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April 22, 2024 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:32
The Ashley Madison Cheating Scandal: Pastor’s Wife Speaks Out | Dr. Oz | S7 | Ep 21 | Full Episode
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It's the story that rocked America.
In an exclusive all-new Oz, the Ashley Madison cheating scandal.
A beloved pastor outed as a member of the notorious website who just committed suicide.
Now his wife speaks out for the first time.
What do you have to say to the hackers?
And the difficult conversation spawned by this controversy.
Coming up next.
It's the scandal everyone's talking about.
The Ashley Madison hack has sent shockwaves across the globe, hitting marriages hard.
And today, in an exclusive interview, you will hear from the wife of the pastor who killed himself just days after being outed by the hackers.
And she has a message for every family in America.
The impact is not isolated to just her family or to the celebrities that you're reading about in the papers.
Aftershocks of this scandal are being felt by just about every married person.
And that can affect their well-being.
The connection between healthy relationships and health is now really firmly backed up by hard signs.
For example, happily married people have lower mortality rates.
They die less often.
They have a lower risk of depression, heart disease, cancer, all the big killers, even a lower incidence of the everyday flu.
Now, the connection is hard to deny, and that's why the Ashley Madison cheating scandal is also potentially a health crisis.
It has forced couples all over America to ask, Could infidelity enter our home?
Well, we're going to explore the Ashley Madison effect on the show today.
Also, the science of cheating.
Why do we do it?
And how do we do things to get past it?
And the cheating death issue.
It's one of the times that cheating is actually a good thing.
We're going to meet a pregnant woman who died for 37 seconds during childbirth.
Find out how she followed her intuition and it brought her back to life.
We begin with the deadly Ashley Madison effect.
It's the hacking scandal rocking America.
Act like Snooki and Kristen Takeman of Real Housewives of New York City.
Professional athletes, politicians, CEOs, and tens of millions of others.
Reportedly 32 million.
The fallout has been devastating.
It's called the Ashley Madison Effect.
Marriages ripped open, trust broken, and even health compromised.
Interrupted sleep, increased stress, and now suicide.
Pastor John Gibson took his life when his secret was exposed.
Found by his wife just six days.
Dad, he was my hero.
Gibson, a father of two, preacher and professor, was loved by everyone in the community.
Even though he wasn't perfect, says his son Trey.
My dad was a great man.
He was a great man with struggles.
Everyone has struggles.
Everyone is broken.
When the pastor's suicide note was found, the family's worst fear was realized in just two words.
Ashley Madison.
Gibson's wife thinks guilt and fear of losing his job drove her husband to the unthinkable.
Today, Pastor Gibson's family is speaking out for the first time to share their memories and to make sure this tragedy doesn't happen to anyone else.
Christy, I'm sorry for your loss.
Thank you.
And I know it's difficult.
It's a private tragedy.
It's become pretty public.
Are you holding up okay?
I am.
Getting through it.
Getting through it.
One step at a time.
Yeah.
The man you loved, the man you were married to for 29 years, tell us about him.
He was, I think the first thing you're ever going to hear to describe him is that he was a servant.
He had such a servant's heart.
He loved to do for everyone.
He had a corny, quirky sense of humor, laughed at life, kept us all laughing, was a good friend.
Take me back to the day when you found him.
It was Monday actually three weeks ago and I came home from work and I was running a little late and we had plans for supper that night and so when I walked in the house there were a few clues to the manner in which he killed himself so I began to look for him around the house And eventually found him and he was gone.
He had been gone probably for several hours and there was no CPR, nothing because he was just very, very clearly gone.
I immediately pulled out my cell phone and called my best friend who lives down the street and she came and we called the emergency services and the house began to fill up with friends and It was a pretty tough day.
Did it ever cross your mind he might take his life?
I don't know that it ever did seriously.
There were times probably through the years that he would jokingly say that we would be better off without him in kind of a half-joking way.
But I don't know that I ever seriously contemplated that he would.
And I know he left a note, and this is sensitive, so you say what you are comfortable saying.
But he outlined some of why he was doing what he was doing.
He basically was a very brief note and he basically said that he had struggled with depression and that he had been on the Ashley Madison website and that he was so very sorry and that was really about it.
