolated to land on percentage of sleep as different phases, including REM and so on. So I I should I should actually just go back to him. But the problem Tim is that he's using Kratom also, which is a significant

agent and uh I we really would like to see this with Kava along what it does. So could you expand on that, please? I I don't know uh that much about Kratom. It's been used in um Indonesia where it's native to help people Break opioid dependents. Mm-hmm. And it has sedative effects and opioid like effects. I think there is a downside to it.

And some concern about people using it in not good ways. But I I'm not an expert on craton. I'll mention to folks who are interested in perhaps learning a bit more about it, there's a good episode Of Hamilton's pharmacopia or pharmacopia, I never know how to pronounce that second word. That covers Kratum and Mitrogine.

and goes into the chemistry and the history, which uh and also environmental costs depending on how these things are harvested, which I can recommend to folks. So that can be found wherever you find your finest videos, Amazon Prime and other places for sure. Since I invoke the name of Hamilton Morris, I want to actually jump into a separate episode of his where he attempts to identify the first known use of Bufo Alvarius. So this is a Noran Desert. Yes, I remember that. Now his conclusion was that there is No compelling evidence to suggest

Indigenous use And in fact, the first documented use of at least Smoking. the crystallized venom from the Snore Desert Toad was documented in nineteen eighty nine by this amateur chemist named Ken Nelson, I think it was. Are you aware of other use of that species or other species? I know you've looked at this. Well, I think I'm one of the first people to have smoked

Toad Venom. I did that with Wade Davis and we wrote the first scientific paper. about Bufo Alvarius. Uh, you know, we've we have not been given much credit for that, but we really were the first people to r report on it scientifically, and we speculated that it was possible that there was indigenous use Of toad venom for all sorts of suggestive reasons. I don't think there is any definitive evidence of that. You know, I think this uh graduate student published a paper In which they identified five methoxy DMT.

in the venom making this unique among toads. And some people read that and got the idea of using toad venom. And it's spread among hippies in the southwest and that's where I learned it from a hippie friend named White Dog, I think he's mentioned in uh Hamble Mars. Uh he was a great character. And I lived out in the

I had a property in the desert that bordered on Sawaran National Park. And I ha was surrounded by toads in the summer, you know, they're eating machines. They just eat insects all the time. And I had outdoor lights and they'd hop in the house. And these are huge animals. They're football sized. And uh you know, I would pick them up, they'd pee on you as soon as you pick them up. And they're so strange looking, and I milk the venom and uh Wade Davis and I smoked it and Amazing because this is the first known occurrence of a psychedelic drug from an animal source.

So that was really, you know, that's scientifically very interesting. Now Wade Davis Would you mind just providing a a snapshot of who Wade Davis is and why You're firing the beneficial plants research association back up at this point in time.

Wade was a graduate student of Richard Evan Schulte's Schultees was my mentor as an undergraduate at Harvard. And then I had a very close association with him at the Harvard Botanical Museum for many years. So I got to know Wade when he was a graduate student. You know, he's now a very well known anthropologist, ethnobotanist, prolific writer and traveler. You know, a a good friend, very bright guy, and he, like me, is also very interested in the Coca project and works with River Sticks. And my feeling is that as I said, the Benefish Plant Research Association was way ahead of its time, but now I think there is traction out there. There's so many plants yet to be discovered that have beneficial effects. Not just psychoactive ones, but things with

Medicinal effects, stimulants, sedatives No, all sorts of things that are potentially useful. And I'm a great believer in natural products. And think that in many ways many of them are superior to synthetic. Chemical drugs. And I like to help people know about them and I wanna see research on them and

discovery m of more of these. So I think it's time to try this again. Also for folks who may want to double click on Wade Davis, a couple of of notes, I believe it was one river that he wrote which chronicles much of Richard Evan Schulte's adventures was also considered in some respects the sort of godfather of modern ethnobotany, I suppose it'd be fair to say. And his name has come up with Doctor Mark Plotkin on this podcast before, so we've We've spent some time chatting about Richard Evan Schulte's. Also, if anyone who's watching, if you're of my vintage or older, because the movie is a little older, has seen The Serpent and the Rainbow. Yeah. It's not a purely factual account, but still touches on the investigation of zombification and zombie Potions.

in Haiti and is one of the trippier Investigations that you can Imagine. I mean it's And that was made from a book. That was Wade's first book was The Serpent in the Ring. Yeah. Yeah, he's he's a very good writer, very good speaker, has quite a few Ted talks, I think.

