THE BIG IDEAS Revive

Our Essential Energy

Stop Feeling Spent and Start Living Again
Time to Revive it! BY FRANK LIPMAN, M.D. W/MOLLIE DOYLE · SIMON & SCHUSTER © 2009 · 342 PAGES

Epigenetics
Genetics does not equal destiny.

Teaspoon by Teaspoon
We get a little more sparkly. “Since I began practicing medicine in New York in the 1980s, I have noticed this
alarming health trend. Despite being apparently disease-free and in the prime
Your Digestive System
Be nice with it. of their lives, people in their thirties, forties, and fifties have come to see me in
Create a Sweeter Life disturbingly increasing numbers for help with similar complaints. An unbelievable
With less sugar. 75 percent of the people I treat are overwhelmed, exhausted, and afflicted with
Restorative Exercise this disorder that makes them feel decades older than their years. I call it Spent,
Go for a walk! because that is how you feel. You don’t have enough wherewithal to live your
The Chair life. You are running on empty. Your energy account is tapped out. In fact, the
Don’t let it win. Fight back!
first edition of this book was called Spent. But after seeing people experience the
Changing Our Thinking program, I knew we needed a title that better explained the results. Revive is what
Is a good idea.
I’ve seen happen again and again when anyone tries this program—they wake up
Breathe! and feel vibrant and alive again, sometimes for the first time in decades.”
Deeply, please.
~ Frank Lipman, M.D. from Revive

Dr. Frank Lipman is known as the “voice of sustainable wellness” and is one of the world’s
leading functional medicine doctors—trained in both Western and Eastern medicine.

He’s also an incredibly nice and passionate guy!

I was introduced to Frank a year ago by our mutual friend Jason Wachob who runs
MindBodyGreen.com (if you haven’t checked that site out yet, check it!) and Alexandra and I
have been blessed to spend time with Frank and his wonderful wife, Janice.

“We get Spent because Frank is committed to making a positive difference in the world and has been incredibly
our modern lifestyle has generous in his time and support. We love him!

removed us from nature and
we have become divorced
from its rhythms and
cycles.”
~ Frank Lipman, M.D.
Revive is a great book that guides us through a six-week healing program. It’s *packed* with Big
Ideas on how we can, as the sub-title suggests, stop feeling spent and start living again.
If you’re feelin’ it, I think you’ll love the book. (Amazon it here.) And, you can get more wisdom
from Frank at his great site: www.DrFrankLipman.com.
Let’s jump in!

OUR ESSENTIAL ENERGY

“Each of us comes into the world endowed with essential energy. This energy operates as a kind
of bank account and supplies us with the power to grow and regenerate ourselves daily. We are
meant to supplement this original endowment of energy with what we can manufacture from
eating, breathing, sleeping, learning, working, playing, and relationships. Each day we make
withdrawals and deposits. But when the balance of the scales tips to our using more than we
put back, we’re in the red, with the prospect of getting further and further behind. Then we
are forced to dip into our savings. When we continuously withdraw from our savings account,
alarms begin to sound telling us that our survival is being challenged. These alarms are known

