Your Nervous System Is the Reason You Can’t Heal (Here’s How to Fix It)

You cannot out-supplement your body out of a dysregulated nervous system. You cannot out-exercise in a body that's showing up every single day in survival mode. A nervous system that perceives threat is proving that digestive issues show up, and immune signaling within our bodies moves us into a state of protection mode rather than shifting into repair mode. The second you can turn that mirror around and start seeking the happiness and the joy and the peace within yourself, That's when that nervous system regulation turns on, and that's when people feel different in their healing journey.

Today I'm joined by Mona Sharma, a celebrity nutritionist and health coach, a global wellness speaker, and the podcast host of Rooted in Wellness.

I love all of the advances in Western medicine. However, if you're not feeling a shift in your body, it's an opportunity to go deeper. The body is far more than just chemistry. We have our energetic body, an emotional body, a spiritual body, and we have wisdom within us That's deeply intelligent, that science doesn't even comprehend it yet.

Today I'm joined by Mona Sharma, a celebrity nutritionist and health coach, a global wellness speaker, and the podcast host of a very popular podcast rooted in wellness. She's worked with celebrities like Will Smith, Jay Shetty, Julianne Hough. Her approach integrates the modern science with ancient rituals like yoga and Ayurveda. And today we're going to dive into nervous system dysregulation, the vagus nerve, and how to take a holistic approach to healing. Mona, thank you so much for being here.

I am so happy we made this work. You're one of my favorite people. Thanks for having me.

I feel the same. So we were just talking about how nervous system dysregulation has for so long been at the heart of disease and symptoms and imbalances, but it's really having a moment where I think there's more recognition around how much our nervous system regulation impacts our, our overall health. I'd love to start out with you explaining what nervous system regulation is and what nervous system dysregulation can look like.

Yeah, so I think we live in a world where we're inundated with fear. You know, often when I'm speaking at public events or to communities, you know, it's almost like a joke. How many people here find that their daily life is impacted by stress, chronic, consistent daily stress? And sure enough, every single person's hand is up. And there's laughter. And the laughter is not a good thing because it means that this is something that we've normalized in our society. And you and I both know, like, if we look at the numbers around health and wellness, we live in a time where we've never experienced or known or had access to so much information at our fingertips. And yet stats around chronic disease are completely on the rise, right? So as I approach this with my clients, the messaging is really clear. Like, you cannot out-supplement, out-diet your body out of a dysregulated nervous system. You cannot out-diet cortisol. You cannot out-exercise in a body that's showing up every single day in survival mode. So here's a question that I often ask to people, and maybe this'll be relevant to your listeners as well. Tell me on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, is the level of stress that you experience every day? And more often than not, people will say, you know, a 6, 7, 8, sometimes a 9. And then I reverse that question. I say, all right, now imagine if I were to step into your body, would I feel that same 6, 7, or 8? Or would I feel like I just immediately got plugged into this electrical system where, you know, I felt completely dysregulated, right? And I think a lot of us, more often than not, I'm met with tears on the other end because people finally realize that they've been living with a level of stress For so long that it's become normal to them. So what you're asking about is this concept of nervous system flexibility. And I think that what media right now is getting wrong is the fact that we're constantly seeking just to be regulated. Like if people look at my Instagram and stuff like that, and they just assume that I'm sitting with my legs crossed in this meditative pose and I've cracked the code on, on regulation. It's completely wrong. What we need to understand is that we want a nervous system that's flexible. So it's the ability to move between states with fluidity. And the goal is not perpetual calm, but to be really resilient in that range. And, you know, nervous system regulation is something that's trainable. I do this every day with my clients. I often need it myself because life becomes abundant sometimes. And we can do this through things like breathwork, through vagal toning practices, through, you know, hot cold exposure, through sound therapy, which is an ancient ritual, somatic movement, and even like experiencing a safe relationship with ourselves. And this is often where a lot of people need some education because the word safety gets thrown around a lot, right? Well, of course we feel safe. We live in a part of the world where, you know, we're actually very blessed to have access to clean water, incredible food, to feel safe in our environment. But— A lot of the people that I work with, it's almost like the feeling of being decapitated. You probably experience this with your community or the clients that you work with. So when we're constantly thinking and doing, worrying about the past, thinking about the future, our intellectual mind is constantly on the go. And it's almost like we're disconnected from our body. And how do we know this? How do you know if you're disconnected to your body? How many of your listeners experience stress, Issues with sleep, bloating, fatigue, irritability, constipation, heartburn, gas, issues with relationships, issues with motivation, issues with being able to show up for yourself every day. And again, this is one of those areas where every hand goes up. Well, of course I've got these symptoms. Well, that means that we've become disconnected from listening to the cues of our body. And that's where the wisdom comes in. You and I teach that your symptoms are things that— they're messages from your body that need to be listened to.

Mm-hmm.