Let me can I tell you a Schulte story? Yes, please. So in my first year at Harvard, I had to choose a major. I had no idea what I wanted to study because I was interested in too many things. I was flipping through the Harvard course catalog and I came across this course called Plants and Human Affairs. That was a strange name. So to register for this, you had to go to the Harvard Botanical Museum. It was this old Victorian brick building, and when I went in, coming out of it was the first long haired man I'd ever seen, a proto hippie, this was in nineteen sixty, who was probably up in the library which had the greatest collection of books on psychoactive plants. So the Sultis's Classroom. was decorated with blowguns from South America and all sorts of artifacts from his travels and

Plants and human affairs was about economic botany, plants that are of economic importance other than ornamentals. And it included sections on food plants, medicinal plants, drug plants. And each week we had a laboratory in which we tried things. And That for instance, there was a fruit of the week that people would all from all over the world send him fruits which are in a freezer, and we get to try these exotic things. But then there was a lab on making soap and one on making ink, and one on drug plants, in which we tried this really obscure stimulant plant from South America called Yoko. that has the highest percentage of caffeine of any known plant. I think it's the only academic course I ever took in which I learned things of practical value. It was it was fabulous. And uh, you know, and so sh I really formed a close connection with Schultees and stayed associated with him for many years after. Let's stay on Harvard for a minute. So you and uh your history

weave into science, botany, psychedelic history in so many different ways. But before we get to that, in the course of trying to find novel questions or topics to explore in this conversation so as not to duplicate the first, so I came across A note. I think this is actually on Doctorwild.com. What's funny about turning seventy-two was this blog post. I'll just read a paragraph and I'd love for you to expand on this. I also had a brief career at Harvard as a Letter writing prankster. I would procure letterhead stationary from powerful people and organizations by various means and send prank letters to self important people who I thought needed deflating. Fun but also dicey at times and I had to give it up. Okay. Could could you please elaborate a bit on this?

Uh we probably shouldn't go into that, but I got I got very good at this and as a result people would actually commission me to write prank letters and give me stationery. I had I had White House stationery. I had I had mayor of New York st stationery. I did terrible things. I had This gold embossed stationary from the mayor of New York's office. I had the president of Princeton University stationary and I I gave an honorary degree to the mayor of New York from Princeton and invited him to come speak at commencement, for example. So often I had no idea what the results of these were, you know, that I They just sent them out there and I didn't know what would happen. So this is in the days before Photoshop. How did you have Frank Abignail of Catch Me If You Can just forging this stationer or did you somehow procure you got it. You got the real deal. I I got some myself and I had agents who would procure it for me.

Okay now. Agent. This makes me think of something I also dug up, which was Your time as a let's call it a double agent at the Harvard Lampoon and at the Harvard Crimson? Is that am I getting that right? You are. That's that was never done. These were rival organizations and nobody had ever been on both. at the same time. So that was a little uncomfortable, but it was made for some interesting times. All right, and for people wondering, I mean the Harvard Lampoon Is a satire magazine that is produced.

