Retraining the Brain & Neuroplasticity with Ashok Gupta

Welcome to the Health Babes Podcast with Drs. Becky Campbell and Crystal Holm, where we talk everything health. All right, everybody, welcome to the Health Babes Podcast. We have Ashok Gupta today. Thank you so much for coming, Ashok. Welcome to the Health Babes.

So excited to be here with you guys. So thank you for inviting me.

Yes, yes. So Ashok is an internationally renowned speaker, filmmaker, and health practitioner who has dedicated his life to supporting people through chronic illness and achieving their potential. Ashok suffered from ME, or chronic fatigue syndrome, around 25 years ago when he was studying at Cambridge University. Through neurological research that he conducted, he managed to get himself 100% better. He then set up a clinic to treat others and then published the well-known recovery program known as the Gupta Program in 2007. He has published several medical papers and is continually researching these conditions. Thanks so much again for being here.

Yeah, thank you. Looking forward to it.

So let's talk about the Gupta Program. So how did the Gupta Program come about? Like, you are patient yourself first, right?

Yes. And I guess many of us start in this profession having gone through an experience that was very challenging. So I suffered from ME and chronic fatigue syndrome many, many years ago when I was studying as an undergrad. And that launched the quest, my lifelong quest, to really understand chronic illnesses, chronic conditions, illnesses that the mainstream medical profession have challenges in treating or really getting down to the root causes of. And I remember, I remember this moment when I was feeling so ill and so bad, and I was literally almost suicidal. And I was thinking, if I can just figure out what causes this, if I get better, I'm going to dedicate the rest of my life to finding the cause and helping others. And I was very fortunate at that time that I researched lots of brain neurology, lots of physiology, understanding the condition. I managed to get myself 100% better, and then I set up a clinic to treat others, and I published several medical papers on the subject as well. So it's been a lifelong quest to understand and treat these conditions better.

Yeah, so it's— I agree. I feel like all of us in this type of field have suffered ourselves And then when we get better, it's like, how do I get everyone else who's feeling this way better and teach them and spread the word? So that's such a great story. And it's so amazing that you decided to put this program together because it's very in-depth and it's extremely useful. We use it with a lot of our patients.

Yes, it's something which we've been working on this for now 14 years. So the original Gupta program came out in 2007. But it was a work in progress. It needed adjustment. And the version that you have now was published a couple of years ago. And that's something that, you know, we're really proud of at the clinic. We hope that it's, it's user-friendly, but also healing just by watching it. So there's, there's a lot of healing language, healing visuals, sound. It's a whole immersive experience of healing, we think.

I love that. I love that. Let's dive into the brain and the mind a little bit. You talk about how it's not necessarily a psychological imbalance, more of a physical imbalance. Can you talk about about that and the connection between those two, because I feel like conventional medicine has separated the two systems and there's some disconnect with that. So let's dive into that a little bit.