A few instructions for how to handle his death and that was really it.
So you mentioned the Ashley Madison website.
He did.
Do you think he was fearful of losing his job as a pastor?
I think quite naturally he would be.
He very much loved his job.
He very much loved ministering to people, ministering to students.
He never wanted to be anything but a pastor and a professor.
Of course, being on a website for infidelity doesn't go with that.
And so, of course, I think the minute the leak happened, he had to be afraid that his name was there and that this would threaten everything.
Do you think he was worried about losing you?
I had forgiven him in the past.
This is not a first-time struggle.
I had forgiven other things, and I hope that he would have known that we could work on it together.
I had told him over the years that I wanted to work on this with him.
I hope that he would have known that, but it may have been there.
There may have been some fear of that as well.
Let me ask Trey a question.
Christie's and John's son, Trey is here.
Trey, I heard you speaking at the memorial service, the burial perhaps.
Your father was obviously in great pain as he was going through this.
If you could talk to him in those darkest moments, what would you have said?
He was my dad, and so I would have said that nothing would have been too bad that we would have ever stopped being his kids, that we would have ever stopped loving him, that it wouldn't have been easy, but we would have made it through that.
So I would have loved to make sure that he understood that.
Christy, what would you have told John at his darkest moment?
I would have said, please, can we work on this together?
I would have said that nothing was worth losing him for.
He was too important to us.
He left a hole.
And, yeah, it would have been hard.
It would have been hard to deal with the aftermath of all of this happening.
But we could have done it.
Anything in life that's worth doing is hard.
If John had confessed to you about his Ashley Madison Do you think this would have been avoided?
Yes, I do.
I think this outcome would have been avoided.
I think it would have been hard.
Like I said, I'd forgiven him before.
I think I would have forgiven him again.
I've been forgiven much.
I certainly have my own faults.
We all do our own struggles.
I think we could have worked on it together if he would have let us.
What do you have to say to the hackers whose actions led to your husband's suicide?
I would say to the hackers that I know that they feel like they did a good and right thing by outing this.
I guess they do.
I guess that was their motivation.
I don't really know.
But there is nothing...
Good or right about rejoicing in the downfall of another person.
And so I would say look to your own life and deal with what is right and good in your life and maybe your own struggles and your own difficulties that you're dealing with.
And we all fall short of what we need to be.
How are you doing?
How do you stay strong?
I tell you, it's the community, the Christian community that is surrounding me, my family, my faith community.
My son and I have talked about it several times that we can almost physically feel the arms of others united and holding us up.
That we know we don't have any strength in and of ourselves.
We feel very weak.
We are absolutely exhausted.
And the emotional swings, one day we're dealing with anger, one we're dealing with just the greatest sorrow that we could ever imagine.
And we're doing all this.
We're talking about what we're doing.
So we're doing it all in the public eye.
And we have an incredible community of faith that are praying for us, sending us words of encouragement.
My phone blows up every morning with texts of scriptures and praise songs and just things to encourage me.
Well, you're going to have millions of people praying with you as well today and wishing you the best.
I know how difficult this must be.
Thank you.
I can only imagine.
We mourn ourselves, I've got to say, when we lose a parent.
But when we lose a spouse or a child, we actually mourn losing them prematurely.
They were taken before their time.
Yeah.
If any of you had a role in it.
All right.
Bless you.
Thank you.
We'll be right back.
Next, are we genetically wired to cheat?
Or is that just an excuse?
Some believe we could actually possess a cheating gene.
We are a socially monogamous primate.
That doesn't mean we're sexually monogamous.
What drives us to cheat?
Coming up next.
The Miss America nurse controversy explodes.
The backlash no one saw coming.
Nurses unite in a show of force.
Even I weigh in with over 200 nurses strong.
All new Oz.
That's coming up on Monday.
The Ashley Madison hacking scandal has put cheating and cheaters in the spotlight, raising the question, why do people cheat in the first place?
I want to delve deeper into the science of infidelity to find out if we are wired to cheat or if that's just an excuse.
Please welcome Dr. Tara Fields, a licensed family therapist and relationship expert.
Thank you.
Dr. Justin Garcia, evolutionary biologist at the King's Institute for Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, and someone who unfortunately sees a lot of infidelity in her line of work, divorce attorney and stars of Bravo's Untying the Knot, Vicki Ziegler.
