From Drug Smuggler to Healer: How Nick Brewer Created Primal Moves - Transcript
Dr. Mark Hyman
It went from crackdown on cocaine to cracked open in your consciousness.
Nick Brewer
I smashed myself to pieces. I'd gotten into drug trafficking. I found myself in South America. I wound up with ten years in prison in Argentina for smuggling cocaine. And I had a broken body and a broken mind.
You had this life as a smuggler. It's finished. And I sat and I asked, I said, what am I gonna do? And I heard this voice that came through and it said that I was gonna be a facilitator of movement into people's lives. So it was through a damaged body that I developed Primal Moves.
Nick Brewer. Is the founder of Primal Moves. Fusing movement. Breathwork. And trauma informed awareness.
He turned a prison sentence into a blueprint for freedom.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Reconnecting people to their bodies.
Nick Brewer
And out of pain.
Dr. Mark Hyman
People say, what's the meaning of life? What's the purpose of life? To me, it's getting free.
Nick Brewer
There's a lot of fear around actually wanting to be well because people are actually quite happy living in pain. They think it's a place where they can reside. Comfortable.
Dr. Mark Hyman
So many people don't live in their body. They are disconnected from their body. Nick, welcome to podcast. So great to have you on today.
Nick Brewer
Thanks, Mark. Thanks for hosting me. I'm a big fan of yours.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, ditto. I mean, here we are in Ibiza, in your house, or Ibiza, as they say in Spain. This morning, I just came from one of your classes called Primal Moves, which we're gonna talk about, which is a powerful way of rehabilitating the body, of gaining strength, of healing injury. And I I have known you for years. I've come to your class for years, but I don't think the world really knows about you very much.
And I don't think the world knows about this practice that you developed Mhmm. That is quite powerful. And for me, it's this looks deceptively easy, but it's actually quite hard.
Nick Brewer
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And and I wanna sort of start off by talking about something that just happened to me, which is I'm rehabilitating for my own back surgery, and I've shared a little bit about that, and I really was taken down. And I've been doing better and better, and it's been about six months, and I've gained a lot strength. And I was weight training by myself because I I was traveling, and I was lifting these weights in a way that kinda tweaked my back a little bit. And I was really hurting, and I was a little nervous about, did I do something wrong, did I screw it it up? I was uncomfortable, but I decided I'm gonna go to the class and just do what I can do.
And I just did one class, and I was huffing and puffing and sweating. And by using these sort of very weird movements, they're like animal movements, crawling on the floor, crawling backwards, going on your side, stomach, stretching. It's like this kind of wild practice. In one class, my pain was gone, and I was like, holy shit. You know?
It's powerful stuff.
Nick Brewer
That's Yeah. That's very rewarding to hear.
Dr. Mark Hyman
I I want I wanna sort of start out by talking about a little your background because it's so interesting and you know you're not your typical yoga teacher who you know like our our fitness trainer who kind of just went through the traditional route. You had a kind of a crazy story. You went from basically cracked down on cocaine to cracked open in your your consciousness Yeah. Through an incredible story that we we can't really tell the whole thing because it takes hours. And we were in Africa together, and you told me the story.
Took hours to tell the story, and it was blew my mind. But it's but essentially, you know, you you I want you to sort of start by how how you first injured yourself and then how you became like a drug smuggler and then how that led you being in prison and then what you learned in prison. So kinda take us through that story and what happened to you and how you came out the other side as a whole human being. Yeah. I mean, that's
Nick Brewer
a big backdrop. So, you know, first and foremost, movement is medicine. It's a healer for the body. It's a healer from the mind. And when I was growing up in my teenage years, I was a pro skier.
Mhmm. I had an idyllic life. I lived in the Alps. I was on the international circuit, and I broke my back in two places.
Dr. Mark Hyman
You fractured your vertebrae?
Nick Brewer
Yeah. I I fractured l three and l four. So compression fractures and completely herniated all the lumbar spine. That was the first injury. Mhmm.
Five years later, I broke t seven and t nine in a motor cross accident. So, you know, in my teenage years, in my early twenties, I smashed myself to pieces. In the process of that, you know, I'd the self destruct switch. I'd gotten into drug trafficking. I found myself in South America.
I wound up with ten years in prison in Argentina for smuggling cocaine. Yeah. And I had a broken body and a broken mind. And it was the template that I had
Dr. Mark Hyman
anybody on my podcast who's been in prison for ten years. Yeah. Well, actually Yeah. Of
Nick Brewer
those ten years that I spent in prison, spent four years in isolation. Wow. Which is another story. That was a deep deep deep dive into my into myself into practice, which is actually where a lot of the kind of benefits and a lot of the rewards that I get today for movement and medicine practices came from. That's kind of how and why I developed Primal Moves.
I I came out of prison in 02/10 with a broken body. You know my spine looked like it had scoliosis, I had total lumbar herniation. I had degeneration of the discs.
Dr. Mark Hyman
When you went into prison?
Nick Brewer
Yeah. So when I came out, I was in a lot of pain. And I spent years practicing with a chiropractor. The kind of modern medicine were like, look, let's just open up your spine. Let's put a big bolt in there.
Let's stitch the entire lumbar spine together and bolt it together. And I was like, no way. Like, there's no way we're going down that route just yet. So I started surgery.
Dr. Mark Hyman
That's what I just had by the way.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. I mean, you know, I think yours was undeniable. You had to have it.
Dr. Mark Hyman
I had that.
Nick Brewer
But I was still in that position of, you know, was 40 years of age. Yeah. And I was like, I don't wanna have a rod in my back. So I went down the route of yoga, pilates, elementary gymnastics training, and I tapped into lots of different modalities of movement and you know, just came out of prison as well where I developed a deep deep yoga practice.
Dr. Mark Hyman
In prison? In prison.
Nick Brewer
And that was what started the whole kind of journey into rehabilitation like physical and mental. My body was not in a good place when I was 40. I was in a lot of pain. I had joint pain, my spine hurt. You know, more often than not, I'd be two or three weeks lying down in my bed in a fetal position where the the discs are just completely bulging.
I had no start spinal stability. I had no joint stability. So I basically went about restabilizing my joints through quadrupedal body weight movement.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Quadrupedal body weight movement.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. So my body weight
Dr. Mark Hyman
legs.
Nick Brewer
Moving on all fours. Yeah. In a non linear fashion. Yeah. So it'd be forwards, backwards, sideways, diagonally.
Yeah. Moving in multiple planes of direction, multiple joint action but with my body weight. Not creating any levers in the body which would then create stress in the lumbar spine which is what you've done. You've picked up a weight in an awkward fashion and that lever, you know, the weak part of the lever is the hinge and that's what happened. You've just tweaked it.
So what I was looking at doing was restabilizing my body. So I did it through this practice. So it was through a damaged body that I developed primal moves. Yeah. And the story that I'm hearing from you today is a story that I've heard hundreds and hundreds of times that people come to class and they've got stiff bodies, jammed up bodies, herniations in their lower back Mhmm.