Uh, yes, so we start with the big questions, hey, the big challenging questions. So absolutely, this is the, the core of what the challenge is in modern medicine, which is if you go and visit a hospital, you have a separate neurology department, a separate psychology department, a separate immunological department, which is completely artificial in comparison to how the body and the brain work. And this is why we're finding it difficult to treat these, what we might call, more functional conditions, which affect every single aspect of our physiology and our being. And the way that we frame this is that the brain does not differentiate between whether something is an immune threat, a physiological threat, a psychological threat. The brain simply says, what will ensure survival? And then creates an appropriate response. So we believe that these conditions are not in the mind but in the brain, in the unconscious brain, specifically two brain structures, the amygdala and the insula parts of the brain, is where we think the core conditioning probably lies. And the brain essentially goes into this overdrive mode, kicking off all of these downstream symptoms. So if I can just very briefly describe the hypothesis, which helps us understand then whether it's physiological or psychological. When we go through a traumatic event, we know that the brain gets conditioned or learns new things. And we also know that the brain's priority is survival, right? So if we were to ask the biggest question of all in life, why are we here, right? Now, from a philosophical perspective, we could spend the next hour talking about, you know, the meaning of life. But actually, at a scientific level, we're here because our bodies and our immune systems have developed over millions of years through plants and invertebrates, then vertebrates, then mammals, and getting now to human beings. We are designed to be in this environment, which is a dangerous environment, adapt and learn how to adapt and survive. As an example, I read the other day that we share 60 or 70% of the same genes as a banana, right? So there's a lot of evolution that's taken place to get our genes to where they are now. And in this current state, the brain wants to ensure survival so we can pass on our genes to the next generation. Yeah, that's Darwin's survival of the fittest, or passing on the gene, the selfish gene, the gene that wants to keep replicating itself. Now, if we fast forward to the modern day, we are now presented with so many threats that we weren't in previous generations. So those threats are pollution, the abnormalities and artificial ingredients within our food, the psychological stress that we're now under that previous generations weren't. So our systems are always in this slight overdrive mode, what we call an inflammatory response or a background inflammatory response. Then comes along a chemical that we react to or a mold exposure, or it could be COVID-19, or it could be flu. Suddenly the brain has to go into this overdrive mode of fighting off this particular virus or this particular chemical that we've been exposed to. Now, if at the same time we happen to have a lot of acute psychological or physiological stress, we know that our immune system is lowered. So our immune system is not so effective at fighting off, you know, those external triggers. And then what happens is we believe the brain goes into an altered state, almost like a post-traumatic physiological response, which is different to PTSD. The brain suddenly decides, right, any situations or circumstances which seems similar to when I was first exposed to mold or chemicals, or when I was first exposed to that virus, anything that mimics it, that must mean we're in danger and we will elicit an immune response and a nervous system response. And that nervous system response creates all of these symptoms in our body, right? So the tiredness, the fatigue, the gut imbalances, and those symptoms in our physical body loop back to a hypersensitive, hypervigilant brain. Which then says, I knew we were in danger. I knew that we hadn't overcome that original trigger. We must now trigger more response into the body. So it triggers more of the immune system and the nervous system, which once again, creating the gut imbalances, the muscle fatigue, the buildup of lactic acid, all host of downstream symptoms, pain, and then also emotional symptoms like anxiety and depression, which then loop back once again to a hypersensitive brain. And so the brain keeps responding to the very symptoms it creates in the body. And then what happens, especially in mold and chemical sensitivity, Before, let's say there was 100% mold exposure which triggered this defensive response, and probably rightly so. But now even 1% or 5% of that original amount of chemical or mold can now trigger this out-of-control protective response. Does that make sense? So it's like our bodies have now learned this response and they keep doing it even to very minor exposures, which then creates these chronic illnesses.

That's how it is for me with mold. I was so sick from mold. I mean, pretty much feeling like I was going to die at one point. And if I go— whenever I plan a trip, I'm always really nervous that the place is going to have mold. So I ask ahead of time, and of course, they don't really tell you, yeah, sure, we have mold. I've walked into hotel rooms and smelled mold, and I can tell you, within minutes, I am almost back to where I was when I was really sick. And it's not that I have that much of an exposure, it's just that my brain remembers and it immediately makes my whole body feel horrible. And so that's why this program, it was so important for me because I don't wanna deal with that, you know? And even with going into stores, just all the different chemicals in stores. And I had at one point been so sensitive to chemicals or perfumes or whatever, that I would shut down. I mean, basically smelling that. I really have conquered that now. I mean, I don't— that doesn't happen to me anymore, but it was really hard. I almost couldn't go anywhere. Like, I couldn't go to Target. I couldn't go to any store that has a lot of different scents going on in the store. I couldn't handle. So I've definitely experienced what you were just talking about. I know you just mentioned COVID-19, and I know that you've been talking about the long hauler syndrome. So you do want to kind of dive into that a little bit?

