Ancient Practices That Work In A Modern World w/ Michelle Bang

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1:37This is the Ed Myron Show. Hi, welcome back to the show, everybody. So we were just talking about intelligence off camera. I'll just start it out. Let me just set the field for you. My guest is much smarter than me. she's a Harvard business school graduate. She's an award-winning entrepreneur. And, uh, she's got a great book out. I was just asking her, make sure I pronounce this correctly called son and Sue got, and I think I'm getting it closer is pronouncing that right, but you're going to learn a lot today. So am I, here's what's cool about today. Show you guys, I promise you, you're going to learn things today.

2:12You have never heard in your life before because her perspective is very unique, particularly in the podcast space. and you're going to hear about how her Korean American heritage sort of changed her viewpoint of life, gave her a perspective that most of us don't have. And we're going to talk a lot today about the Korean art of self-care, wellness and longevity. So this won't be the same stuff you hear all the time about self-care and living a longer time. Different perspective. So Michelle Bang, welcome to the show. Good to have you. Thank you. I'm so honored to be here. so i'm so glad you're here today and the first question i want to ask you is about walking because you recommend it in the book is like one of the primary recommendations and the reason i want to recommend it is you know the internet's a very interesting place i had dr gabrielle line on my show and we were doing a podcast her book was about building muscle muscle building and there's this offhanded exchange we have where i go when did walking become exercise and we kind to go back and forth.

3:13We were talking about building muscle, but like everything in the internet. So it ends up being this viral clip. He doesn't take walking's exercise, which is absolutely insane. I think it may be the overall most beneficial form of walk of exercise. So for example, and I want to ask you about this, like for me, I have a really bad, uh, um, L3, L4. I can no longer run. Walking's been a savior for me. My father had eight years of cancer. He walked daily as his primary form of exercise. You're going to get the right optimum heart rate, burn fat as opposed to sugar because your heart rate's not getting too high.

3:49Flexibility, circulation, all of these benefits come. I've recommended walking as exercise on probably 10 different podcasts of mine over time. But you say there's ancient wisdom also in this concept of walking as exercise. So I want to start there today because it's a fundamental. There's a lot of gym rats listen to this show they lift they pump iron they do you know sprints and interval training in the gym but they don't really take walks and they're missing out on something that probably would extend their life more than any of those other things why is that such an ancient practice and why does it matter it is the most common pattern that i actually found across all of the centenarians all the people that are wrong with relations um the buddhist nuns actually do it very naturally, you know, in the mountains that they live in.

4:40They are naturally going outside with the walking, they're getting close to dirt, they're being exposed to microbial diversity, you know, it does a lot of different things. And especially now, I've actually transferred, you know, the way I used to, I used to go to the gym all the time, really working out. And, you know, one of the biggest things I would say is walking is so easy, that is sustainable. You can do it every day, you can do it for a long time. And it's just very natural. And it's, you know, something as simple as, you know, getting off of your subway stop, and you can show up your stepping outside.

5:16And you start forming a lot of, you know, health benefits if you do it after meal as well. So I've now, you know, I take an evening stroll after dinner and, you know, it helps with maintaining weight control. You know, it decreases my glucose spikes. I am digesting food, which is so important. It's actually, you know, when you study what the Buddhist monks are doing, it's all about digestion. I got to tell you something funny. there's this great lady on the internet and every night she's after she eats she takes she literally calls it this she's precious she takes fart walks with her husband they literally eat dinner and it's the funniest clip you've ever seen but she's dead serious about it and she they both look great she calls them fart walks after dinner the other thing about walking which i've never said that term in my life on a podcast before but the other thing about walking for me is um it's almost become a form of meditation for me, even though I'm moving.

6:14Um, I don't know if you've experienced that, but some of my best ideas, my most peaceful moments, my body is almost saying when I walk, thank you for this, which is why I broke my heart so much that people would think that I don't think walking, I don't think walking builds a bunch of muscles, but I do think it's maybe the best form of exercise overall that you could experience. Do you ever experience that too? When you're walking almost a sense of peace in your body, like your body saying, could we do this more, please? yeah and it's a way for me to actually slow down and um spur creativity i get my best ideas walking so do i so do i most of my original podcast ideas that i do on thursdays or these solos episodes come from my walks that's usually where i get them from it's almost like my time with god alone i get to see his creation all over the place and it it slows me down as well so i'm i'm completely with you.

7:07So there's so many things I want to ask you because I didn't grow up like you did. You say in the book, and this is, it should be fundamental to everybody, but like, if you actually want to live longer and achieve more, you better start taking care of yourself. That's like a foreign concept to people that live in the United States, even though the show's heard around the world, we like think we'll get around to doing that stuff someday. So let's just start with the basic kind of overall premise of your work in this book. I'll let you go from there. It sounds so simple. And that's why it's actually so radical.