1 PhilosophersNotes | Revive

“Healing from Spent is
about moving toward your
natural genetic human
rhythms.”
~ Frank Lipman, M.D.
“Remember, supplements
won’t make up for a
bad diet. As the term
suggests, supplements
are supplements to—not
replacements for—food.
Always eat a good diet
with loads of colorful,
phytonutrient-rich fruits
and vegetables, healthy fats,
and good-quality protein.
Use supplements to
supplement the nutrients
you just can’t seem to get
in your diet.”
~ Frank Lipman, M.D.
2 PhilosophersNotes | Revive
to us as symptoms such as fatigue, apathy, depression, insomnia, brain fog, lowered resistance,
stiffness, digestive problems, and signs of aging. These are our bodies way of telling us that
we are mentally, emotionally, and physically Spent. When we are Spent, our body is doing
everything it can to tell us that it is time to slow down, rest, detoxify, repair, replenish, and
restore.”
Spent.
It’s our bodies way of letting us know we need to “slow down, rest, detoxify, repair, replenish,
and restore.”
The book is a great guide on how to do exactly that. Time for some Big Ideas on how to get our
Revive on! :)
EPIGENETICS
“On my journey I also discovered functional medicine, where I learned about the importance
of the environment and its effect on gene activity. I had been taught in medical school to think
that your genes are carved in stone and that the diseases you get are determined by them. We
now know that for the most part that is not true. The new science of epigenetics has shown that
genetic activity is determined by your responses to the environment. In other words, how you
live your life determines how your genes are expressed. You may have a genetic predisposition
to a disease, but the environment you bathe your cells and genes in determines how those
genes are expressed. This means that there are lots of potential versions of you. Whether you
become Spent is determined by the unique way your genes interact with the many variables
in their environment. So what you eat, how much chemical and toxic exposure you have had,
what stresses you have tolerated, how you think, how much love you get, and how you move are
critical. Like a computer, our cells, and therefore our organs, are programmable—their health is
determined by what information they download from the outside and what information you feed
them.”
Epigenetics.
Although we’ve been led to believe that genetics = destiny, that’s just NOT true.
As Frank says: “You may have a genetic predisposition to a disease, but the environment you
bathe your cells and genes in determines how those genes are expressed. This means that there
are lots of potential versions of you.”
Our “environment” is not limited to just the physical locations in which we spend our time—like
our city, our office and our homes. It consists of what we eat, how we think and how we show up
in our day-to-day lives.
Let’s remember that there are “lots of potential versions” of ourselves as we bathe our genes in
the most optimal environments we can!
P.S. Check out our Note on Herbert Benson’s The Relaxation Revolution for an incredible
overview of how meditation can change the expression of our genes. Super cool.
TEASPOON BY TEASPOON
“This process of returning to your natural genetic rhythm is not a thirty-day lose-weight, look-
great-for-a-party-trick. It is about making a profound change. A patient described how the
process felt to her this way: it was as if her body were a glass of muddy water and every day we
stirred it up, took out a teaspoon, and added a teaspoon of fresh pure water. Each day the glass
became a little clearer, and eventually she had a glass of fresh, sparkling water.”
What a great image!!

“My philosophy is: nature
has done just fine, giving us
a plethora of extraordinary
and delicious foods, so why
mess with it?”
~ Frank Lipman, M.D.
“The best way to soothe a
sore, stiff body is to get it
moving.”
~ Frank Lipman, M.D.
PhilosophersNotes | Revive
Reminds me of how the Buddha describes it in The Dhammapada (see Notes) where he tells us:
“Little by little a person become evil, as a water pot is filled by drops of water... Little by little a
person becomes good, as a water pot is filled by drops of water.”
As much as we’d like to be able to snap our fingers and instantaneously change our lives, that’s
not how it works.
It’s much more like that glass of muddy water that, teaspoon by teaspoon, becomes a glass of
fresh, sparkling water.
Here’s to the moment to moment decisions that purify our lives!
BE NICE TO YOUR DIGESTIVE SYSTEM!
“One common problem with a Spent digestive system is that the lining of the gut (your digestive
system) is damaged. The gut’s lining is extremely thin, often just one cell thick. This damage
can be extremely problematic because 70 to 80 percent of your immune system is found in your
digestive tract. When this delicate lining is damaged or worn down by a poor diet or large food
particles, bacteria and toxins that should normally stay in your gut’s inner tube pass through it
into the bloodstream, where the immune system must deal with them. These leaking particles
tax your immune system. Thus, with a poorly functioning digestive system, you don’t just get
digestive symptoms, you also get an exhausted immune system. To add insult to injury, you can
also get pain. An overactive immune system can lead to inflammation in the body. Your immune
system creates swelling to fight hurt and unhealthy cells inside your body. This is one of the
reasons why your body feels so cranky and achy when you are spent.”
I’m always blown away when I’m reminded of the fact that 70-80% of our immune system is
located in our digestive system.
70-80%!!!! (That’s a lot. :)
Knowing this, we really ought to pay attention to digestive systems, eh? How? The book is
packed with tips on how to rock it—starting with cleaning out the kitchen and getting clear on
what types of foods to avoid and those to focus on.
Quick highlights: Start by getting rid of all or most of the products that contain hydrogenated
fats and oils, artificial sweeteners and refined sugars. And, “Remember, the longer the
ingredients label, the further away the food is from nature and therefore the less
healthy it is.”
Alright.
So, all that goodness is from the introduction. Now it’s time to explore some Big Ideas from
Frank’s six week restorative program!
CREATE A SWEETER LIFE
“Sugars are also admittedly one of the most difficult substances (notice I don’t call them foods)
for most people to take out of their diet. If you are still thinking, “There’s no way I can do
this,” here are some more scary facts from Nancy Appleton’s Lick the Sugar Habit for added
motivation and inspiration:
• Sugar can suppress the immune system
• Sugar feeds cancer cells and has been linked to breast, ovarian, prostate, and rectal cancer
• Sugar can weaken eyesight and cause premature skin aging
• Sugar can cause premature aging in general and increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease
• Sugar can cause autoimmune disease, arthritis, asthma, heart disease, migraines, and
3