I mean, Conan O'Brien, you go down the list, I mean a long list of famous comedians and writer producers and so on, including a few people who've been on on this show. And then the Crimson is the the school paper. I was doing some searching just to see what has happened in the last few years in terms of news coverage, including your name. And I the one came up that is related to let's just call it the psychedelic renaissance, as some people have called it, that we are Witnessing now. And the the headline is at Harvard, psychedelic drugs tentative renaissance. And I'll just read the intro and then I have a question. So in the early 1960s, the Harvard Psilocybin Project made national headlines for its unethical research methods and controversial leader psychologist Timothy F. Leary. A lot of people will recognize that name. Someone Nixon called the most dangerous man in America. Now sixty years after After Eliger's departure, Harvard is again part of the conversation around the future of psychedelics. From research in the lab to conversations among the student body, psychedelics are making a tentative yet undeniable renaissance on campus, a renaissance conscious of Harvard's checkered history with the substances, yet working to move beyond it. I found your name in here because

At the Crimson, you wrote about, as I understand it, Leary and who was then, Richard Albert, later Ram Doss. Could you Just describe it. The coverage, how that came about, how you relate to it now. what effect that had because it had a huge effect. I mean it seemed to have a huge impact on mainstream culture.

I was the only I think member of the Crimson who had a science background. No, I was majoring in biology, so it felt I was assigned To be the writer about this controversy as it developed. I met Lerion Alpert in the early days. By the way, I think the early research they did was really terrific. You know, they were the first people to really emphasize set and setting.

as really important determinants of drug experiences. They documente very positive effects of psychedelic experiences on prisoners. in Concord Reformatory. I mean really i interesting stuff. And that was before they started a kind of cult grew up around them, the faculty got very upset. I

Was the one who wrote stories about that. I have mixed feelings about that, but I've come to peace with it. I you know, made peace with Leary sometime. few years after I graduated, then Ramdas, uh, you know, I knew over the years. I Did fundraisers for him when he had a stroke.

And a few years before he died I had a really good meeting with him in Maui. In which he said that I had done him a blessing. by forcing him out of harbour because otherwise he wouldn't have been Ramdoss. Almost certainly true. And it's worth folks who are familiar with Romans going back and looking at the early photos of of Richard Albert. Quite different. Very different very different look. Uh Tim, can I also say you know that you talking about this psychedelic renaissance, it astonishes me

the momentum and the mainstreaming of this a few months ago, Town and Country magazine of all places had a major article titled Why Is Everyone Smoking Toad Venom? In town and country magazine. Yeah, really. It seems like something out of a South Park episode from a few years ago. I Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show.

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Let's actually talk about the newest chapters. And I guess this is kind of a two part question. So if you're open to it. You said you've sort of had mixed feelings and come to peace with the early writing. I'd love for you to Expand on that if you're willing to. And then from your perspective and observation of what's happening now.

what you think people are paying too much attention to or too little attention to. Everywhere that I have gone to speak in the past few years, no matter what topic I'm talking about, whether it's nutrition, healthy aging, integrative medicine, I get questions about psychedelics. No people want to know Where they can access them. Ah, how they can have these experiences. I mm, there is just a hunger out there.

And I find that amazing and I think it's a very good thing happening in our society. Maybe the you know, one of the only good things I see happening in our society. And I think the more people who have positive psychedelic experiences, that may lead to the change in consciousness, which I think is the only thing that can turn things around for us. Do you see people getting anything wrong or

Making mistakes. Overemphasizing things. Anything that you'd like to draw. Attention to when you observe this given your decades Of observation in the space. Well, I'm s I'm sure there are still plenty of people who are using psychedelics just as party drugs and recreational drugs. I guess that's fine, but I think they miss out on the You know the real

Potentials of these things. I think the medical profession is really slow to look at how they can make use of these drugs. We're still waiting to see them moved out of schedule one and made legally available. There's a great need for people trained in how to guide psychedelic experiences. There's an awful lot of circling around of commercial interests, looking at how they can capitalize on all this. So you know a lot going on. I don't know how it'll all play out.

