#20 Turning Stress into Transformation in Your Health and Life

The information provided in this podcast is educational and not intended to diagnose or treat medical conditions.

Dr. Donnie Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself. And in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.

Hi, and welcome. I'm so glad you're here with us today. I'm looking forward to introducing you to Dr. Amir Rashidian, and he is a chiropractic doctor who practices chiropractic and has a big interest in stress and how stress affects his patients and has written a book about how to help yourself be more resilient to stress and and therefore improve your health. So welcome, Dr. Amir, and please tell us more about you and what inspired you to do the work you're doing.

Thank you so much, Dr. Donney. I'm honored to be here. I'm grateful to be able to speak with you and your wonderful audience. Started out when I was nine years old. I was traveling with my dad through these remote villages in the country of Iran. And. And in this one village, a woman went into labor, and she was having complications and no one knew how to help her. A midwife walked over and knelt down and examined her and stood up, said, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do. There's no heartbeat and she's not going to make it. I'm sorry. And she actually left. And everybody had gathered around. One by one, they started to leave, leaving her alone to slowly pass away in her husband's arms. And at the age of nine, I was looking into the eyes of this young woman who was just told she's going to die a gruesome, painful death and there's nothing anyone can do to help. So I had this big panic attack where you feel tight in the chest and you're having trouble breathing and tears were coming down my face. My dad saw me. He picked me up, he carried me out of there. He held me for a minute.

When I calmed down, we climbed down the mountain. We got in our car to drive home. On the drive home, I said, dad, I don't want to feel like that ever again. He said, what are you going to do? I said, I think I'll go be a surgeon. I'll be the best surgeon in the whole world, and I'll carry my medical bag with me everywhere I go. I'LL just save lives. That was the plan. Ten years later, I was a student at George Washington University, and I wanted to start medical school early.

My sophomore year, I went home for Christmas break. When I walked into our house, our house was now in Maryland in the United States. And dad was wearing this big, thick, white neck brace, and he was under the influence of some heavy painkillers. You could tell he was in tremendous amount of pain. He was limp and numb from the shoulders down. He couldn't lift his arms to give me a hug to say hello. And we ended up spending my Christmas break, six, seven weeks, going from doctor to doctor, trying to figure out what is wrong with my dad. And every doctor we went to said, this is beyond my scope. You have to go to this other doctor. Eventually, we ended up in a neurosurgeon's office, and the neurosurgeon said, you needed surgery yesterday. You've got massive degenerative change in your spine. All those car accidents you were in. Everything else has accumulated. You haven't been taking care of yourself. You need surgery. We need to open you up. We need to break and remove the bones in the back of the spine that take pressure off the spinal cord. We're going to put rods in your neck. We'll fuse your whole neck. You'll never turn your head again. You may not regain function of your hands. Oh, my gosh, you're gonna die because you're old. And, you know, my dad was 70 at the time, and. Yeah, well, you know, the thing is. And what I realized is the 70 is a number, but there is such a thing as a young 70 and an old 70. My dad was the old 70. He hadn't been taking good care of himself. And you know something? Something dad said, and most people say is, I thought it would go away. Unfortunately, what we're dealing with doesn't go away unless what's causing it goes away. And we have to understand that, be cognizant of that. Anyways, we met with three neurosurgeons. And after the third one, the neurosurgeon said, okay, go get your affairs in order. Come back in a week. We'll operate. We got in a taxi to go home. I was sitting in the back of the taxi carrying all the dad's X rays and MRIs and CTs and medical records. This is 26 years ago. Now. They come on one. It's very easy to carry. It was a big stack of films I was carrying, and dad was sitting next to me in the taxi. And I was sitting there, I looked over at my dad and I could tell he was in tremendous amount of pain. Every bump that taxi hit was sending a lightning bolt of pain through his entire body. Looking in his eyes, I could tell he just wanted to die. He didn't want to live.

Oh, my gosh. It's hard when you're in that much pain just to think of anything. You know, you're just like, the pain takes over.

