All Episodes
Previous Next
Oct. 31, 2023 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:36
Is Heaven Real? Unraveling The Mysteries | Dr. Oz | S6 | Ep 3 | Full Episode
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
It's one of life's greatest mysteries.
What really happens when you die?
Did you believe heaven was real?
I've interviewed people who have come back to life and have described their adventures.
Meet the Death Travelers.
My heart stopped three times.
Before coming back, I encountered a being.
Plus, the truth about Omegas.
Which do you need?
Which can you trust?
Coming up next on Dr. Oz.
A heart stops beating.
Brain activity is silenced.
This is clinical death.
But it may not be the end.
Today, the investigative journalist who has interviewed almost 100 people who have died and come back to life with new memories.
She calls them death travelers.
Judy Bacharach was afraid of death.
So afraid that even being around people who were dying made her extremely anxious.
I was afraid of the reality of death.
As a journalist, you sometimes do see dead bodies and it used to panic me because in their death, I saw my own death.
So when her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Judy decided to confront her fears.
I needed to find out what will happen to my mother.
So I thought it was time to know more.
I've interviewed people who have come back to life and have described their adventures.
Judy calls these people death travelers.
Their stories and experiences were so relatable and profound and so remarkably similar that it completely changed her mind about what really happens when we die.
Judy Bachrach is here.
Now, you call these folks that you interviewed Death Travelers.
It's an intriguing name.
Why'd you pick that name?
Because previously I'd always thought that death was stasis.
Nothing moved, your body was still, your heart stopped, your brain didn't do anything.
But it turns out these people who dive have adventures.
They go on voyages.
They see different people.
They have extraordinary experiences and they come back with them.
You seem like a hard-nosed journalist.
I am.
And there's a story that intrigued you.
It also, I found, was the most intriguing of the people you interviewed.
A gentleman called David.
Take a look at his story.
I was the chief engineer of the research vessel Aloha.
I've been in rough water before, but that night, the seas were 25 to 30 feet.
And it was...
More violent than anything I'd experienced before.
I'd catapulted into the ocean and I found myself in absolute darkness.
I had drowned.
And I started experiencing my future.
And one of the things that were a part of my future was cancer.
And I also saw that I could live beyond the cancer.
And then I saw this light, and it said, this is not your time, you must return.
And that was 1983. In 2000, the doctors found that I had lung cancer that had metastasized into my spine.
At the time, the doctors told me they would make me as comfortable as possible and let me pass.
I was going to experience cancer, but I also saw I was going to live beyond it.
And after six months, I was cancer free.
That's an incredible story.
It is.
What themes did you see recurring in all these death traveler stories like David's?
Everybody is unique who comes back from the dead, but many of them encounter other beings, either spiritual or actual human beings who don't really exist on this earth.
Many of them achieve wisdom while they're going through their death travels.
Many of them have a life review where they look back on their life and see what they did wrong and what they did right.
And some are ashamed, like David, about what they did wrong.
And everybody I've talked to, or almost everybody, finds peace and happiness wherever they go.
That theme comes up frequently.
There's another story I want to show everybody.
His name is William.
This is a death travel Judy interviewed who had a very different journey.
My heart stopped three times, and three times the doctors brought me back to life.
When your heart stops, Energy drains from you very quickly, and I was trying to hold on to life, but the weaker I got my hands just couldn't hold on any longer.
My thought was, I don't know where I'm going, but it's out of my hands now.
Suddenly, I found myself just in outer space.
When I looked out at this universe, I saw all of the stars and all the planets as if there were threads connecting them.
And then I noticed that I also was connected to these stars and these planets.
And I remember looking at this and thinking, so this is how it works.
It's all so simple.
It was what I call love energy.
Before coming back, I encountered a being and the being said, put your hand on your mother's heart.
And I could feel the pain that she would feel if I died.
And I really knew I needed to come back.
Did I experience heaven?
I think I did.
I see myself at my core.
I'm that same love energy.
And I now see others as that same love energy too.
Now, science can actually start to explain some of what happened to William.
And let me walk you through it.
When a body nears death, the breathing slows, and the heart stops beating.
But let me take you inside the brain of a death traveler to show you what we think is happening.
Deep inside the brain, there are blood vessels carrying oxygen, like they do everywhere in the body.
But when the blood's not pumping, no more oxygen comes out of the blood vessels.
Those bubbles disappear, and the brain literally begins to die.
And you see that with these synapses, these neurons, they're firing wildly, and then they stop They're not firing.
They begin to starve.
This is the brain of someone who's dying.
But what happens if you come back from this?
You can't see this on scans all the time, but you see splotchy areas where part of the brain is still recovering and parts aren't?