And if we ignore those symptoms chronically over time, as we focus on stress, then that's when dis-ease in the body shows up. We can go a little bit deeper on the polyvagal theory as well. So the reason why I want to hover on this is that there's a lot of science that's showing us that the nervous system is really foundational to all healing. And we can get into my story, but I had to learn this firsthand. And what we now know is that the body actually cannot heal in that dysregulated state, right? So some of you might've heard of the polyvagal theory, and there's tons of studies and papers out there on this that really establish the concept that the autonomic nervous system is the primary gatekeeper to our healing and our growth, and even our body's ability to feel restored every day. So these studies actually prove that when our internal environment, our body, our physical body, when we feel safe, our nervous system can actually turn on. It's this like homeostatic function of health. That's when our body can repair itself. But when we're living with that constant stress, it's no different than being under threat, right? It's like all of those systems that were designed to restore us, to keep us in homeostasis, they actually go completely offline. Our bodies cannot function. And yet we wake up and we go through our daily schedule every single day. We have to show up for life, right? But I think what's fascinating about the future, when we think about the future of all healing, is that neuroscience, immunology, all the clinical research that's emerging is really confirming that nervous system perceives threat. A nervous system that perceives threat is proving that inflammation goes on the rise, digestive issues show up, digestion actually slows down completely, which ancient wisdom has known about for, for centuries. And immune signaling even within our bodies moves us into a state of protection mode and dealing with that fire within us rather than shifting into repair mode. So the long story, like I said, it was a long way to answer your question, is truly understand the state of your nervous system. Are you in a state that's chronically inflamed and fighting, or do you have that resiliency where your nervous system can actually come back into balance so that your body can heal and restore itself? I believe that each and every one of us is our own greatest healer. We just need to trust that our bodies are capable of healing.

It's so beautiful, and I could not agree more. When it comes to regulating nervous system, this is work that, you know, is the work that people want to skip most often. You know, they like want to jump to the nutrition protocols and being as rigid as possible with exercise. What are some of the most significant things that you incorporate into nervous system regulation protocols?

So the first thing is just the awareness, right? We talk about mindfulness so much, but be mindful of the state of your nervous system every day. So I really coach my clients on how to tune in, asking, how does your body feel? How does your heart feel? How does your digestion feel? And when we understand this concept of safety, so it's that ventral vagal healing connection versus the feeling of a threat. This is that sympathetic overdrive, that feeling of fight or flight, that feeling of You know, waking up and being overwhelmed by your day-to-day life, feeling like you've got too much to handle, feeling anxiety and overwhelm from your day-to-day activities versus the overwhelm that can also come. So when we think of this dorsal tone, this is the opposite. This is when we're neither in the safety versus threat, that fight or flight, but we actually shift into overwhelm and shut down. And this could feel like dissociation. This could feel like Getting home at the end of the day and rushing to just check out on the couch or to down a glass or a bottle of wine. It's the shutdown, that dissociation from what's happening. So through that awareness, you're checking in with your body, but you're also noticing which habits are contributing to your sympathetic flexibility. So when we are aware of our state within and potentially how long we may have been living in a dysregulated state, Now we can work towards a healing protocol that could be meaningful to you. And something that I would love every single one of your listeners to hone in on is that your kind of perfect nervous system flexibility protocol should actually be different than mine and yours. And in the same way that we preach your perfect diet should be as unique as your thumbprint, so should your nervous system flexibility protocol. So think about what things cause you to feel a state of calm or a state of ease or a state of exhale. For me, I often feel this when I'm in nature. This is the feedback that I get from a lot of people. So imagine a time when you were in nature. Could you get into nature more often, or can we visualize yourself in nature throughout the day? Could you practice more vagal toning? Like, the science around vagal toning is actually pretty incredible. Again, ancient wisdom. So things like gargling every day, things like humming every day, repeating the sound om is something that stimulates that vagal tone. You can do this with your family as well. Sound therapy is also a really great one. Some people appreciate that. Somatic movement, dance— a lot of people feel liberation from this. But the point is, start to assess what is your protocol for helping you feel grounded and at ease every day, and could you potentially schedule that into your day? For a lot of my clients, it looks like the bookends of their day, how you start your day and how you finish your day, are actually everything to reground you and bring you back home into your body. And this is where healing becomes possible. And the reason why I say schedule it is because we're all busy, right? Like, we juggle a lot of things. Life is going to continue to get busier, faster. We're keeping up with AI. So the power of a schedule is really Probably one of the most incredible things that you could do every day. So for people who don't have access to a coach or a dietitian or a nutritionist, using the power of your schedule to schedule your mindfulness rituals or your nervous system regulation rituals, um, and even breathwork every single day is so key because if it's not scheduled, chances of you showing up for it are just, they're not going to happen.

So true.

A simple practice that everyone could do right now. Do you practice, do you use breathwork? Do you practice breathwork?

I do breathwork, yes.

Yeah. Breathwork, I think, is one of the most immediate things that we can do because we can do it anywhere. We can do it in a meeting. People can do it listening to a podcast just right now. So some really beneficial types of breathwork that tend to shift your state pretty quickly out of that dysregulated state into a calm state is box breathing, where we're inhaling for the count of 4, Holding for the count of 4, exhaling for the count of 4, and then holding your breath out for the count of 4. You could easily, easily practice that style of breathing while listening to music or going outside into nature. Another style of breathwork, which was popularized by Dr. Andrew Weil, is the 4-7-8 breathwork, which that stimulates your vagus nerve as well. So we're inhaling for the count of 4.

4.