Destabilized joints, hypermobility, stiffness and just basically like degenerating bodies. They come to class once, twice, three times. They get hooked and they're going away happy humans. Yeah. And they're going away pain free.
And then they take on and really then they start to embody the practice because not only do they get their physical use back, but they actually start to like with that and really start to enjoy their body again and start doing things in their forties and fifties that they thought they'd never ever be able to do again.
Dr. Mark Hyman
You said earlier you were in solitary confinement for four years. I mean, that would drive most people insane.
Nick Brewer
I mean, you'll you'll end up climbing the walls.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And and you know, there are practices like the dark retreats that the Tibetans do where they go for months or longer in darkness. And Vipassana's. Yeah. Yeah.
And it but but you didn't choose this. Chose me. It chose you. And and four years is a hell of a long time.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. It's a long time.
Dr. Mark Hyman
It's a long time. And you were in a little cell? Yep.
Nick Brewer
I was in a cell. It was probably two meters by three meters. Had a tiny little window at the top and gray concrete walls. And you had
Dr. Mark Hyman
to figure out how to move in that space?
Nick Brewer
So I had some books on yoga that I managed to get sent in.
Dr. Mark Hyman
So they let you have books in solitary?
Nick Brewer
So I can have books. I was in there like twenty two hours a day. So I did a lot of sitting practice. I did a lot of kind of reflection, a lot of mind work. I I started to study the works of Ramana Maharashi Mhmm.
Which is about, you know, observing the mind and ego which I actually didn't even know we had one until I got into isolation. So this was really mind and ego? Had no idea that we had a mind and an ego prior to going into prison.
Dr. Mark Hyman
You were just going through life like
Nick Brewer
I was just completely numbed out and desensitized going through life like a bullet. Yeah. Like a steam train. Completely on a self destruct mission. So actually, it was a it was a really beautiful process of actually going into that space of, you know, I was a very grateful convict.
Yeah. Albeit, you know, South American prisons are slightly rough Yeah. And Argentina was not a pleasant place to be in prison
Dr. Mark Hyman
Martha Stewart went to prison.
Nick Brewer
No. No. It was nothing like that. The opportunities that I had to go into that isolated period for four years of my life was really quite profound and you know, I got into the the yoga practice but it was static. So that was fine.
It kept me moving and I was basically practicing all day. But when I got You yoga postures or Yeah. It was static. It was mat based. So when I got out of prison Uh-huh.
And I had a studio to move in, I thought, wow. Let's try moving this across the floor. So I was doing my science salutations and the the static poses, you know, of just staying on the mat, I actually moved across the floor. And then it was through the healing that started to come around my body and then I started to practice with clients and through that the practice built a small community in London. And it was from this community and observing bodies that then I really started to systemize an entire method around it.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And then you you kind of found yourself out of prison, but your body was still not great. And then through these embodied practices that we've now you call primal moves, you've been able to sort of repair all that. So all the broken back, all the disc herniations, all the pain, because you're like in your mid fifties now. You're one of the strongest guys I've ever met, and you can do like a one arm handstand and crazy shit.
Nick Brewer
Exactly. And it is my absolute joy.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And you feel like that that sort of that time in prison helped you sort of get grounded and present yourself Oh, kinda start to listen to what was happening because
Nick Brewer
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
You didn't have a lot of distractions.
Nick Brewer
Pre prison, I was totally distracted. I was numbed down and I was desensitized. Going into prison and going into isolation and going back into that space of stillness and started to embody myself meaning I was able to actually feel and stop thinking. Mhmm. You know, so instead of asking myself what I was thinking, I was asking myself what am I feeling?
Yeah. And that was a completely different outlook. That was a completely different lens to look at my life through. Yeah. So you know, how am I feeling in the morning?
How am I sleeping? What do I feel like? How's my cognition? Mhmm. How my memory?
How's my evacuation? Do I have energy? Am I recovered? Mhmm. Am I feeling depressed?
So I was actually able to start feeling myself again. Yeah. And then I worked out that through embodying these practices which was a lot of breath work and a lot of movement, you know, I was able to remove that that kind of depressed feeling that came down into me. You know, anything that became stagnant, any stuck energies, I moved them through with practice. It was through moving my body that I was able to free myself completely.
Dr. Mark Hyman
So not only do you kind of move your way out of physical pain, you were able to move your way out of emotional and mental pain.
Nick Brewer
Absolutely. Because all the traumas that I had, you know, from fifteen years of smuggling and breaking my body and being on that self destructive path, I was actually able to go in there and start healing that in prison through these practices. You know, I realized that I was so stuck. I was so stuck in my head. I was so rigid.
There was so much control. There was so much manipulation going on up there. There was a lot of darkness that was going on in my life at the time and I had no idea.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It was just your life.
Nick Brewer
That was basically what it was. And then as I started to work through my body, I started to work through the fascial system, I started to work through the mind. You know, I also I broke down. You know, I had mental breakdowns as
Dr. Mark Hyman
well. Yeah.
Nick Brewer
I think three or four years into prison. I'd been in isolation for about two years and it brought me to my knees. You know, I had a complete emotional mental breakdown.
Dr. Mark Hyman
What did that look like?
Nick Brewer
What did that look like? That looked like a baby crying on the floor, sobbing for about two weeks. Mhmm. Completely broken and shaking. It was
Dr. Mark Hyman
You were kinda letting go of your old self.
Nick Brewer
My old self admired. I was having a total ego death. I didn't even know it. Yeah. It completely crushed me.
It pulled me to my knees. I lay there crying and sobbing for about two weeks. And where I was, there was no humanity. There was no one coming around to check up on you and say, hey, how are you doing? You want a hug?
Do you need something? You need
Dr. Mark Hyman
any help? The prison guards weren't doing that?
Nick Brewer
And they they the prison guards in America didn't even come and check. They just came and checked for dead bodies.
Dr. Mark Hyman
They just went give you your food and the thing
Nick Brewer
They gave you a head count. That was it. They didn't even feed you.
Dr. Mark Hyman
They didn't feed you? No. Well, how did you eat your food?
Nick Brewer
You had to get your food in. So they just went Someone from the outside had to bring your food in for you, and you'd have it in boxes and bags, and you had to try and make it and cook it somehow.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Really? So there's
Nick Brewer
no food. Mean, malnutrition in the prisons was people dying of malnutrition. It was terrible. It was horrific. It's like third world.
Dr. Mark Hyman
That's a powerful story because, you know, most of us are pretty locked into our psychological framework. Our emotions are pretty fixed in the way we relate to the world, to our experience, to relationships, to work, to family, to ourselves. And those rigid patterns keep us from being free.
Nick Brewer
The constructs that we create in our head, which actually I realized post prison that, you know, freedom is actually a state of mind. Mhmm. Because I've met so many people that are actually in prison because they're just bound by their thoughts. Yeah. They're so rigid.
They've built so many constructs that actually they've stopped themselves from being free anymore. And I didn't actually realize that until I got out of prison.
Dr. Mark Hyman
That's true. Can be a billionaire and be so Measure. In the prison of your mind. Exactly.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. So I was euphorically Year five in prison, was euphorically happy.