Yes, of course. So in a similar vein, by the way, just, Becky, you were talking about the chemical response, you know, very much sympathize and empathize with that because we have many, many clients who have exactly that kind of response. Just small bits of fragrance, small bits of potential mold smell can trigger a huge response. And the great thing is realizing The body is working perfectly. It's doing what it thinks is right to ensure survival. It's just that it needs updating, that the original exposure is no longer here. We don't need this protective response. And that's what this neuroplasticity brain retraining is obviously all about. And in a similar vein, COVID-19 is a virus which, unprecedented in, in the way it's affected people both physically and emotionally, is incredible. So we can equally understand that once we get exposed to this potentially very dangerous virus, the body then goes into this hyper-response so that even once the immune system has fought off COVID-19, the brain is very cautious. It says, our priority is survival. We care far more about your survival than we do your well-being, right? That's the way to look at it. And so then the brain says, if there is anything that reminds us of the original exposure, so if we've got fatigue in our body, 'Perhaps the virus is still present. Let's trigger an immune response.' If there are any other characteristics, maybe we've got bowel issues or whatever it may be, the brain once again remembers the original exposure to COVID-19 and starts creating conditioned responses. And therefore, about 10% of patients— some surveys say up to 30% of COVID-19 patients— go on to having long-term symptoms for at least 8 to 12 weeks, which is the secondary pandemic that we're going to see. So we're fighting off the primary pandemic, but the secondary pandemic, we already see it in our clinic. We've got hundreds of patients coming to us with long-term symptoms as a result of the infection. And so the main advice I have for people is if you do get COVID-19, the main thing is to rest, because we do think there's a connection between how much you rest and how likely you are to get long-hauler symptoms. So once you're exposed to the virus, it's really treating it with respect and deeply resting, making sure you get to 100% before you go back to work and especially before exercising. So we have many people who've come to us who thought they'd fought off the virus and then went back to a harsh gym routine or running marathons, and unfortunately their body malfunctioned as a result of that. So it's very important to deeply rest.

Yeah, so we work with a lot of mast cell activation syndrome patients, and I have that myself, And I actually wrote a book on long hauler syndrome because you were seeing a lot of people getting, presenting like mast cell activation syndrome and histamine intolerance post-COVID. And I think it's because your mast cells become so active during COVID because they release all the inflammatory chemicals so that your body, your immune system can come in and start doing its job. And then after, like you said, your body remembers what it experienced, and if it feels like it's experiencing that again, your mast cells start dumping a bunch of those inflammatory chemicals again. So we tell people to go on a low histamine diet for a little while to calm everything down and calm that inflammation down, and then we tell them to do your program so that they can work on the brain aspect of it. And it seems like the two together have been really successful in helping people with that.

Uh, yes, absolutely. We have many people with mast cell activation who are coming to us now because that diagnosis is becoming more common. And we ourselves as well advocate the kind of low histamine diet and the anti-inflammatory supplements as much as possible. And as you say, combination of those two things can really support people's healing.

Really and truly, yeah. Can you talk a little bit about how in your program you retrain, reprogram the brain to no longer have these conditioned responses?

Yes. So initially we might think, well, how on earth are we going to retrain our brain? Because, you know, our immune system is not in our control., right? Our nervous system— we have a certain amount of control over our autonomic nervous system through the sympathetic response, but a lot of it is automated and automatic. So how on earth are we going to control these responses? This is where the idea of the— what we call neurons that fire together wire together. So there is a danger response that occurs in the unconscious brain that does elicit some danger signals into the conscious brain. To tell us that we are in danger and a defensive response is being enacted. And that's often for many patients on the periphery of consciousness. They're not even aware of it. And what we do is we teach a person to recognize those danger signals and to create a new safety response. This is the idea of the neuroplastic responses. And this is not a psychological process, although it may come across like that. But actually, these are things which have been used in many different areas such as phantom limb pain, where war veterans come back from, you know, Afghanistan or Iraq with a leg amputated, and yet the brain still responds as if the leg is still there. Right now, that isn't a psychological response. That is an issue with the, the whole nervous system that hasn't got updated with new information about whether the leg still exists. And so there are neuroplasticity approaches and clever things that you do with mirrors to train the brain that that leg no longer exists, and therefore the pain signaling should be shut off from that phantom area. Of the body. So in the same way, we are training the brain that we are no longer in danger. The original sensitizing event is no longer there, and the symptoms in our bodies are no longer of what we call affective impact, so they're not dangerous. So training the brain again and again through repetition, eventually the brain gets the message and gets updated and calms the response down. And we use a very special 7-step brain retraining process that people go through, which I'm sure you've experienced, to train the brain back into its normal responses. But it does take time and it takes repetition. That's the key thing. The brain, it's a bit like a survival response. So if you put your hand on a hot plate, what happens? Your brain instantly moves off the hot plate. Now imagine you've got to train your brain that although that plate feels hot, it's not actually hot, it's cold. It's going to take a lot of repetition and persuasion to train the brain that this is not a dangerous plate. You can now relax. You don't need to keep instantly lifting your hand off. In the same way, we're switching off these automated responses and training the brain that we are safe, that this is a safe chemical, or we are no longer in that COVID-19 situation.