Well, we believe that some of these areas recover faster than others, and it may give you these out-of-body sensations when the parts of the body that ground you, that make you know you're here watching the show right now, aren't working, but other parts of your brain that hear things or sense things or feel things, they've come back.
And then later on, the rest of the brain recovers because you're getting better.
And now, Judy would say that you're a death traveler because you've come back with memories that you shouldn't have had.
Dr. Andrew Newberg has spent the past 20 years studying this phenomenon.
He calls it neurotheology, where science and spirit meet.
Dr. Newberg, these death traveler stories, how do you explain them as a scientist?
Well, I think we can think of a whole range of explanations as to how these death experiences actually happen, ranging from the very biological that you were just talking about to the very spiritual.
But the biology doesn't necessarily explain all the different aspects of these experiences.
When you look at the example of David, when he has this premonition of having cancer and then he winds up surviving cancer in a very unusual way, science has trouble with trying to explain that.
Now we also have the spiritual explanation that there is a spirit or a soul that actually can go out into the world or go up to heaven and can actually come back and tell us different things about ourselves or different things about the world or about our future.
So I think there's a lot of different explanations and none of them really explain everything perfectly.
In your research, does it matter how we die?
It looks like it doesn't really matter the exact method of death when people either commit suicide, have drownings, have cardiac arrest.
All of these different kinds of people can have these near-death experiences and have similar kinds of experiences.
Let me share one more story.
A woman that Judy interviewed, her name is Tika, and she approached death under horrifying circumstances.
She was attacked, but she came back with an amazing new lease on life.
Ever since I was a kid, I was afraid of dying.
When I was in college, I was violently attacked.
The attack was so bad, my spirit left my body.
I saw the light.
Everything was quiet.
Everything was still.
I just felt free, and I just felt like I had nothing to worry about.
When I woke up, my vocal cords were damaged, my face was swollen, the blood vessels in my eyes were broken.
All I could do was cry, but nothing would come out.
I just couldn't believe what had happened.
Do I think I saw heaven?
I don't know, but I just know it was peaceful, it was calming, and I wasn't afraid of death anymore.
So, Judy, what do you take from Tika's story?
Well, she's very much like me.
I, too, was terrified of death.
But she understands now, and I think we all understand, that even if you die or almost die under the most violent circumstances, there will be peace, understanding, and happiness at the end.
And that's an extraordinary gift to come away with.
Dr. Newberg, as you hear Tika's story and the other stories that Judy has shared with us, How does it change you?
Do you believe in heaven personally?
Well, for me, as someone looking at neurotheology, I'm trying to look at all the different possibilities.
And certainly, I think we need to look at both the spiritual and the biological as helping us understand these experiences.
But what I think we absolutely can take away from all of the research that we see is that these are incredibly positive experiences.
It transforms the way people think.
They change the way they think about their relationships, their lives, and they no longer fear death.
So they are enormously positive experiences.
And that's something that I certainly believe in.
Yeah, so how many of you believe that there's something out there after we're gone?
A lot of absolutely's and hallelujahs, yeah.
You know, I gotta say, there's no way for science to tell.
There isn't.
I have had conversations with my patients.
I've had stories like this reflected in me.
Usually, privately, people are almost embarrassed about talking about it.
In fact, many people you did as well.
But I gotta say, one recurring theme, People don't feel lonely when they're gone.
They feel embraced.
And that has been very comforting to me personally, although I can't speak to it as a scientist.
If you want to find out more about these death travelers or share your own story, log on to DrRaj.com.
We can also read an excerpt from Judy's new book.
It's called Glimpsing Heaven.
It's very, very well done.
We'll be right back.
Next, are all omegas created equal?
Which ones do you need and why do you need them?
Dr. Oz breaks it down.
Three, five, seven, nine, they're all important.
The fatty acids to trust and how to get them.
The truth about Omegas is next.
The new dangers of walk-in cosmetic surgery.
The three procedures you should never do.
Plus, the surprising plan that may help prevent Alzheimer's.
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Today in the medical spotlight, the truth about omegas.
Which omegas do you need?
Which ones can you trust?
And are all omegas created equal?
A growing body of research claims omegas can help everything from memory to joint pain, fight cancer and heart disease, even shine up your skin, nails and hair.
But how do you tell them all apart?
Omega-3, 5, 6, 7, 9. How do you know which of these omega fatty acids is right for you?
New studies surface almost monthly promoting the benefits of one omega over the other.
But there have also been alarming headlines linking omegas to heart disease and fatty liver disease.
Today I'm wiping away the confusion.
Which Omegas do you really need?
How much is safe and what's the best way to get them?
And I asked my friend Dr. Mike Rosen, Chief Wellness Officer of the Cleveland Clinic, to be here today to help explain which omegas we really need.
What do you think is the biggest misconception about omegas?
That they're all created equal and that you only need one.
