7 Things I Wish I Knew in My 20’s

Welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Each and every week, I explore the science and principles and how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. On today's episode, I'll be sharing these 7 keys to staying healthy and optimizing life in your 20s.

Now listen, I think this can benefit everybody in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond, but if you're in your 20s specifically, these are principles that will radically, I guarantee it, Change your life. By the way, make sure to subscribe to this channel and hit the notification bell so you don't miss a single episode. Number 1, have a healthy friend group. Listen, here's a reality.

You show me your friends and I'll show you your future. If you are running around with people that are not ambitious, that are not purpose-driven, that don't wanna live meaningful, fruitful lives, then they are holding you back in life. They are keeping you from doing the great things that God has called you to do. You're wasting your talents.

And I can tell you, there's so many people that get later on in life and they say, I wish I wouldn't have wasted life in my 20s. So if you wanna be one of those unique individuals, the top 1%, then what you need to do in your 20s is find a friend group of iron sharpens iron, people that help you grow and go to the next level in your life.

If you're gonna grow, you need to hang out with a group of people that— Are committed to grow themselves. Here's what I would do as an exercise. Write down the 5 people you spend the most time with, and I want you to rank, rank them on a scale of 1 to 10. 10 Being they help you grow tremendously. They help you grow in your character. So you are more loving because of them, more grateful.

You learn so much from them. You're more wise. They're very disciplined, so you're more disciplined. So write down on a scale of 1 to 10, where do those 5 people rank? And be, Be brutally honest with yourself. And then I want you to think about who are some people, some groups that you could go to start spending time with.

And maybe you're not going to know them, so you'll actually have to go and find the group. But if you do, write down, even if it's just one person that's not in that 5 that you need to go and spend time with, and go and spend more time with those people. Now, here's something I've discovered. I've had a couple times in my life where I've had to make this transition.

One of the first was when I was in my 20s. And I remember feeling like what, what I had to do was I was hanging out with a bunch of frat guys and saying, you know what, these guys are just corrupting me. Like they're not making me better. And I just felt empty inside.

And by the way, this is one of the reasons, you know, if you just feel like you've got a lot of pleasure in life in terms of just whether it's just going out and drinking or whatever it is, but you just feel like a sense of like emptiness, like you, you know, you're called to have, you know, you're called for more in life. Yeah. You know, you're called more to do with your life.

And I just felt this emptiness. And I remember praying and saying, God, would you send me a flood of great men into my life that can help me grow? And then I started going to things like church groups and entrepreneur, like other growth groups and things that were motivated, inspired, purpose-driven people were. Met a group of guys and over time became closer and closer with them.

But I did have a period there a couple months where I felt a little bit where I was with— by myself more. Now, looking back, it was very healthy. I was by myself more and it gave me more time to reflect, to finally think, to read and learn and grow, but also at the same time start developing better friendships with people. But I'm telling you, listen, there's an— there's another saying.

It's this, it's that it doesn't, you know, success is not about what you know, it's who you know. And anyone in business will tell you that if you wanna be successful, it's not just what you know. More importantly is it's Who you know. And you need to pursue, just like you would pursue a spouse, just like you would pursue something in athletics, like running to win the race.

You should pursue great friendships and finding the right people in your life in the same way. Now, some people feel guilty for leaving their friends behind, but they're making that choice. You're not. In a way, they're choosing to be stuck in life and to commit themselves to mediocrity.

You are pursuing greatness, and the only way for you to be great is to run around with other people that are committed to being great in their character and their skills and growing in life. And so don't feel bad about it. Here, here's another rule.

If you wouldn't have your future kids or someone you deeply love, if you wouldn't want them to hang out and spend all their time with those, those people, then you shouldn't be spending your time with them yourself. Here's what I'm gonna encourage you to do. Get involved in your community.

It could be church groups, could be volunteering, could be an entrepreneur group, could be a Bible study, a book club, learning new skills, some sort of athletic group, but some sort of group where people are committed to both their character and growing in an area of life. You know, here's the, here's the reality. Most people in their 20s today are obsessed with this alcohol culture.