Just a sidebar, this is not intended to be a major branch in this conversation, but another Little known fact to me at least. is something I found. This is on Psychedelic Review. In nineteen seventy seven, he, that's you, authored a scientific article on the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. His study of mushrooms inspired the name of a psilocybin species, or I guess it's Celose species discovered in nineteen ninety five. I don't know how to pronounce this, Silos. There we go. Silosopy Wiley I

How did this Come about. Well, my good friend Paul Stamets, who I've known for forty some years. named that species for me. You know, it it you cannot name a species for yourself in botany science, but you can name it for someone else. So he did that to honor me. I'm very honored. There have been attempts to knock the species off, saying it's not a legitimate Name, but it has most recently been confirmed as a separate species.

This may be a boring question for almost everybody listening, but I'm curious. Where does the naming convention come from? So I think of like is it La Faufra Willy Amsei or Willy Amsey? Yeah. Where you have the double I after the name of the person who discovered it at the end as the second component of the species name. Do you know where that naming convention comes from? It goes back to Linnaeus, who was the the really founder of modern taxonomy. And there are international rules of scientific nomenclature, the names are often put in Latinate forms.

So Williams Oh. you described that species it becomes Williamzi I and uh You know, in the botanical name. Okay. This just to satisfy my own curiosity on that. I also found a

mention of your experience of dysthymea, which I believe is mild to moderate. Depression. Correct. Yep. For much of your life emerging from it only in my early fifties. This is you. How did you emerge from it in your early fifties? You know, I wrote a book called Spontaneous Happiness, which is about emotional mental health, and it really goes into great detail about how to manage depression, anxiety, and with non medication means

knowing that the medication is there if you need it. But for depression, we have tremendous evidence of the value of physical activity. Both as a preventive and as a treatment. Tremendous evidence for The use of supplemental omega three fatty acids. Fish oil or fish. There's an enormous variety of

Psychological methods. Things like cognitive therapy, which I think are extremely useful. There's a whole range of spiritual techniques that should be looked at, whether it's meditation, mindfulness, or or even gratitude. No, there's very interesting research showing that just the simple act of keeping a little journal of things to be grateful for and making a note of that as you go to bed can

Improve mood. for with lasting effects for a month. Another area of research that I find fascinating is that mood are contagious. And you can track them through a population just like you can track movements of an infectious disease. If you live within a half mile of a happy person. that you know your chances of being happy are increased by

to a certain percentage and the effect falls off with distance. I mean, fascinating. So you want to think about who you associate with. You know, if you're prone to depression and you hang out with people who are depressed and you watch sad movies and read sad books and listen to sad music, probably that's gonna worsen your depression. I mean simple stuff like that. When did you go to Japan for the first time?

In nineteen fifty nine, in the fall of nineteen fifty nine, when I was seventeen years old. How did you end up going to Japan when you were seventeen? I was a student in an experimental school called the International School of America. This was the first year of its operation. It took a group of twenty two students and six faculty people around the world for eight and a half months, living with living with native families. It's incredible. In uh various countries, and our first stop out of the US was Japan. And I Can remember this distinctly flying on a propeller plane from Hawaii.

to Tokyo. It was an endless flight. Must have taken a long time. Hours. And arriving in Tokyo on a cold rainy morning on November first, taken to meet our host families. They all had sons majoring in English at KO University, but it turned out they couldn't speak any English. So I was then driven a great distance to Orawa City, which is outside of Tokyo, lived with this middle class family With almost no verbal communication possible.

But oddly I felt at home in that Home and I love the food, I loved everything. I really felt I had past lives in Japan. I had some deep connection with it.

How many times have you been back since? Probably fifty, I mean many times. Now you've been to Okay now, uh Quite a number of times.

Mm-hmm. And I've spent a little bit of time there. Okinawa is considered a blue zone. They've uh s in certain portions of Okinawa. population that contains, I guess, the Let's just call the per capita highest percentage of centenarians. Something along those lines. What are some of the lessons you've taken away from that or observations that you've made? Well, it's such a different

world there, you know, they live in a Pacific paradise. With clean water and air, they have An unbelievably varied, fascinating diet, very different from the Japanese Buy it. Um they get physical activity, but one of the

things that most struck me was the different attitude toward aging in that society. That old people are valued as national treasures efforts are made to include them in all aspects of Social life.

very different from what you see here, you know, where we like to isolate old people with other old people and not have to deal with them. One of the stories I collected over there is that a common cause of sibling fighting in traditional Okinawan society is over who is going to get to take care of the aging parents. That's a little little different from what what we see here. So I think that's extremely important. I took my my mother there when she was, I think, ninety Eighty nine or ninety, I was invited to give a talk. at a conference in Okinawa.