You need four at least, and they're different, and they're from different sources, and they're tough to get.
You got a little cheat sheet way of remembering, a little trick, which ones are the ones we have to have.
They're odd numbers.
You remember in grade school, they taught us 3, 5, 7, and 9 were odd numbers?
Well, those are the ones you want, the odd omegas.
3, 5, 7, and 9. Right, so you're skipping omega-6, which is an even omega.
This is something we find, for example, in corn oil.
What are the goods and bads of those types of fats?
Well, we need a little omega-6.
When we get an infection, we need inflammation.
So if you get a virus or bacteria attacking you, you want some omega-6 because it signals to our immune system, hey, there's inflammation here, come here and attack it.
That's how we knock out the virus or bacteria.
But we already have in our diet way too much.
So we have way too much omega-6.
We get it from everything that's got corn in it, if you will.
So we don't need more, and it causes inflammation when we have too much.
It causes joint inflammation, osteoarthritis, causes inflammation in your arteries, so leads to heart attacks and strokes.
Let's talk about the ones that you like.
Let's start with omega-3.
These are the odd omegas again.
And the first odd omega, omega-3, is sort of interesting because you can get it from two different sources.
There's a source that most of us think about usually, which are flax seeds, avocados, walnuts.
These are plant-based sources of omega-3s.
Why is this fat so essential?
Why do you like those sources?
Well, those sources are plentiful and we should be able to get it.
They decrease arthritis.
And they decrease inflammation in your arteries.
In their two large dietary studies in the last couple years that looked at walnuts, if you will, as a way of decreasing heart disease, and they did.
They decreased recurrent heart disease and heart disease by 30%.
So these are really important to get, but we can get them pretty easily from a lot of the plant-based foods.
As good as they may be in a plant source, you actually like the fish sources of omega-3s, the so-called DHA omega-3s.
Right.
I wore pink, and you did too today, to remind me of salmon, if you will.
Color-coordinated.
And salmon has that DHA. So, omega-3 DHA is tough to get, because many fish don't have it.
The fish get it from the algae.
Many of our farm fish are fed Corn and soy meal, so they don't get it.
The salmon hasn't learned to eat corn and soy meal yet.
So it's a good source of it, and it decreases, it's important for your brain and your eyes, because it decreases memory loss, it builds your hippocampus, the memory center, it helps you sleep better, and in the brain, it's a structural fat.
That means it helps your nerves conduct faster.
So Mehmet, you're a fathead.
You want to be a fathead.
What a friend.
What a friend.
Sixty percent of our brains are fat and fifty percent of that fat is DHA and it's needed to conduct things faster and for us to remember.
And it's tough to get.
So I get it.
I make sure I get it as a supplement.
When we were younger, we wanted 600 milligrams a day.
As we get older, we want 900 milligrams of DHA. So if you get it as a supplement, look not just for fish oil, but look for 900 milligrams of DHA. So Michael's a world expert in this area.
He's actually the leader, actually, of the scientific advisory committee for a DHA fish oil supplement.
There's another omega that we're not going to talk about much because it's brand new.
It's the omega-5.
It's found in things like pomegranate oil.
There's a recent study that shows it might be helpful in breast cancer risk, but we need a lot more information on it.
Let's talk about Omega-7.
This is an odd Omega that's gaining a lot of popularity.
Where do we get it from?
So you get it from macadamia nuts and anchovies.
In the randomized study, the people who got it got less liver fat, got better insulin uptake, so fewer chances of diabetes, lower LDL cholesterol, Higher HDL cholesterol, lower triglycerides, and their marker of inflammation, C-reactive protein, which is a marker we always use for inflammation, plummeted.
So it really bore out, if you will, and it is a healthy fat that seems to decrease all or many of the risk factors of heart disease.
The last odd fat, omega-9s are the backbone of the Mediterranean diet.
It's olive oil.
That's how we normally would get it.
Why is it so vital?
Well, olive oil does exactly that.
It does the exact same thing as walnuts, but we don't know whether it's complimentary or it's by itself.
But in any case, it decreases heart disease by about 30%, and it decreases your LDL cholesterol as well.
So in other words, it's another food, olive oil, that seems to be delicious, And nutritious and good for us, healthy for us.
And how do you pick the right olive oils?
Because a lot of them are adulterated now.
Right.
So a lot of the European olive oils are now adulterated.
They're essentially vegetable oils that they put a little coloring in, put a new package in the Senate.
There are two olive oils that haven't been adulterated, the ones from Turkey and the ones from the United States.
So you're from Turkey, if you will.
So those are Good country.
Those are Turkey and the United States have olive oils, so look for those labels on the olive oil.
This gets sort of dense for a lot of folks.
In your own life, what's the single most important omega fat you have to have?
Can you reduce it to one idea?