You know, and listen, alcohol, listen, if you have one, one or two glasses, 1 or 2 days a week and you do it in, you know, with friends having deep meaningful conversations, that's fine. And that's one thing. But going and drinking to be, you know, basically just to get drunk on a regular basis, studies show it destroys, it lowers your lifespan, hurts your mental health.

It's just not good for you. But basically the moral of the story is this principle number 1, find a healthy friend group. And by the way, there's a study done at Duke University and they found out Hanging out with more disciplined people than you makes you more disciplined.

And so you want to hang out with people that are better than you at things, and that, that will cause you to grow in your life. By the way, remember this, this doesn't just impact you in your 20s. This then will set you up for the rest of your life. It'll then impact your 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond.

So there's no more important time than the younger you are, the earlier you want to start making these changes. Here's principle number 2, learn to cook. Learn to make food for yourself. You'll save money, you'll be healthier, and you're going to learn a life skill that is great for building better relationships. I mean, this is something I was committed to.

My mom and my grandmother taught me how to cook. And then when I eventually got into grad school, I started learning to cook myself, started experimenting, trying things in the kitchen, and I became a really good cook. Cook. In fact, if I wasn't a doctor and, uh, and an educator, I would probably want to be a gourmet chef. I mean, it's— I, I started to love food because of this.

But people in their 20s usually eat out more after moving out with their parents, and they also don't eat enough nutrient-dense foods that are going to help their mind, that are going to help their body continually get healthier. And nutritional deficiencies in teens also carry over into the 20s, affecting development.

Now, teen girls in particular have low intakes, and girls in their 20s, low intakes of protein, iron, magnesium, folate, B6, and B12. So there are major deficiencies that we have in people in their teens and 20s. Now, the best way to deal with that is focusing on getting a lot of meat that's ideally organic if you can afford it. If not, it's okay, but meat.

Vegetables, fruit, things like sweet potatoes, rice, beans. But eating those sort of nutrient-dense foods will really help your life. Here's another crazy stat. 25% Of adolescent girls have anemia, a condition where someone does not have enough quality red blood cells that are carrying oxygen to their tissues. Now, this can be linked to painful menstruation, just general up and down mood.

It can be associated with just feeling fatigued and weak and tired all the time, a number of mental health issues, depression, anxiety. So a lot of girls today in their teens and 20s are dealing with blood deficiency. In order to cure that, getting more quality red meat, beets, green leafy vegetables in your diet, taking a multivitamin, all of those can help.

And specifically, if you have that exact condition, taking the herb dong quai And an easily digestible food-based iron will help that tremendously as well. But basically, one of the cures to all of these vitamin and mineral deficiencies are making food for yourself at home. When you're eating out, the reality is it is typically void of any vitamins and minerals.

And so you really want to be able to make home-cooked meals. My brother-in-law now is in his 20s and he's learned how to make sourdough bread. I'm talking about like the real deal, better than any restaurant you've ever been to. Sourdough bread. And he's also got a Crock-Pot he's experimenting with. He's got a blender. So he's always making different foods. And this is what I did in my 20s.

For instance, I decided when I was in my 20s, I wanted to learn how to make a great breakfast. And so I experimented with a lot of different pancake recipes using gluten-free flour, corn flour, almond flour. So I used all these different flours and would— and by the way, sometimes they weren't good. And I just kind of ate it anyways because I didn't want to waste the money.

But over time, by the way, the first recipe I ever put in any cookbook I ever had, it was a recipe for blueberry pumpkin pancakes. And I discovered that recipe because myself and my friend Brian in college were testing out all these different recipes. We tried just blueberry, we tried chocolate chip, we tried banana, and our favorite was mixing Blueberries and a little bit of pumpkin.

And they just, they tasted incredible. And, you know, we learned that from that process. And I became a really great cook by practicing. Here's the other thing is when I started dating, and for like my wife, Chelsea, you know, when she would come over, I would impress her.

I remember I made her this meal the first night, the first night we went out, went on a date when Chelsea came from Atlanta to visit me in Nashville. And the next night I made her a meal. I made something, it was chicken. Mm-hmm. That was with a gluten-free crust. I cooked it up in this coconut oil and olive oil, and then I did sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, some garlic, all sautéed.

I did the side of sautéed kale with some garlic and onion and oil. And then I made dessert, this chocolate avocado mousse. And I think I really impressed her. So also, if you want to get married, find a great spouse, one of the greatest ways to impress anyone is being able to make great quality food. Okay?