Welcome to the show.
So the big question we're asking everybody is why do people turn to websites like Ashley Madison and cheat?
The audience may have their own thoughts, but I'd like to hear from the experts.
Yeah, I don't think they necessarily have the intention to cheat when they go there.
I think they're sort of testing the waters, they're putting their toe in, but often you start by putting your toe in and the rest of the body follows.
You know what?
I think that you're right, but honestly, it's so easy to be a digital person behind the computer, trying to find people, maybe even putting a different picture from 1990, and trying to look for people and kind of focus on what you're not getting in your marriage.
It's the cowards man out kind of thing, where people are actually behind the computer and not actually going in front of people to cheat, which is really unfortunate, and that's why they need me on a daily basis.
And we know that The risk of infidelity is quite high in societies all around the world, and there's a subset of people who are physiologically, biologically not drawn to monogamy like most of us.
So why get married then?
Well, if we're in a social construct where the institution says everyone should be getting married, we live in a society where we say, let's be monogamous, what gender scholars call monogonormativity, right?
So everyone around us gets married, so we think we should do it.
Most humans, we are a socially monogamous primate.
That doesn't mean we're sexually monogamous.
There are different systems in our physiology and our biology.
Are you married?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I have to say...
You agree?
No, I said, are you married?
Oh, are you married?
You have a different perspective, Dr. Oz, I think, a little bit.
Okay, but if a husband is really wanting to repair his relationship from an affair, and he says, it's not my fault, my genes made me do it, That's like throwing, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
That's like throwing gasoline on a fire.
And as Dr. Oz knows, we could have a genetic predisposition to high cholesterol and to diabetes.
That doesn't mean that we should go stuff our faces with cheeseburgers.
We have personal choices.
I don't want to go down this path too far, because I do want to explore a little bit Dr. Garcia's assertion that there's actually a gene that predicts cheating.
Call it the cheating gene.
So you're saying there actually is something like that.
So we've done work on, we know that our genetics, variation in our genetics, can be associated with certain predispositions for behavior.
So we looked at a gene called DRD4, and it's a gene that regulates dopamine in the brain and the brain's pleasure and reward response.
So what we found is that individuals with a certain variant of the DRD4 gene Who are also more likely to engage in sensation seeking and risk taking and alcohol use and abuse are 50% more likely to commit infidelity.
And when they do commit infidelity compared to those without the gene, which gets to your point that there's lots of diversity, they do it much more often.
And the reason being is that infidelity is a behavior that is high in risk It is mixed in reward and mixed in motivation.
Those are the ingredients that are perfect for a dopaminergic response to the brain.
And I agree with you.
I agree with you.
Let me just explain this for one second, because that was a lot of stuff to people to process.
So there's a gene in the brain that predicts how dopamine works.
Now let me just, if I can't illustrate this for everyone, because I want you to be clear on this, because women are going to know like this, it's impossible.
But let me just explain that, so we can get to the debate about whether it's true or not.
So let's start with this concept of gene variation.
And let's start with the brain.
There it is, there's the brain.
And spin it around a little bit.
And when you spin it, and you actually cut it in half, in the inside, we're going to look at something where this dopamine is made.
Now the dopamine is made in a little area that's sort of greenish there.
And it's left, allowed from there to progress to other parts of the brain, to the front of the brain, as you see there.
That's how the brain gets excited.
So people who have that normal function, that's what it's normally supposed to do, they can feel that dopamine surge even when they're making love to their spouse while watching the local news on Wednesday night.
When they be intimate, it's turned on appropriately.
But in someone with the so-called cheating gene, as you were talking about, this non-functioning part of the brain, the dopamine doesn't work quite the way.
There's a variation in that blueprint.
So it's harder for them to get happy and excited.
They don't get that stimulation in this brain the way it's supposed to be stimulated when you're having intimate moments.
So they may be more likely to seek excitement elsewhere with another partner outside their marriage.
Before you run out and get your spouse genetically tested, which most women are thinking of doing right now, the headline I'm hearing from all you is that that's not actually predicting behavior.
It's just making it understandable in some cases.
And you might be more vulnerable.
So again, look at this still as a choice.