So you can't reduce it to one, because there are at least three different ones, that is, three, seven, and nine you want.
If I had to pick only one, it would be the DHA. I'm getting old, so I want my memory and eyesight to be intact.
DHA 900 milligrams.
You can go to DrIs.com for a printable chart on the omegas that you need.
You can take it to the store when you go to buy them.
We'll be right back.
Coming up next, a Java junkie spills the beans.
I'm absolutely addicted to coffee.
The disaster that's brewing internally.
They didn't just find reflux, they actually found something.
It feels scary.
Stay tuned.
This year is all about bringing healthy back and showing you how small changes can have So today, we're showing you how to reduce your dependence on caffeine.
Now, a lot of you guys out there are enjoying a cup of coffee right now as you watch the show.
But if you ever worried you are drinking too much or maybe addicted, I want you to pay attention to Tracy's story.
Take a look.
I'm absolutely addicted to coffee, and I absolutely cannot function without it.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Drinking coffee is a huge part of my morning routine.
The first thing I do when the alarm goes off is I walk right into my kitchen and I brew some coffee.
Before I go to work, I probably drink four cups of coffee.
And then on the way to work, I take another 12 ounces with me.
I am the principal of an alternative school, and in the morning at work, I probably drink four cups.
My job is very demanding.
I have to think about 25 things at once, so if I don't have my cup of coffee, I feel that I don't have the energy and the focus that I need to get through the day.
After lunch, I usually brew another pot, and I drink one or two of those mugs.
When I get home from school, I'm so mentally drained and exhausted.
I brew another pot.
As I'm drinking that coffee, I'm mopping, cleaning, doing laundry.
The downside is that I feel dehydrated and I get a little jittery.
But on the other hand, if I don't have enough, the front of my skull is pounding.
I feel a lot of tension, all kinds of stomach issues.
I know deep down that the amount of coffee that I'm drinking is not healthy.
Coffee controls me, and I would like to be more in control of my life.
Tracy's joining us.
I want to help you and everybody out there who's worried about caffeine addiction issues.
But first, let me focus a little bit on you, because I put you in the truth tube here.
Yes.
So, I had you fill out a little diary.
Yes.
Which you honestly kept before us, so I can track how much caffeine you were drinking.
Was it sort of a typical amount of caffeine you were having?
Yes.
So, I added it up.
The average person ought to have about 400 milligrams of caffeine a day, no more than that.
That's the max.
Your amount, you can look up in the truth tube here, was 1,140 milligrams.
That's about three times the most that we ever would give you.
Surprise you at all?
Yes, I'm very surprised.
You get cheery with that?
What happens in your body if you try to drink a little less than 1,140 milligrams of caffeine?
I have a headache withdrawal.
I have one right now.
You do?
Yes.
You smell like coffee?
You still smell like coffee.
When was the last time you had coffee?
Uh, 20 minutes ago.
Oh, you always have to have coffee.
Yes.
My goodness.
All right.
Well, caffeine, listen, I can pick up people with caffeine, but the real issue, does it help or hurt your body?
Sometimes it's good for you to have a little caffeine and get going with headaches, whatever.
But one of the things I worry about the most is sleep.
And I know that a lot of folks who drink coffee or other caffeinated beverages will have a problem with it.
So I sent you home with this, a sleep monitoring system.
And here's some footage of what we experienced.
Now, on average, 20% of the time, That you're sleeping, you should be in that really deep restorative sleep where your brain is allowed to rest and completely come back with a turned on person.
Your number was nine percent.
Nine?
Nine percent of the time that you're sleeping is when your brain is really in that deep phase.
I actually called some sleep experts.
They were stunned.
Wow.
That's a troublingly low number.
Now the good news is we know what it's caused from, right?
The 11,100 milligrams of caffeine is causing the 9% deep sleep.
So it's a pretty straightforward twitch around.
But a lot of people aren't aware that although they may be lying in bed for a long time, they're not getting the kind of quality sleep.
So fixable, but it's an issue.
But I actually want to focus on a bigger concern I have.
Because a lot of folks who drink a lot of coffee have problems with reflux.
Come on over here.
Now, you've had reflux issues for a while.
I understand.
So this is an endoscopy that was just done a couple days ago.
And this is yourself.
I guess you won't recognize it.
I haven't shown this to you yet, but I'm going to share with you and everybody else.
So as you're going through the swallowing tube towards the stomach, there's a little area right there.
See the red spot right there and the little whitish plaque around it?
Can you all see that?
Right?
That area right there is concerning to me because what's happening is the acid is coming up from the stomach into the esophagus, that tube that we're in right now, and it's burning this area.
This whole area is red and it's not supposed to be.
That little white line demarcates the area between normal and abnormal.
So, the reason that's an issue for me is because when the doctors took a little bit of the sampling from that area, Because they were worried at how red it looked, they didn't just find reflux.
