Do most people actually need supplements today or can we realistically meet all of our nutritional needs through food?

Yeah, that's a great, great question.

So and it's and it's not really a cut and dry like, you know, yes, everybody needs supplements or no, not not everybody needs supplements.

It really depends on sort of like where you are with your nutrition profile and what your goals are.

So, you know.

I'm like, let me let me let me almost let's start off from from from my my bias.

Right.

How did they separate quality from clever marketing?

So what about that third sort of category? I think tongkat ali sort of bridges that well, is what are some supplements, Shawn, that I probably haven't heard of or maybe the audience hasn't heard of but Shawn Talbott likes?

Yeah, so two, two of my favorites.

Um, one at, one is called, uh, one is called pine bark, right? The, I, I, I, I, uh, I prefer one called New Zealand pine bark because it, it, it, it, it does, it does a bunch of really cool things.

So, um, it's good for your memory.

It, so it can help with, with brain fog, it can help with mental focus, it can help with memory.

Uh, pine bark is something that I use in a lot of supplements for, you know, lack of a better term, like if somebody says like, "Hey, I think I might have a little bit of ADHD, and I'm thinking about going that direction," I'll go, "Try pine bark first," because it can really, it can really help with monkey mind, it can help with clarity, it can help with focus.

So it has all these great bain- b- brain benefits.

Is there any supplements or are there any supplements, Shawn, that you recommend for, you know, trying to improve sleep?

Can you kinda give us a, an overview, just so a, a kind of a 101 description of what you're really talking about here?

here?Yeah, so, so it, like it can get very complicated when you start thinking about all the signaling across the gut-brain axis.

So the, the general idea is that like, you know, if you're, if you're sad, you might think, "Oh, it's a serotonin problem." Or if you're unmotivated, you might think, "Oh, it's a dopamine problem." So the, the sort of, you know, the knee-jerk reaction to say, "Oh, I need more serotonin, I need more dopamine," and that's where the like antidepressants would come in, right? That's not always the, the problem.

It c- it could be, right? That's one of the thing- You might not have enough serotonin.

But it could be that you have plenty of serotonin, but it's getting blocked by something.

It's getting blocked by a stress hormone like cortisol, or it's getting blocked by a, an inflammatory marker that we call cytokines.

So in that situation, it's not really a neurotransmitter problem per se, it's an infla- it's an inflammatory problem, or it's a, or it's a stress hormone problem.

Which ones are the ones that you recommend?