Embrace a Life of Radiant Well-being
In my late 20s, I felt like the world was my oyster. I had just graduated from an Ivy League business school, earned a coveted job at a bulge bracket investment bank during the midst of the financial crisis, and was ranked at the top of my training class. Everything was going my way.
As far as my health was concerned, I knew I was fortunate. I never took any pills, never had allergies, had zero food sensitivities, no headaches, no daytime naps, and generally full of energy. On weekends I would stay out late, eat whatever I wanted, and drink too much beer with my friends. Yet I was always fully functional the morning after, in good shape, and would frequently run the seven-plus miles across the Williamsburg Bridge and back from my apartment on Sundays.
Despite the long hours at work, I had little concept of what feeling poorly all the time was actually like. I completely took for granted my healthy circumstances and how quickly things can change, which they did in the summer of 2010 when I was diagnosed with a flare-up of Epstein-Barr virus (the virus that causes mono). The acute symptoms of mono quickly passed, but the chronic Epstein-Barr has lasted more than five years. It has taken a significant toll on my physical and emotional well-being. For the first three years after the diagnosis, I felt completely hopeless for the first time in my life. What little energy I had was focused on just getting through the day… every day, without breaking down. It was a horrible existence.
Before my illness, I used to wake up every morning and read a quotation by John Stuart Mill that I kept on my dresser next to my bed. It said,
"A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
I used this quotation to motivate me; to remind me that the physical discomfort of sleep deprivation and the emotional pain of deteriorating personal relationships were worth it in the long run. The nature of my fight was not uniquely onerous: to be successful at my job, to pay off my student loans, to support my father who was severely in debt, to find a wife, to save enough to support my future family, to move up in the company or start my own in order have a positive impact on the people around me, and dare I say, make America and the world a little better. This was my fight for which I was willing to sacrifice a little personal wellness.
This fight was hardly as noble as Mill's reference to liberty and justification for America's Civil War, but that's also why it motivated me. I wasn't dodging bullets, I just wasn't getting enough sleep. Sleep was an inconvenient luxury. Therefore, I thought I had it good and so had a lot to live up to avoid becoming this "miserable creature". Yet, ironically, in my quest to not become this "creature" that it is exactly what I became.
After the acute symptoms of mono subsided, the doctors told me I may be tired for a "few more weeks", so I returned to work and, just as before, I continued to grind away 13+ hour days, six to seven days a week. However, I was in severe pain, feeling more tired in the morning after sleeping nine to ten hours than I had before going to bed. I could barely think or remember anything I read, I was blindly going through the motions of life. I'm not sure how I wasn't fired from my job. It felt like my brain was completely void of any thought. Though I'm not particularly religious, I prayed every day I would get better— as the doctors had ensured I would. And I thought to myself, maybe tomorrow I will feel just a little better.
I was not getting better. I broke out in frequent fevers, cold sweats in the middle of the day, had multiple rashes that my immune system couldn't fight, I was constantly congested, my digestion was a mess, my appendix almost burst and I had to have surgery to remove it. All I ever felt like doing was sleeping. I had no outward displays of emotion. A joke would be told by a co-worker and my body wouldn't let me laugh or even crack a smile, despite thinking to myself how funny it was.
I went out of my way to avoid friends and family because I knew I wasn't myself, and I could not stand not being myself especially around those I cared about. In isolation, at least, it was less apparent how the fatigue and brain fog were impacting me. When around others, the worry about how the pain was changing my personality was always at the forefront of my mind and exacerbated the problem further. It was a vicious cycle of pain, self-pity, anger, and then more pain.
I had usually deeply enjoyed the company of my friends. I was very comfortable in my skin. I wasn't an extrovert, but not an introvert. I was a competitor who saw complaining as a weakness. I was a college athlete that believed pain made you stronger. When I got four cavities once in high school I refused novocaine to get them filled. Looking back on my illness, I was not as vocal as I should have been about my health to my family and friends, largely because I saw it as an embarrassment and a personal weakness to overcome.
I also had just started a job as an investment banker, so my sudden retreat wasn't particularly startling to my friends or family. I lied many times, using work as an excuse not to go out, to skip birthday parties, and bachelor parties in order to rest and sleep. I often pretended like nothing was wrong, partly because I was told by medical professionals that nothing was wrong, and so I saw my fatigue as something to power through. I also thought that if I acted as if nothing was wrong I would convince myself I was indeed better and my body would heal.
The daily anguish of seeing my future hopes, goals, and dreams vanish a little more every day was the hardest part. Real suicidal thoughts never really crossed my mind, but I rationalized how much easier it would be if I had cancer or something arguably less debilitating which doctors could easily point to. If I survived cancer, at least, it would be a public badge of honor and, if not, I would be out of my misery. I know that that may sound extreme, but given the degree of physical pain and emotional pain I was in, it was not. I was functioning at only a tiny fraction of what I was capable of, spending all my will-power just on trying to get through each day. And I was doing it all alone.