Absolutely, absolutely. And we didn't get much hope from the surgeon either, because he's like, you might die, but even if you live, you may not regain function of your hands. So I started to have those same emotions I did when I was watching that woman, her husband's arms, and I'm getting all anxious and tears are coming, filling my face and getting all choked up. The taxi driver saw the two of us in the backseat looking the way we did, and he said, sir, I noticed you're in a lot of pain, and I know you asked me to take you home, but there's a chiropractor down the street. The taxi driver there, and I was a 19 year old, know it all. You know, you ever meet those, they think they know everything. I firmly believe there's only two ways to get better. And one is drugs and the other is surgery. There's nothing else. That's what I believe. But this taxi driver saying, why don't you go to this chiropractor? I had no idea what a chiropractor was, but my dad, he was terrified of the surgery. So he said, okay, let's go. Let's check it out.

Like anything else, I can try. I'm willing.

Exactly.

And long story short, the place was under construction. It didn't look like a real office. There were crew putting up drywall. It was dust and paint flying everywhere. But apparently his chiropractor was building out this suite to make it a future chiropractic office. But at the time, it was just, you know, nothing.

You're like, we're here. What do we need to do?

Exactly. Actually, I said, let's get out of here because this place is scary.

You know, I had those films, right? So he had this light box, one of his view boxes that you looked at before, there was digital X ray, and put that on the floor. He plugged it into an open socket in the wall and he started reading those MRIs that I was carrying. And he told my dad, he said, I think I can help you. He said, you've got these bone spurs growing into the Spinal canal, It's narrowing the canal. It's pressing on the spinal cord. It's a very dangerous situation if you don't find a way to decompress it. This is not going to end well, but I'm going to adjust you with my hands. And he said, it's not going to be an easy road. It's going to be a long and hard and potentially painful road ahead. It's going to take you six months to a year before you start to feel any difference. Even so, are you ready to go through all that? Dad said, whatever you gotta do, do it. I don't wanna have the surgery. And dad had to go in there six days a week. I mean, it was intense.

He wasn't basically, like every day for.

The first few months. Yeah. And then one day, dad walked in, and by now the construction was done. You know, there was a receptionist and a reception counter. The office was busy. The chairs were all filled with patients. My dad walked in the office, he walked up to the counter, he picked up the pen with his own hand. He signed his own name on the signing sheet. It was the first time he could actually hold a pen with his own hand. He was so proud. He held that pen over his head. He started walking back and forth like he's holding a trophy. He was so happy and proud that he could do that again. And, you know, dad lived another 18 years after that. And at 88, he was younger than when he was 70.

Isn't that something?

He would get up in the morning, he would work out, and then go out the door, visit his friends. They're all nursing homes, but not my dad. He was traveling across the country and abroad, enjoying his life, living the life he wanted. Dad lived long enough to stand next to me as my best man when I got married and he met my first son when he was born. So, you know, where do I get my inspiration? And where did it all start? It's this one concept that. And I always ask, when my dad was hurting and suffering and sick, was he the only one who suffered? And obviously the answer is no. Is anyone who cared about him, anyone who loved him? And then the next question is, if you don't take care of you, who else suffers? Most of us think we should take care of everybody else first and then worry about ourselves. But what everybody around us needs is a healthy you so that you can be there for them. That's all I wanted from my dad. So based on that, I thought, hey, why don't I do what the chiropractor did.

And.

And hopefully prevent the surgery and prevent people being dependent on medication and drugs and synthetics and so on.

Well, and you've been doing chiropractic for at least 15 years now, right? 20 years. You've been helping patients as a chiropractic doctor. And I'm sure you have many cases like your dad's that you've seen where people can improve their joint situation and their overall health just by helping to give the body what it needs versus having to only choose between medications and surgery. Like you said before, it's like, no, there's this other option where we actually help your body heal.

Exactly. Which is also what you do. Create that environment internally and externally so that the body can optimize its functions and do what it knows how to do.

Yeah. So awesome. And how do you find that, looking at stress? How do you integrate that in your chiropractic work? What does that look like for you? Where are you? How does that look in your practice? That might be different than, say, even how other chiropractors look at things.

Yeah. So my thoughts and philosophy on stress are counterintuitive and very, very controversial. So.

Don'T kick the messenger. These are just ideas. And I understand if there's disagreements with this, but I have a specific definition of what stress is, and I believe stress is merely a force that'll lead to change in your life. It's just a force.

Gravity is a force. Right. You can't tell me gravity is a bad thing. You might say, oh, gravity is the reason I fell and broke my arm. So gravity is bad. But then gravity is also the reason your house doesn't float away into outer space. So gravity is good, but it's actually neither. Right. Gravity is not good.

It's a thing. It's just a law of nature, basically.