They actually found something that's called Barrett's esophagus.
Yes.
So what does it feel like to know you've got something that a lot of us have, a caffeine addiction?
That's doing some small things, doing some bigger things, and then really doing some huge things to your body.
It feels scary.
Now you've known about the reflux for a while.
Yes.
Why do you think you haven't been able to get your arms around this?
Well, I tried to quit and then one time I was walking through Disney World and I smelled a cappuccino and I went right to it.
Oh my goodness.
Yes.
And then I would limit myself.
Every Friday I would have a cup of coffee and I wouldn't have coffee through the week.
But then I slipped back in letting myself have it on Thursday and Friday and Saturday and then it was back to the full-blown seven days a week.
I know it's hard.
If it wasn't hard...
You would have stopped, and so would millions of people around America.
Yes.
But the beauty of the body is its resilience.
That little area I showed you that was precancerous, it doesn't have to advance anymore.
A lot of folks at home have reflux.
They won't even get that far if they can stop now.
The sleep issue is completely treatable.
Yes.
The reality is you can change your destiny.
Not just you, but everybody can if you can just wake up to the reality of what's going on inside their bodies.
Right.
So I got one question, and only one question I wanted to ask you today.
Yes.
Are you willing to commit to make the change?
Absolutely.
You will.
You do it now?
Yes.
All right.
I'm proud of you.
After seeing the video, I want to change.
Of course you want to change.
And a lot of folks aren't even going to get this kind of detail, but I know what's happening inside of them, which is why I want this for everybody to be a real day, a moment, that they can make a difference.
All right.
So I brought in a leading specialist in this area.
He's going to join us when we come back.
He's going to help Tracy, you, and everybody else out there deal specifically with caffeine addictions.
Whether it's coffee or soda or energy drinks, I've got a 28-day caffeine detox to kick them all when we come back.
Do you have a daily routine to wake up in the morning without caffeine?
Up at 5 a.m., head to the barn, feed the horses, and clean the stalls.
I'm awake for sure after that.
Share your Pick Me Up on Facebook.com slash Dr. Oz.
Coming up next, years of caffeine addiction has led to this.
The amount of coffee that I'm drinking is not healthy.
A simple plan for everyone to filter coffee out of their life.
A 28-day caffeine detox that everyone can use.
That's next.
The new dangers of walk-in cosmetic surgery.
The three procedures you should never do.
Plus, the surprising plan that may help prevent Alzheimer's.
All new odds.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Caffeine is the most widely used drug in the world, but just like any drug, you can become dependent on it, like Tracy.
I brought an addiction specialist, Mike Dow.
He's going to break down a 28-day caffeine detox that everyone who wants to kick the caffeine habit can use.
So, Dr. Mike, the first big issue comes up, and Tracy has a lot of insight into this, but how do you know if you're addicted?
What does that mean?
I think so many people are addicted.
So, you know, it's so funny.
The irony with coffee is you use a little bit to feel good, but then you cross that line.
And when you need something to feel normal, you know you're addicted.
And Tracy, I think we can agree, that's you.
And then the other big sign is if you reduce it or you try to take it out of your diet, do you experience withdrawal symptoms?
Yes.
And you clearly do.
So if you answer yes to those two questions, you may actually be addicted to coffee.
And why 28 days?
Well, you know, from research, we know that it takes 28 days to form a habit in the human brain.
But here's the good news.
That also means that some of the things we're going to be showing you, Tracy, and anybody who's addicted to anything from diet soda, like my mom was when she was drinking 12 cans a day, or you with 12 cups of coffee can use, because when you replace it with healthy behaviors, healthy foods that give you actually the same feel-good hormones, you're actually going to be feeling better, and it's going to be a lot easier for you in the long run without those health risks.
Excellent.
And it's real.
So come on back here.
We've got three tips we're going to share with everybody.
These are three ideas.
If you follow them through, it'll get you this 28-day detox program that we're talking about.
And you can detach yourself from that addiction.
The first is to deal with the chemical dependency.
Now, your body's depending on caffeine.
And the goal is to take you off it without hurting you.
So you actually have to sort of detox in stages.
So for example, week one, I want you to reduce whatever amount of caffeine you're drinking by 25%.
Week two, down by 50%.
Week three, 75% down because in week four, guess what?
You're done with the caffeine.
Once you can just get off it for a while and we know you don't have to be on it, then you're no longer chemically dependent and we can deal with all the other issues.
So Tracy, in your case, I butchered your own version, your current intake of coffee, right?
Cut it down to nine cups in week one, down in half by the second week, again, by three quarters, and then you're off it by week four.
What would happen, Dr. Mike, if Tracy went off at cold turkey right now and went right to week four?