Dr. Mark Hyman
That's incredible. Euphorically happy. So you went from like breaking completely down.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. From having complete ego deaths, total mental emotional breakdowns. Mhmm. Again, it was it was movement and meditation, breath work of a daily practice that got me out of that. But I went into states of absolute euphoric happiness, which I haven't actually achieved since being in prison because now I'm actually, you know, I'm back in the world and I've got distraction again.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Brewer
You know, I have a house, I have to pay rent, I have a business, I need to pay salaries. Yeah. You know, I have a lover. Right. So I have desires.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.
Nick Brewer
So I actually went into some really interesting states of being being when I was in there.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And it's a sort of a a gift in disguise. Right?
Nick Brewer
Totally. I mean I had that now as a reference point to go back to. Yep. So I've I've been there. I've understood that blissful state of nothingness.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm.
Nick Brewer
You know, when you absolutely own nothing, have nothing. Yeah. And you can be blissfully happy, so I have experienced that.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, I'm curious about what happened in the process of the the breakdown because you describe it almost as a physical experience. You know, laying on the floor, sobbing, and going through somatic Yeah. Expression and discharge of all the emotion. You know, talk therapy really doesn't do that. No.
And for me, you know, I went through a lot of things in my life. I've had many illnesses, many marriages. Yeah. Probably about five years ago I found myself fairly, you know, sort of stuck in the prison of my own beliefs and mind. And I knew I knew intellectually what the issues were from my childhood and my mother who was a child of deaf parents and Sure.
How that affected her and how that affected her parenting me and then it's a long story, but I I really did not know how to get rid of it. Mhmm. And through a series of processes and things I was able to kind of have this somatic experience where I just like literally broke down on the floor crying and crying for days, like a week.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. You've had that breakdown.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And I and I and it was the weirdest thing. I had the same experience after you. I literally after it was all free from that, I I emerged and I felt euphoric, like high. Like I just taken some
Nick Brewer
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Drugs, but like happy drugs.
Nick Brewer
I hear you.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And it was it was pretty remarkable, and I just went around in this state for quite a while. It it's why I think being in your body is so important and why the work you do is so important because Thank you. If we just stay in our heads, we'll never get there. Yeah. And you were you were forced into it unwillingly by
Nick Brewer
the Exactly. And I had no
Dr. Mark Hyman
one to talk to.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. So I couldn't do talk therapy. Yeah. So the only way that I knew was somatic work. To release myself of pain, mental, emotional, and physical, all I could do is move.
And some days I woke up in pain. You know, my my my hips were hurting, my shoulders hurt, my pain, my head was in pain. You know, so I had no one actually there to to. I had no one to intellectualize or compartmentalize it with. But I understood okay.
These were the traumas but the only way I could actually release myself from that was from basic breath work and movement. And it was the movement, the somatic work I was doing in the prison and just constantly working with my somatic nervous system that started to ease out. It was agitating all this stuck energy. Yeah. It was agitating these traumas to move out of the somatic system.
Yeah. Out of the fascial system and it was freeing me up. You know, don't get me wrong, some days I had to stand there in my room for maybe an hour having an internal fight with myself. Because there was one part of me that wanted to lay down and just be depressed. And there was another part of it that was like, no, gotta do your practice because this pain you're feeling will move through your body.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.
Nick Brewer
I would literally stand there and have a stand up fight with myself for an hour. Yeah. And I would not move until I did my practice. And the euphoric feeling that came through me as I started to move my body, even raising my hands above my head Yeah. And touching the floor Yeah.
And synchronizing that with some breathing.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It's powerful.
Nick Brewer
Lightness came Yeah. And it moved through me. And I went through this like a year, two years internal fight of to practice or not to practice. Yeah. You know, that's why now for me, I think one of the reasons that Primal Moves has become so successful is because of fifteen years, I've shown up every single day to practice.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. You mean you don't feel like it, right?
Nick Brewer
Everyone comes down and they see me kind of leading through example and inspiration. Like, hey, this guy's down, they're looking at a great concrete floor two, three hours a day and is you folk really happy? I'll try that.
Dr. Mark Hyman
I went through a different experience recently where I I kinda went through this portal where I almost died and I had an infection in my back. It led to an abscess and I had to have major surgery and I was in bed for six weeks. I couldn't Wow. Walk. I lost 20 pounds Mhmm.
Which I'm already pretty skinny. I came out of that and I was really unable to move. I couldn't tie my shoes. Yeah. I couldn't get up off the toilet by myself.
I couldn't do the most basic life things that you think getting dressed.
Nick Brewer
Take for granted.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, I mean, and I recently saw my surgeon and he said, Most people at your stage are on a walker or maybe never get off a walker. And I did what you did no matter how bad I felt or how depressed I was or how broken I was. Literally got up into the gym every day and worked with physical therapist and trainer and started moving. I'm not a 100% back yet, but I'm out of pain.
Nick Brewer
Amazing.
Dr. Mark Hyman
I'm moving. I'm doing your class which No.
Nick Brewer
I mean, I've seen the MRI scans of your spine.
Dr. Mark Hyman
It's incredible. Yeah. I've got all hardware in there, like a hardware store in there. And and, you know It's magic. And there with a bunch of 30 year olds in the class, and I'm 65.
Nick Brewer
And That's amazing. That's inspiring.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And it's just like your body has that capacity. And what I really find interesting, and I wonder if you have any insight on this, is as I look around the world and and especially in America, so many people don't live in their body. They are disconnected from their body. And you can see their bodies become overweight, or they are hunched over, or you can see they don't move fluidly.
Nick Brewer
And
Dr. Mark Hyman
it's interesting that people are kind of locked in this state of physical contraction and don't really even know it or aware of it. I mean, don't realize that there's a way to the other side of that and actually getting free. Because I I think, you know, more and more because we're so connected to our devices, we're so
Nick Brewer
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Not having to move our bodies, we're we're just sort of out this traditional way of living that we've done for hundreds of thousands of years, which I think the question I have for you is seeing what's happening in the world around this sort of disconnection from our bodies, how do we start to inch forward? Because it it feels like a big hurdle for a lot of people who who aren't in their bodies, who aren't exercising regularly, who aren't moving regularly Mhmm. To actually go from that to doing something.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. It's it's a big push. Yeah. I mean
Dr. Mark Hyman
This is mental. You have to like
Nick Brewer
No. It it has to be a mindset. You need to shift the perception of your mindset and make movement a lifestyle. It has to become part of your life. You know, I I say to a lot of people here that, you know, have full time jobs and they work that you need to actually book this session in and make it part of your life.
It needs to be embodied as a daily practice. And they see the benefits from that. And trying to create that shift of people where they actually think, yeah, you know what? Just gonna give myself one hour a day to go to class or to get on the mat or to go to the gym and do something. Even go for a walk or a swim.
But something just move your body because this is a hunter gatherer body. Yep. It needs to move. It was designed and created to move and the more you move it, the better it feels. Yeah.