Y Exercise. Exercise puts stress on you. If you're doing cardiovascular exercise, it's putting stress on your heart and your lungs. Right. Are you going to tell me that stress is bad? Well, it's bad if you do it the wrong way. It's bad if it leads to heart attack. It's bad if it causes you to get sick, but it's really good if it makes you stronger and healthier.

Sometimes it's a hard concept because we're so used to. Again, back to this black or white. We're usually looking at things like either it's good or it's bad, or I have this option or that option. But you're saying, hey, let's eliminate that paradigm and Just realize way I say it is, I say stress is just part of being human. You know, it's just part of life. And this way we're not having to put it into good or bad. It's about understanding it and how to choose the right stress for our bodies, which it sounds like you're saying.

I mean, you use the word life and it's exactly right. Because researchers took amoeba single cell organism in these petri dishes, they took away all their stress. They had them in the perfect environment with the perfect temperature, perfect amount of food, PH balanced all that stuff. They gave them flat screen TVs and Tempur pedic beds.

I mean, these little microorganisms, basically, they're living the life.

Exactly. Every one of them died. Everyone died prematurely.

They can't survive without a little bit of challenge.

Yeah, stress. So life requires stress and stress sustains life. And when I say this, because I have a lot of patients and as you probably do, who say, my biggest problem is stress, if I didn't have all this stress, I would be healthy, I would be okay. And usually my suggestion is, and I have to say this very tactfully, is, listen, it's your inability to adapt to the stress in your life that's causing all this. It's not the stress. Norman Vincent Peale wrote that book, Power of Positive Thinking. Wonderful book. He tells a story where he was in his office counseling a gentleman who was complaining about stress. He said, would you like to meet people who don't have any stress? And the guy said, do they exist? Oh, yeah, yeah, they exist. Show me. Where are they? What do they do? I want to do what they do. So he goes, follow me. So they walked out of his office, walked down the hallway, walked out the front door of the church, walked across the parking lot onto the cemetery. And he said, look around. The people on the ground have no stress whatsoever. Literally, if you're alive, you're gonna have stress. Now let's take it one step further. If someone is single, they want to be married, but that person doesn't know marriage comes with stress. And if you're not prepared for the stress, your marriage will suffer. And then there's a couple who don't have any children, right? And they go, oh, we should have children. It's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, it will be a lot of fun, but there's some stress that's going to come with that. Are you prepared for that stress? If you're not, it's going to cause problems. Someone Will say, I want to start my own business. I think it'd be great. Be my own boss. They have no idea that there's stress with that. So if you want to be something special, do something special, have something special. You have to understand, accept that there's going to be amount of stress that's going to come with that. Whatever it is, there's a stress that comes with it. So you train for the stress like a prize fighter trains to step into that ring, train for it, get strong, prepare yourself. And stress comes in three dimensions. Now, some people say it's four dimensions. I like things simple. Three is simpler than four. So we're going to stick with three. And the three dimensions are physical, chemical, psychological. Most people just think stress psychological. Oh, I had a fight with so and so. That's stress. That's just psychological stress. But there's chemical stress, right? And there's nobody better than you to explain that part of it. Smoking is stress. You know, what you put on your skin is stress. What you put in your mouth is stress. You know, everything and anything that's in your chemical environment, internal, external, is stress on the body.

I love you because you're really helping people on. Like, I love to just help people recognize. Like, first of all, stress is normal. Like you're saying, like, we. Not only is it normal, but it's necessary. Like, we need some stress. We're gonna choose some stress in our life. Like, we might choose to be parents, we might choose to be in a relationship, we might choose to have a job or a business. But those are all choices we can make. And then it's about how to support ourselves with that stress. And now, like you're saying, you're describing, like, it's not just the psycho emotional stress that we're like. Because a lot of times you're right. Stress gets kind of put into just that sort of ambiguous cloud of deadlines and demands or even stresses like a death in the family, you know. But like, you're saying it could be stress in the form of a food or a toxin or I think you're about to say physical stress, which I'm sure as a chiropractor, you help people a lot with their physical stresses.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. You know, if you sit with bad posture, you sit in the wrong chair, have the wrong computer in front of you, you know, you, you run with the wrong shoes, you know, that's all physical stress. What I would like everyone to understand is that there's two sides to every coin. So if we have three coins. And we label the coins physical, chemical, and emotional or psychological. The coin of physical has two sides to it. One side is exercise. The other side is rest. They're equally as important. You have to balance the two. There are a lot of people who exercise really well, but they're not balancing it with the proper rest. Some people rest too much and then they don't exercise. You've got to balance that. The chemical side of it. There are deficiencies that the body has, but there's also toxicity that affects it. So you've got to prevent toxicity and then feed the deficiencies. That's two sides of that same coin. Then there's a psychological. Right, yeah. Avoid all the negativity. I get it. Don't watch the news right before you go to bed because you'll have the fight or flight response and you won't be able to sleep properly. But you also have to feed your brain with good things.