To those who I assertively confided all the details of my illness –including doctors– it was frequently remarked how good I looked, I was told that my skin "glowed" and that therefore they were sure I would recover shortly. I went to five different primary care physicians and the official prognosis from all was that the mono was working its way through my system, that there were no issues with my blood work and I should recover soon. When I brought up diet or supplements, two doctors gave generic "eat healthy" responses "you know, fruits and vegetables", one said to eat salmon, the fourth amazingly said that diet wouldn’t have much of an impact. When this came out my doctor's mouth, I knew at that point (which was more than a year after the mono) that I would have to truly take my recovery into my own hands, be appropriately skeptical of the medical community, put more effort into finding the right doctors, and seek alternative therapies.
Diet was an obvious first step to taking control of my healing process. What exactly a healthy diet looks like has taken me some time to figure out and I continue to refine it. But the highest impact changes to my diet have been to eat more healthy fats, grass-fed proteins, and organic vegetables; restrict dairy, sugars, carbs, and gluten. There are infinite permutations to any diet and it can seem overwhelming at first, but for your sanity's sake try to keep it simple. As Michael Pollen wisely advises: "Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables."
The Epstein-Barr virus wreaked havoc on my digestive process, my adrenals, and my whole endocrine system. Through various therapies, diets, and protocols I've attacked these maladies head-on. For example, a candida diet for my gut overgrowth, thyroid medication for hypothyroidism, mitochondrial supplements for ATP depletion...etc. However, a monument shift in my approach to recovery occurred after reading CFS Unraveled by Dan Nueffer. Nueffer posits that the root cause of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a dysfunction autonomic nervous system (ANS) which at the conscious and subconscious levels the body reacts negatively to stress, both perceived and actual. Calming the ANS through daily activities such as meditation, breathing exercises, and yoga puts the mind and therefore the body in a better state in which it can heal. Indeed, calming my ANS has helped me tremendously over the last few years. Breathing exercises, in particular, have gotten me over a major hump in my recovery.
That moment in 2013 years ago when the doctor told me that diet wouldn't impact my recovery is when I knew I needed to be the quarterback of my wellness. Since then, every six-month increment I have felt better than the prior six months. Though there were many nights I questioned if I would even wake up at all the next morning, I tried to remind myself that something good must come from this. That this experience will make me stronger or direct me down a better path I wouldn't otherwise have followed. That is still yet to play out, but I've learned a tremendous amount about food, alternative therapies, and the human body's ability to change and heal which will certainly benefit me now and in the future.
What has undoubtedly changed is my outlook on life. My goals are essentially the same, but my approach is much more selfish. You can't help others effectively if you can't help yourself. Optimizing your health allows you to have the greatest impact on those around you. Life shouldn't be about the avoidance of being a miserable creature, but instead focus on being a wonderful, healthy creature and let the rest follow.
As far as my health was concerned, I knew I was fortunate. I never took any pills, never had allergies, had zero food sensitivities, no headaches, no daytime naps, and generally full of energy. On weekends I would stay out late, eat whatever I wanted, and drink too much beer with my friends. Yet I was always fully functional the morning after, in good shape, and would frequently run the seven-plus miles across the Williamsburg Bridge and back from my apartment on Sundays.
Despite the long hours at work, I had little concept of what feeling poorly all the time was actually like. I completely took for granted my healthy circumstances and how quickly things can change, which they did in the summer of 2010 when I was diagnosed with a flare-up of Epstein-Barr virus (the virus that causes mono). The acute symptoms of mono quickly passed, but the chronic Epstein-Barr has lasted more than five years. It has taken a significant toll on my physical and emotional well-being. For the first three years after the diagnosis, I felt completely hopeless for the first time in my life. What little energy I had was focused on just getting through the day… every day, without breaking down. It was a horrible existence.
Before my illness, I used to wake up every morning and read a quotation by John Stuart Mill that I kept on my dresser next to my bed. It said,
"A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
I used this quotation to motivate me; to remind me that the physical discomfort of sleep deprivation and the emotional pain of deteriorating personal relationships were worth it in the long run. The nature of my fight was not uniquely onerous: to be successful at my job, to pay off my student loans, to support my father who was severely in debt, to find a wife, to save enough to support my future family, to move up in the company or start my own in order have a positive impact on the people around me, and dare I say, make America and the world a little better. This was my fight for which I was willing to sacrifice a little personal wellness.
This fight was hardly as noble as Mill's reference to liberty and justification for America's Civil War, but that's also why it motivated me. I wasn't dodging bullets, I just wasn't getting enough sleep. Sleep was an inconvenient luxury. Therefore, I thought I had it good and so had a lot to live up to avoid becoming this "miserable creature". Yet, ironically, in my quest to not become this "creature" that it is exactly what I became.
After the acute symptoms of mono subsided, the doctors told me I may be tired for a "few more weeks", so I returned to work and, just as before, I continued to grind away 13+ hour days, six to seven days a week. However, I was in severe pain, feeling more tired in the morning after sleeping nine to ten hours than I had before going to bed. I could barely think or remember anything I read, I was blindly going through the motions of life. I'm not sure how I wasn't fired from my job. It felt like my brain was completely void of any thought. Though I'm not particularly religious, I prayed every day I would get better— as the doctors had ensured I would. And I thought to myself, maybe tomorrow I will feel just a little better.