Yes.

Can you talk about the 3 Rs of the Gupta program? Because I love this, how you— the different ways you go through this.

Yes. So we try to summarize it and make it very simple for patients. Just 3 things you have to do. Just these 3 things. That's it. So the first, yeah, that's it. The 3 Rs, just like we have the 3 Rs of writing, reading, arithmetic. This is the 3 Rs of retraining. So the first R is retraining the brain, which is the core unique aspect of our program. And that is the 7-step process we've talked about. There's another technique called the accelerator technique, which many people, interesting, Becky find very powerful for chemical sensitivities and mold sensitivities as an accelerated way of retraining the brain. And there are many other brain retraining techniques. The second R is relaxing the nervous system. And we call this— how does a dove fly? So a dove needs 3 things to fly. It needs 2 wings to be able to flap the wings, and it needs tail feathers to set a direction. So one of those wings is retraining the brain. The second wing that works hand in hand with that is relaxing the nervous system. And many approaches do one or the other. But actually they both complement each other. And in some ways we can see a lot of Eastern philosophies as very much focusing on relaxing the nervous system through meditation and yoga and various techniques. Western and more psychotherapeutic responses are about retraining the brain's responses or the way that we think. But when they work together, they're incredibly powerful. They're those two wings of the dove. And so relaxing the nervous system actually makes neuroplasticity easier. It makes our brains more plastic and more rewirable. Which is why regular breathing, meditation, stretching techniques, being out in nature, greenery, are all very important to support the core retraining. And then finally, the third R is re-engaging with joy. And this is something that's missed out a lot in modern medicine, which is one of the easiest ways to retrain our autonomic nervous system is through the power of laughter, positive experiences, positive activities and hobbies. Things that bring a smile to our face, whether it's laughing with friends or engaging in a hobby or literally going to yoga therapy and laughter therapy, as they call it. And all of these things help calm and relax the nervous system. And that once again supports healing. But not only that, it shifts our brain chemistry. So if our brain chemistry is very much stuck in, I've got this horrible condition, I don't know what to do with it. Once again, our brains aren't as neuroplastic, they're not as rewirable. So this is an important ingredient. So what we're doing is we're saying any one of these three things could probably get you better, but actually we want to bring all of these things together into a very powerful holistic approach. Yeah, and we do look at diet, activity, pacing, sleep. All of those things are all about relaxing the nervous system as well. And if we take this holistic approach, this true holistic approach, then we can get much better results.

I have a question. Do you guys work— see that with a disease like multiple sclerosis where there's actual lesions on the brain. Do you work with a lot of people with autoimmune disease and actual issues to that degree that— and you've seen help with using this technique?

We don't formally prescribe it for a kind of degenerative diseases, neurological degenerative diseases, or MS or anything like that, because we just haven't had that type of patient come in regularly, or it's not something we've tested for. However, Anecdotally, yes, we have had people with MS say that it has improved their experience of the condition.

Yeah, I could see, I could see that because I mean, just this, the tools that you're using, I mean, are really helpful for any condition in my opinion, because it really does all start in the brain.