And so learning to cook in your 20s can be an absolute game changer for your health, even for your relationships. In fact, Chelsea and I both learned to love to cook until we would have other couples over and make big gourmet meals for them and have a great time as well. So learn to cook to get healthier and to live your best life in your 20s.

The number 3 principle that is crucial for people in their 20s Is exercise for longevity? I see a lot of people today, and by the way, I'm speaking from experience, who are going and doing hardcore CrossFit and hardcore marathons and triathlons and doing things that over time start to actually destroy their body.

Now listen, I would rather you exercise hard than be sedentary and never work out at all. But you want to find a happy medium where you want to exercise frequently, but do it in a way that's kind to your body. Doing just traditional weightlifting. It tends to be kinder to your body, especially if you are not going too heavy trying to max out and you're protecting your low back.

Um, you know, doing heavy deadlifts, max-out squats— again, some of the things I talked about— you'll pay for it later if you're injuring your joints. So walking a lot, you can do some running, but you want to do it on softer surfaces like go to a track or a treadmill or a trail. You want to— cycling is great, swimming is great, doing some Classes can be great.

If you ever get a trainer, get someone that helps you with functional movement. But here's just what I would say working out-wise: do not abuse your body and your joints in your 20s because you'll pay for it later on and start feeling all these energy injuries typically when you get into your 40s. I did this when I was doing CrossFit. I injured my back for the first time.

My wife, doing CrossFit, injured her knee to where she could hardly walk. Or, or, or, or, well, she could walk, but she couldn't run. She couldn't walk fast. She couldn't be on her knee too much because she got so much inflammation in her knee. And so we were, we, she, we, we, we started paying for that in our 30s. So be kind to your body if you want to have great longevity in the future.

Number 4, stay off birth control. Birth control prescribed for ev— is, is, it's prescribed for everything from acne. Mm-hmm. To cramps, to supposedly balancing hormones, to also avoiding pregnancy, which also encourages sexual promiscuity, which, by the way, will destroy your soul and your mind and can even damage your physical health.

Doctors frequently tell women there is no reason not to be on birth control. It's normal. It's healthy. It's what all young women should be on. But here's the reality. That is one of the greatest lies of all time.

Here's the reality, reality according to the clinical studies, not the doctor who's tied to the pharmaceutical company that's going to get paid for you taking that and, and, and basically hurting your health because of it. According to studies, birth control depletes your body of vitamin B1, B2, B6, B9, vitamin A, vitamin C, Magnesium, zinc, and probiotics.

It lowers platelets and leukocytes, so it weakens your blood and weakens your immune system. It lowers your sex drive. It lowers thyroid hormones, including T4, so you have a greater likelihood of having hypothyroidism in the future. Did you hear me? If you've ever taken birth control, your chance of having hypothyroid in the future Is greater.

And the number of women now who have had to get on thyroid drugs because they took birth control is immense. It also lowers free testosterone by as much as 61%. So now women are less fit and less toned because they're imbalanced in that hormone as well. And it increases your risk of depression by 130%. And there are more serious side effects. I'm not done yet.

Birth control also decreases your preference for facial masculinity. So women on birth control are more attracted to men with more feminine features. However, when they get off birth control, then they want a more masculine man, and then they have relation— racial relationship issues, which can increase the divorce rate.

Multiple studies have found that women who go on birth control become attracted to significantly less masculine men than they did before they were on birth control. And they're really more attracted to like a child, like a bad boy that are less dependable, sensation-seeking, easily bored and adventurous, rather than the masculine man that is steady, that is disciplined, that is confident.

That is responsible. And so you've got to know, it is so important, women, that you consider whether you should take birth control or not. And for anyone that I know, I recommend absolutely not. When it comes to birth control, the best advice I can give you is to— and this might sound old-fashioned— but to refrain from having sex until you're married. It's what the Bible teaches.

It's what people that really have a high level of virtue— you wanna know what the right thing is to do? Well, look at the Bible and the most virtuous people that have ever lived, and that's what they believed, and that's what they all attempted to do or did themselves. And so having sex outside of marriage is connected with emotional instability.