Kiss your baby before you go to bed, or pet your pet cat or dog. Do something that emotionally feeds you and sustains you. You need to balance it on both sides.

I love that. I love the way of explaining it in terms of two sides of the coin, because it also helps us to really recognize that a lot of times I think of it like the gray area, you know, like getting more comfortable with walking the tightrope, you know, like how to cover this side, but also this side and just walk the middle line there. So I like the way you're describing that. That's helpful.

Well, here's the thing. Right now, there's this buzzword. It's been around for probably 15 years. It's the word wellness, right? Everybody has wellness. There's wellness centers that are massage therapy centers. There's wellness centers that are medical offices and wellness centers that are alternative health centers. But that word, wellness. But if you ask someone, what is wellness? Everybody has a different definition. And I firmly believe that wellness is experiencing health and vitality in those three dimensions. That's what wellness is. Having balanced coins, you know, in all three dimensions. And so what makes it really simple and easy is all you have to do is pick something in each of those three dimensions and improve it by a little bit.

Wellness goes up. But you also see these people, like, you know, there's a gym I work out at. I've been going there, I don't know, 10 years now. And there's a. There's a group of people, they sit on those exercise bikes in the front row and. And they pedal. And every time I Go in, they're already there pedaling, and they're still there pedaling when I leave. And they've been doing that for the whole 10 years I've been going there. But they haven't changed. Their bodies look the same as they did before. And if you talk to them, why are you doing this? They're like, oh, I'm trying to lose weight. But for 10 years you've been doing this, you haven't lost weight. Why is that? Well, there's two reasons for that. And somebody listening might be saying the same thing. They're like, oh, I exercise so well all the time, but I'm not getting the results that I want. Well, because you're ignoring the other two dimensions. If you just exercise, you're not going to get there. If you exercise and eat right, you're still not going to get there. You've got to manage the psychological aspect of it.

Because your self image will manifest. Now, I don't believe we can do a rain dance and make it rain. Maybe some people can. But I do believe that we have 100% unchallengeable control over our own bodies. Because right now I can say a word, whatever that word might be, and you'll have a physiologic response to that word. If I say baby or sunset or.

Racism, total different response, right? It's just a word, right? But psychologically, it told your body, it told your adrenal glands to release the cortisol or adrenaline or whatever it might be, and you had a reaction. Different people have different reactions to different things. So if that person is exercising and eating right, but psychologically they're not controlling their thoughts in a way that makes their body respond to their exercise. They want. And here's how I know they're not doing it. When they're sitting at that exercise bike pedaling and sweating, they're reading a magazine.

Now, there's nothing wrong with reading a magazine, but there's such a thing as a mind body connection. But if your mind is on the story you're reading and your body's doing something else, they're not going to make. What if while you're sitting on that bicycle pedaling, you're going through your affirmations, why am I pedaling? Because I want my outside and my insides to match. That's why I'm working so hard, because I want my appearance to represent who I really am on the inside. That's why I'm exercising. And you talk to yourself and you tell yourself, you visualize, hey, I keep doing this. I'm going to get here, I'm going to do this. I'm going to look like I'm going to fit into that dress. But now is not the time for you to be reading a magazine. Do 100% mind, body and soul, beyond the one thing you're doing, which is exercise.

And it sounds, it's like, it's kind of a meditative practice. It's, you know, like where you. Because meditation. A lot of times people think it's just sitting still, doing nothing. But you can do mindfulness and meditation while moving, like exercising. And that's a perfect. I think that's a great example of it, like where you're actually helping your mind be in the present moment, doing your present activity. And it, It's a practice, you know, of course, it doesn't mean your brain stands still like you're saying. You can kind of use it as a chance to have your practice, your affirmations or, or just be present, noticing your breath. But it actually, then you're. You're kind of exercising your nervous system, doing some neuroplasticity while you're working out your muscles. So it's like the best multitasking you could probably think of, right?