Holding for the count of 7, and then exhaling for the count of 8. Similar to box breathing, but the exhale tends to be a little bit longer than that inhalation. And that lengthier exhale is what cues the body to actually rest back. I think the last tip that I'll give you also is no matter where you are right now, maybe in your chair, maybe in your bed, maybe at the office, however you spend your day, a lot of us are at these desks every day. Can you lean back? Just leaning back cues the body to be able to relax a little bit more, right? Instead of this activated forward motion where we're getting technics and moving towards screens and stuff like that. So lean back, rest into who you are, rest into your body, come back home into your essence. It's also key. Wow.

I did not know that about leaning back. That is a great tip. That is a great tip. So you are— your personal story, as you've already hinted at, is such a great example of why going deeper into this nervous system regulation healing is so important when you're, you know, trying so many different things. Can you walk us through your personal story and how you came to discover this yourself?

Yeah, I think personal stories are so powerful to give empathy. And you and I know the amount of people out there who are calling themselves health coaches or nutritionists who are activating a lot of information that is learned without experience. And I think experience goes a long way. So prior to health and wellness, I actually come from the corporate cosmetic world. So I worked for a handful of luxury beauty brands. And looking back on paper, these are dream jobs. Like, I was able to do makeup for fashion shows, makeup for celebrities. To be able to travel the world. But it got to a point where it was just a sales job, a typical corporate sales job where I was waking up in hotel rooms in cities, not knowing where I was, constantly striving to be the best. And coming from a father who's South Asian and a mom who's Danish, I did not become a doctor or a lawyer or a judge like my big brother. So I really hustled to, you know, I fast-tracked university and then I fast-tracked getting to the top of my corporate game as fast as I could. So With that came a toll on my body. I suffered from a lot of anxiety. You know, my anxiety was so bad that I ended up getting these heart palpitations, and my heart would end up beating so fast, upwards of 215 beats a minute, just from bending down to pick up something. And at that point in my life, I was not interested in getting to root cause healing. And so I went to my cardiologist and they decided to put me on a beta blocker medication. The beta blocker medication did its job. The doctor did his job. He wanted to take away my suffering, but the beta blocker slowed everything down. I became pretty lethargic and I ended up gaining 45 pounds. Now, what was interesting about that time of my life is that I was doing everything right on paper. I was on the Atkins diet.

In your early 20s, correct?

This is in my mid-20s. Yeah.

Mid-20s.

So at that point I was on the Atkins diet. Do you remember that diet?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, of course. Hardcore restriction, hardcore dieting, zero carbs, zero sugar, zero fun. My girlfriends called my, my, my apartment the house of free— sugar-free, fat-free, carb-free, everything free. I was working out probably for an hour, hour and a half every day, lots of cardio, and yet still I was gaining all this weight. I stopped getting my cycle. Doctors told me that I had terrible PCOS, that if I were able to have children, it would be pretty, pretty challenging. And then with this beta blocker medication and the 45 pounds that was onset, I went back to the doctors like, this isn't working. What's plan B? So the doctor said, let's take you in for your first heart surgery. They did a procedure for atrial tachycardia, which is what I had, and they ended up doing 2 ablations where they burn off part of the electrical nodes around your heart. And you're awake for the whole thing. I could see my heart on a massive screen, wires going everywhere around my heart, and they were pumping me full of adrenaline and caffeine and these uppers for these palpitations that I knew I would only get if I was out moving in the world. Unfortunately, the next morning in the hospital, without even moving, my heart was pounding upwards of 200 beats a minute. The surgery didn't work, and their solution to take away my suffering again was, well, let's go back in. So I think it was like a month or 2 months later, we went back in for my second heart surgery. Same thing all over again. They did 2 more ablations, but this time they said, if we go through with the next one, you might have to wear a pacemaker for the rest of your life. And looking back, it was one of those moments that we hear about in the movies, like my life flashed before my eyes and I was laying there just imagining what was it gonna be like to have this battery pack under my skin, to click the box as somebody who had a heart condition for the rest of my life. And I knew in that moment that I knew that there was a better way to heal. And the irony of all of this is that I knew, I knew how to heal my body. But I wasn't brave enough to commit to the things that I needed to do. And I knew this because I spent summers living on an ashram growing up. So an ashram, for those of you who don't know, is like a spiritual center where you go and you practice yoga and meditation and breathwork and mindfulness, living in community, living outside in nature every single day. But as a kid who is forced to do all of that, it felt like torture. Like, I didn't get to go to fun summer camp; I had to go to yoga camp. But In that moment on the surgery table, I knew that I had to go back to my roots. So I quit the corporate world temporarily. I went back to the ashram. This time it was the Sivananda Ashram. They have locations all around the world. I went to the one in the Bahamas, and I lived there for 2 months, and I became a yoga teacher. And while I was there, 45 pounds melted off my body. I stopped hardcore dieting and exercising. I started eating way more carbs than I had in a long time, but they were carbs from the earth. I was dealing with all of the open running tabs in my mind— my anxiety, my fear, and ultimately my sadness, looking back— and my body came back into balance. This isn't to say that you're going to go to the ashram and 45 pounds are going to melt off your body, but I think the experience there of regulating my nervous system was key. Now, going back in time, if I could have asked those doctors to do some deeper investigation, I wish that instead of just asking me, you know, are you doing drugs? How much alcohol are you drinking? Are you eating at McDonald's every single day? And doing a stress test, I wish that they stopped and looked at me and they just said, how are you feeling? What's the level of stress that you live with every day? Are you sad? How long have you been anxious for? And I would've been— I would've answered, I've been anxious my entire life. I've always been nervous. I've always been a perfectionist. I've always pushed myself to work harder, to be the best so that I wouldn't be outed, right? If I was perfect, then I couldn't be criticized. And I had incredible parents, but we just lived in a very stressful environment growing up. And I don't think I ever felt free enough to talk about it because I didn't grow up with any capital T trauma. There was no violence or sexual abuse or any of those things, but my nervous system since I was a little girl was just wired, completely wired, scared, and anxious. So, at the ashram, I dealt with all of that, and I finally felt what it was like to live in a regulated state again, what it was like to feel peace and harmony in my body. And instead of using the ashram like a crutch, I actually started living the rituals instead of treating them like a checklist, right? So ask yourself right now, are you treating your wellness rituals as a checklist every single day, or are you actually feeling them, embodying them every day? There's a very big difference. When I got back from the ashram, I became a nutritionist just for my own healing journey. But then I realized very quickly when I started working with people, I could put anyone on a diet. I could put anyone on a diet, food, supplement protocol, and they would get their goal. But a year later, they would end up right back in front of me falling off this wagon that we talk about, right? There is no wagon. And then working with a lot of people who on paper, they seem like they have everything, the personal trainer, the chef, the dietitian, the acupuncturist, I realized that they weren't necessarily waking up happier every day. So, in my practice today, I started to incorporate just all of those rituals from the ashram. How do you feel when you wake up in the morning? Are you making decisions every day with your health and wellness that are in alignment with the version of yourself that you want to become? Or are you making decisions for your health that are anchored in fear in a way that you don't want to be anymore? Are you constantly trying to fix yourself and become a version of yourself that you're not? Or are you ready to let that go and really fall in love with this incredible vessel that you were given? of a body and just find the rituals that are right for you.