They like to trot out their centenarians at all events, so there was a bunch of them at the at an opening party. And they would all come up to my mother and say, I'm a hundred and one, how old are you? And she was very embarrassed about her her age. And I think it was it was interesting to watch her be in a culture where People were proud of being old. So that's one of the lessons I learned. I spent Uh bit of time. I wanna say four four or five days in this

village called Ogimi in the Okinawa, right? So Ogimi is sort of the creme de la creme of the of the centenarian Olympics. And every person I met who seemed to be Say in their nineties or eighties, nineties or or beyond, I would ask, What's the secret? And I got back a different answer from just about everybody. But there were a few things that closely line up with what you're saying. One was Old people were active. I mean people were out in the gardens, people were members of coral societies. We had a a driver at the time for a couple of days and he would say, Well, I'm still young. I'm still a young whippers snapper, basically, and he was in his mid eighties and we drove by a number of places where he would point out, he'd say, That's where the old people just sit inside watching television. That's the end.

He's like, that's when it's over. And it really seemed to be, as you mentioned, the inclusive nature of senior living in that area and also the fact that they're very engaged with community. And very, very active. I remember going to market. Where they have the the purple tarot, which I'm sure you've seen. Yeah. And uh as you mentioned, the diet is very I mean, it's becoming more Japanicised, but it's very different from what we typically think of as Japanese food.

But I have to tell you, Tim, that in the over the period of time that I w was going to Okinawa, Okinawan longevity has plummeted, especially among men. And that's been attributed Entirely to the increasing consumption of American fast food. And I remember um there was an article in the New York Times about that, and they quoted a middle aged Okinawan man who said the first time he tasted a McDonald's hamburger, he thought he had died and gone to heaven. I mean, how could that be? I mean, these people have the most wonderful food available. But there you go, in just such a short space of time, you can see the effects of that. Do you have an opinion on fermented turmeric tea? Because I remember that was Oh ubiquitous. I don't know if that's a tourist shtick or if there's something actually to it. No, it's a very good thing. It was drunk cold, uh unsweetened, and it was very pleasant in hot, humid weather, which is common there. And I was so taken with this that I

Developed a relationship with the company that's making the fermented turmeric and began to import it. First is I had a ready to drink product. This was again probably way ahead of its time, but now through my matcha company Macha carry at matcha dot com. We sell fermented turmeric. Uh the powder, it makes an instant drink. I think this is a first of all, it's delicious and refreshing. I like it cold and unsweetened.

And Turmer, as you know, is The most powerful natural anti inflammatory agent and many health benefits documented. Lots of health benefits including as I understand it, there's some literature to suggest I don't know if protection is warranted, but some mitigating effect. On neuro

Degenerative disease like Alzheimer's disease. And can't prevention of cancer, protection of liver function. It's got wide ranging effects it's good to include in the diet and Forbidden turmeric tea is an easy way to do that. So why matcha? I've had matcha, I love matcha. Why decide to dedicate

Your energy. to Mucha, at least in part. Let me say on the second day that I was in Japan back in in uh November of nineteen fifty nine, my host mother took me next door. to meet her neighbor who was a tea ceremony practitioner. So the three of us sat around and this woman did

A tea ceremony and presented me with a bowl of matcha, and I was completely taken by it first by the color. Also by the choss and the whisk, which I just thought was marvelous, and the taste of it, I fell in love with it. So When I began going to Japan more regularly in the nineteen seventies, every time I was there I'd bring matcha back to the States and turn people onto it. Now nobody'd ever heard of it here. And I just thought this was a great thing to make available. This is before I knew anything about its health benefits. And I partnered with a matcha company in Japan and s began selling it through my website again, like the beneficial plant.