And it will degenerate. The body If you sit in a chair all day, the body will just slowly degenerate Right. Quicker than you think.
Dr. Mark Hyman
That's true.
Nick Brewer
Mean It doesn't discriminate. No. The more you move it, the better it's gonna feel.
Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, I was in bed for six weeks, and I I I'd never felt so debilitated. Yeah.
Nick Brewer
Powerless. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Powerless, but also just like, I my body lost all of its function and I I couldn't go to the bathroom by myself. I couldn't do the most simple life skills.
Nick Brewer
Because if you had that template, that framework of being healthy. Kids, you know, growing up now, you know, it's not in the school curriculum. Mhmm. There's no sport. There's not a daily session of sport where they're encouraging children to move Yeah.
And be fit and be conscious and try and be embodied and do mindful practices. You know, they're sat down in a chair and they're given a book.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And that's true, I think because we're so disconnected from our bodies, I think it also prevents us from being able to access a very powerful liberating force, is using the body and the somatic practices, as you call them, to start to free up a lot of the stuck emotions, and the beliefs and the fears, and yes, sometimes talk therapy helps, or coaching helps, or those things can be helpful, or psychedelic medicine, but I think movement as medicine, you said that right at the beginning, is powerful. And a lot of people are into longevity, and they wanna take this vitamin, or this drug, or do this special thing, or take a hyperbaric chamber, or whatever. They're trying to actually move.
Nick Brewer
For me, it's bypassing. Mhmm. They're trying to hack their way to health by by bypassing doing the hard work. Yeah. Which is actually to go into a class.
I mean, one of the people things about Primal is a very community driven brand. So we have like a big group of people that move together, and that's really beautiful and really inspiring. You know, we sometimes have 80 people come into class.
Dr. Mark Hyman
I know it's pretty crowded this morning. And but the sound very beautiful because
Nick Brewer
of, you you you get this
Dr. Mark Hyman
I could barely find a I could barely find a place on the on the hanging on
Nick Brewer
my bar. There's so many people there. But, you know, just moving together as a group, it brings about exponential growth. Yeah. You know, it brings a flow state around.
It's inspiring. You release oxytocins. You release serotonin and dopamine. Dopamine. You get that happy drug feeling of just moving in a group.
Yeah. You know, when you're doing a class which biomechanically works, not only do you feel emotionally good, but you feel bloody physically good as well. Yeah. You know, and that's what essentially is.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It's sort like healing almost invisibly you do it, and you don't have to think about it. You just And it's And you know, think whether it's yoga, whether it's primal moves, or it's other forms of exercise, if people can get in their bodies, it's really the key to feeling good, to healing. If I don't exercise for a few days, I start to feel Cracky.
Nick Brewer
It's physical longevity. You know, people talk a lot about physical longevity these days. Just move.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And so are you familiar with the science around how this all works in terms of the somatic healing? Of primal or Of primal or just in general?
Nick Brewer
Yeah, I've started it. I've looked into it quite deeply.
Dr. Mark Hyman
So can you tell us about the the science behind this? Because I think it's you know, people may not really be aware of what the the sort of underlying principles are of why this works and how it works.
Nick Brewer
I've written a manual on this. Mhmm. You know, I wrote a 100 page manual on on why primal moves works.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And Where can people find that?
Nick Brewer
You have to do one of my teacher trainings to get that. That's like my blueprint. So it's a big topic. It's a big conversation about what it does, but it's actually starting to it starts to rebuild muscle mass. It starts to stabilize your joints.
It starts to increase cognitive and behavioral patterns physically and mentally. It's nonlinear. It starts to break down rigidity in the mind. The fascial networks, it starts to move the fluids around in the fascial system. The motion creates the lotion.
The body starts to move. It starts to become lean and supple. It becomes healthy. Yeah. Muscles are working properly.
You start to get bone density, muscle density again. You know, you're working with neuronal and non neuronal intelligence. You know, the cells are working to release stem cell, creating stem cell because of this micro trauma
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.
Nick Brewer
In the body. Time you're moving across the floor, all the joints are creating what we call micro micro trauma which then gives stem cell a job to actually start healing you again. You know, if you don't do anything, stem cell doesn't work. It doesn't need to. It goes to sleep.
The more you work your body, the more stem cell has a job. So it starts to heal the body. It starts to rejuvenate the muscle, the bones, the skin, the connective tissue. You know, along with that, if you're also eating consciously as well, that that for me is hacking. That's biohacking.
Breathing, eating, moving.
Dr. Mark Hyman
I think the hurdle for a lot of people is just getting started. Right? So how how would you advise people who wanna get Just
Nick Brewer
show up to class.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Show up to class. Well, not every town has Primal Moves yet.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. So we well, we've got a digital space, so you can find it online. Where do
Dr. Mark Hyman
you where do you find it online?
Nick Brewer
So www.primalmoves.com. So we've got a plug and play, really cheap subscription model, and on there you've got probably like a 150 sessions, and it's mat based. So all you need is a mat and a small space. You don't need to go to a gym. You don't need equipment.
You can literally just roll out your mat, open up your tablet, and you get visual.
Dr. Mark Hyman
You don't need a big, like, floor space to
Nick Brewer
do it.
Dr. Mark Hyman
I can I
Nick Brewer
guide the sessions? Actually, I built it in COVID because when the studio started to shut in COVID Yeah. Everyone reached out to me and was like, hey, how can we practice? Yeah. So then I built this very plug and play digital space where people could just literally turn on the system and they could work through their bodies.
We have like full flow classes or you can work on stabilizing your spine, opening your hips, strengthening your shoulders. Amazing. So there's a lot of content on there.
Dr. Mark Hyman
That's my future.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. And obviously now what we're trying to do, you know, because there's so many people that have come into this community of Primal that when they're going home to their cities throughout The States and Europe, they're actually wanting to open studios. Now we have a whole training program and the idea is over the next few years, we're gonna be opening, you know, like mothership destination studios in in the bigger cities.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm. That's great. And if you don't live in of those cities, can do it online. And I
Nick Brewer
think Exactly.
Dr. Mark Hyman
I think I'm gonna start doing that. I miss it like when I'm not here. I'm like, oh,
Nick Brewer
I'm not I mean, the session's like half an hour. There's ten, twenty, thirty minute sessions. That's all you need. Yeah. Just a little bit every single day.
You just gotta tap into the body every day and also it gets you out of your head. You know, for me, there's nothing more pleasurable than living in my body. It's the most pleasurable place I can be.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, I think most people don't live in their body. They don't pay attention to the signals that their body says. They don't eat when they're hungry and not eat when they're not hungry. They don't sleep when they're tired. They they push themselves.
People are in all sorts of strange disconnect from their physical body.
Nick Brewer
Upregulated. They're anxious. Yep. They're living on sugar. Mhmm.
Their sleep patterns aren't good.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And and you you very you very disciplined about your practices. Right?