7:37Because in the modern world, we get straight to the pill, we forget to take care of ourselves. I mean, I certainly went through that, you know, when I fell ill. So I'm just going to go back to my background. As you say, I'm a Korean American. And although I'm a social impact entrepreneur, I ended up training in functional foods and on holistic dieting of care through this journey. And I grew up in a world of East West medicine. I was born and raised in Brooklyn. I ended up living two decades in Hong Kong. And this is kind of where my story started. You know, my father is a US based doctor who trained at the top medical school in Korea, you know, with something like a 0.8 % acceptance rate.

8:21And I grew up in this world where he exposed me very early on to the practical and holistic applications of medicine, which is so ingrained in our culture. You know, for example, using whole foods on holistic measures to recover from surgery, from colds, pregnancies, from injuries. I mean, think about, you know, when you come out from surgery in an American hospital, you are, you know, you're fed often jello, but that's certain amount of the case in Korea. You are fed something that's very nourishing. It's helping the body to heal. You know, it's the idea that goes back to ancient times where we are using food as the spectrum of care.

9:01So these are, you know, concepts that are very embedded in our Korean culture. And then later I married into a traditional Chinese family that embodied these nourishing traditions past some generation. So over the last two decades, my family and I have been splitting our time between Hong Kong and New York City as expatriates. So I live very much in this East West, you know, between both, I would say. And so it very much lends, you know, my perspective of writing the book and, you know, what I experienced. nuanced. That perspective is, you know, obviously pretty unique. I've never heard a podcast of somebody that has your background and your perspective, especially the combination of the three cultures, frankly, that you sort of experienced.

9:42The book is cool guys. So this is sort of the premise of the book, soil, sun, water care. There's like this books broken down on these different parts. Right. And it was really interesting for me to learn that there's stuff from like many, many, many years ago, centuries ago, that the modern world hasn't even caught up with yet that are holistic things that you can be doing for your well-being, your gut especially, from when I'm reading your work here. So let's just start like way back when, and we'll catch up to now. We're going to spin all around this thing today. What's something that the ancient people did that the modern world still hasn't caught up to that we should be doing in terms of our wellness?

10:24so the ancient kings used to be very well cared for in terms of their long term to be the people were very concerned about him and his family living for a very long time running over the kingdom and what they did was really smart you know they would place their kingdoms in areas that were you know filled with wild plants you know right next to seas and oceans where they can get really wholesome ingredients. But what they did was so smart, they actually used their royal physicians, and they worked in tandem with the cooks. So, you know, these are sort of like very simple concepts that we're still not using today.

11:03They're taking a look at what the king is eating, how they're feeling, you know, and then they're recording what is happening in the kitchen and feeding him something that's going to help them feel better, recover from something that he's, you know, going through, and to, you know, help him to live longer. And so this was just like a a beautiful partnership that they were forming to make sure that the king was alive for a really long time and you know it just when you go back to the dossiers or royal dossiers one of the most important jobs is actually keeping and tending to the fermented condiments um which was meant and we're only now tapping into the importance of fermented goods you know how that is so healthy for a microbiome, which is, you know, really the seed of our immunity.

11:49And we've just, you know, are starting to uncover that, you know, there's microbiome everywhere, including our brain, which has, you know, impact on our research for Alzheimer's. So they were doing that a long time ago and we're just now uncovering. Well, what's crazy about that too, is the gut brain connection is something. I'll be honest with you, just even this year, and I've had a show for a decade that I'm starting to understand how the gut affects the brain and that a lot of these diseases are not caused in the brain. They're caused in the gut. And and somehow the ancient world, the world that your ancestors are from, understood this stuff or somehow stumbled into it.

12:27I don't know which one it was, but actually the statistics tell us that they suffer from these ailments at percentages that are way less than people that live here suffer from them. So let me ask you this. And it's a naive question in the beginning, but I think a lot of people won't know the answer to this. What is kimchi and why is this something that's like more than just food to you? I just want them to know this because it's something I pulled from the book. It is really part of our cultural identity. I think it was a way for them to get through the harshest mind-jews because there was no cabbage is a really humble produce, which actually has, you know, it's very easy to get.