Brilliantly put. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Be present.

I have patients who come because they fell down the stairs. Do you know, it's never someone else's house that they fell down the stairs on. It's their own house. It's their own home, their own stairs. It's the same stairs that have been going up and down a thousand times. So why they trip and fall on those stairs and not on the other stairs is because that's when they're not present. They're going up the stairs, but their mind is on something else. Hey, I got to pay that bill, you know. Haven't you ever driven, let's say you're driving from work to home in the evening and you get home and you don't remember if you stopped at the stop sign or at the red light or not, because you were on autopilot, which means you weren't present. We are 80% of the time, some people say 90% of the time, we're not present.

We're running automatic thoughts, automatic actions. We do the same thing. We don't think about our teeth when we're brushing them. We just do it. It's automatic. We've been doing it so many times that it's become automatic. But even if you do that more Consciously and be present. You're going to get better results. So do your best to always be present, always be conscious. You'll never trip and fall down the stairs. You'll get in fewer car accidents or all of that changes. It's like, I think it's Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about if you're getting ready to go on a date, and this is a date you've been looking forward to, and you can't wait to go on this date with this special person. And you just know you're going to fall in love. It's your first date, but you already are so excited about it. How do you do your hair or how do you dress? You're not on autopilot anymore. You pay attention to every little detail. Your face, your hair, your body, your clothes, your shoes, your belt, whatever, everything. You're present. But when you're getting ready just to go to work in the morning and you're doing the same thing every day, you're not present. Which one's giving you better results? You're present. Just work on being present all the time. Figure out what's going to bring me back to earth right now and where I am. We're both sitting down. I assume neither of us are thinking about the chair we're sitting on. Are you standing?

Actually, I use this. I use a standing desk. I was going to ask you. I have Ehlers Danlos syndrome. And one of the things I learned about my body and my posture is I can't sit all day. I'll be in pain. So I use the standing desk. So I'm most always standing. But I agree with you. Like, before I realized that I wasn't paying attention to my posture. I was like the classic person with my legs tucked up under me and sitting sideways. And of course, it's manifested in all kinds of neck pain and headaches until I was like, I can't do that. I gotta be. I gotta be standing and moving and paying attention to my posture.

Yeah, well, I'm glad you're doing the right things. That's a tough thing with the ligaments, being relaxed and all that stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But to your point, it's. It's something where I think we. A lot of times we're not as conscious about our body and body position while we're, like, on the phone or working on our computer. Like, we. You lose track of the environment and your body in your environment, you know, because I think it's likely because we're just so focused on. I Got to get these tasks done in this amount of time and there's some deadline and I got to get somewhere. And so it ends up, we put ourselves aside really and this comes back to a point you made early on is we really, it comes back to we have to prioritize ourselves, our self care so that we're even able to be present for the other people in our lives and for the things we want to get done. You know, we have to in some ways reprioritize ourselves, including how you're sitting during the day. You know, it could be as simple as that. That could make a big difference.

Something a lot of people don't know is that too much stress can actually create an abundance of health problems like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, anxiety, migraines, insomnia, even fertility issues. This is because high stress puts your adrenal glands on overload. They release cortisol and adrenaline which controls your digestion, hormones, immune system, energy focus and even your emotional response. So how can you beat stress when you don't know where to start? That's why we have a free 7 day stress reset program. It's designed to help support support weight loss, digestive healing and hormone balancing. It includes support for integrating self care. Daily tips come to you by email and video. Gluten free dairy free meal plans as well as grocery shopping lists, journal pages and more. This free program will help you beat stress and put you on the path to wholeness in your body. Get your plan now for free@drdonnie.com you.

Know the number one most impactful thing to be present for.

And when you do this, it will have incredible results in your body, your health, your mood, everything is the time when you eat.

Such a good point. Yes.