Well, I think she's tried it before.
I mean, Tracy, this was not the way you did it.
Like so many people, they just say, oh, I'm going to go cold turkey.
So if you go off cold turkey, we know that with caffeine withdrawal, you can have flu-like symptoms, nausea, headaches, fatigue.
So you really don't want to do that to yourself because you're going to set yourself up for failure.
When you do it this way, when you use gradual detox, You're not going to be experiencing any of those symptoms.
Maybe a little bit that first week, but you're going to be feeling a lot better.
Excellent.
Intimidating to you?
No.
Doable.
Yes.
All right.
Step two is to deal with those feel-good hormones.
You want to replace them, because you're not going to be getting them from caffeine anymore, with real versions.
Foods, for example.
And there's all kinds of addictive chemicals that are released when you do things that feel good.
We can get to that way without having to use those products.
So, Dr. Mike.
This is amazing.
I mean, you've had an omelet before, right?
Yes.
We've all had omelets before, we've all had eggs, but it's amazing when you combine some of these healthy foods, they actually work together collectively and they help your brain to produce the very same feel-good hormone and chemical that coffee does.
So look at this omelet over here.
We have this egg which has an amino acid.
Now when you combine that with the iron with the spinach, the folate in the asparagus, the copper in the mushrooms, all of those things work together and bada bing bada boom you got the same feel good chemical and you're not going to be needing that coffee which is causing some serious consequence in your life.
Does that look good to you?
Very good.
We also have more on the website.
So we're not just giving you this one recipe.
We're giving you more on DrOz.com.
We're going to have 28 days of recipes that anybody can use, no matter what kind of addiction you're fighting from coffee to diet soda.
Okay.
Now, there's a part of an addiction that cigarette smokers know well.
It's that ritualistic part of it.
Yes.
That iconic, you put your mouth and the cigarette together.
Yes.
And go like that, right?
And it goes with a cup of coffee.
So in your case, is this your mug?
Yes.
We have confiscated this.
I'm going to give it back.
But the holding of it, the warmth of it, the bringing it to your mouth, these are the rituals.
It's very soothing, right?
It's very mindful.
And I actually don't want to take that away.
That's very healthy for us to have those little, you know, it's like a tea party, right?
You want to be able to do that.
But you don't have to have coffee in the cup for that to work.
And if I gave you water, you wouldn't be happy with me.
So it turns out that they're herbal coffees.
They're made from things like dandelion root and hibiscus that actually are caffeine-free, much less acidic, therefore less likely to cause some problems you're having in your esophagus.
And they actually can be ground up.
They will taste close enough to coffee that you can actually add real milk to it.
So I've made you some here.
I can see how judgmental you are already.
You can even add a little extra milk.
By the way, don't use skim milk in your coffee.
You want 2% fatter.
Not only does it taste better, but it's better for you.
Thank you.
And give that a taste.
And these are the kind of things that I want you to do.
And go ahead and nestle with it and cuddle with it.
Because you have that ritual.
You know, we saw Tracy in the morning.
She has that ritual.
So if you have something that you're replacing, it's a lot easier to take something away.
So, Dr. Mike, how are you going to be able to help Tracy?
I want people to see through your relationship what this would look like in their own lives.
Yeah.
Well, first of all, I'm glad you like it.
Yes.
I'm going to be your biggest cheerleader.
So one of the things we know that works is accountability.
When you do something alone, it's so hard, and here you are making this Very public statement, and I'm going to be here with you for 28 days.
I'm going to follow you.
I'm going to be talking to you every week.
You're going to be completing a journal.
We're going to be tracking your progress, how much coffee, and then we're also going to be tracking how many feel-good activities, how many feel-good food you're having, and then we're going to track your sleep quality, your energy, and by the end of 28 days, we're going to be off that coffee, and you're going to be feeling better than ever.
Excellent.
So look at this.
This is the serious part.
It takes a commitment, obviously.
I can bring as many handsome Dr. Dow's to you as I can.
It still doesn't matter of you realizing that you have the power inside of you you always have.
When I see you again in 28 days, you're going to feel re-energized, you're going to feel alive, you're going to be amazing, and you won't be dependent on coffee.
Thank you.
All right.
I'm looking forward to it.
We're all behind you.
We have trust in you.
And confidence as well.
All right.
You go to dros.com to see Tracy's diary and track her progress.
We also have the full 28-day plan Dr. Dow spoke about with those feel-good food recipes that all of you who want to kick any habit, frankly, will be able to benefit from.
We'll be right back.
Next, the top five fall foods you'll flip for.
They have a ton of fiber in them.
They may lower your blood pressure.
A ton of vitamin C. Even if they're not your faves.
To me, they just taste like dirt.
Well, at least you're honest.
Take a page from Dr. Oz's The Good Life.
Next.