“Though Splenda claims to
be made from sugar, it is
made by chlorinating sugar.
This means if you use
Splenda, you are essentially
dumping chlorine into your
coffee.”
~ Frank Lipman, M.D.
“If you have a problem
with sleep, I suggest
you cut out coffee and
any caffeinated beverages
completely (even in the
morning).”
~ Frank Lipman, M.D.
4 PhilosophersNotes | Revive
multiple sclerosis.
To heal from Spent, you must cut sugars not only out of your kitchen, but also out of your diet as
much as possible.
As a fellow former sugar junkie (believe me, I feel your pain), I’m very sorry to say this means
NOT EATING the following versions or anything with these versions or varieties of sugar in
your food: brown sugar, sucrose, glucose, maltose, succinate, molasses, date sugar, beet sugar,
grape sugar, cane sugar, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, corn sugar, fruit juice concentrate,
sorbitol, barley malt, caramel, carob syrup, maltodextrin, dextran, dextrose, sorghum syrup.”
After an introduction, Frank brings us through a six weeks of healing via his Spent Restorative
Program. Each week has “Daily Beats” to help us purify and heal.
Daily Beat #1? Get rid of sugar.
I’ve learned to pay attention to what great teachers choose to emphasize. The bottom line here
is simple: If you’re feeling Spent, the sugar needs to go. Sorry to break the news. But let’s get on
that! :)
PRACTICE RESTORATIVE EXERCISE
“No matter what kind of shape you are in, I recommend beginning your restorative exercise
with walking. If you have been overexercising, you need to slow down. And if you have not been
exercising, walking is the appropriate way to speed up.
Walking is one of the most primal movement patterns. Because walking became essential to our
survival as we evolved from our ape ancestors into our present upright form, our bodies have
developed in such a way that walking is integral to our health. When we walk, we coordinate the
movement of our arms, legs, and torso. Hundreds of calorie-burning muscles come into play—
not only muscles you’d expect, such as leg and arm muscles, but also internal muscles such as
the psoas. The psoas is one of the body’s major core muscles that is shortened by sitting (can
cause knee and hip pain) and is lengthened and strengthened by the movement of walking. A
daily walk burns calories, increases metabolic activity, helps counteract postural imbalances, and
massages your internal organs. That’s right, walking actually massages your internal organs. It
also strengthens the abdominal walls and improves your breathing. Moreover, walking outdoors
on uneven terrain is even better for you. It stimulates varied movement patterns, improving
balance and coordination. Maybe there’s a nature trail near your house with a choice of walking
loops of varying distances. Of all the exercise available to you, I cannot think of a better cure for
Spent than the combination of restorative yoga and restorative walking. If you’re in good shape,
you can incorporate short bursts of jogging into these brisk walks. Walk or jog briskly for a
minute, then slow down for three.”
Walking. It rocks. :)
Alexandra and I try to get out for a nice little walk/hike every evening and just love it.
Is there a nature trail near you where you and your fam/friends can go for an evening stroll?!
Here’s to walking!
DON’T LET THE CHAIR WIN. FIGHT BACK!
“Beyond these exercises, the greatest opponent of the chair is movement. No matter what you do
for a living, think about ways you can bring more movement into your life. If you are a computer
programmer or film editor or work in any other profession where you log hours at a time in a
chair, try to take a seven-minute bathroom break every hour or two. On this break, walk around.
Walk up and down some stairs. Swing your arms as you walk down the hall. Take fifteen or
twenty steps as though you were in a marching band, bringing your knees high up. Go outside