You know you talked about the nervous system and how the body has this fight or flight response. Well when do most people eat? Breakfast is on the go. They're probably even in their car eating, driving, angry with rush hour traffic and they're talking on the phone with their colleague doing all of that. Well, how does the body know what to respond to? The body will be in sympathetic overdrive, which is fight or flight. Fight or flight is when your pupils dilate, blood leaves your face, blood leaves your hands and feet, goes to the muscles, blood leaves your internal organs. Two systems slow down when you're in fight or flight. When you're angry, you're upset, you're stressed. The negative stress is two systems are your immune system and your digestive system. That's why people who are in chronic Long term stress, fight or flight all day, every day. They have chronic sinus infections, they're constipated all the time. If you ask some questions, they'll have high blood pressure and a higher pulse rate. They'll have dry eyes, dry mouth, dry skin, cold hands and cold feet. All of that has to end. Indigestion too, because that slow digestion is indigestion. All of that is one syndrome, which is sympathetic overdrive. They're in fight or flight. When we sit down to eat, even if you're busy, if you just took time, I'll tell you this, you've heard of the French paradox? French paradox is in France, they eat wine, cheese and bread with every meal. And they're immune to heart disease, they are immune to obesity, they're immune to diabetes. They don't get any of it. They're fine. So why is it that they can eat all that stuff and they don't get sick? We eat the same thing or we don't eat those things. We're super careful about, oh, let's make sure we're gluten free and lower the processed carbs. And we still have so much obesity. What's the difference? And the difference is this one thing is when the French and I went and stayed with friend of mine in France for five, six weeks and we hung out with the locals and literally mealtime is sacred. You don't rush the meal.

You don't rush. You sit down. I mean, it was like that in Iran, where I grew up.

Everybody shut down. The malls, retail stores, everything shut down at noon. You went home, you change. Here's the funny part, we would change to our pajamas before we sat down to eat lunch. This is middle of the day.

So even like physically get yourself in the mindset of rest.

Yeah. You change to comfortable clothes, sit down around the table with everybody, eat a nice lunch, take a nap, and then you go back to work at like three in the afternoon.

Yeah. In Spain. I lived in Spain for a while. The siesta, right? It's the same. You just do a feed and do a siesta and take a break from work.

Absolutely, absolutely. Your mind needs to be in the right place. You can't be in fight or flight when you're eating. And if you do all the food, because you could eat really, really healthy food, but your body doesn't know how to process it when you're in fight or flight. And on the other hand, you can eat food that's not so healthy, like wine, cheese and bread. With every meal, but your body will process it because you're in a state to receive. That's why I always say a prayer of gratitude before you eat, because gratitude puts you in that state. Play some classical music, some baroque classical music to get your mind and body and soul into the right state of mind. Even if you're busy, let's say you're really. I mean, you know, in my office, we're a team of 11. We literally see 20 plus thousand patient visits a year. Very, very busy. We're always hiring, always growing, expanding. There are times where I only have 10, 15 minutes to eat lunch, but I'll take my 10, 15 minutes, I'll sit down, I'll put my food out, I'll relax, I'll say a little prayer of gratitude, I'll start eating, and I'll eat as if I have an hour. When my 10 minutes is up, I'll pack up my food, put it away, and go back to work. Because I don't want to rush. Because, yeah, I'll get less food in me, but the amount of food I get in will get processed the right way.

I love that. I love that idea. It's. It's like prioritizing the state you're in when you're eating versus the amount of food you're eating. Because sometimes we're so trained to go, oh, we got to eat everything on the plate. We got to get the meal in or whatever. Or of course, the other is the person who just ends up racing through the day and skipping the meal. But to be able to create that, like you said, sacred space, to be like, no, I'm gonna make sure my state is the most important thing, and then I'm going to get what food happens in that time period so that I'm getting the optimal experience from my digestion and then go back to work. So you're. Then you're going to be having better blood sugar, better nutrients, better digestion, immune system, everything you mentioned while you're doing your next few hours of work before your next meal. So I love it. It's like.

Supporting. I talk about it as supporting yourself under stress. Obviously, you have what would be considered a stressful day. It's not like you're saying, oh, I'm not going to practice, I'm not going to see this many patients. No, you're saying, I'm going to see as many patients as I can, but I'm also going to take care of myself and make sure that I'm supported under stress. It's awesome. So a great example, and I think your book, is it called Stress Proof? Like, I like that. Like how you said, this is how you can be stress proof. Is that how you say it?

Yeah, that one I wrote, and I mean, I finished it, I think in 2016. I just finished another one called Tame youe Stress Monkey. And that one, I don't know when it'll come out. Right now we have an agent who's representing it, and we'll see if a publisher picks it up, but.

It'S a little more in depth. But, yeah, that first one's on Amazon. And, you know, speaking of stress proof, even stress proof is not the right word. Nassim Taleb wrote a book called Antifragile.