Wow. That was so beautifully said. And I think also hits on a lot of things that people are carrying with them. And you're right. I mean, so much of the work is in going deeper and being able to work through a lot of the things that you're discussing. So when you are working with women and they tell you, or men, and they tell you that they aren't stressed, But you can see that they are stressed. How do you handle that?

What's interesting is I find that the way to opening people up is through speaking to digestion. Let's talk about your gut health. Let's talk about the quality of your digestion and about your bowel movements. And once people become aware of their digestive issues that they've normalized, then it opens up the conversation to asking, When's the last time that you remember living without digestive system symptoms? When's the last time that you felt ease in your body? When's the last time that you could eat a plate of food and not worry or stress about it contributing to your symptoms? And more often than not, people actually go back to childhood. And I became an NLP practitioner. So NLP is neuro-linguistic programming. I knew that I There was so much more to this. I really needed to understand the power of one's thoughts, their beliefs about their identity, and even their subconscious programming and how that was impacting not only the quality of their health, but the decisions that they were making for themselves every single day. So you and I both have these communities, and I'm sure you get this echoed a lot. The greatest challenge that people have is not knowing what to do. Everyone knows what to do. If I were to put 2 plates of food in front of you, one that was healthy, one was unhealthy, you would know which one to eat, right? But the challenge is consistency. Why can't I be consistent? And behavior really lies at the surface level, right? True lasting change has to happen at the level of your identity and what your belief system is about yourself. And when I look at a lot of the wellness programs that exist out there, a lot of them really teach people what to do. But never address the who the person believes they actually are. So if someone listening thinks about their subconscious identity, right? What do you believe about yourself? Do you believe that you're someone who is destined to be vibrant and healthy in their body? Do you believe that you're someone who always wants to quit? Do you believe that you're someone where— You know, nothing's ever going to work long-term for you? Do you believe that you're someone that you've tried everything and you're going to just continue to try more things, but you know inevitably that they won't work? Do you believe that you can be truly happy in your body? Do you believe that you can be somebody who can live until you're 90, 100, or beyond with vibrant health? Or do you think that you're destined for dis-ease? So NLP is just a mechanism to really support us in unlocking these. So first we address a couple things. One is recognizing the level of change that's needed. Maybe it's a change in your physical environment. Is the environment actually set for your success? Does there need to be a change in your daily behaviors? Are your behaviors congruent with you being stuck in a health state that you don't wanna be in anymore, or are they congruent with optimization? And this is often like, we all need coaches too, right? I need a coach.

Yeah.

So somebody who can have eyes in on our daily practices that are impacting how we feel. And then we move to a higher level. And in that higher level, we really start to understand, well, what are your values? What do you believe your identity is? And do you want that to change? Is your identity rooted in your past little t traumas or big T traumas? And do you feel like you've got a sense of purpose for your body? Is your purpose here to live an incredible life, or do you want a purpose that's stuck in constantly thinking about a body that you're not happy with and feeling like health and wellness is constantly going to be challenging for you. Life is so much greater than that, but unfortunately, we live in a world where health and wellness is inundated with fear, and the statistics are even more frightening. So it's really my invitation for people listening to do a deeper dive. Like me, are you someone who has been living in a state of just feeling like they were broken, that they constantly had to fix themselves? I see this so much in the clients that I work with today, and it might not even be a conscious belief, but something within them that's constantly searching for happiness or peace or joy outside of themselves. And the second you can turn that mirror around and start seeking the happiness and the joy and the peace within yourself, that's when healing arises. That's when that nervous system regulation turns on, and that's when people feel different in their healing journey instead of constantly outsourcing their health to doctor That was beautifully said.