Nick Brewer
So Really. Yeah. It's a daily thing
Dr. Mark Hyman
for me. So like
Nick Brewer
It's a non negotiable.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Tell us about your your food patterns and your habits because it's different than most people. So I'm
Nick Brewer
a very simple eater. I'm 80% carnivore. So my main meat is red meat and I'm super particular about how I source it. So I actually go to the farm myself. I look at the cows.
I need to understand that the cow is walking around, eating grass, under the sun, and does not go in the barn. And that the way that the animal is killed is very special. As you know, the food conversation is a big topic, is a big debate. And getting well sourced foods is a really hard thing to do these Yeah. You know, the soils are devitalized, they're demineralized, the foods are genetically modified, the animals are being injected with God knows what.
So sourcing your food is a for me, it's a really important thing. You know what? I believe that, you know, what we eat is what we are. You know, what's going in the soils and what's going in these animals is who our body becomes. Yeah.
So, you know, my my my meat's grass fed, grass finished and I eat a lot of it. I don't eat many vegetables. I don't eat greens. I eat fruit. But you
Dr. Mark Hyman
explained to me why. Because, like, greens are good or vegetables are good. So why why do
Nick Brewer
you I started to feel inflamed.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Because you noticing were what your body was feeling.
Nick Brewer
So I was observing my gut. Mhmm. It didn't feel good. When I ate greens, my gut started to feel almost a bit achy. Mhmm.
And I started to feel a little bit I had like joint ache and a bit foggy in the head. So I'd go through long periods, say three to six months of doing process of elimination of foods that I would eat and wouldn't eat. So I stopped eating grains completely. Mhmm. I ate very few carbs.
Mhmm. You know, every now and I might go out and have some pasta or some rice, but you know, very seldom, like once or twice a month. I don't eat many sugars, hardly any. I eat fruit and all the animals.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And potatoes.
Nick Brewer
Potatoes. My classic meal would be a fillet steak, barely cooked with lashings of ghee. Yeah. So I eat a lot of ghee. I eat a lot of fat and a lot of protein.
Uh-huh. So I'm essentially I'm fueled by mitochondria Uh-huh. Which is the cell's ability to produce energy Yeah. As opposed to insulin. Yeah.
So my energy levels throughout the day are really well balanced.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Neiman. Yeah.
Nick Brewer
I have a two lattes and a pan of chocolate, so I keep it real. I have like my my percentage of diet which is what I call my junk diet.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Brewer
Well, I keep it real. You know, I have a pan of chocolat, I have a coffee, every now and then I might have an ice cream.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.
Nick Brewer
You know, I like to keep it real. Yeah. But I know that 75, 80% of what I eat is grass fed animals Mhmm. Really well sourced. And for me, like, you know, to understand my markers, I wake up in the morning and I I know you feel it.
You know, how about how am I feeling? How am I sleeping? How's my recovery? How's my mind? Is it foggy?
How's my gut? How's my evacuation? In my practice, my physical practice, you know, how's my body recovering? How am I training? How's my energy levels?
Nine fifty five and they're good. I just recently had my bloods done and I had them them checked and they said, your bloods are like that of a man thirty years ago Yeah. Of a 30 year old man. Yeah. Like my my testosterone is up a thousand.
Yeah. My HDL, my a d o a LDL is really healthy. Mhmm. My hemoglobin's good. My minerals, my vitamins are really high.
And they said to me, this is incredible. You don't eat vegetables.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Do you take supplements?
Nick Brewer
No. So I don't take supplements. I avoid supplements at all costs. I've started to take creatine just to see how it feels
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.
Nick Brewer
For like cognition and recovery. But I don't supplement. I literally just source really good foods Yeah. Train and breathe. Yeah.
And that for me is hacking. I take a sauna four times a week and I get in the ice bath when I can. But again, it's more of a lifestyle as opposed to, you know, I I I try and avoid supplements and I and I try and convert people onto healthy foods, healthy living.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, know, it's interesting. You know, historically, we never took supplements because we had a very nutrient dense diet. And if you look at hunter gatherer's diets, and this has been well studied, you know, the the amount of vitamins, minerals, were extremely high compared to modern diets, and they also had animals that were eating wild plants.
Nick Brewer
Exactly.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And those wild plants are full of not just vitamins and minerals, but also phytochemicals that are very healing. There's an amazing guy, did a podcast with him, of podcasts, because one of the most incredible people I've ever met named Fred Provenza, who wrote a book called Nourishment about what we can learn from animals about how to eat. What he said was he studied rangeland ecology and the relation between plants and animals, the soil and nature. He found that the animals would eat, you know, a few main, like, calorie crops or plants, but then they would sample up to a 100 or more different plants Right. That had different properties Yeah.
Minerals or different nutrients and that the animals knew. Like I I've been in the Amazon. I remember seeing this side of this river, which is clay and the parishes just came like flying fox and were eating the minerals because they knew their bodies From
Nick Brewer
the soul, yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Right? We're so disconnected. Don't Yeah. Totally. Think we need like Skittles, know.
Like, oh that looks good.
Nick Brewer
Well the thing is now the food has lost its vitality and so we have to overeat, over consume to get all the minerals and vitamins that we need and now we're we're lacking. Yeah. Whereas, you know, if I eat three or 400 grams of grass fed, grass finished fillet steak, it's so densely nutritious that actually that's all I need for the afternoon. That and a few potatoes for flavor, but that's it. And and and a couple of big scoops of ghee and I'm done.
I feel absolutely amazing.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And the and the meat you're eating though is different because it's it's animals who are eating wild plants Exactly. And who are actually getting those phytochemicals in their meat Yep. And the nutrients in their meat, and the fatty acids in their meat that are different. Yep. And and those actually have profound biological effects.
So it's not only what you eat, it's what you're eating ate.
Nick Brewer
No. I'm really I mean, I'm very careful. If I go out to a restaurant, you know, I'm super careful about if I eat meat or not. You know, I wanna know that it's grass fed. Mhmm.
You know, because if you eat industrial meat, you're gonna get sick. Yeah. It's a fact. You're gonna get inflamed. And, you know, I go through periods sometimes if I go away on holiday, then I will, you know, I'll venture out and I'll eat vegetables and I get flatulence, I get swelling in my gut.
Yeah. I get bloating.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.
Nick Brewer
I get fogginess in the head. I wake up in the morning, I feel drowsy. Mhmm. So I'm thinking that can't be good.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, what's fascinating Nick is that, you know, you went from being this kinda kinda broken guy who was dealing drugs and running cocaine between Argentina and The UK and Eating McDonald's. Eating McDonald's to to to being at 55 in a way that you really meet remade your whole self Yeah. Physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally from the ground up. And most people don't have to go through what you went through all of it to get there. But what's so fascinating to me is that, you know, very few people pay attention to what's happening in their body in real time every day
Nick Brewer
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And then listen to it. Now, I would say the smartest doctor in the room is your body. It'll tell you exactly what's going on. Yeah. You're like, oh, I ate this and my stomach feels that.
Most people have no clue that what they eat affects how they feel.