association way ahead of its time. This was in the nineteen eighties. And you know, I just always thought this would be a great thing here. So when I had the chance When I saw Macha becoming popular here It bothered me that so few people had access to good matcha because if if matcha is not

prepared correctly and if it's not stored correctly, it oxidises very quickly because it has such a huge surface area and it turns, it loses that bright green color, it loses the good flavor, has a bitter taste. And many people here had never tasted really good matcha, so I was determined to make that available. And that's why I started this company and we got the great coup was getting the URL matcha.com. People in Japan can't believe that we got that, but there it is. Let's discuss the health benefits. And let me also just ask a question. For myself, I would imagine most people who listen to this and have had tea before, they imagine Tea leaves or a tea bag put into water, you steep, and then you remove the tea leaves, and you're left with this colored water, and that is what you drink. But

Matcha is, if I'm understanding it correctly, whole leaf. So if it would there would also be an incredible importance or you could place incredible importance on quality or sourcing in so much as if you're consuming whole leaf tea that has been exposed to pesticides, you're gonna be getting a much higher toxin load as well. Is that am I thinking about that correctly? You are, and there is organic matcha available, but not nearly as in great supply as conventional matcha. but we've monitored matcha for pesticide levels and are assured that this is not not a problem. But the way matcha's grown How it's prepared.

Це лонг лейбр інтенсив прос. And match is the only form of T In which the whole leaf is consumed, as you say. I think we have the most research on the health benefits of green tea in general. And uh there are many forms of green tea that I like, but matcha has the highest level of antioxidants.

And of L theanine, the calming amino acid that uh modifies the effects of caffeine. So it's unique in that regard, and I think there are health benefits of matcha that are distinctive among all forms of tea. How does Altanine modify the Effects of Caffeine.

I think it it takes the jittery edge off of caffeine to I think the effects of caffeine and tea and then coffee are very different. Coffee produces, I think, a jangling effect in many people. There's often a crash after a period of stimulation. Many coffee drinkers are physically addicted to it and have a withdrawal syndrome when they stop. You don't see anything like that with T. And I think some of that is because the L theanine has a calming effect that

Changes the effect of caffeine. And as I say, matcha has more L theanine in it than any other form of tea. And why is that? Is it that it's contained in some of the fibrous components of the leaf that are discarded when it's prepared. No, I think it has to do with the way the tea is grown, because what's unique about uh matcha is that About three weeks before harvest the plants are sh heavily shaded.

With Shade cloth that cuts out about seventy, eighty percent of the sunlight. and in response to that the leaves grow bigger and thinner and produce higher amounts of antioxidants and L theanine. So I think that's very unique. The same shading process is used to make A very high quality brewed green tea called Yoko that I'm sure you're familiar with. It's quite delicious. So that also has these high levels.

So is that that's fascinating to me. So it almost seems like an adaptive stress response by the plant to fortify itself. Right. Well it's trying to get it makes more leaf surface in an effort to get more, you know, light exposure and it develops more chlorophyll, which accounts for the bright Colour of matcha. So I I don't know how the Japanese discovered this shading process, but it is unique. And for people who have not seen, even if you never have matcha, I certainly would suggest that you consider it, but even if you're never gonna drink matcha, go find uh

Photographs. Of Exceptionally good. The color Is unlike anything else. you have ever seen in your life.

It is like a phosphorescent, almost a phosphorescent green. And I'm biased because green is my favorite color, but it really is it really is something. Something special. Can I say that uh matcha car I think has some of the finest matcha available. We're very particular about our sourcing, and listeners to your podcast can get a generous discount if they use the code Tim. All right. That's a listener exclusive, folks. So there you go. Go Tim. And that's easy to remember.com, M A T C H A dot com. And we can come back to this, but you mentioned your mom. And if My research is accurate.