My choice is not to cheat and maybe I'll bungee jump and try to get that dopamine right.
Absolutely.
But the problem is, Dr. Oz, in divorce cases, as a divorce attorney, we can't use an excuse that I cheated, I committed adultery, so I have the cheating gene.
I'm sorry.
Exactly.
Sorry about that.
You know, my marriage isn't working out, and judge, you know, that's an issue.
You should excuse this behavior.
We can't do that as counselors going before the court.
So we have to really think about things before we get into relationships and get married.
And whether or not you have addictive personality, I'm assuming the gene has something to do with gamblers and people that like a rush.
And all those things.
You need to know yourself and figure out whether or not you want to be monogamous or not.
And if you're going to get married, you need to work on your marriage and stay monogamous or don't get married and have a million girlfriends.
Absolutely.
And biology is never an excuse for our behavior.
It's simply not.
You stole the choice.
But exactly as you said, it allows us to understand why some people feel pulled in one direction in their behavior versus those that feel pulled in another.
We can begin to understand the drives, the motivations to go in one direction.
So let's move us to the separate question of whether men or women are more likely to do this.
So there are reports that there are 31 million men who have signed up for Ashley Madison compared to only five and a half women, a million women.
Big difference, six to one difference.
Are men more likely to cheat than women?
Don't answer.
when we come back you'll find out the thoughts of our next question congratulations we're taking the board you guys have fun thank you thank you thank you thank you later in the show the Ashley Madison scandal has made many questions Where does my marriage stand?
Should you be searching the hacked database for your spouse's email?
How to have the difficult conversation with your spouse about infidelity.
Coming up.
We're back with divorce attorney Vicki Ziegler, Dr. Garcia, and Dr. Fields.
We're talking about the science of infidelity brought into the limelight by the recent Ashley Madison hacking.
There are certainly more men on Ashley Madison's website than women.
We all know that as a fact.
But are men more likely to cheat than women?
Yes.
I think traditionally, and I think that it changes with society, but in the 1990s, there was a study, Dr. Oz, that showed that 12% of the women cheated in the survey and 23% of the men cheated.
However, in a recent study, that number with females has gone up to 19%.
And it's plateaued at 23% for men.
And what I'm finding in my practice is that women are more confident.
They're out in the workplace.
They're actually making money.
They're taking care of themselves.
And they're saying, listen, if I cheat and I dabble in another relationship and I get caught, the repercussion isn't as daunting.
I can still take care of myself as I couldn't perhaps 20 years ago.
But I also think men and women cheat for different reasons.
You know, when a man feels disconnected from himself or his mate, often he'll use sex as a way to connect.
Whereas for women, we need to be open emotionally to then feel open sexually.
So I think with women, a lot of affairs start with affairs of the heart.
They feel like they're getting the communication, and then it turns into sex.
And with men, it starts with sex.
And that's exactly the point.
We're starting to understand that the motivations for engaging in sexual infidelity are different for men and women.
But new research is suggesting that both men and women engage in infidelity, probably because we know that infidelity is part of the human mating repertoire of the 15 percent of socially monogamous primates.
I love being called a primate, by the way.
Can we talk about it?
Since you brought up the issue of emotional versus sexual infidelity, what's the difference?
Well the difference is emotional infidelity there literally is no sex.
Somebody can fall in love and they can be romanced and romance the other one and often there was some research that was done and men and women were asked what would be more painful if your mate came home and said I have something to confess I had sex once there was no feeling involved or your mate came home and said You know, I didn't have sex with this person, but I think I fell in love and we've gone out to romantic dinners and all this stuff.
Most women said an affair of the heart would be more painful, even if there's no sex.
And for men, it was a sexual affair.
So analyze that.
Dr. Garcia, take that back to your primation.
Well, the complicated piece there is that we know from the research that although psychologists make this distinction between emotional and sexual infidelity, if we ask people, which would you be upset by most, and give them the option of saying both, most people say, well, I'd be upset by both, because we don't really separate the notions.
We do as researchers, but people in their own lives don't often separate the notion of, if it's emotional, you start to think, well, it's almost sexual.
And if it's sexual, you say, well, it had to also be emotional.
Well, when it's personal, there's an issue.