Have a health question?
Ask on DrOz.com and get answers directly from Dr. Oz and his team of experts.
No question is off limits.
I am so appreciative to all of you for helping me make my new magazine, The Good Life, a I've gotten such positive feedback that all season long, I'll be sharing a variety of helpful choices to improve the quality of your life.
And today, I'm starting with one of my favorite articles in the newest issue, the top fall super foods.
And Susan from our audience is here.
She can help me out.
How are you, Susan?
How are you, Dr. Oz?
You look what I picked for you?
Wow.
Isn't this pretty?
These look beautiful.
What's your favorite food among these?
I would have to say the butternut squash and the broccoli, but butternut squash is one of my fall favorites.
Do you have fun ways to make it and everything?
I do have a couple of nice recipes.
My friend gave me a nice recipe last year, so yeah, I enjoy it.
Well armed.
You know what I find is people actually like these foods when they really retaste them, but they're sometimes scarred by early childhood memories of some of these foods.
I, for one, am a victim of one of these as well.
We'll get to that.
Let's start with pears.
They're fantastic for a wonderful reason.
They have a ton of fiber in them.
They actually have twice as much fiber, for example, as brown rice or bran cereal.
Can you juggle well?
No.
Want to try?
Not with three, maybe.
Not with two?
Whoa!
All right, so you take the pears in there.
You can juggle lots of things in there.
Thank you, please.
I'll be here all weekend.
So you can fight off hunger when you have a lot of fiber in the foods you eat.
But a lot of people don't know how to eat their pears, or they eat them when they're not quite ripe.
So I like to make them as a breakfast dish.
Again, you want to have fiber for breakfast.
You can slice them up, put them on an English muffin, whole wheat, of course, with a little bit of peanut butter.
Slice it on there, or almond butter is even better.
Oh, I love almond butter.
I'd have you taste it, but it will fill your mouth up and you won't be hungry for the rest of the things I'm going to teach you.
How do you know when they're ripe?
You want to be a little bit soft, but not bruised.
Okay.
And often they'll smell a little bit ripe.
You'll get, this one's, that's sort of ripe.
Whereas when they're hard like rocks, you won't get much out of them.
Yeah.
All right, next favorite that I'm going to talk about, this is my secret to living a good life.
I was, as a child, forced to eat beets.
And I don't know how many of you went to public elementary school where they give you little beets, obligatory beets.
They're more like food coloring in dollops.
I didn't know what they were even.
It turns out they may lower your blood pressure.
They have a huge benefit for a lot of other reasons as well.
Helps with your blood, but you got to like them.
Are you a beet liker?
Actually, I really hate them.
You do?
I do.
I've tried them several times, and to me, they just taste like dirt.
Well, at least you're honest.
So here's the deal.
I hated beets until I married my wife, Lisa, who actually knew how to make beets the right way.
So I'm going to try, I'm going to attempt to convert you and a lot of other folks by eating beets in a whole different way.
I've made you beet hummus.
Hmm, okay.
You take the beets, you peel them, you know, you cook them up, you boil them, and you peel them to stay outside a little bit, and then you just buy store-bought hummus, regular old hummus, nothing fancy, put it in a food processor, and it looks like that, and taste it.
I'm going to hold the applause here until I see the smile on your face.
There are a lot of people who are going to benefit from beets, hopefully, based on what you say here.
Again, just watch the eyes, folks.
It's all in the eyes.
Forget what the lips are saying.
Oh, wow, you can't even taste the beets.
I guess it's a good thing, I guess.
Very good.
Well, thank you much.
All right.
Next on my fall superfood list is winter squash.
And for this fall superfood, I turn to an expert in the business, Produce Pete.
Hi, I'm Produce Pete and I'm at the Garden of Eden in Chelsea and today I'm talking about my favorite super food, winter squash.
They're full of vitamin A, full of vitamin C, plenty of antioxidants in them.
They're great for your hair, they're great for your skin, and they're great for your eyes.
When buying them, this is what I want you to look for.
Winter squash starts off on the acorn shiny and then it gets dull.
That's what you want.
Now the butternut want a nice, long, tan squash.
They're really, really good for you.
I'm Produce Pete reminding you, if you eat right, you've got to live right.
So Rosemary's joining me.
She was correcting me for holding my squash the wrong way.
Thank you very much for helping out.
You're welcome.
I'm here to help.
So are you a big squash like her?
I do like squash.
I shouldn't hold it like that.
How do I hold it?
Hold it.
You hold it.
You hold this.
This is much safer.
It is sort of cool.
We know how to buy it now.
It has to be a little bit of a dull surface to be the right kind of, the right ripeness of food.
What do you do with your squash?
Well, this type of squash would normally be used for baking.
You need to bake it a really long time because, as you can see, it's hard as a rock.