I was not getting better. I broke out in frequent fevers, cold sweats in the middle of the day, had multiple rashes that my immune system couldn't fight, I was constantly congested, my digestion was a mess, my appendix almost burst and I had to have surgery to remove it. All I ever felt like doing was sleeping. I had no outward displays of emotion. A joke would be told by a co-worker and my body wouldn't let me laugh or even crack a smile, despite thinking to myself how funny it was.
I went out of my way to avoid friends and family because I knew I wasn't myself, and I could not stand not being myself especially around those I cared about. In isolation, at least, it was less apparent how the fatigue and brain fog were impacting me. When around others, the worry about how the pain was changing my personality was always at the forefront of my mind and exacerbated the problem further. It was a vicious cycle of pain, self-pity, anger, and then more pain.
I had usually deeply enjoyed the company of my friends. I was very comfortable in my skin. I wasn't an extrovert, but not an introvert. I was a competitor who saw complaining as a weakness. I was a college athlete that believed pain made you stronger. When I got four cavities once in high school I refused novocaine to get them filled. Looking back on my illness, I was not as vocal as I should have been about my health to my family and friends, largely because I saw it as an embarrassment and a personal weakness to overcome.
I also had just started a job as an investment banker, so my sudden retreat wasn't particularly startling to my friends or family. I lied many times, using work as an excuse not to go out, to skip birthday parties, and bachelor parties in order to rest and sleep. I often pretended like nothing was wrong, partly because I was told by medical professionals that nothing was wrong, and so I saw my fatigue as something to power through. I also thought that if I acted as if nothing was wrong I would convince myself I was indeed better and my body would heal.
The daily anguish of seeing my future hopes, goals, and dreams vanish a little more every day was the hardest part. Real suicidal thoughts never really crossed my mind, but I rationalized how much easier it would be if I had cancer or something arguably less debilitating which doctors could easily point to. If I survived cancer, at least, it would be a public badge of honor and, if not, I would be out of my misery. I know that that may sound extreme, but given the degree of physical pain and emotional pain I was in, it was not. I was functioning at only a tiny fraction of what I was capable of, spending all my will-power just on trying to get through each day. And I was doing it all alone.
To those who I assertively confided all the details of my illness –including doctors– it was frequently remarked how good I looked, I was told that my skin "glowed" and that therefore they were sure I would recover shortly. I went to five different primary care physicians and the official prognosis from all was that the mono was working its way through my system, that there were no issues with my blood work and I should recover soon. When I brought up diet or supplements, two doctors gave generic "eat healthy" responses "you know, fruits and vegetables", one said to eat salmon, the fourth amazingly said that diet wouldn’t have much of an impact. When this came out my doctor's mouth, I knew at that point (which was more than a year after the mono) that I would have to truly take my recovery into my own hands, be appropriately skeptical of the medical community, put more effort into finding the right doctors, and seek alternative therapies.
Diet was an obvious first step to taking control of my healing process. What exactly a healthy diet looks like has taken me some time to figure out and I continue to refine it. But the highest impact changes to my diet have been to eat more healthy fats, grass-fed proteins, and organic vegetables; restrict dairy, sugars, carbs, and gluten. There are infinite permutations to any diet and it can seem overwhelming at first, but for your sanity's sake try to keep it simple. As Michael Pollen wisely advises: "Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables."
The Epstein-Barr virus wreaked havoc on my digestive process, my adrenals, and my whole endocrine system. Through various therapies, diets, and protocols I've attacked these maladies head-on. For example, a candida diet for my gut overgrowth, thyroid medication for hypothyroidism, mitochondrial supplements for ATP depletion...etc. However, a monument shift in my approach to recovery occurred after reading CFS Unraveled by Dan Nueffer. Nueffer posits that the root cause of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a dysfunction autonomic nervous system (ANS) which at the conscious and subconscious levels the body reacts negatively to stress, both perceived and actual. Calming the ANS through daily activities such as meditation, breathing exercises, and yoga puts the mind and therefore the body in a better state in which it can heal. Indeed, calming my ANS has helped me tremendously over the last few years. Breathing exercises, in particular, have gotten me over a major hump in my recovery.
That moment in 2013 years ago when the doctor told me that diet wouldn't impact my recovery is when I knew I needed to be the quarterback of my wellness. Since then, every six-month increment I have felt better than the prior six months. Though there were many nights I questioned if I would even wake up at all the next morning, I tried to remind myself that something good must come from this. That this experience will make me stronger or direct me down a better path I wouldn't otherwise have followed. That is still yet to play out, but I've learned a tremendous amount about food, alternative therapies, and the human body's ability to change and heal which will certainly benefit me now and in the future.
What has undoubtedly changed is my outlook on life. My goals are essentially the same, but my approach is much more selfish. You can't help others effectively if you can't help yourself. Optimizing your health allows you to have the greatest impact on those around you. Life shouldn't be about the avoidance of being a miserable creature, but instead focus on being a wonderful, healthy creature and let the rest follow.