Have you heard of it?

I know about the Antifragile concepts. Yeah. In his book. Yeah.

So it's not even being resilient. It's that you become better when you break, you become better. There are so many people. This is the part of stress where everyone says, I hate it when you talk about stress like that. But I want to do it because it's important. We have people who had a heart attack, and they're walking around saying, the heart attack was the best thing that ever happened to me because now they're running marathons.

It's a teacher. It can teach us, basically.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Understand and accept that the stress that came to your life is actually good for you. Why do people climb Mount Everest? I mean, don't they, like, one out of every five people die who tries to climb Mount Everest? I mean, it's just an incredible thing. Why are you risking your life to climb a mountain? So that you can take a picture at the top, at the summit? Is that why? Because we can. Super.

You know, but it's not that. It's not the picture. It's who you become. You put yourself through that stress, low oxygen, difficult environment, steep climb, danger, falling, getting scratched up, scraped up, carrying things, all that risking your life. But when you get through it, you come down that mountain. The person that started climbing is not the same person that came down the mountain. That's a whole different person. And now that person knows I conquered the mountain. I am a mountain conqueror. Right? So you take on a challenge and you go, oh, that's too stressful. I'm not going to do it anymore. You have a dream. I'm going to write a book someday. I have severe dyslexia. After I wrote my book, I couldn't read it to edit it, so I had to hire someone to read it to me over the phone, and I would edit it by listening to it.

But I didn't know I had dyslexia until, like, four years ago. For the first four years of my life, I thought I was dumb and slow, and that meant I had to work harder. I had to stay up all night and study so I could get the same grades that everybody else get, learn the same things that everybody else learns. So it served me. It was a gift. It was a good thing. Now I know how to work hard. Now I know if something looks hard, I go, well, I can do it. I don't mind hard work.

I have to figure out how I'm going to do it. And I love this concept of how a challenge or a stress in our life can be transformational and to shift that mindset or framework in terms of how we look at it as these opportunities for growth. And, you know, I think, you know, really, ultimately, you know, when we think of our purpose as humans on earth, you know, one of them that some people would think of is for growth. You know, that we're here to grow and learn about ourselves and the world around us. And if stress gives that opportunity to grow, then that is a gift.

Yeah. Yeah. The ultra healthy and the ultra successful always have a different relationship with stress. They don't shy away from it. They don't hide from it. They don't avoid it. They don't try to reduce it. That's not the goal. The goal is never to reduce stress. I mean, I can tell you how to reduce stress. Leave your family and quit your job.

There's gonna be other stresses, because then you don't have support, you don't have a family, you don't have an income.

Either way, you got stressed. It's like they say, you're either in the pain or you're in the pain. You're either in the pain of change or you're in the pain of regret. You know, same thing with this. You're in the stress of working towards your dream, or you're in the stress of just trying to survive because you don't have what you want. I even firmly believe that health and success kind of go hand in hand. Because if you're not doing the things you love doing and succeeding at it, being healthy is worthless. Why are you healthy then? The reason you're healthy is so you can serve.

So just being healthy and not serving and going after your goals and dreams is almost a waste. On the other hand, people who go after success, you know, they Climb that corporate ladder. They make it and they have everything, but they sacrifice their health. That's worthless, too, because how are you going to enjoy it now?

Their life is going to be shortened.

And everyone says you can't have it both ways. You can't take care of your health and take care of your career. But I think there's only one way to do it, which is take care of both. You have to, because one serves the other and you got to do it. So never, ever, ever reduce stress. Always. In fact, say, I want to increase my stress. I'm going to add a little bit of stress. And when I get stronger, it's like going to the gym, right? Let's say I'm bench pressing, right? And let's say can bench press £100 and I want to get stronger. Reducing the weight isn't going to make me stronger. I have to add a little bit of weight, challenge myself. Once I learn to lift 110 pounds, then I can add another 10 pounds and try for 120 and start growing that way. Add stress, do not reduce stress. Bring in the stress, grow into it, learn from it, and trust that. What if, when a bad situation arises, the first thing you say is, I don't know how, but something good is going to come out of this and.

You just have to trust. Yeah, yeah.