And outside of digestion, I, I've also seen women who are going through perimenopause and menopause having a lot of seemingly hormonally driven symptoms, going to HRT, still not seeing improvements, and not connecting the fact that they've been depleted for the last 10 years and these hormonal shifts are exacerbating the symptoms.

Yeah. And so, you know, I think that's a really important thing to You know, that have been underneath the surface the entire time.

What is your experience in these instances where, where women are quick to turn to hormones as being the cause when you can see that it's so much more multifactorial?

This is such a beautiful question because we live at this incredible era in women's health. Women are finally getting the attention and the studies that we need. To optimize our health, right? To know what to do from a scientific lens, right? But unfortunately, I think that we're treating HRT as another Band-Aid solution. We hear that it's working for other people. We have a lot of prominent figures in the women's health space who are advocating for these things. But again, it's not going to root cause healing. We've talked about root cause healing for so long, and yet we're still not integrating that into, into our health. So let's turn this around a little bit. There's some practitioners out there who are speaking about the beauty that comes with perimenopause and with menopause, the ability to acknowledge oneself, the ability to no longer have to show up for others to try to be good and do good and be seen in a certain light, but finally the peace that comes with owning who we are and how we wanna show up in the world. So when we think about this, again, it goes back into that nervous system regulation. the rapport and the safety that the body has to feel throughout going through this hormonal surge that we experienced through teenage years, right? So that happens at the subconscious level. And I think we need to understand that throwing more Band-Aids at the body— there's 2 parts of this, and this is actually the entire inspiration for my podcast. How can we merge ancient wisdom with modern-day medicine? You and I are both practitioners who love data. I love all of the advances in Western medicine where I could really understand through blood lab testing, stool testing, saliva testing. Gosh, there's so much to really understand the physical biology of what my clients are going through, right? And for a lot of people listening, that might actually— that data might be what's needed for you to actually implement change, right? We like seeing the results. We like like tracking our performance and our shifts with, with protocols. However, if you're not feeling a shift in your body— yeah, I'm doing all these things, but I'm just not waking up feeling better in my skin— it's an opportunity to go deeper. And so to your point about women's health, I think that women need to finally acknowledge the state that they're actually living in. The fact that so many of us at this stage in our life are actually in a sandwich generation We're caring for little children, we're caring for our parents, and we're trying to care for ourselves in a world that, you know, we're inundating ourselves with chronic stress every day and overwhelm. And so I think this goes back to the question that we started with at the beginning of the podcast. Can you tune into your body's needs every single day to really understand the protocol that you need? What would it take for you to feel a sense of ease in your body right now? And could that be as simple as, you know, scheduling 15 minutes to yourself, scheduling your breathwork, having something to look forward to? Future pacing is something that we do in NLP so that you're constantly giving yourself something to look forward to in the future. All of these things implement a feeling of safety within the body. And it takes time. We all want things that are quick fixes. Gosh, I wish I could start something and like immediately feel better the next day, right? And we can, So true. As well. Like, we want everything to work in the here and the now, or else it's not working. But I think that from a practitioner standpoint, I still want more data on the meaning of, you know, putting testosterone into my body, on using these patches or stickers of estradiol on my skin every single day, on taking progesterone in a bright orange capsule. And what the impact of me using these modalities in the future. And we just don't have those studies yet. So until that happens, I think that there's intuition that can awaken within every single one of us as women to become the CEO of our own health by finally learning in to listening what our body is actually saying.

And doing it— you point to the importance of data, which I'm a big believer in, in order to track outcomes, to make sure that what you're doing is leading to improvements in your labs or Some metric of your health, but there is a real aspect to the intelligence of our bodies that we can't ignore. And I have had conversations in that, you know, sometimes too much information is more stressful on us when you have access to, you know, the Oura. And sometimes I'll even recommend like Oura breaks for people where, or whatever the wearable is, because I even remember, actually, I remember when they rolled out the stress feature, we were in LA and it was right after the fires and you were like, I am a meditation teacher and a health coach, and sometimes having like this, this level of information about the stress that I'm under and other things is actually inducing more stress.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. And there's that belief system again, right? My Oura Ring is telling me that I'm not good at sleeping, that I'm constantly anxious, or that my HRV isn't what it should be according to their statistics. And again, we adopt that. as part of what we feel and believe about ourselves. Do you know, it took me a couple, I would say like 2 months to get over my addiction from my Oura Ring. I was constantly going to spin it on my finger without the ring even being there. But there's a time and a place. I think that wearables like that can be so beneficial to understand where you are in a season of your health. Use the data and then take a break. My Oura Ring was really great in helping me uncover that I actually had mold exposure a couple years ago because my HRV just kept plummeting and plummeting and plummeting. So it caused me to do deeper investigation to understand what potential inflammation was happening within my body. So yeah, they can be powerful tools, and I love data, and we're going to get so many more cool things in the future. But what I'm seeking more now in my practice is the wisdom keepers. Like, if I'm going to a traditional Chinese medicine doctor and they're in their 70s or 80s, and they look at my tongue, my eyes and my pulse points, and they can give me the exact same measurements as, you know, my aura or my blood labs. Like, that to me is wisdom. And through many practices, through a lot of our cultures come from, whether it's traditional Chinese medicine or Ayurveda, which I had access to growing up, these practitioners understood that it was never about fixing the body. The body knows how to heal. We just need to bring the resilience back, build resilience within our inner ecosystem for the body to be able to do its job.