So I would do that.
And that squash, the one She's holding.
I would make soups with that.
Fall's a great time for soups.
So this is a good soup squash.
And you add rosemary to your squash rosemary?
Of course.
Of course.
All right, thank you very much.
All right, Susan's not off the hook yet.
I got it like beats.
We're going to try something else.
Now, you mentioned you actually like broccoli.
I do like broccoli, yes.
Do you like preparing it in different ways, have a fun time with it?
I usually just steam it with a little salt and maybe drizzle a little olive oil on it.
I don't really do anything creative with it.
Well, it's got a ton of vitamin C. In fact, it's got 100% of all you need if you eat it raw.
I happen to adore it, but a lot of folks don't know how to buy broccoli the right way.
So this is an interesting little tip.
So when it's fresh broccoli, it's fairly stiff like that.
And when it's older broccoli, it's lost its ripeness.
See how it bends?
But you actually want your broccoli not to do that.
You want it to be able to stay stiff like that.
And when you have stiff broccoli, then you can do almost anything you want with it.
It'll still have that little bit of tartness that you want when you cook the thrill.
And should it be like a little greener than, or should you cook it like really soft and when it gets a little duller?
I like to leave it a little crunchy.
Crunchy?
I think when you overcook it, you also lose some of the vitamin C when you overcook it.
Okay.
So don't, you know, do it on the light side if at all.
Okay.
Last up, cranberries.
I happen to love them because they help with stomach ulcers.
They're great for urinary tract infections.
They can actually make it difficult for the bacteria to grow up in there.
I like to use them by chopping them up, or you can use them whole as well, and put them on a salad.
You can get frozen cranberries all year round.
It's why they're so efficient and they're so cost-effective.
Great, thank you very much.
All right, you can check out my magazine, The Good Life, on newsstands now for more of my fall food essentials.
This is just full of other clever things you can do today, make a big impact so you can live the good life.
You want a copy of the magazine?
I would love it.
Should we give it to everybody else, too?
I think so.
All right, you're all going home with a copy of The Good Life.
We'll be right back.
There are lots more healthy fall superfoods.
What's your favorite?
My family loves pumpkin.
I put it in everything.
Dr. Oz, more pumpkin recipes please.
Share your foods and learn secrets to live the good life on Dr. Oz's Facebook page.
The new dangers of walk-in cosmetic procedures.
A Dr. Oz undercover investigation.
Thousands of women have been injured.
Some have died.
Is a real doctor even behind the mask?
The three procedures you should never do.
Plus...
One of the most controversial headlines all summer.
The surprising plan that may help prevent Alzheimer's.
All new Dr. Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
It's time for Casey Mairstead first.
First, we took a new look at near-death experiences.
Now, while there's no way science can tell for sure what happens when someone is declared clinically dead and then they're resuscitated, I've spoken to many patients who've experienced this phenomenon, and I'm comforted by the fact that they don't feel lonely.
They feel embraced in that crazy space.
So if you want to find out more about these death travelers or share your own story, you can log on to DrRoz.com.
And when it comes to omegas, choose wisely.
If you take only one thing away from the show, I want you to try an omega-3 fish oil supplement with DHA. You can also focus on all the iOmegas, omegas-3 and 5 and 7 and 9. They're all important.
For example, omega-7, which we don't talk about very much, is found in macadamia nuts, which are actually good for you.
I know they have a little bit of fat in them, but they've got so many nutrients and the good kinds of fats that I actually tend to eat these a lot myself.
Next question for you.
Are you addicted to caffeine?
Well, you can break the habit.
Start your detoxing stages.
We talked about this today.
You're going to start off in week one by cutting out from your normal about 25%.
Then in week two, go to 50%.
Week three, 75% less than you normally had.
And then week four, no more caffeine.
I'll show you how to wean yourself off gradually with my 28-day plan to break your caffeine addiction.
It's on DrRoz.com.
Next, try one of my favorite fall superfoods tonight, broccoli.
Now, a lot of you have never had broccoli prepared the right ways.
We talked about that today.
But one cup of raw broccoli has all the vitamins you're going to need for the rest of the day.
And remember, give your broccoli the bend test.
So take the stalk and see how hard it is to bend.
The harder it is to bend, the fresher the stalk.
If you can bend it into a curlicue, pick another piece of broccoli that's not fresh.
If it's fresh, you'll like it more.
You can steam it so you don't mess up too many of the nutrients or eat it raw.
Now, I'm going to close with a warning.
Please be careful about what you buy online, especially weight loss pills.
There are some dubious people online that prey on folks like you who are trying to do the right thing for your health.
Sometimes they even try to make it seem like I'm endorsing their products, which I don't.
To see a full list of our trusted sponsorship partners, please go to DrOz.com.
▲
Export Selection