13:07It's very budget-friendly, and there's hundreds of varieties in Korea. But what they managed to understand is that when you ferment it, when you start preserving it, add the produce with salt, water, and thyme, it becomes this thing where it's filled with probiotics, filled with really great bacteria, and it doesn't require cooking. So there's a lot of culture and tradition around making kimchi. and if you think about you know this idea of they are in this health care system which is like beautifully marrying two schools of medicine you know this idea of preserving the old ways you know which is you know i if you want to encapsulate it in self-care you know what you can do at home like home cooking and taking care of yourself but also you know if you wanted to use advanced medicine if you were to sort of think about it in a more tangible way using kimchi you know let's say you have to take in antibiotics and you know it is very much part of their culture to eat kimchi they're refilling the probiotics that's right away by the antibiotics and so um it's just this beautiful marriage of you know what is so normal and natural for them to do so kimchi is very much it's this little you know side condiment that is in every single meal um and it was actually fermented cabbage you know basically sauerkraut before uh yeah yeah i didn't know that till the book.

14:32That's why I ask you, what the heck is it, right? Because, I mean, obviously we know off the rack what it is, but actually its origin is pretty unique, you guys. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your Progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies. So you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this episode at Progressive.com.

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16:40What did these Buddhist nuns know about the microbiome and its health that right now science is proving? What did they know about that stuff? Because I think the vast majority of people listen to my show, they work out, they drink water. They are trying to eat a little bit better. They got like the basics of this stuff or they've got some biohacker hack that's modern. But the real stuff, the people that are really living a long time. And by the way, everybody, not just living a long time, but living well a long time. Know some of these secret practices. What did what are those Buddhist nuns? No.

17:16yeah i mean what you're talking about is health span it's not necessarily how long health span okay not living to 200 years old it's how well you're living you know for the time that you have um what they're doing is their focus on training-based living you know it was so interesting when i was starting to go through this research because i had grown up you know really afraid of germs actually you know just sort of veering away from germs but what they're doing is a focus it's sort of a refocus on building the soil and strengthening the terrain of their bodies by eating things, by going outside.

17:52So it all goes back to the microbiome, you know, even something as simple as, you know, exposing yourself outdoors, which is what they do. You know, they're around produce, they're outside and they're foraging. And, you know, if you think about, you know, what the average person does, you know, we're spending in the modern world, much of our time indoors. It's revolving. In front of the computer, driving, screen time, we're spending actually 93 % of our time indoors, which means we're exposed to very little microbial diversity. Just even being exposed to dirt. So this is what the Buddhist nuns are naturally doing.

18:29It's a very naturalistic way of approach to living life, which we forgot. What do you mean exposed to dirt? What do you mean by that? being outside being close to dirt i mean we're we're living in the city we're not getting close to nature we forgot so what do you do you're in new york right so all that stuff about living around the green stuff and the plants right now at least i assume when you walk out your door that's not the first thing you see maybe i'm wrong so what do you do in every city there's trees you can get close to trees it's very simple you do it daily to me do you take a walk into Central Park or wherever in New York on a regular basis?

19:08I used to be a gymnat. I mean, it completely transformed, you know, the way I work out and I feel so much better. I feel better than my 20s, I would even say, even my skin health. So what I've done is I sweat every day and I make sure that I walk every day. So there is a certain number of steps where I start to feel a burn. I start to feel an instant energy. And it's completely transformed, you know, my health regime. I, I don't necessarily work. I use weights, but I'm not going and I'm yeah, it's, it's quite gentle. I would say. Here's a biggie for me. So remember the book is soil, sun, water care, something about water for me has a calming presence.

19:54That's why I, when I ever made any money, I'm like, if I could live near water, I just feel differently. When I didn't have money, I lived in an apartment. I always had like a little fountain in all my apartments with running water, hydration, et cetera. What the heck is, I'm going to mess pronounce it and you know I am, Jim Jill Bang. These are traditional bathhouses. Is that pronounced it correctly so I don't look like a fool? I'm willing to look like a fool. Okay, bang. And then overall just water, that whole part of the book, just take that and go for a little bit. Jim Jill Bang is the Korean word for traditional bathhouse and it really is a culture in Korean society.

20:34I mean, they are very budget-friendly saunas. It's a complex of saunas. So for just a few dollars a day, you can go. And it's gender-neutral and age-neutral. I mean, children are going with their grandparents, and they're just stripping off their clothes. They're getting down into these back houses, going into saunas. And it's sort of like this really fun experimentation with hot and cold. Yes. It has so much benefit to our health, but also the skin. So they're starting to learn all these health tools from a very young age all the way through their life, and they're bringing it back home. So even if you don't live in a gym job, you can bring it back home into your bath, which is what I do now when I live in New York City.