Yeah.

But again, we just live in these modern times, and, you know, our dear friend Dr. Mindy Pelz, our mutual friend, she said it best. We have these bodies that were not designed to live with the level of stress and modernization and toxins in the world that we live in today, and here we are coping. And what's funny is that whenever I ask somebody, well, what causes you to feel the best in your body? Or, where are you when you feel a sense of ease? Or, what are you doing when you're not even thinking about a protocol or dieting? And like 99% of people say, ah, it's when I'm in nature. It's when I can get outside. It's when I can put my feet on the grass, my feet in the sand. It's when I can hug my baby and just be so hyper-present in that moment. And even look at you nodding your head. It's like in that moment, I'm often met with like a God, if I can just go there now. And whether, no matter what you're dealing with, whatever season of healing that you're in in your life, I think that the more that you can adopt that, the more you start believing like, oh yeah, I drifted again into thinking that I needed to outsource my health so much, but I know that my wisdom's actually within. And it's this constant practice of like outsource or— It's this constant practice of outsourcing and then coming home. Outsourcing and coming home, and then reframing what your belief system actually is. And yeah, we can talk about quantum as well and why I got— why I'm going into that space as well. But I really think that the future is, is going to be about like putting the power back into our bodies so that we all believe we've got this, this power to heal ourselves.

You're hitting on something, you know, especially with right now, so many people With how, you know, sometimes you go into these more alternative fields and they're not as necessarily evidence-based, and some practitioners can kind of like lead you astray and into so many supplements and very expensive protocols that are a little obsessive and not necessarily get the results. And then, you know, there's always like a swing of the pendulum where then it's like, okay, well then I'm only doing things that are evidence-based. And then there's doctors on the internet that are stitching every reel of someone who isn't like fully quote-unquote evidence-based.

Yeah.

And I see both sides where it's like, yes, we need the, the balance of both. But what I do think, and someone that, you know, really has— I've been in academia for most of my career, is that the, the evidence is so important. But I also think that people who are so tied to the evidence are people who lose the wisdom of the ancient healers. And these ancient healing practices that you're talking about that bring us back home to our body, like the You know, 70 or 80-year-old women who are, you know, the, the women who have been doing yoga for 50 years and who are so wise because they can, you know, provide health recommendations kind of like on a whim cuz they understand their bodies so well. And as I'm getting older, I'm like, how do I be more like that person, but also in tune with some evidence-based principles that I know will lead me in the right direction as my foundation? Yeah.

It's so good. And look, you and I talk about food every day. Food is a superpower. Food is information. It communicates to every single cell of your body on how to function, how to optimize, or ultimately how to lead to inflammation and— right, and make us sick. Food is really, really important. But I think that we've really missed the mark in talking about what integrative healthcare actually is. Practitioners have talked about it for years. There's programs and schools, but we're not actually practicing it, right? So my greatest hope is that people just understand, like, eat like you love yourself. That is the most important thing. And that doesn't mean the cookies and the crackers and the cakes and all of those things. That's food addiction. When you eat like you love yourself, you're eating because you know how those specific foods make you feel. And I'm sure that that's not Skittles and cake and wine and all those things, right? So I love what you said because we really just have to pull back a little bit. We understand the science is there on all of these things, the data, the protocols that are— that we're sold to every single, every single day whenever we go online. And yet, when we think about this, like the rates of prescription drug use are on the rise, right? Over 66% of adults in the US take at least one prescription medication, Band-Aid symptom system for their body. And I think the stat last time I looked was over 40% take 3 or more prescription drugs. And again, doctors are trying to make us feel better in the same way doctors prescribed a medication for me and surgery for me. They wanted to make me feel better. They're doing their job, but again, it's not going to that root cause. So it's to really understand that there's a time and a place for those things. But we have to look at this through the lens of the rates of disease are rising, right? The rates of chronic illness are on the rise. Well, how can we get back to a state when this wasn't happening? And then we have to look at ancient wisdom. We have to look at the Blue Zones. We have to look at longevity medicine. And this is what's fascinating because then we understand And like, I don't think we need data to really prove to ourselves that we feel better when our body is doing the simple things. So what are the things that are trending today? We're talking about morning sunlight, right? Super, super powerful. What do we do when we go outside first thing in the morning? We all take a deep breath in, we relax, we acclimate to nature, we start our day without looking at our screens. It feels really good. Do we need science to prove that?

No.

