There’s a beauty in knowing people. Michael Franti understands that, probably better than most, and would like to bridge the gap.
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Best known as a musician, humanitarian and filmmaker, Franti lives his life based on the belief that there’s no one you wouldn’t love if you knew their story. With that sole cornerstone, Franti launched his Stay Human podcast series this past spring to help spread that belief and has had some insightful and entertaining conversations with musicians, activists, CEO’s and more.
On the latest episode he is joined by Mehmet Cengiz Öz, or Dr. Oz as he is better known, for a chat that runs the gamut covering current events such as holiday safety in the time of Covid, vaccines and how important it is to maintain our mental health.
Living and going to school in America yet spending summers in his parents native Turkey, Dr. Oz. simultaneously grew up on both sides of the globe giving him a unique perspective of life. Being as it was the 1960’s and 70’s, the world was in a different place. Turkey along with the rest of Eastern Europe, lagged behind the western world in many ways so he grew up understanding how easy it can be for people to have two very different perspectives to the same issue and both make sense. While that skill has served him very well throughout his life, having an open mind and being open to another’s perspective is something most people could use a little lesson in these days.
“If you can understand the other person, basically their language or their thought process, you are much more impactful and able to change their mind. Or maybe you don’t want to change their mind, maybe you want to change your mind.”
As the thirty-five-minute podcast moves along, Franti and Dr. Oz delve into a number of topics ranging from how best to navigate the pandemic for your own mental health to the importance, and keys, to a good night’s sleep.
“It’s the 80/20 rule. 80% of protecting yourself against the pandemic are a couple simple topics. 20% are the hundreds of other things you could do that are far less important. As an example, avoiding time in a poorly ventilated indoor space with a bunch of people you don’t know is really important. Washing your vegetables to get the virus off them? Not important.”
As for sleep, that’s something Dr. Oz is more than passionate about. Understanding both the health benefits and the risks, long term and short term, Dr. Oz is adamant people pay attention to their sleep.
“The single most underappreciated problem in America, in fact the world, is sleep. I’ve looked at this over and over again and it is shocking to me how many health problems arise because of poor sleep. Forget about productivity and creativity and your ability to just be a happy person which are all valuable reasons to sleep, but your incidents of high blood pressure go up when you’re unable to sleep well. Your body never seems to feel relaxed. Issues around dementia seem to increase, weight gain for sure goes up.
“Here’s the thing, your brain craves four things. Your brain craves food and water, sex and sleep. People can take care of the sex themselves but if you don’t sleep, you’re going to crave food and water. Most people don’t understand the difference between food and water, so they just go for the food. And you don’t just crave any food, you crave carbohydrates.”
That’s not all. Allergies, asthma, cancer rates – all seem to increase when people don’t sleep well. In addition to discussing his new affordable Good Life brand of sleep solutions, Dr. Oz breaks down the simple protocol everyone should follow for good, sound, restful sleep.
“Cool the room down, the colder the room the better off you are. Ideally under 68º. Then you want a blanket that doesn’t make you too hot, so a comforter that’s cool. Make sure you don’t have a lot of clothes on, because you don’t want to be restricted. Ideally no clothes is best with a good comforter, then you sort of feel like you’re hibernating in a cold room. Make it dark and quiet, or if you can’t make it quiet at least put on a sleep machine, then you have the recipe for successive sleep.”