Nick Brewer
When I was in prison as well, obviously, saw the the effects of the human condition at its worst. You know, not only for living Mhmm. And the way that humans were treating each other but what they were eating. Mhmm. So I experienced such darkness that when I got out of prison, I was like, okay, I'm gonna completely rewrite the story because I don't wanna go there ever again.
You know, I completely rewrite my rewrite my story.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And how old were you out of prison?
Nick Brewer
40. Forty. Years now. Yeah. Wow.
And I've never looked back once. Wow. Literally, I got out of prison and I think within six weeks I was coaching. I never took I I got out of prison with $80 in my back pocket. And I had to go home and live in my parents at the age of 40 with no money in the bedroom that I grew up in.
Wow. That was tough. Mean, imagine going back to your parents at
Dr. Mark Hyman
your Well, you were, you a millionaire. Right? You had
Nick Brewer
I was a multi millionaire.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Multi millionaire.
Nick Brewer
I I had everything.
Dr. Mark Hyman
I had, you know, cars,
Nick Brewer
boats, cars, all the toys. I mean, houses Yeah. Investments. You know, I was ahead of the game in my early thirties.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.
Nick Brewer
And I lost everything. And and it that was a good process as well. That was, you know, a big process around attachment because it was a tough call coming out of prison with $80 in my back pocket.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And when you were in prison, did you have the sense that you were were wanting to move into teaching what you learned there?
Nick Brewer
I didn't quite know. I was on such a healing journey. You know, everything was really about healing my body and my mind, and I knew that there was gonna be a big shift and a big change, but I didn't actually quite know what I was gonna do because I never knew when I was gonna get out of prison. You know, in South America, prisoners stay there indefinitely
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.
Nick Brewer
Because the justice systems are so bad. Early 02/2010, they came around to see me and they they literally said to me one day, you got five minutes to get your shit together. We're expelling you from the country. And a bunch of guys came with machine guns and they shackled me to a van. They took me to the airport, and they put me on the back of a plane.
So my first experience with freedom was the back of a jumbo jet with 400 tourists. Imagine, I'd just been in this wild prison in South America they killing each other for fun. I was shackled, and as I got to the bottom of the stairs of the airplane, they unshackled me. They took me to the top of the stairs. The captain was there to meet me, and he said to me, when you get to The UK, you'll be free to go.
Wow. So I sat on back of the plane for twelve hours and it was like a time warp. And I tell you something very interesting was this was the first realization that I ever had of living in your body and in your head because I sat at the back of the plane. I was like a Zen monk. You know, I've just been in prison for six, seven years, isolation for four, and I just sat still.
And I looked around me. I was like, wow, these people don't stop fidgeting.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.
Nick Brewer
You know, they were playing with the in house entertainment. They kept opening and closing these poppers and doing these zips up, putting things in the overhead locker. They had these new phones that had these screens on them, a thing called Facebook, and they were just like sitting and tapping and messaging away. And I just thought to myself, oh my god these people literally cannot stop fidgeting. They're so anxious.
And I suddenly realized, wow. They're like totally in their heads not in their bodies. Yeah. And this was the first understanding I actually had of observing that in real life. You know, because in prison I couldn't observe that.
I could only observe myself. And then when I arrived to Heathrow T 5 the next day, I was was sitting down and I went and bought myself a coffee. It's the first thing I bought in seven years. And I sat there and I asked myself, I was like, you know, what the hell are you gonna go and do? Yeah.
You know, you had this life as a smuggler. It's finished. Yeah. You've just sat in prison and you've rehabilitated yourself and you have all this knowledge on yoga, but it's not that compartmentalized. You got nowhere to go and you've got no money.
And I sat there and I asked, I said, what am I gonna do? And I heard this voice, it came through and it said that movement and meditative practices had such profound impact on my life that it freed me from prison. And if I could facilitate that into one person's life Yeah. Then everything would be worthwhile. And with that message, I got on the train.
I went home to my mom knowing I was gonna be a facilitator Wow. Of movement into people's lives. Wow. And since that day, I've only ever focused on facilitating movement into one person's life. Yeah.
And now we get like 25,000 people a year that come to the space in Ibiza. Yeah. And the same thing is now following through Europe and The States. So that has been my it's almost like I was given this mission
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.
Nick Brewer
And I've stuck to
Dr. Mark Hyman
it. I believe in it so much that I actually invested in the studio in Los Angeles because I think it's it's something that can help transform people
Nick Brewer
and It does.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Help them in a very sort of sort of subtle, almost sneaky way, get inside people
Nick Brewer
Totally.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And helps and helps them land in their Oh, absolutely. Physical body.
Nick Brewer
I I come from a place of addictions, alcoholism, and of trauma. So I know that these practices have helped to cure me and shift that. And through the studios, work with a lot of people that have a lot of trauma. They work with a lot of addictions. You know, I'm surrounded by them.
And they use this practice to help channel the behavior of their mind. Mhmm. You know, and they say to me, this is really helping me. Yeah. You know, this is really helping me stay centered, grounded.
I'm learning to live in my body. You know, I'm leaving the narcotics alone. I've stopped drinking. I've stopped smoking, I'm getting healthy, I'm getting straight. So I know it works on so many subtle levels.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, what's so interesting, Nick, is is I don't know you've heard this, but as I'm doing it, and I was there this morning, the the movements are so foreign.
Nick Brewer
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Things that you you normally don't do. Like, you're outstretched, you know, with your arms, and you're kinda walking, like, with your feet and your hands on the floor Like, you need to stretch out like Superman. And it's, like, not easier. You're going backwards and doing strange things that
Nick Brewer
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
That you normally don't do. In order to actually do them, you have to be so present and aware in your body
Nick Brewer
Totally.
Dr. Mark Hyman
That all your thoughts kind of go away. Yeah. So like you're just there.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. Brings a presence about. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Because because yoga, I can kind of get my mind sometimes to be still, but a lot of times it's drifting and I'm like in my head.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. Because in yoga, you're kind of you're mat based, you're static. Yeah. And they're asking you to be still. You know, that's a hard thing.
Yeah. You know, to sit and be still and not think is almost impossible. So it's for me, it's like a moving meditation.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Exactly.
Nick Brewer
And that's exactly, you know, I I came through a lot of practice of Ashtanga Yoga Yeah. Which again is a very beautiful moving meditation. I didn't find that it was it didn't functionally fit all the physical needs that I wanted, but it was very beautiful practice. I was really inspired Mhmm. From these practices.
So it was through the community and so many bodies that I was actually able to fully develop the system where it has now for so many people become a movement meditation. The practice works physically. That they understand and they know that and I know that. You know, I've seen so many benefits from thousands and thousands of people over fifteen years. But for me, it's now people say it's like their check-in.
Yeah. It's like their daily place they come to. You know, it's like their their morning church session. They just come in, they get in their bodies, and they they sometimes they call it church. Like a church.
It's a moving meditation. It's so rewarding to see the effects that people receive from this.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Not just physically but
Nick Brewer
Mentally, Yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful. And it's a bridge into something deeper. You know, because then people actually learn to, you know, channel the behavior of their body, their mind becomes quiet, then they can go more into like, CT practices which is pretty difficult if you haven't learned to kinda control your body and your breath.