Maybe to understand how it boosts serotonin in our gut microbiome. Sure, I'll take that. But I don't think we need the science to prove that. Do we need science proving that we go into nature is something that helps us heal? Well, we've got that too. Studies on forest bathing, right? And how it lowers anxiety and depression at a cellular level and reduces oxidative stress. When we think about spending time with the loved ones that we have through adopting more compassion and empathy within our bodies, again, it turns on healing within the body. So it's not to say that there's a time and a place, and I really want people to understand, like, there is a time for acute care when it comes with our healthcare system. It's incredible. It's phenomenal. It's mind-blowing. And I'm so excited to learn from, from that. But I think it's finally time for us to really take into consideration the power of integrative healthcare. And imagine what, what would it be like if you didn't have a 7-minute doctor's appointment where your doctor actually got to know who you are? And the season of life that you're going in, the stresses that you have, the anxieties that you have, the behaviors that you have. Or maybe you're met with, you know, a cue to take 5 deep breaths before you go in to meet with your doctor, and that could change your state. And like, I'm saying this with a bit of humor and smile. I know that we're a long way from that, but it does exist. And when you start to seek these like sage healers around you in the city that you're in, You'll feel a difference when you're in their care. And it's not to say that one is going to cancel out the other, but I think it's finally time that we merge the two.

Yes, I could not agree more. I went to actually an incredible healer, Dr. Naimi, when he was in Dr. Wayne Jonas's book after my miscarriage. And the— he does a bunch of like electro— it's, it's very much alternative medicine. He was a conventionally trained physician. But when I left that appointment, I felt so unbelievable. And he said to me in that appointment, you're going to have a healthy baby. And it was soon after having the miscarriage that was my first, which really made me question if my body would be capable of that. And I think that it speaks to, again, Many things. He has miraculous healing stories. People fly from all over the world to come and see him. And he's, you know, just this guy out of his office, just, you know, seeing people, person after person all day long. No, like, social media presence or anything. And it speaks to, again, what you're talking about, the power of belief. So I'd love for you to dive into— you're getting a master's in quantum physics that I learned about in listening to your interview with Jay Shetty. Tell us why you're doing a master's in quantum physics.

So looking around at, you know, some schools of thought today, and you've probably even seen it yourself, there's more education coming around the fact that we are so diverse, right? When I think about quantum healing, to me, it's just understanding that the body is far more than just chemistry. We have our energetic body. An emotional body, a spiritual body, and we have wisdom within us that's deeply intelligent that science doesn't even comprehend it yet. There's no way for us to understand it even through the lens of the gut microbiome. There's so much that is evolving around the intelligence that lives within all of us. And for far too long, I think healthcare is really focused mainly on suppressing our symptoms instead of asking why is the body out of balance to begin with? So quantum healing is really understanding this, and they understand that one of the foundational truths to awakening this intelligence of the body to heal is to regulate your nervous system, to heal the gut microbiome. They've been talking about that for forever, right? Hippocrates talked about this. They also understood the wisdom—

He did.

Behind the mitochondria, right? How the mitochondria are actually impacted by the state of our nervous system and how we process emotions on a day-to-day to-day life, and it understands the importance of the physiology when we put the physical body into nature to return to nature, how that can actually improve our sleep, improves our outcomes when it comes to the desire of movement, to breathing deeply, so that all of a sudden we're nourishing the body at a cellular level. Which means that the science is already there to show that the intense hardcore protocol is actually not what is needed for the body to soften and begin to heal itself. So ultimately, quantum healing, the way that we understand it, is only about restoring coherence in the body. It's when the brain and your hormones, as you said before, your immune system, your energy systems, and even your emotions, they're tending to work together. There's synergy of them working as systems that work together instead of fighting each other. Instead of constantly focusing on a system that's fighting internal inflammation, and people start to feel profoundly different. And so I really just wanted this as— one, I think I'll be an eternal student, but I just wanted the science and the data to really show people that through understanding our frequency and our relationship to our inner body, it can actually impact our biology. And the science is actually out there. And this is where you and I think we both agree. The future of healthcare, whether it's quantum or not, it has to be about personalization. Personalization about where we are in the moment, in the season that we're in, in the hormonal state that we're in, in the state of stress that we're in, so that we can finally personalize every single thing that we need. And through this, this is ultimately what I do with my clients. You know, we might start with digestion and food and supplements, And we can track that through data. But I would say that the clients that I've worked with long-term who really ultimately shift that protocol into more of a spiritual experience and tuning inward, these are the people who all of a sudden health and wellness, it becomes them. It's no longer something that they need to do. It becomes part of who they are. And so I really hope that the future of medicine addresses this. We're going to combine functional medicine. With nervous system regulation, with understanding circadian biology, with understanding the power of food, but the fact that we all need different foods based on who we are and our genetics and where we come from. And of course, mindfulness and this word frequency. When I used the word vibration 10 years ago with my clients, people would just roll their eyes. But now people understand vibration. What is the state that you're in? And that's really important to understand because it changes everything for the trajectory of your health outcomes. And it's not magic and it's not woo-woo. It's all backed by science. But I think the future is going to include a lot of quantum healing.

So with the experience that you have in working with so many celebrities like Will Smith and Jay Shetty and many other people, I mean, you, you work, you know, you do coaching for your own business, but then also for Dr. Mindy Peltz, for Jesse Itzler and so many like incredible humans in this world. What would you say is like the commonality between people who, who change their health outcomes and people who don't? You might have already hit on it, but I'm just curious, in all of your experiences, is there a commonality that you see?