You're, you're, you know, in the Bible it says, and the two became one flesh. You're becoming one with another person. And then there are something, there's something called soul ties when that happens. And so it is very emotionally destructive to have sex outside of marriage.

And so really my encouragement there is save yourself for that person, that one person that you are designed to be with the rest of your life if you wanna be blessed. And doing that in your teens and 20s will help set you up for an amazing marriage and relationships in the future. Number 5, Find a job you love. The average American spends 90,000 hours of their lifetime working.

You have to love it or you'll be miserable. Now, let me say this too. In order for you to get the job you want to do in the future, sometimes you have to do things you don't like. So I think it's partly finding the job you love, but even more so, it's using your gifts and talents. You want to find a job and you tend to most love those jobs if you're doing things you like to do.

Let me give you an example. If I were to try and do anything with a lot of math, like accounting, even if it paid well, I'm not going to like it. And a big part of it is I'm just not good at it at all versus my wife is very numbers-driven. She actually, I've heard she does most of the finances in the house and it's because she enjoys it. She's very task-oriented.

She's very numbers-focused, was great in math in high school. I was great. Later on, I got good at English and science and she was math. And so, all that being said, you need to figure out what you're good at, what your unique God-given strengths and gifts are, and work on developing those. I tell most people in your 20s, don't worry about making the most money.

Make money, but more than that, get a job where you can learn and grow and develop the talents that you have. Think about where you're most talented and gifted. If you don't know, ask others. If not, Try a bunch of things, see where you start to thrive.

But more than that, more than anything, find a job where you can develop your gifts to set you up in your 30s to make money, but do what you're most passionate about and can have the most impact doing. And number 6, if you want to rock out your 20s and have an amazing life in your 20s, expose yourself from the good and eliminate the evil. How much time do you spend on social media?

And on TV and on media devices. Do you know the average person spends 2.5 hours on social media and 2.5 hours watching TV? However, a lot of younger generations, people now, if you're watching this in your teens and 20s, it can be upwards of 9 hours a day on devices. I would recommend you do 2 things. One, cut down on that time.

Spend more time rather than sitting on the sidelines, get in the game with real people. Don't just build relationships on social. Go out, meet people in person, get— spend time outdoors, do more physical activities. Do your best to take whatever your media time is and cut it in half or cut it way, way down and replace it with things.

The other thing is when you are on your social devices or on TV, whether you're watching a TV show, listening to music, scrolling on social, make sure the content is uplifting and it's good and not evil.

If something is making you feel terrible about yourself, if it's promoting sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, a lot of violence, or just basically moral, you know, moral grayness, it is corrupting your character. It's corrupting you. It is keeping you from being the best you can be. We all want to get to the end of our life and say, I ran the best race. I absolutely know that I used my time wisely.

And if you in your 20s especially spend a lot of time on social media following people just for entertainment or things that are Again, morally gray or corrupt, it is going to corrupt you. And so what I would recommend you do is look at the, go through your social media, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, wherever you're on, delete everybody that is not causing you to become an amazing person.

Delete all of them. Start following people and accounts. Start following things for leadership growth, personal growth, health accounts, spiritual growth. Follow those people. Follow. Sadie Robertsons and Tim Tebows and people like that that have a great amount of character that are doing good in the world and focus on those things. You get what you focus on.

If you focus on evil, you're going to become evil. If you focus on good, you'll become good. If you're listening to music that's terrible, it's gonna make you terrible. If you focus on music that is uplifting and inspirational, you'll become inspiring yourself.

You not only become, you not only, you not only are what you eat, you become what you consume, the music you consume, The TV you consume, the social you consume, you become that. So know that every time you're listening to that negative music, it's making you negative. It's taking your life in a negative direction.

Every time you're listening to or watching or scrolling that positive thing, it's making your life more positive, generally speaking. But do those 2 things. Make sure what you're exposing yourself to is good and make sure That you have less time on tech devices and more time building real relationships with real people.

Can I tell you, it's so much more meaningful for me, for, for me to spend, if I would just spend, you know, 2 hours a day scrolling like this versus I'm going and hanging out with, you know, one of my best friends, Dan or Jordan, and, and having a real meaningful conversation about life, about the things we're called to do and, and laughing and having a good time. It is way more meaningful.