So then just try and sit. It's almost impossible. Know, because you're be thinking about last night and tomorrow night and what you're gonna buy and what you're gonna eat. Mhmm. You know, mind is just like a constant monkey.
Yeah. It's like a monkey mind. It's to channel the behavior that's really hard. Mhmm. So for me to channel it through movement is is where it sits.
Dr. Mark Hyman
It's interesting because when I when I trained in yoga which was forty year two years ago Mhmm. A while ago, before they had yoga mats and before they had Lululemon, we had sweatpants and a towel, basically. The practice was powerful because I was like 23 at the time, and it was seven hours a day of yoga. Wow. But the practice was called meditation in motion.
It was a Kripalayoga, and and basically it was a constant flow of movement Yeah. And not just a static practice. Beautiful. And it was and it was very breath focused. Yep.
So it was like breath and movement and meditation sort of all in one Mhmm. Which is kind of what Primal Mousse is.
Nick Brewer
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
It's like breath and meditation
Nick Brewer
It connects those three together. And also, you know, in the classes there is a bit of chitchat Yeah. Which creates that social interaction.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Was anybody else in prison doing this with you? Were you able to sort of bring anybody else into weird guy doing this stuff?
Nick Brewer
Yeah. I was kinda like the weird crank. They looked at me like, this guy's lost it. And it actually, I mean, it was two or three years after being on the main wing in prison and just observing the human condition at its worst that I actually took voluntary isolation because I wanted to be out of it. Yeah.
You know, was tired of
Dr. Mark Hyman
So you weren't forced to be in
Nick Brewer
No. Wanted to go into isolation because of the conditions were so bad. The violence perpetrated between humans and human was horrific.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Worried about getting stabbed.
Nick Brewer
Stabbed, killed Yeah. Over nothing. Life had no value. And I thought, you know, I'm done with this. I'd rather be on my own all day Mhmm.
And checked out and tapping into something completely different. You know, and I used it as I turned it into a little ashram.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Like a mini cell ashram.
Nick Brewer
Literally, it was a four year Vipassana.
Dr. Mark Hyman
That's crazy.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. I mean, so quickly, four years isn't that long. But as you start going through the seasons, you you start to realize you go very deep and start peeling back a lot of the layers of the mind and you really get to know yourself. I mean, they say, you know, you wanna let a man know who he is, just put him in a room with his thoughts. You know, it doesn't take long before the like the default mind, the superficial part of mind disappears.
And then you start going really deep into, you know, your your framework and your blueprint.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And you're able to sort of see that?
Nick Brewer
Very clearly. It takes some time. You know, eventually, the mind will quieten down and your blueprint will come through. Any issues will come through. All your traumas, they will come through.
You will be confronted with yourself.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I mean, I I A couple of years ago, I decided to take a retreat and I and I went for month in a cabin by myself in Vermont. No phone, no computer Beautiful. Yeah. A journal, no books, just food.
Amazing. Me, nature Yeah. God. They did have a wood fired sauna though. I like that.
And it was in the winter. It was in December. But it it you know the first few weeks were a little challenging and then I got really high. Like I got really happy, euphoric and realized that I didn't need anything.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. Less is more.
Dr. Mark Hyman
For If I had a to sleep and I had some food and some clothes to wear, then the rest is gravy. Yeah. You know?
Nick Brewer
Exactly. You'd be surprised to know how quickly the distraction dies down. All the sensations of thought, eventually they quieten down.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Now most people can't do that. So how how how do people start to sort of break down those old stories and the beliefs and their ego and the things that keep them imprisoned? Because I I I think, you know, people say, what's the meaning of life? What's the purpose of life? Mhmm.
To me, it's getting free.
Nick Brewer
I mean, having an embodied practice to start with is a good place to go. Having a physical practice, which is mindful, is definitely a good place to start. Yeah. Just starting to feel your body is a very good place to start. Then you can start working on the other stuff.
But if you're just gonna sit there in your head and try and intellectually work it all out, there's no somatic work being done there. Mhmm. It's like doing your own talk therapy. Mhmm. And you can talk yourself in and out of an empty cardboard box all day long.
Yeah. But you're still gonna wake up the next day with the same shit.
Dr. Mark Hyman
You know? Well, you can see it. I mean, there's a book, The Body Keeps Score, and you can see
Nick Brewer
Totally.
Dr. Mark Hyman
How when you watch I watch and observe people where their where their bodies are not Yeah. Free, and where they're constricted or limited or just completely living outside of their body. I mean, how, you know, how does someone get to three hundred pounds? You know, it's like That's crazy. By being very unconscious.
Mean, at what point,
Nick Brewer
you know, do you not stop to look and be, okay, that's enough?
Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, it's just trauma usually. It's pain. Feeding an emptiness. There's all the psychological reasons.
Nick Brewer
Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
But, you know, when you just start to do the simplest things to move, it's almost like a trapdoor to get to freedom. It's like, you know, where's that sort of magic button you could push? We can push a lot of places, but I think if more people lived in their bodies, inhabited their bodies For sure. Were doing what you call embody practices, which are not that hard to do Yeah. And don't take that much time.
No. It's it's really profound what happens. For me, I know it's the core to who I am. If I don't move, don't feel good, and I don't feel like I'm alive, and I don't feel like I'm free. For me, being sick and not being able to get out of bed for six weeks and not being able to walk for months and, you know, I was like, kinda for a long time.
Nick Brewer
That's amazing what you just did there. I mean
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Just a few months. Like, it just you know, but the body has this incredible reparative The
Nick Brewer
body is one of the most amazing creations ever. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And then people don't
Nick Brewer
realize It's so intelligent.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And so I've inured myself, or I've done this, I've done that, so I can't do this, I can't do that. And they start feeling all these limitations. Yeah. You know, if I have an injury, I'm gonna stop this or I'm gonna stop that. Instead of going, okay, how do I actually get to repair my system?
How do I get to heal those things? And I was talking to a friend recently about the yoga teacher, because he was a yoga teacher training with me. The yoga teacher that taught us was a 65 year old woman named Leila, a German woman, who was in a wheelchair, had massive back surgery, kind of like me, had spinal fusion, basically made herself completely Gumby, is flexible and as a yoga teacher through the embodied practices that we're talking about through breath
Nick Brewer
and It's medicine, it It really has to be a non negotiable. And once you start tapping into it and realizing the benefits of a really simple embodied movement practices, you won't turn back.
Dr. Mark Hyman
I think this whole idea of somatic medicine is kind of foreign to people. We're used to therapy and talk therapy, but you know what I found for my patients and for myself and for many, you can talk all day long, but if you don't change the sort of meat suit that we are in into something that can be a transducer for understanding, for healing, for repair, you kind of become almost rigidified in these patterns. Absolutely. Really encourage everybody listening to think about how they can, in their own life, start to inhabit their body as a way of not just getting fit or living a long time exercise, but as a way of starting to heal some of the psycho emotional spiritual things that we all carry through life that we get stuck in.