She lived until ninety four, is that right? Ninety ninety three. Ninety three. So that is still It may not be a world record in O Gimme, but that's still quite a long life span, all things considered. Is that true on Both sides of your family. No, my my f my father died at eighty, had cardiovascular disease, so my mother was much healthier. And until her last year she was quite active and I think in pretty pretty good shape. I traveled with her a lot. It was fun to take her to Japan and other places. One of the things uh I think her part of her philosophy that may have contributed to this, she said it's very important

Never to lose your sense of humor. She said you always have to be able to see the ridiculous side of life. Now is that something that she cultivated? In you as well? Or did she just encourage it? Was there a form of play that helped to weave that into your Being your kind of coding, so to speak. We love to laugh together. I mean, I have a lot of pleasant memories of that. And I think the main thing what that she did, and my my dad did too, was to encourage my curiosity.

You know, I've always been a very curious, inquisitive person, and uh I think they worried about me a lot in some of my experimentation and wanderings, but they always said that I should follow my passion and they they encouraged me to be curious. What did they think of? I don't know how much of a window they had into this, but your fascination with not just botany and plants, but also psychoactive. But those plants. Those plants. So just I'll tell you one thing I remember, this must have been when I was in after I was out of medical school, but I remember going to to visit them in their apartment and they were living in New Jersey at that time. And my mother never said anything to me, but she'd leave newspaper clippings by my bed about marijuana causing brain damage.

Yeah. And I this was in our first conversation, and please tell me if I'm screwing this up, but I believe the v the very first time that you took mescaline, your mom called and said, I hope you're not doing something stupid like taking mescaline and like oh god. She she had mom intuition and telepathy for sure. I could see that. Putting a bit of English on your experience of Mezzeling. I did once, they visited me in Arizona. This must have been in the nineteen seventies and I had coca leaves that I brought back from South America and we all chewed coca leaves together. So they they were acted as if they were very if this was a very daring thing. They got quite silly. It was fun to do.

So how did they feel? My experience of coca chewing or tea is that it's pleasantly mild, but it is far milder to me than a strong cup of coffee. Let's just say. What was their experience like? I think they probably had minimal effect. I think it was more their their expectations and the than anything pharmacological. How old are you now, Andy? I turned eighty on June first. Happy belated birthday.

Thank you. But I have to tell you I have a very good friend, uh Cardiologist who says who's the same age as me, who said that his mother always told him, Joe, don't get old, you won't like it. W how do you relate to getting older. I mean you look great. For eighty certainly. I mean I hope I hope I look as good. I already lost I lost the hair early, so I passed that Rubicon. By the way the the meaning of Silosope, it's a Greek word is bald head.

So I did not know that. That's incredible. So Silosaby Wiley I is pretty good. Anyway, cognitively I don't feel any different. I mean I really don't feel any different from the way I felt when I was in my twenties, but I really feel changes in my body. Especially musculoskeletal changes. you know, annoyances that I didn't have before. I think my sleep has changed. But You know, I think watching the body change and

It's inevitable deterioration, I think that's an important thing to look at. Mm. And do you have any Plans for how you'll spend, say, the the next five years. Do you have certainly you have this matcha project, which I'm glad you're bringing to the world because I just selfishly want high quality matcha. I love I love matcha. But In addition to that, do you think about

Projects you want to do kinda longitudinally over A period of time? I don't feel compelled to do anything. I don't have the drive that I did when I was younger. Like I don't feel like I wanna write anything else. I've written everything I have to say. I wanna see integrative medicine really get on a

solid footing and become No really mainstream which it's poised to do. I feel very deprived of travel during these pandemic years. And I wanna make up for some of that. I'm going to Japan Next month and it'll be I'm really looking forward to that. So I'd like to get some travel in while I can. Yeah.