“I know you are busy,
which is one of the
reasons you are Spent...
But I guarantee that the
time you spend meditating
will actually create hours
in the day b/c you will be
more relaxed, focused, and
energized as a result of
your practice.”
~ Frank Lipman, M.D.
“Nothing helps your
circadian rhythms more
than getting up and going
to sleep at the same times
every day.”
~ Frank Lipman, M.D.
PhilosophersNotes | Revive
and walk around the building’s parking lot or walk around the building or house or block. When
it comes to fighting the chair, these little breaks are potent healers. They get us breathing and the
blood moving again, which helps keep us energized and in rhythm.
Don’t let the chair win. Fight back!”
As Frank tells us, all of us are victims of the chair!
We all spend wayyyy too much time sitting down—which atrophies our muscles and leads to
stiffness and other issues. To combat it, we want to integrate as much movement into our lives as
we can.
See if you can take breaks every hour and just walk around, swinging your arms, loosening up.
Might sound silly. But it’ll be huge in keeping your energy flowing and your body in balance!
Give it a try! :)
CHANGING OUR THINKING
“Changing our thinking is an important tool when we are suffering from Spent. If you see the
world as a negative place, you’ll only build on and enhance the discomfort your Spent symptoms
might cause you. The more you view events and experiences in a positive light, the more you’ll
heal. For instance, something good is hidden even within this challenge of being Spent. Start
seeing Spent as:
• A challenge or a growth experience, not a problem
• A wake-up call to reevaluate the way you want to live the rest of your life
Spent is not a death sentence. You will get well, and you will be a lot more informed about your
health and well-being after this.
Negative thoughts of powerlessness, dejection, failure, and despair reinforce and worsen Spent
symptoms, whereas positive thoughts, seeing the glass half full and finding a silver lining in
whatever has happened—getting fired, a breakup, a tense situation with a child—heal us. You
don’t need time to have perspective, just a willingness to have it.”
Optimism. We talk about it all the time.
Why? Because IT’S HUGE.
In fact, Martin Seligman—one of the world’s leading researchers on the science of well-being—
tells us this in Flourish (see Notes): “We estimate that being in the upper quartile of optimism
seems to have a beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk roughly equivalent to not smoking two
packs of cigarettes daily.”
In other words, becoming optimistic can have the same positive health benefits of kicking a two
pack a day smoking habit. That’s incredible. Good news is we can learn how to be optimistic.
Check out our Notes on Seligman’s classic book Learned Optimism for some Big Ideas on
“explanatory styles” and remember this wisdom from Sonja Lyubomirsky’s The How of
Happiness (see Notes): “Essentially, all optimism strategies involve the exercise of construing
the world with a more positive and charitable perspective, and many entail considering the
silver lining in the cloud, identifying the door that opens as a result of one that has closed. It
takes hard work and a great deal of practice to accomplish effectively, but if you can persist at
these strategies until they become habitual, the benefits could be immense. Some optimists may
be born that way, but scores of optimists are made with practice.”
BREATHE!!
“The internationally renowned yoga teacher Donna Farhi says, “Our breath is constantly rising
5

“Don’t let mistakes be so
monumental, don’t let your
love be so confidential,
don’t let your mind be so
darn judgmental, and please
let your heart be more
influential.”
~ Michael Franti
If you liked this Note,
you’ll probably like…
Flourish
The Relaxation Revolution
The How of Happiness
The Willpower Instinct
Clean
6 PhilosophersNotes | Revive
and falling, ebbing and flowing, entering and leaving our bodies. Full-body breathing is an
extraordinary symphony of both powerful and subtle movements that massage our internal
organs, oscillate our joints, and alternately tone and release all the muscles in the body. It is a
full participation with life.” I completely agree.
Most of us breathe through our mouths into our upper chest and never allow our inhales to move
through our nose down into our bellies. This kind of shallow breathing only brings more tension
to your neck and shoulders, whereas breathing into the belly and down the entire lower half of
the body relaxes the stomach and diaphragm and “releases” your organs.”
Breath.
It’s another critical component to aligning with the natural rhythms of our body.
Not only does it reduce stress and tension, but it also builds your willpower. Here’s how Kelly
McGonigal puts it in her brilliant book, The Willpower Instinct (see Notes): “You won’t find
many quick fixes in this book, but there is one way to immediately boost willpower: Slow your
breathing down to four to six breaths per minute. That’s ten to fifteen seconds per breath—
slower than you normally breathe, but not difficult with a little bit of practice and patience.
Slowing the breath down activates the prefrontal cortex and increases heart rate variability,
which helps shift the brain and body from a state of stress to self-control mode. A few minutes
of this technique will make you feel calm, in control, and capable of handling cravings or
challenges.”
How do you breathe?
Let’s take a moment to breathe in deeply through our nose, all the way down to our bellies and
then exhale slowly as we integrate this wisdom and move from feeling Spent to feeling Revived!!
Brian Johnson,
Chief Philosopher
About the Author of “Revive”
FRANK LIPMAN, M.D.
Dr. Frank Lipman is an internationally recognized expert in the field of
integrative medicine. He is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven
Wellness Center in New York City, where for over 20 years his personal brand of
healing has helped thousands of people reclaim their vitality and recover their
zest for life. Focused on sustainable wellness – instead of quick fixes – he offers
patients a customized blend of Western medicine with acupuncture, nutritional
counseling, vitamins and herbs, relaxation techniques, physical therapy and
bodywork. He is also the author of Total Renewal: 7 Key Steps to Resilience,
Vitality and Long-Term Health.
About the Author of This Note
BRIAN JOHNSON
Brian Johnson is a lover of wisdom (aka a “Philosopher”) and a passionate
student of life who’s committed to inspiring and empowering millions of people
to live their greatest lives as he studies, embodies and shares the universal truths
of optimal living. He harts his job.