You know, a friend of mine said when they used the program, they said, look, everyone's trying to change something in their life, whether it's a physical condition, whether it's an emotional response. And actually your program enables them to adapt it to whatever change they want to make. Now, we had a lady who had anorexia for 40 years, could not do anything, couldn't shift it. But by using our program, because we're dealing with survival responses, and even anorexia, you could call it, it's actually a survival response of the brain. It's an incorrect survival response, but every protective response is doing something the brain thinks is the best for it. And you're able to retrain those very deep unconscious responses that we don't normally have access to. So I think it could be used for a wide variety of things. And we truly see neuroplasticity as a third branch of medicine, right? So you have the, the kind of more mind psychological basis of therapy, then you have the physiological response from mainstream medicine. But there's this third branch which crosses the two and says our nervous system is the electrical conduit or the electrical circuitry, the master software that controls this entire body. And most modern conditions are conditions of the electrical system. Just like modern cars, right? So in the past, if a car went wrong, it used to be because the engine failed or something went wrong mechanically. But most cars now, what tends to go wrong is the electrical system which controls everything, the CPU, the central processing unit. And in the same way, when we realize that a lot of these illnesses are software problems, not hardware problems, then this new branch of medicine, neuroplasticity, enables us to access that electrical circuitry retrain it, rewire it, update the software, and then get the system running as it should.

I love that. Can you talk a little bit about some of the medical research that's been done for this, for those who need that? I know you have some good research.

Uh, yes, of course. So our original hypothesis was published in 2002 in Medical Hypotheses, and then in 2010 we conducted a clinical audit of our patients with ME and chronic fatigue syndrome. There was no control, so this wasn't a randomized controlled trial, but an audit, and we found that 92% of patients improved This was a group of 33 patients, and two-thirds of patients reached an 80 to 100% recovery within one year. So that's a published study there. And then we had a randomized controlled trial published in 2012, published by the Mayo Clinic, which once again found that our treatment was more effective than a control group. However, there was quite a high dropout rate because in that particular study, they didn't use our therapists or our coaches. They used their own, which obviously then meant there's quite a lot of people who dropped out. But we did a really good randomized controlled trial in— published in 2020, so just late last year. And that was with fibromyalgia, and it was on, uh, 40 patients were entered into the trial, and it was a pilot study. It clearly found that our treatment was far more effective than the standard treatment of just relaxation techniques. And in fact, so that was published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, which is one of the top 10 journals in the world. And that study found that there was a 40— close to a 40% reduction in fibromyalgia scores in the Gupta program group, but 0% in the control group. And there was a halving of pain, only 9% reduction in the control group, a halving of depression, halving of anxiety, and a 50% increase in perceived health in the Gupta program group. And that was only after an 8-week intervention. So we are generally a 6-month intervention, but just after 8 weeks, we got this great, great result with strong shifts and changes. So this has been great as a pilot study, and we're now looking to work and partner with organizations to do larger-scale randomized control trials, Phase 3 trials, because it's so important for us that this isn't seen as alternative anymore. It is mainstream treatment with great RCT results behind it, and that's the avenue that we want to go because we're so confident about what we're seeing at our clinic. And we're currently engaging in a randomized control trial for Long COVID, so we'll see what the results come out with that. But as you can see, if we can replicate this type of response in 300, 500 patients, then the mainstream medical profession is going to say, oh wow, this is actually something we need to look at. And insurance companies can begin to have this as a primary care response versus it's only when someone's had this for 10 or 20 years that they come to our program.