It's a lot easier to say, oh, I'm so sorry, you were cheated on, or, you know, your girlfriend's emotionally connected to somebody.
But when it happens to you, it's a different story.
And I think in divorce, and this is, you know, the reason why I have to be the voice of divorce here, because that's why I'm here.
I think what we're seeing most of the time, people have emotional affairs.
That, to me, can be worse than a sexual affair, because sexual affairs can be fleeting.
An emotional connection can be a lifetime.
Oh, absolutely.
Now you have all the fodder you need for your practice.
Thank you very much for being here.
Thanks for all the insights.
Up next, for everyone who's wondered whether their spouse has even flirted with the idea of Ashley Madison, Dr. Fields has advice on how to have the difficult conversation about infidelity in your home.
It could make your relationship stronger, and I mean it.
All right, that's next.
Later, is it possible to cheat death?
Meet a woman who will make you believe.
The amazing story of a mother who trusted her gut while pregnant.
How her intuition helped save her and her baby's life.
Coming up.
The Miss America nurse controversy explodes.
The backlash no one saw coming.
Nurses unite in a show of force.
Even I weigh in with over 200 nurses strong.
All new us.
That's coming up on Monday.
We've been talking about the Ashley Madison effect, the emotional and psychological aftershocks being felt by millions.
Now, it's not just people being outed for cheating who are being affected.
Every married person in America is asking themselves, was my spouse involved?
Do I need to look them up on the website?
Where does my marriage stand?
So I'm going to open it up in today's conversation.
Dr. Fields is going to offer up her thoughts on all the questions you may have about infidelity.
But you've got to ask the question or there's no answer.
Okay.
It takes a little bravery.
Who wants to go first?
Go ahead.
What if I went on one of those websites to look up my husband and I found my best friend's husband on there?
What do I do then?
Do I tell her?
Do I not?
Do I get involved?
That's a great question.
How did you even think of that question?
Is that what your mind really was?
I love that question because people ask me all the time.
I saw my best friend's husband.
What I would do is I would go to him first directly with the information and say, I need you to share this with your wife.
If not, I'm going to say something.
But give him the opportunity to do it in the most loving way and to come clean.
And then it gets you out of being the bad guy, too.
That's true.
Very true.
What other questions do you have, I wonder?
Go ahead.
Hi.
I've been with my husband for almost 12 years.
And we've had a really, really happy marriage with open communication, trust, respect.
But I've got this burning curiosity about whether he has indulged in this website, if he's registered.
And I just, I need to know how to approach him without being accusatory.
I'm wondering why you even have that thought, why you're feeling anxious.
I think that it's the Ashley Madison, you know, public publicity, you know, that we've all heard about and it's kind of stirred up a can of worms for me inside.
And I think you're like so many women where their husbands probably aren't there, you've got this great trust, but boy, for some reason it's become a trigger.
Exactly.
The great thing about even having those feelings is it gives you an opportunity to have another conversation about trust.
And I want to say to the men out there, if your beautiful wife, like this one, says that to you, don't be reactive and say, "How could you ask me that?" Say, "Huh, that's kind of interesting." You know, I know we don't have any history of trust issues, but it's an opportunity to get to know your partner.
Maybe there's trust issues from the past in a past relationship.
Maybe a parent was cheated, and this is a trigger, so it's a way to help your beautiful mate repair this, which creates even more intimacy between you.
This is the elephant in the room.
So the bigger question is, should women search the Ashley Madison website to find out if their spouse's email is there?
I think they need to talk to their mate first.
If your mate gets reactive, if you still keep getting that gut feeling, maybe you should do it.
But I really think that probably it's a long shot that you need to.
You have a question?
Mine is just more of a statement.
I think cheating is just ridiculous and quite honestly lazy.
If you're unhappy, get out.
And I think if it's on the internet, it is not private.
No, it's not at all.
Yeah, I think that's fantastic because there's never a reason to cheat.
If you want to get out of your marriage, turn to your mate, do everything you can to fix it, and then after time, if you know it can't be fixed, get out, and then, just like you said, then you have the relationship.
So, Liz and Tony are joining us, a husband and wife couple, been married two years, if I understand correctly, and you have a question.
Yes.
Hi, Dr. Fields.
Hi.
I heard about the scandal through my husband.