There's a couple. So I would say first and foremost is that they're willing to understand that there may be thoughts, emotions, beliefs within them that they're ready to move on from. And so doing that inner work is really something that's essential. The second thing is that I think all of us need to just recognize that we are all top performers, no matter what industry we're in, whether you're a stay-at-home mom or these— we're expecting a lot from this physical body in our modern-day world. And I would say that the ones who adopt consistency where it tends to land for long periods of time is that they set the stage. So, I think you and I have talked about this before, but through my experience at the ashram, and as much as I would love all of your listeners to go and experience life at the Shivananda Ashram, especially the one in the Bahamas, I know that's not possible for all of us because we're busy. But if you're able to build your own ashram— so I have a program called How to Build Your Ashram in Your House, In your office where you spend the most time, and ultimately you're creating your own blueprint for healing. When you adopt and kind of reverse that, take the power of healing back into your own hands, then all of a sudden you're the CEO of your own health. You are predicting your health outcomes. You take into control the things that your body needs to function and feel your best every single day. And it's not that it happens with perfection.

Right.

But it's just to understand that the body can change every day, just like life. Things come up every day, so there is no falling off the wagon. And we're living in the present moment. We're not thinking about the future, which is fear-based, right? Worrying about what to do, worrying about what's going to happen, worrying about longevity, worrying about how we're going to age. But instead, we can actually in the moment tune in. What does my body need right now? What do I feel like eating? My body's actually craving some salt. Could that be connected to, you know, my adrenals? Because I did feel a little bit overwhelmed this morning, right? So ultimately, it's really adopting the practice of becoming the CEO of your own health. It's a spiritual experience too. And I'm not somebody who is incredibly religious. It's not to say that, but it's falling in love with this body that you're given. And I'm a little bit older than you, I can definitely say like life is just going by on fast forward. It's like something that happens when you, you get 40, everything just gets faster. And one of the greatest things that I learned in Jesse Itzler's community is just the reminder one day that's just stuck. There's only 8,760 hours in a year. What are you doing with your time? Are you chronically obsessed over your wellness protocol, what you should be eating, what you should be doing? How you should optimize and fix yourself? Or are you living your life trusting that you know what to do to heal your body, trusting that you actually hold all the answers and the wisdom within you to be able to create, create your perfect healing protocol?

Wow. That was incredible.

No, it's not the answer that people want though. This is what's frustrating, right? And everybody wants to know what's Jay's protocol, what's Will's protocol, and we all have a protocol. And I think everyone's protocol is actually a good one. Every protocol that you will try when it comes to your health and wellness, including your protocol— you have an incredible protocol that you work with on people for regulating their metabolic health, right? Everything will work until it doesn't. So when it stops working, can you pause and ask yourself, what's going on right now? What does my body need? Am I noticing a cycle that I'm going through looking for sources or resources outside of myself? And am I actually brave enough to finally tune in to acknowledge what I need in this time? And I think that's where the superpower comes in, right? And, you know, I don't know, I think that you and I are so lucky because we just get to be the guide. We guide people to the science, we guide people to the practices, we guide people to the resources and the experts that are out there. We guide people based on our trainings and our knowledge, but we are just guides, right? And I think that if people truly woke up and believed, I am my own healer, I'm the person that dictates how I'm going to live and feel at 90 and 100, all of a sudden the decisions that we make become a lot easier. And one of the guiding light questions, which I work with all of the people that you mentioned, just to ask yourself, am I nourishing myself and rooting myself in the version of myself that I want to feel every day? So those words: happiness, peace, feeling light, feeling joyful, feeling excited. Or am I actually depleting myself? Am I not nourishing myself and keeping myself anchored in old belief systems, in old patterns, in an old way of being that's driving actions with poor health outcomes? And you can use that with anything in your life. Is this meal nourishing me or depleting me? Is this conversation nourishing me or depleting me? Is this movie nourishing me or depleting me? Right? And when you come to that constant, let's call it an 80/20 rule, where more often than not you're making decisions that are nourishing yourself, you're not going to notice when you have the glass of wine.

Right.

You're not gonna beat yourself up over the piece of chocolate cake or the French fries or the pizza. Like, your body is so incredibly resilient that when you are in that homeostatic state, you'll ebb and flow. Your body's got this. It can metabolize whatever you give it. But when the mind takes over and thinks that you've fallen off the wagon, here you are again, you need to find another diet, you need to go hardcore, you need to fix yourself, That's what's most detrimental. So I hope that lands the point. When you turn it more into that spiritual journey of self-love and joy and acknowledge that time is going by really fast— how am I spending my time?— then we tend to fall in love with the process.

Mona Sharma, you are such an incredible gift to the world. I am so unbelievably grateful for your friendship, And to know you and grateful for you sharing your expertise with us today. I want to leave on that high note because I'm just like feeling everything that you just said. Can you share with everyone where they can find you and learn more about all the amazing things that you're putting into the world?

Absolutely. So come and find me. I'm most active on Instagram, so it's @monasharma. And you can find me, uh, my podcast, which is Rooted in Wellness. I've got my Rooted community, which is really fun. We're making a lot of changes over there, but ultimately the messaging that you'll find across all of my platforms is that you are your greatest healer. Remember your capacity to heal. Please send me a message. I'm the one that answers all of my responses, so send me a note. Let me know if anything landed with you, and just remember that healing is not a destination. It's a daily practice. It's one that we're all working at. It's never something to perfect. It's just treating yourself as a body that is sacred. That's all.

So beautiful. Thank you so much for tuning into The Being Brigid Show, and I will see you next time.