Nick Brewer
It's it's a big step, know, and also there's a lot of fear around actually wanting to be well. Yeah. Because people are actually quite happy living in pain. They think it's a it's a place where they can reside. Mhmm.
That sometimes feels It's It's comfortable. I mean, I used to live in pain. You know, I used to live in my trauma based state of living. That was my day to day way of living. Numb down, desensitized and in pain.
And it felt good. Sometimes I still go back there. You know, I can regress, I can relapse, and I can go into this place of traumatic pain which feels normal to me. But luckily I've got tools, you know, where I can move that through.
Dr. Mark Hyman
So if someone's listening and they want to reset their nervous system, and they want to begin to kind of start with some tools, if you feel anxious or stuck or disconnected, like where do people start? What's the practice that you recommend just starting with in terms of reconnecting with your body?
Nick Brewer
I mean, they have access to go to a local studio and do a movement body weight movement based class. It could be yoga, it could be pilates. Any kind of movement based practice is a great place to start. Mhmm. That's the beginning.
And make it a practice. Make it a daily practice. And very quickly you're gonna see the benefits and the shifts.
Dr. Mark Hyman
So don't don't don't overthink it. Just start somewhere.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. People say to me, what do I do? I might just show up to class.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Or go to primalmoves.com.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. Exactly. Just up. Yeah. Just do that for yourself.
Give yourself that one thing. Show up to class. Show up for yourself once a day and do something. Yeah. And that will be a bridge into something different.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Like you say, you have ten minute classes, twenty minute classes Yeah. Thirty minute classes.
Nick Brewer
It's a start. Yeah. It gets you into the body. Gets you feeling. The relationship to yourself will start to shift very quick.
Dr. Mark Hyman
But but you know, sometimes I do see that, you know, even people like yoga who do a lot of yoga, for example, they still can be rigid in their mind. Yeah. And so, can you kind of explain that in terms of why
Nick Brewer
Yeah. Some people Because of a lot of the the yoga practices are quite dogmatic. They're tradition based. So when I was building the primal system, I made sure that it was stripped back from any esoteric or traditional belief system. We don't actually do any spiritual work in there as such.
I don't teach a belief system. We're not teaching yoga or Buddhism. Yeah. We don't use any kind of lineage as such other than that of practice. My lineage is just practice.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Just do it.
Nick Brewer
Just do it. But we're not actually trying to share belief system. If someone wants to come to practice to have a belief system, that's fine. But we're gonna try and break that that rigidity. And a lot of times in yoga, there's a lot of lineages that are very traditional and they're taught through dogma.
So people people again are getting stuck in rigid kind of thought patterns. Mhmm. There has to be a certain way. And that was another reason reason why I actually broke away from a lot of the kind of traditional yogic practices. Yeah.
Yeah. I still do breath work. If you wanna call that spiritual, that's fine. I go to primal every day. Mhmm.
If you wanna call that spiritual, that's fine. But it could just be a practice. Mhmm. So we strip it back from all anything esoteric. And people really enjoy that because we're not trying to put our beliefs upon anyone in class, and people really find that very refreshing.
Dr. Mark Hyman
It is refreshing. Yeah.
Nick Brewer
You know? You know, we're coming to do a practice and that's it. Showing up could be the spiritual part of it. Yeah. And it could be enough.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And also the the the the the movements are so unique and different that you do, and they're sometimes very physically challenging and hard, that it seems to break a lot of rigid patterns of thinking and being Yeah. And moving.
Nick Brewer
It's an agitator.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It definitely shakes things up.
Nick Brewer
Exactly. When you agitate
Dr. Mark Hyman
Like, how do you do this? And how do I make my body do this thing?
Nick Brewer
So I mean, sometimes I get a lot of people asking me questions in class. Mhmm. And I can see that they're really stuck in their heads. And they put their hands on the floor and they can't move. Mhmm.
And I say to them, you're completely in your head.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.
Nick Brewer
Stop thinking. Just move your body. And then I don't know how. I said just follow these people. Just move that way.
And they start moving. And I look back at me and they smile. You know, I can see their body language. They're overthinking how to move. And the body actually knows how to move in that direction.
Dr. Mark Hyman
It's such an amazing thing. So so this has been an incredible conversation. You've gone from being a guy with a broken body with a broken life in prison, and have basically resurrected yourself. Really? Yeah.
And transformed your physical, emotional, mental, spiritual self in a way that you're now sharing with people and inviting them in with you to try. And it's so beautiful, and it's so rare, and I think you don't put yourself out there as a guru, as some guy who's got the answer, but you just encourage people to just live in their body. I'm a
Nick Brewer
student like everyone else.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Just live in your body, which most of us don't, get connected to your body, which most of us aren't, and to listen to your body, which most of us don't know how to do. Yep. And and when you start to do those simple things, like if if I if I eat something that isn't good for me, I my body tells me, like I feel it.
Nick Brewer
Yeah. You feel it.
Dr. Mark Hyman
And I'm like, if I am I'm in Europe and I'm eating at like 10:30 at night, yeah. I my body like, no. Don't do that. Yeah. You know?
The invitation is to start to listen. Like start to listen to your body and start to change the way you
Nick Brewer
Observe how you feel. Observe how
Dr. Mark Hyman
you feel. Connect the dots between Yeah.
Nick Brewer
Wake up in the morning and sit on the edge of the bed. Don't look at your phone. Ask yourself, you know, before you open your app that's telling you how you slept, ask yourself how you slept. Yeah. Ask yourself how you're feeling.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.
Nick Brewer
You know, are you foggy? How's your gut? How's your recovery? Yeah. How are feeling?
Yeah. And then from that you can work out, okay, let's let's maybe shift some things today. Let's eat differently or eat earlier or change the way that I'm eating and change the way that I'm moving.
Dr. Mark Hyman
It's such a simple invitation. It's just you're inviting people just to listen Very much so. To be aware and to be
Nick Brewer
I don't use any
Dr. Mark Hyman
apps Yeah.
Nick Brewer
For for health data at all.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Amazing. Yeah. What a journey you've been on. What a gift you've given to the world. I think everybody should check out primalmoves.com.
Nick Brewer
Thanks, Mark.
Dr. Mark Hyman
They can find you on Instagram at
Nick Brewer
Primal Moves Ibiza.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Primal Moves Ibiza, I B I Z A. And check out your studios where they're coming around in America. You're gonna be in Los Angeles. You're gonna be in
Nick Brewer
Miami. Miami. Austin, New
Dr. Mark Hyman
York. San Francisco. Yeah. When is Austin open? Because I live in Austin right now.
Nick Brewer
We should be doing Austin next year.
Dr. Mark Hyman
Amazing. Great. Be there every day.
Nick Brewer
Fantastic. So
Dr. Mark Hyman
Nick, thanks so much for what
Nick Brewer
you do. Thank
Dr. Mark Hyman
you. If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Doctor Mark Hyman. Please reach out, I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the doctor Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts.
And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Doctor Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Doctor Hyman show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health where I am chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions.
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