You know, our mutual friend Kevin Rowe is also Japanophile. And uh it would be fun. It would be fun to actually meet up at some point in Japan. I mean, I've certainly been quite a few times. I'm still in touch, very close touch with my host mother, who I lived with when I was fifteen years old. So we're still still close. And uh that would just be a blast. Well I'm creating this place for you to stay in Norikura Kogan, so I expect you both to come. Oh yeah. I can give you the green light the thumbs up on that with without Without any problem. Well, Andy, is there anything else that you would like Two Mentioned

today in this conversation or explorer. People can find Machakari on Instagram at Machakari. M A T C H A K A R I. The website is macha dot com. They can find you on Twitter. DR Wile and Drwild.com. Then we'll put all these in the show notes. But Yeah, I'd also s uh urge people to look at the website of the Center for Integrative Medicine. Now the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, which that's hard for me to say, but it's uh integrative medicine.arzona.edu. And look at the range of our activities and educational programs, some of which are available to the general public and are very good. Well, Andy, it's uh it's always nice to see you. We'll link to all these things in the show notes. Anything that you would like to see researchers

In the Realm of psychedelic science. Focus more on or consider focusing on. I am somewhat discouraged. To see all the emphasis on

Mental, emotional health. Because I think there's such tremendous potential for psychedelic experience in physical medicine. for really changing the course of chronic disease. for really affecting how people experience their bodies. You know, I've just seen so many dramatic effects of psychedelic experiences on people who've had chronic illness, and I want to see more exploration of that.

And for a tasting of of some of that, people can listen to the first conversation where we talk about your experience with cat allergy. Also just one of those head scratchers that is worth Digging into Well, there's a lot of stuff like that out there and we wanna take it seriously and look how we can make use of it. There's a book called The Fellowship of the River. I think I'm getting that right, about a western trained

physician who ends up engaging very heavily with ayahuasca specifically and in that account talks about how certain things respond or don't respond, or I should say rather appear to respond or don't respond more often than uh other conditions, let's just say. And uh some that seem to respond well, and this is not medical advice. I'm not encouraging people to go to the Amazon and drink ayahuasca. Speak to your GP first. But Are many of the autoimmune diseases, IBS, Crohn's disease, et cetera.

That'd be top of my list of things to explore the use uses of psychedelics in. So do you think that is then not necessarily a physical response to ayahuasca specifically with its harming and everything else in the vine. Or or the DMT necessarily was something that could be observed with Say Soul Seven. Yeah, I do. I think it's hard to disentangle all that, but I think that it's I don't think it's specific to those

Chemicals. Yeah. Well, it's uh Brave New World, there's a lot of certainly a lot of research being done, even more companies being formed. And I suppose it will be ultimately survival of the fittest and survival of the most interesting from a scientific perspective. So I'm cautiously optimistic, but you've been

in this space for many, many decades now. Uh is there anything left for you to experience personally? Within the realm of of psychedelics, or do you feel like you've scratched that itch? Yeah. Yeah, you know, uh my first book, The Natural Mind, uh Alan Watts wrote a blurb for it. Which is great. And the last line of it was, you know, when you get the message, hang up the telephone. Yeah. Uh and I feel that way. I think I've gotten the message about psychedelics. I don't feel the need to

Do further experimentation. Well, when you get the message, hang up the phone and let me just mention a few places where people can find you. I already did, but we'll we'll link to the Center for Integrative Medicine, which is integrated medicine dot Arizona dot edu. Is that right? And then uh certainly you can just search Andrew Wil or Dr. Will and then the platform of choice and it'll pop right up and they can find you at Drwill W E I L dot com and certainly can find the Macha Car at Macha dot com. Is there anything else, Andy, that you'd like to add? No, that was a wide ranging conversation which I have enjoyed greatly. Yeah, thank you for taking the time, Andy. Sure. And to everybody listening, until next time, be a little kinder than is necessary to your fellow humans, fellow animals. Let's not get too ambitious. And as always, until next time, thanks for tuning in.

Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out. every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kinda like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading. albums perhaps gadgets gizmas all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends including a lot of podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun again it's very short a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser. Tim.blog slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one.

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