You know, I love this program for people who are sensitive to supplements because a lot of people can't tolerate the very treatment that they need, you know, as far as let's say they have a gut infection or whatever, but they can't tolerate supplements. And a lot of the time it's because they couldn't tolerate supplements and then they became— their brain remembered that. And now every time they see a supplement, their body goes into like the panic mode. And, you know, I try to talk to people because I was one of those people, you know, when I was really sick, I needed help with certain supplements, but I couldn't take them. And I had cabinets full of supplements. So we have a lot of people that come to us with cabinets full of supplements. They've tried everything, but then they're also afraid to try anything. And what I try to say to them is, your brain has remembered, it's memorized this, it's memorized that you had a response to a supplement maybe that was similar to this one, or just a supplement in general, many times. And now So every time you see a supplement, your body is going into the exact same feeling that it did the last time, even if you haven't taken the supplement. So there's, you know, we work with so many sensitive patients and we do gentle protocols as we can. And we really don't try to do a lot of supplements in general. We try to work with some supplements, but a lot of lifestyle change and also your program. So this is like the really when I get excited to tell someone about your program, it's that person who I know that they need to do something, but I can't give it to them yet. And we'll say, I need you to do the Gupta program, and then we can start to try to introduce the supplements that you need when you're ready. And they are, and it works, and they can actually do it, and then they can start to go through what they need to go through with us. And it really just pairs. Really well. So we're just so grateful for this program because we love it. We used to prescribe meditation to everybody and we still do, but we know, like what you're saying, is only part of it. So when you're working with the brain, the meditation is great, but it's only part of it. So I would highly, highly recommend that if you're suffering with any type of chemical sensitivity, mold issues, fibromyalgia, muscle activation syndrome, anything like that, having issues like I was talking about going into a store or being exposed to some type of chemical, you really check this program out because it will change your life and it will work. And there's— you can do a, like, a just an online program. And then he also offers where you can do— you get the online program plus you get a USB so you have it forever and you get a huge book that's amazing. It's like a workbook, you kind of go through the lessons with it. So we really strongly recommend this and we'll leave a link in our show notes for you guys so you can get access to it. But besides that, can you kind of let everyone know where they can find you?

Uh, yes, of course. So our website is gupta-program.com. So gupta-program.com. And there they can sign up for a 28-day free trial. You don't even have to put your credit card in because we want people to make sure this is right for them. So they get to sample certain videos from the program, a lot more information about the program, and really make a balanced decision as to whether this is right for them. So this is at guptaprogram.com. And as you may know, until we get the large randomized controlled trials, we do offer a 1-year money-back guarantee on our full program, you know, no questions asked, which I don't— there's not many products in the world that will give you a year to try it.

There are none that do that. Do you just have to, you know, I know that you do that. And I was like, I hope people are honest because you could go through the whole program in less than a year and then, you know, some people would still ask for their money back even if it works. So please don't do that.

Now, we find that if people have gone through it and they've noticed improvements, they'd be so grateful, even if it was just a 5 or 10% improvement, it was a 50, 60% improvement that they wouldn't want to return it. We believe in, in people there. So I'm sure, yeah, people are honest like that. Yeah.

Ashok, will you just kind of fill us in too on the program and what entails? So I know some patients or people will be thinking about, okay, can I fit this in the pockets of my day, or how does this look? Just kind of talk a little bit about that.

No, you know, the biggest issue we have at the clinic is getting people to commit and recommit, because of course when you're going through a chronic condition, we are used to the medical model of we go to a doctor, we spend 10 minutes in the, in the office, and we're given pills We take those pills, we get better. And this is a whole new paradigm, which is obviously the paradigms that you guys are also working with as well, which is this takes time and it takes that effort you need to put in yourself. And so commitment is key. So we say a minimum 6-month commitment to this program to really see the benefits. And we get people sometimes who get better within a couple of weeks, they're fully well. Other time, a couple of months. Sometimes it might take up to 6 months to really see the improvement. So we keep going. But the good news is we've designed the program so it can fit around a normal lifestyle. So we have people who are working full-time who are still able to engage with the program. Now, am I going to say, oh, it's just 5 minutes? No, it is going to require time during the day to dedicate to this. But it's so important because it's your whole life, it's your health, it's your well-being. And therefore, investing that 30 minutes a day, let's say, as a minimum, is really going to pay dividends and be so worth it. So it can fit around your normal day as long as we're all prepared to take that commitment, say, 'If I can just get my health back, how amazing will that be?