He works in IT, so he actually told me about it before it was all over the place.
And we had a baby two months ago, so my emotions and insecurities were running high.
And even though we did talk about it, it did cross my mind to see if He was on the website.
Ultimately, I didn't because I trust him.
But what is a good way to start a conversation like that with your spouse?
So I would say, listen, honey, this may be all about me.
For some reason, I'm hearing this in the news.
It makes me feel so anxious.
Tony, how did you deal, especially as you're in IT, with the possibility that you might get checked up on?
Well...
We were open about it.
I mean, we were open.
You weren't disappointed that she was questioning?
Well, you know, it hurts a little bit.
It does hurt.
But at the same time, I know she trusts me and I trust her in the same way.
We just talked to each other and basically reassured each other that, you know, this didn't happen.
Honestly, for fun, I just checked myself out.
My own e-mails, just because I thought...
Was that on there?
No.
I love what you did, because instead of going to the anger and becoming reactive, you talked about your pain.
You went right to it, you shared it, and that's probably why you have such a great relationship.
Last bit of advice for anybody out there who's wondering how to have that conversation tonight with their spouse.
As therapists, we always take even the darkest stories and try to reframe it and turn it into something positive.
Use this as an opportunity to have that conversation about trust.
And you may find something out that you didn't know about within the relationship or even from the past, and that's what builds intimacy.
Dr. Fairfield's The Love Fix, fantastic books available now.
Up next, Cheating Death, the amazing story of a woman who trusted her gut in the ninth month of pregnancy, and it probably saved her life.
Next, the pregnant woman whose intuition helped her cheat death.
I told my doctor there's something wrong.
And coming up later, I'm turning your freezer into a breakfast and lunch factory to save you 30 minutes every morning.
Coming up.
We are bringing a healthy back this season and want you to bring it too.
Grab your prescription pad for fun and sign up for free tickets today.
You can go to dros.com/tickets and sign up.
Today's show is all about cheating and now cheating death.
Our next guest followed her intuition, and it saved her life.
I was pregnant with my second child, and we were so excited.
At the 20-week ultrasound, I was diagnosed with the placenta previa, which means that the placenta is growing on top of the cervix.
The radiologist made it sound like it was a relatively benign issue, at least at that stage of pregnancy, but my wife's reaction was decidedly different.
I told my husband, I've got a bad feeling about this.
I'm O negative, so less than 7% of the population has this blood type.
There was this overwhelming fear that I couldn't shake.
When I got home, I had my first vision of what was going to happen to me.
It was almost like a film strip.
I saw me delivering Jacob.
Everything being fine with him.
And then I would see the doctors slicing me open, blood hemorrhaging, and ultimately I saw me dead on the operating table.
I was convinced that I was not going to make it past this delivery.
Everybody thought I was crazy.
I did hope that it was nerves and hormones, but it wasn't.
I was seeing things and then I was feeling them physically and calling my husband or my doctors and saying, I feel like this is going to happen.
Every test that I went into that I was having visions about came back negative.
Everything.
There was nobody left to speak to and my doctor suggested I have a consultation with anesthesia.
I told her one last time, this is what I was afraid was going to happen.
And with that consultation, she flagged my file and incorporated extra blood in the operating room at the time of delivery.
A week shy of my scheduled C-section, I looked down at the floor and blood was everywhere.
When Stephanie got to the hospital, she was concerned that something horrible was going to happen to her during her delivery.
I was 100% positive my visions were going to come true.
We began to make our way to the operating room.
My body went ice cold.
I told my doctor, there's something wrong.
Right after delivery, Stephanie had seizure-like activity.
We were calling out her name, and then we noticed that she had no heartbeat.
And flatlined for 37 seconds.
Stephanie suffered an extremely rare complication of pregnancy.
It's known as an amniotic fluid embolism, and that causes a series of events that leads to a very significant allergic reaction, a catastrophic hemorrhage.
She lost the ability to clot her blood.
In order to keep Stephanie alive, during the first 24 hours, she was transfused over 60 blood products.
As a result of that phone call, we had a crash cart nearby and enough blood reserved for her.
I do believe that that saved Stephanie's life.
Please welcome Stephanie.
Welcome to the show.
Welcome to the show.