21:20But the gym job is very deeply involved in food culture. There are steam rooms. There are saunas. You're getting a massage. You know, massages are very normalized in Korean culture on a regular basis, which is so important for lymphatic drainage. You get the best and roughest exfoliation of your skin. You come out, you know, with baby soft skin. And, yeah, you're just spending time to kind of de-stress. You know, I think stress is not necessarily a bad thing. It can actually, you know, push you to reach your goal. But, you know, chronic stress is actually a problem that leads to inflammation and disease, which is sort of, you know, one of the hard lessons that I learned along the way.

22:04And the Jim Jilbang is part of that self-care toolbox where, you know, they're regularly going, you know, if not every day into this Jim Jilbang. So that's something that is very normalizing our culture. Check this out. So preparing for this, I couldn't pronounce it. It's Jim Jilbang. So I got that now. Although bang is easy to remember if you say it my way. But I got to tell you something. I did some research and here's a staggering thing for people that visit a bathhouse once a week over the age of 30. They have a 77 % less likelihood of ever having a heart attack in their lifetime. That's a staggering stat.

22:40So I'm like, wow, what's that correlated to? There's another study that just came out that said if you sauna four times a week, you have a 50 % less likelihood of having a heart attack. So it's not just some genetic thing. Culturally, this hot, cold concept, especially the steam hot, cold has huge longevity benefits. And again, you called it you didn't call it longevity. You called it. What did you call it? It's it's something Jevity. We're about it's the quality of how long you live and how well you live. What did you call that? what was it health yeah health span it's just it's an absolute fact so let me ask you a question here on this there's people listening to this are like yep this is cute i got it some of the old stuff's connected to some of the new stuff and i should be really self-caring here but i'm in the grind right now and yeah i'm gonna get around to it you know there'll be a point you know three years from now five years now once i have this much money once i get this job title once i do this.

23:37And what would you say to somebody who's in this like crazy high achiever? When I say crazy, I don't mean it's crazy to do it. I mean, just crazy pace, high achiever culture. They're listening right now and they're ignoring every warning sign in their life that they should be taking some care of themselves. What would you say to them based on your own experience? Self-care is a magic bullet leading a healthy life, healthy health span. It's the pattern that I saw across China, across Japan. I mean, I was living in Hong Kong for two decades. And then ultimately, I connected it to my Korean culture.

24:15I think what is happening in today's world is that self care actually needs to be redefined. It's often equated to external beauty. But if you take a look at all of the top medical organizations, it is a medically critical term. It's something that should be happening more often. People just don't know about it. And so if you take a look at the World Health Organization, for example, you know, over 70 % of chronic illnesses can actually be preventable with lifestyle changes that include self-care. It's really important. Well, here's how important it is. I've said this I didn't do any of these things.

25:03I mean, I've always worked out lifted weights. I did everything that you would do in the current personal development culture. Lifted heavy things, grinded, you know, ate pretty well. I did these basic things. Didn't care about my gut, didn't meditate, didn't stretch, didn't do yoga, didn't sauna, didn't do any of these things until a few years ago. And you know what happened once I got to in my 50s? cancer, heart attack, L3, L4 compressed in my back, chronic jaw pain, massive fatigue, which then contributes to your emotional well-being. So a lot of you that are like, hey, once I get a bunch of money or all the houses I want or all the accolades, well, I got all of that.

25:45And then I got to an age where I can't even enjoy it. I'm spending most of my time with doctor's visits now. Most of my time with my family concerned about me. Most of my time contemplating, what do I want to do? Because I don't know how much time I have left. Now I've worked very hard the last four years or so on making up for that, but you don't need to wait till you're my age. And if you are my age, listening to this, you really need to pay attention to what we're talking about right now, because I'm a product of not doing these things. And that's why I have guests on my show, like Michelle, because I think it's that important in your life as you're achieving and growing and climbing that you have these things in place.

26:23I mean, I'm a perfect example of that. So when I embarked on this journey, I was in Hong Kong and I myself was in the middle of, you know, this high achieving, you know, sort of trying to reach my dreams. You know, I have just launched a social impact startup that is experiencing tremendous growth, winning awards and major contracts. And I was so deeply passionate about what I was doing and managing teams, you know, around the clock. I thought I was too busy to sleep, to eat. And in the middle of all that success, I landed in the emergency room for the first time in my life. And this is such a pivotal moment for me because prior to that hospital visit, I thought it was really healthy.

27:04You know, I was just, and later I discovered that the doctors, you know, put a camera gun, my throat, and it's my stomach. There was actually very little of my gut that was left healthy. So I returned home. It was kind of like night and day. I became constantly ill. And I just, it was just so befuddling to me. And I just started realizing, oh, this has actually been brewing for a really long time on my body because I was just not taking care of myself. So if you can imagine like an iceberg, you know, above the water, you know, everything seems fine. But, you know, what was happening was that the roots of my health was just falling away.