Therefore, I'm prepared to really dedicate myself to this program.' Well, plus people will spend 2 hours in the gym like it's nothing because it's a physical appearance change. And going back to what I was saying with some of our patients and what you had said earlier, many people get to a point where they can't even work out anymore because of whatever's going on, whether it's post-COVID or just chemical sensitivities are just— they're extremely inflamed and exhausted. And this is what can get you back there. So you can— people always say, "Well, will I be able to work out again the way I used to?" And I say, "Yeah, if you do the work." And also, just like going to the gym, you can't expect to watch one module and do a couple of days of this and be better. It's just like going to the gym. It's consistency. And it's making it a real part of your life that really matters and figuring out how to make it just as important as whatever your priority is. I'm using the gym as an example.

It's a great example. It is training a muscle. The brain is like a muscle. It needs training again and again. And just when you push it that little further and you strengthen that muscle, then you work on a higher weight and you start strengthening that muscle and strengthening that muscle. So an example is 50% of our program is retraining the brain to get people back to that 70 to 80% health. But then the final 50% is getting people to the 100% where you're then going back into normal life, right? So you get to that 80, 85%, then you think, okay, now I'm ready to go out to the shops in case of MCS, or it might be I'm now ready to work part-time, which is a big deal if you have had chronic fatigue for 10 years or 20 years. And so we say you pace yourself gently back into normal life and you have to continue to use the program to make sure that suddenly if you've got extra stress, that can bring back symptoms because stress and this response get tied together. You know, the neurons that fire together wire together. So stress can bring on these symptoms. So being able to be aware of that, to become a calmer person inside and adapt to your gradual rehabilitation back into normal life is incredibly important as well. So we spend a lot of time helping helping people with that.

Yeah, I love that. And it's just something I wanted to point out because I want people to understand. It's like, even with changing the way you eat, people sometimes will come to us and say, "Okay, so can I go back to eating what I was eating before now?" And I'm like, "Well, if you want to feel the way you used to, sure." I mean, it's all a lifestyle change. It's— being healthy, unfortunately, takes a lot more work than being unhealthy, but it's worth it. I mean, the quality of life, there's no dollar value on that, on having a good quality of life.

Yes, exactly. And I think it's, as you say, it's bringing people along to this new paradigm of health that it is about us taking responsibility for our health and engaging in that preventative healthcare. And the healthcare systems that we have around us right now are designed for one type of purpose or one type of condition that was more perhaps more prevalent, you know, kind of infectious disorders that were prevalent you know, in the last couple of centuries. Whereas now the conditions that we're getting are as a result of our lifestyle and the more toxic environment that we live in, giving us that pro-inflammatory response. And the treatment for that is a longer-term, as you say, complete lifestyle shift that can keep us healthy.

And stress, right? Don't you find stress is one of the biggest drivers?

Absolutely. In the last 20 to 30 years, especially the last 20 years actually, we have seen the levels of stress, emotional stress that people are experiencing, really going up. And in the last 10 years, the time that we've had social media on phones has coincided with a massive outbreak of increased anxiety, depression, childhood kind of obesity, or yeah, the anorexia, the kind of eating disorders, teenage eating disorders. All of this has exploded when social media, especially Facebook, and Instagram became available on phones. And so we know that social media and its use, and our use of social media, is massively increasing the, the stress, the anxiety, and we're just creating a mental health crisis because of the— we're not educating people on these devices and on these interfaces.

Yeah, and I think with all the filtering photos, it's making people feel insecure about their looks and just a whole level of like, I'm just so glad that they didn't have this when I was, you know, oh, you could do a whole episode on this.

Yeah, no, it's something that I research and look into quite a lot in terms of what the effects of social media are on human beings, especially young people, and what kind of mental health and physical health challenges it's creating, and what is the safe usage of social media, not only the length of time, which is what governments focus on, but the way we interact, the types of posts that we interact with, the mental state with which we approach social media can help us stop it from affecting us.

Yeah, I feel like if you're not learning from a post or laughing in a healthy way from a post, it's probably not something worth looking at. If it's making you feel less than because, you know, whatever the way someone looks compared to you or whatever it is, is, it's probably someone you shouldn't follow and you shouldn't worry about that because that's really, you know, I think it should be used more as more of an educational tool than anything else. So that's what we try to do at least.