So, you obviously were unconscious when you were going through this near-death experience.
But you've had, I guess, hypnosis and other techniques to try to remember what happened.
So walk us through for those 37 seconds when your heart wasn't beating, what was going on?
So I saw everything that happened in the operating room.
So after I flatlined, I saw my doctor screaming, this can't be happening.
I saw the anesthesiologist down by my feet and screaming, Stephanie, Stephanie, I'm running up.
I saw that the first crash cart didn't work, but the second crash cart did.
I saw a nurse that I'd never seen before jump on my chest and do the compressions.
I saw somebody hit the button and call the code and then 40 doctors rushed into the trauma team and then...
Ultimately, I heard the flatline.
How eerie is that?
You probably have an idea as a cardiologist.
Yes.
So, you had this intuition.
You have to have a lot of strength to speak up on it, especially in front of your doctors.
Right.
Well, the way that I talk about it is I had nothing to lose except my life.
So imagine you're on a plane and it's crashing.
You're going to do everything you can to save your life.
And I needed to do something and talk to anybody.
Maybe somebody had heard what I was going through and helped me.
So I hear your child screaming and yelling back there, trying to get out here to mommy.
Can I call a call?
Please leave Stephanie's baby, Jacob, and the rest of the family.
I think the four-year-old's there, too.
There they are.
Are you the little chatterbox back there?
I think that's your voice.
I recognize that voice.
What were you saying back there?
It's hard when you walk out.
She was saying, Mommy, Mommy, I want to go out.
So Stephanie said, a wonderful book is called 37 Seconds.
It looks really terrific.
You're going to stick around.
Okay.
All right?
When we come back, we're going to talk about the three gut instincts you should never ignore.
Thank you.
Later, the best time cheat to shave 30 minutes off your morning routine.
The Miss America nurse controversy explodes.
The backlash no one saw coming.
Nurses unite in a show of force.
Even I weigh in with over 200 nurses strong.
All new Oz.
That's coming up on Monday.
There was this overwhelming fear that I couldn't shake.
When I got home, I had my first vision of what was going to happen to me.
I saw me delivering Jacob, everything being fine with him, and then I would see the doctors slicing me open, blood hemorrhaging, and ultimately I saw me dead on the operating table.
We're back with Stephanie who cheated death when she trusted her gut that something was wrong with her pregnancy.
Also joining us is someone who's done a lot of research on the connection between intuition and health, Dr. Kelly Turner.
So what have you learned about intuition's effect on health, Kelly?
Well, I study radical remission survivors.
These are people who heal from cancer against tremendous odds.
And one of the nine things they have in common is following their intuition.
And one thing that I really find fascinating is that research has shown that the gut acts like a second brain.
So when somebody says, I have a gut feeling about something, that's not just a thought.
That's a physical process happening in their body that we're all born with.
And it's there to alert us towards danger.
Those butterflies mean something.
They do.
So what advice do you have for folks who are perhaps a little trepidatious about trusting their instincts, their gut intuition?
That if they sense something, they need to say something, because ultimately it could save their life.
As it did in your case.
It most certainly did.
The first gut instinct Dr. Turner says you should never ignore is the trust instinct.
Right.
So we all have the ability to read people.
We can read body language, facial expression.
We often can get almost an instant read on whether someone is safe or not.
That's your intuition talking to you.
So intuition doesn't just alert us towards danger.
It also points you towards a path of safety, or in my research, a path of healing.
The second big tip you give us is something that everyone will be familiar with, sweaty palms.
So we should never ignore them.
You actually wrote about this in your Radical Remission book.
Right, so it sounds simple, but your body often knows that there's a problem long before the brain does.
Will it demonstrate it?
Yeah, I'd love to show you.
So a great example is the famous Iowa card study.
So this was done at the University of Iowa in their School of Medicine.
They're poker players?
Yeah, well actually it was about gambling.
And they were doing more than just watching what they were doing.
They hooked these people up to sensors.
So the point of the game was to win as much money as you could simply by flipping over cards.
And you could flip over cards from any deck.
But what the participants didn't realize is that it was rigged.
So the red decks were set up to give you big wins followed by big losses.
And the blue decks were set up to give you slow and steady wins.
Okay, so it took about 80 cards for the people to figure out what was going on.