Well. And you made me think, like with I mentioned Ehlers Danlo and my joint issues, it's really taught me exactly along the lines of what you're saying is that, like, lifting weight actually really helps my body because then my muscles get stronger and they can hold my joints in place. But what I've had to learn is I can't lift the weights the same way other people do. I need to maybe go in smaller increases in weight and in different sets and different timelines and different types of exercises. But I still need to challenge my body in a way to help keep my joints strong and in place. Otherwise I become vulnerable to injuries, more likely to have injuries than other people. And so, again, just an example of how our bodies can teach us that we need to find that challenge, but it has to be individualized. You know, how to find for you what is the right exercise that's a challenge. Or what is the other challenge, even emotionally in your life, that you want to choose that's right for you and. But also the right support in the process so that you can be successful with it.

Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic. It's a great example because, you know, I am a little familiar with eds And I do know what you go through and what you could be going through. But here you are smiling and living your life and producing and serving others and, and helping and providing and all of that. Two people could have the same thing. One will put it to good use and make something happen out of it, learn from it, grow into it, and someone else will give in and not do it. So good job.

Thank you. And I'm really inspired by your story about dyslexia, too, because it's true. I think a lot of people have lived most of their life without realizing that they have a challenge like that. And then when you do find out, like say, when I found out I had ehlers download, it's validating. Like, when we can learn something about our body that's sort of something that's part of us, it's validating because we're like, okay, this is the challenge here that I'm dealing with. But it also can be inspiring because then you can, you know, get that transformation that you're talking about where you can go, okay, let me figure out what it is. My body and my brain and my, you know, on those three levels you're talking about, right? On the chemical, physical, emotional level, to support my body the way it is, with its challenges, you know, to. To be able to serve my purpose and serve others. I love. I love it. This has been so great to talk with you. I want to make sure that anyone who wants to stay in touch with you or learn more from you or speak with you, is it best to go to your website or.

Yeah, well, we have two websites. One is Dr. Rashidian.com the other is Mid Atlantic. And then our YouTube channel is Real Chiropractic. So YouTube.com realchiropractic and we have a lot of videos on that. In fact, we just started a video series. So most of the videos are success stories of people who got phenomenal results. And then I have a patient who has been coming for two months, two to three months getting chiropractic care, hasn't gotten better at all, still has the same pain she had when she started. She's been suffering for a long time. And I said, hey, let's. Let's put you on YouTube because I want everybody to see not everyone's going to get great results in chiropractic. And it's not this magical cure all. Let's have them. Are you okay with them watching you get adjusted, all that? So we've got some stories of different people on the YouTube channel and some of these concepts. There's videos on that, things about ADHD and the French paradox, like we talked about, and stress and different ways of exercising to benefit your body and so on. So that's there. So that'd be the. The best way.

Real. You said real, like R E a L. Real chiropractic, right?

Yes.

Okay. And then Rashidian is R A S H I D I A N. So, Dr. Rashidian.com, right?

Yeah. Very good. Excellent. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. It's been so great to talk with you and to talk about these concepts because sometimes it can be hard to really get the concept and really understand how it can not only influence how we are today, but how we can be in our future. And so it's great to be able to talk it through with you and see how you've been figuring this out over the years.

Yeah. We have been given a gift, which is innate wisdom, innate intelligence. It's how your body knows to take what you eat and turn it into a human being. How incredible is that?

That's a great way to say it.

You know, you can eat, I don't know, a banana, and it becomes a human being because your body. Because most people think, oh, I eat, and it turns into energy, and it sustains me through energy. That's not all it is. Do you know your skin cells are dying? Every 30 days, you have brand new skin. Every 30 days, you have brand New bones. Every 90 days, you have brand new liver. Every 24 days, you have brand new taste buds. Every eight days, your lungs, brand new. Every seven years, the lining of your stomach every two and a half, three and a half days. Everything's repairing and regenerating. So you eat some broccol. Broccoli. And your brain and your nervous system will take that broccoli and turn it into liver cells, and it will replace the liver cells that just died yesterday. How amazing and incredible is that? If your body is that intelligent, that's awesome, that it can do all these things. You don't have to think about it. You don't have to tell your heart to beat. You don't have to tell your lungs to breathe. It just does it. We have that gift. We have to trust it and then enable it, which means from an external internal environment, and then remove anything that interferes with the nervous system, and then you're going to thrive and you're going to be amazing. Your body will be like the New York Philharmonic playing incredible, harmonious, magical music.

Love it. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for sharing that and I look forward to staying in touch with you and talking again soon.

Likewise. Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

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