It's more healing, healthy, and better for my life to have that real in-person connection than to have a superficial, not real, fake, artificial connection with somebody via a social device. My last piece of advice, number 7 here, is if you want to maximize your life in your 20s, find a mentor.

74% Of those who had a meaningful mentor say that the person contributed significantly to their success in life. I can tell you from my life, here's the principle: you become who you surround yourself with. That includes the peers from step number 1, those, your friend group, but also your mentor group.

Those 2, number 1 and number 7, your peers and your mentors, they help mold you into who you become. And so you want to find mentors. You want to find mentors in 2 ways. You want to find mentors that are in person, actually in person, that are just a little bit ahead of you in life in some area. Could be they're a little bit more spiritual, have more spiritual maturity than you.

It could be they have more wisdom than you in some area. Maybe it's in business, maybe it's whatever it is. You know, when I was in high school, I got grounded once for a long time, but my dad said, hey, you know who you can hang out with? Jason and Chastity Sloan, this couple. And they were about, I wanna say, 9 to 10 years older than me. She was my sister's basketball coach.

He played football in college for a school in Kentucky called Georgetown. And they were, again, a young couple in their mid-20s, and they really were into fitness, and she was a strong Christian. And so I started hanging out with them, and I learned about fitness, and I learned about nutrition, and I grew so much in my health and understanding because of them.

And then later on, when I got into college, I found a group of guys that were about 3— 2 of them were about 3 years older than me, who started mentoring me in God and in my maturity. Then I got a business mentor, a doctor who was an amazing person who mentored me. And then I had Jordan Rubin.

And so I've really focused a big part of my life on having mentors in person to help me grow in different areas of life, spiritually, physically, in my career. Find in-person mentors. In addition, find mentors online and virtually. For instance, as I wanted to grow as a leader, I read John Maxwell, everything he put out. Today, if I want to grow in my ability to psychology.

I read and watch a lot of Jordan Peterson. I'll watch his YouTube videos. I follow his social accounts. I went back and watched his college lectures. I listened to his book on audio. I'll read a hardback book. So I have these people, the John Maxwells, the Jordan Petersons, the pastors that I really admire, and I am constantly reading and learning from them. And so find a mentor.

And here's the other reality. Leaders are readers. If you wanna be a leader, you've gotta be learning. Okay? Leaders are learners. So always learning and growing in life. Here's another stat.

People in business who are mentored report a 70% improvement in their decision-making skills and are promoted 5 times more often than those who are not in a mentoring program or who don't have a mentor at work.

So the fast, the single fastest way Let's say 2 ways, but the fastest ways that you can grow in your career and become more successful are to have a mentor at work and to dedicate yourself into taking whatever skills you have to the highest level possible. If you wanna advance in your life and career, do that.

If you wanna find a mentor, look within your community, like your church or synagogue, so your place of worship. Also, again, go out and find entrepreneurs. Look for people a little bit ahead of you in life. People that you respect and truly admire, both for— this is critical— both for their skill and whatever it is, but also their character.

You know, I had a choice between— I could have gone and mentored under one doctor who was really a great doctor, and I actually went and shadowed him one time, but I decided to choose another doctor who was equally as good, maybe a little less, but because he had incredible virtue. He was really generous, had an amazing relationship with his wife and kids.

And so, Make sure that your mentors are good people. I hope this has blessed you. I know that these principles have allowed me to thrive in my health and the success of my career and my relationships. And I truly feel like I have a just beautiful, meaningful life and that I'm living a great life.

And if you can start following these principles in your 20s, it's gonna set you up to live the most significant life possible from your— in your 20s and beyond. And I hope you've enjoyed this. By the way, think about if somebody else needs to hear this information. Maybe you're watching this and you're in your 50s and you know somebody in their 20s.

Share this with them, encourage them to watch it, because sometimes it just takes one video, one book, one word of encouragement to change the trajectory of someone else's life. So thanks everybody for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. We're constantly diving deep into How to grow and experience breakthroughs in your body, your mind, and spirit.

Make sure to subscribe, like, and again, thank you, all of you, for sharing this, because again, I truly believe this can help bless someone's life, helping them create a breakthrough. I'll see you on the next episode.