80 cards before they knew this was dangerous and this was safe.
But here's the crazy thing.
Their bodies knew after only 10 cards.
Based on the sweating?
Based on the sweating.
So after 10 cards, whenever they reached for a card from the red deck, the dangerous deck, the sweat glands on their hands would open up slightly.
So their bodies were trying to tell them 70 cards before the brain caught up to it that this was danger.
And that's why it's so important to listen to your body because it often knows long before the thinking part of your brain even knows there's a problem.
So for now on, be proud of your sweaty palms.
Yes.
No more shying away from that reality.
The third gut instinct we should never ignore is the I don't feel good instinct.
Something's not right instincts.
Something's not right.
Yeah, so this could be a gut feeling.
It might be a voice in your head.
It might even be a dream.
But if you have a nagging feeling that just something isn't right, you really should listen to it, just like Stephanie did.
Because this could save your life.
A great example of not ignoring this feeling that something might be wrong, in addition to Stephanie's example, It's actually Tom Hanks' wife, Rita Wilson.
She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, but it started off with a breast cancer biopsy that came back negative, meaning indicating she didn't have cancer, but she couldn't shake that feeling that something wasn't right.
So she asked to have the test repeated, and the second test came back positive, indicating she did have cancer.
She ended up needing treatment, and by listening to that intuitive feeling, that thought of something's not right here, it arguably saved her life.
I don't know if you knew any of this before beforehand, but you processed it right anyway.
I'm so happy you made it, especially for those wonderful things.
Thank you for the wonderful advice, guys.
If you're seeing a doctor and you've got a gut feeling about your health, give me a signal that you don't know enough.
So don't be afraid to talk to them about it.
Keep asking questions if you are satisfied.
Up next, a timed cheat you can all use to shave 30 minutes off your morning routine.
The Miss America nurse controversy explodes.
The backlash no one saw coming.
Nurses unite in a show of force.
Even I weigh in with over 200 nurses strong.
All new Oz.
That's coming up on Monday.
Today's show's been all about cheating...
From the Ashley Madison hacking scandal to even cheating death.
Now here's a cheat you can use to lower your stress.
Tomorrow you're going to be talking about the best time cheat to shave 30 minutes off your morning routine.
Now, it's turned that you're going to love this.
You're going to turn your freezer into a factory for making breakfasts and lunches.
All you need is a freezer.
A muffin tin, and then some simple ingredients.
So for breakfast, you're going to take one large pot you're going to make over the weekend.
You're going to scoop it out and toss it into the tins.
In fact, someone come up here and help me.
Come over here.
What's your name?
Amy.
Amy here.
I'll hold the mic because you've got to work.
Okay.
Keep putting that in there.
So you scoop in a little oatmeal.
You can do it on sun over the weekend.
In each of those pins.
You're so neat.
And then add whatever toppings you want.
Some berries or nuts.
Whatever you happen to like in there.
Cranberries.
Then you're going to put it in the freezer and freeze it.
Mix it up, make it fun, whatever you desire.
Now, while you're doing that, I'm going to start working on the spaghetti.
Because for lunch, you're going to make spaghetti freezer muffins.
Which is, again, take it with the leftover spaghetti you've got left.
That's sloppy, but that like this.
I'm not as neat as you.
You pick it in there.
Come on down here, ma'am.
We need some help in here.
I can't do this by myself.
I've got a show to run here.
Now, keep moving on those little tins.
Be neater than me, though.
Thank you very much.
And work fast.
Now, while you're doing that...
After you do all that hard work, which takes you not much time, you're going to put it in the freezer.
And here's the best part.
Reach in there in the morning when you're already late, you've got a hundred things going on, and you can grab these frozen specimens.
Now, it's very straightforward.
For the breakfast, you're going to take out one of those muffins that look like this, nice and hard and solid, put it on a plate and microwave it.
And it's done.
Bite into that, but only after you microwave it.
And then, the best part about it is lunch.
No, I'm kidding!
Don't bite that!
What are you doing?
You're going to break the tooth!
You told me to!
No, I was kidding!
Here, hold that mic.
Now, I'm going to post this to my Facebook page.
Make sure you share it with all your family and friends.
Remember, your health and happiness start at home.
See you next time.
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