Yeah, I like that, Becky. Yes, if you're not laughing or learning, let it go.

Let it go.

Let it go. Yeah, that's a good, a good kind of summary. And I think this also impacts on chronic health conditions because what's happening is that people are never relaxing their nervous system. Because the moment we have a moment of boredom or a moment of silence, we reach for our devices to entertain us. And now what that is doing is it is using up our dopamine in the brain, right? So our dopamine receptors become more and more conditioned to need more and more stimulation. But secondly, it never allows the brain to have downtime. So we're never daydreaming anymore. We're never in that default mode network, as it's called in neurology, where we're just daydreaming. Our brain isn't really thinking about anything.. And that's the rest that it needs. And therefore, when people have chronic illness, it becomes even harder because they're never stimulating that parasympathetic response, or it's far harder for them to reach the deep parasympathetic response, which is the healing response, because the brain is just not used to it. It never gets it.

Yeah. And also too, with like relationships with friends and whoever, so many people are hanging out together, which should be a healing activity, right? You know, seeing your friends and laughing and engaging, and they're on their phones. Then it interrupts that parasympathetic activity of healing your body, and it's making you— the wrong part of your brain active. And like you said, you're never really like— it's just, there's so many reasons that I— phones drive me crazy because I can be with a friend or whatever and look over and see two people sitting at a table and they're both on their phones, not talking to each other. And I'm— I just don't understand that.

Yeah, it's definitely more education required in this area. And as we know, like from The Social Dilemma, which is the, um, you know, the documentary on Netflix, we know the impact that it has on the brain. And we know that the very people who created these devices and these interfaces, social media, they don't allow their own children to use it because they know they employed psychologists to make it addictive. It's the new addiction of the 21st century. And I, like yourself, I'm very saddened when I see this. So I went to a party the other day and the adults, you know, our generation, who perhaps weren't brought up on those phones, made it a clear priority to switch off our phones and interact and get to know each other. But all the children were off in different corners doing their own thing and not really interacting. And I was so sad to see that.

It's so sad.

It's so unhealthy.

Yeah, because their brains are not learning the feeling of camaraderie or working together, working on problems together, working on emotional conflict, relational conflict. But more importantly, just that sense of being a team working together and just connecting, you know, relational aspect is missing. And it's a tragedy, really.

And with like texting, even, it's that people don't know how to talk to each other anymore. No one talks on the phone. It's weird.

It's almost like people are uncomfortable being present in their own life, right? They're so fixated on what is everybody else doing. And then that's not even real either. It's just a highlight reel. So it's just, it's just so unhealthy and it just creates a domino effect.

Yes, we are essentially engineering a population to have mental health issues. If we were to engineer it, this is the way it would be done. And that's why the education on this is incredibly important. So I will be in fact presenting a podcast or a Facebook Live on the healthy use of social media because I think it's so needed right now.

I love that. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. We're so appreciative of you and all all of your work. It's amazing.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Yeah. And I'm going to probably ask you to come back and talk about the social media thing because that's something I really strongly feel people need to understand, the healthy balance with all that, how it does affect the brain and everything else. So, well, thank you so much. I've adored you for years. A good friend of mine told me about you years ago. So we were so excited when we reached out to you and you agreed to do this. So everyone, I hope you enjoyed the show and don't forget to leave a review. And when you do leave a review, mention this episode and look for the links in the— there'll be links in the feed, how to get to the program and how to find more out about the Gupta program and Ashok himself. So thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you so much to both of you. I've really enjoyed it and, uh, yeah, hope your audience, your patients find it useful.

Yes. And thanks everyone for listening and have a great day.

We hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, if you can pop over and leave a review, that would be awesome. You can also find us over at healthbabes.com where you can find our courses, our latest book. We Also are on Instagram at The Health Babes, at Dr. Becky Campbell, or at Dr. Crystal Holm. I hope you guys have a great rest of your day.