Mark Krassner Founder of Expectful a Meditation App for Pregnancy and Beyond

Soft spot for kids, soft spot for impact, you know, and I really thought to myself, like, how can I combine my passion for entrepreneurship with social impact? When I was kind of searching around for something, meditation had such a big impact on my life, I ended up finding all this research that nobody was talking about that shows that emotional states during and after pregnancy can significantly impact the health of a child, a baby, in ways that last a lifetime, mentally, physically, and emotionally. And it's just a huge gap in pre- and postnatal care. I mean, mental health can have a big— as big an impact on baby health as nutrition and fitness. How amazing would society look if women had the knowledge that meditation was a tool that can really help them give their baby the best start in life and have— tap them into themselves, give them a healthier, happier pregnancy and postpartum experience?

Welcome to RX Chill Pill, the podcast that strengthens your resilient mind every time you listen to the extraordinary stories, expert tips, and medications to elicit your relaxation response, the antidote to your stress response. I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD. I'm a physician and mom specializing in mind-body and lifestyle medicine. Find out more about me, my personalized online courses on procrastination and mindset coaching for kids, teens, and adults at mindbodyspace.com. I'm so excited to have this conversation with Mark Krasner. He's the founder of Expect Expectful, the meditation app for fertility, pregnancy, and parenthood. Since its founding, Expectful has partnered with several universities to conduct research on the relationship between a mother's mind and her baby's health. We discuss how he came to his own meditation practice in his 20s and how it was instrumental in pivoting his career from an entrepreneur into a social entrepreneur. He says, quote, as my health happiness, relationships, and professional life improved significantly. I recalled my mother's struggles with anxiety and depression when she was raising me, and I wondered if meditation might be an especially great tool for new moms. End quote. Mark dug into research papers and found the harmful effects of maternal anxiety and depression on the unborn baby. He also found evidence that meditation could help with fertility, pregnancy, and maternal health. Mark wanted to transform the lives of parents and the next generation, so he put together a team and created meditations. He relied on an army of moms for input and created Expectful, the app. Expectful has been rated best app for pregnancy and recommended by 20,000+ moms and guides, including Fit Pregnancy, Thrive Global, Yoga Journey, Well+Good, and The Wall Street Journal. Mark talks about his road to entrepreneurship and how his college education did and didn't feed into this new role.

Juna Bobby MD.

So, Mark, I remember meeting you a couple of years ago when we were both giving a presentation at Mount Sinai, right?

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That was actually a really memorable moment because it was what people call a grand rounds. It's continued medical education that doctors do to keep up their license.

Right.

Of over, I believe it was 60 or 70 OB-GYNs that we were communicating with. And it was really powerful because we both had these semi-alternative— I don't know if you call them alternative messages, but certainly not the types of messages that these doctors would typically hear about. Mount Sinai is— they have New York City's largest birthing center. Um, and I— it was just such a profound opportunity, I felt, to make a real difference in this, in to for those practitioners to talk about really maternal and postnatal mental health, which to me is the biggest gap in pre and postnatal care right now. It's just not an area that's typically addressed by healthcare professionals in the space. There's lots of focus put on the body, but so little put on the mind. And so it was just such a cool thing to be there with all those practitioners and having them really give us their time and attention to talk about this stuff.

I know. And you know, you know what I remember actually?

What's that?

I remember getting stuck in the worst traffic and having to like, I think I texted you and asked if we could switch. And I just remember you being so wonderful and sweet and kind about it. That's actually what I remember about that day, your kindness.

Oh, thank you. I actually forgot about it, but now that you bring it up, I do remember you asking to switch and I was like, okay, let's roll with it.

We met for coffee afterwards, and I remember you telling me about why you started this whole Expectful thing. But I was really interested in the idea that you're, you've been an entrepreneur most of your adult life, right?

That's correct.

Yeah. So when you, you studied communications in college. What was the first thing you did when you got out of college?

When I got out of school, I was bartending at Dave Buster's. Do you know Dave Buster's?

No, no.

Dave Buster's. Pizzas is like a Chuck E. Cheese for adults. Okay, so they have a bar with all these crazy drinks and like food, kind of like, maybe like an Applebee's or TGI Friday's-esque, you know, maybe, maybe a little more like sparkly than theirs. They had a lot of interesting dishes and stuff like that. But you get the vibe. And attached to it was this crazy arcade with They had pool tables and not hockey, but all these games for adults that they could play.

Mm-hmm.

And, and so this was right after school. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I just backpacked around the Pacific Rim. Nice. And I, I had a one-way plane ticket to Argentina and I just spent 4 and a half months, turned it into this surfing trip, got back and I just had bartended through college and it's what I knew how to do. And I just, found a job at this place in my local mall, the Palisades Mall in Rockland County, and picked up this bartending position there and was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, actually, which is probably not the answer that you would have expected to hear, Juna.

No, not at all. I mean, it's fine, but I'm just— it sounds like an entrepreneur's story, actually. So what snapped you from that into— what was your first business, or what did you do after that?

Well, I got fired from Dave Buster's.

Okay, now I know why we're kindred souls, because I've been fired from waitressing jobs.

Oh, love it.

Why'd you get fired?

So, um, they had a very— so you can come in there, families would come in, right? And so obviously it was like, you know, uh, anyone could get in but it's 21 to drink. And if so, family came up to the bar right? It was two parents and their daughter, uh, who looked like she could have easily been 21. And they ordered, they ordered a few drinks. And, um, because the parents were there and they ordered, they ordered a piña colada among other drinks that they ordered. And so I served them and they never specified that they wanted a virgin piña colada for their daughter who was underage. So I, I served it to them and then a bouncer sees her walking around with a piña colada and asks for her ID. Oh my gosh, she doesn't have one. And they have a very strict policy about this. So I got let go. I got the only job I ever got fired for was right after I was out of college, after I got my college degree from the University of Buffalo. And suddenly I'm out of a job because I mistakenly served this, this drink unknowingly to somebody who's underage. Yeah.

So, and, you know, I'm happy as a mom to hear that they're so strict about that.

But But it turned out that it was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it would've looked considerably different if I didn't get let go from that position when I did.

Mm-hmm.

Because my best friend from college was doing a— he took a year off in between college and med school.

Mm-hmm.

And he was working, he was, he's, he's now a doctor, uh, an emergency medicine doctor. And he was working at an orthopedic surgeon's office in his year off. To get some experience and see what was going on. And he would meet a lot of people through that, including the sales reps that would come in. And he'd always tell me about one, he thought my personality was perfectly suited to be a medical device sales rep. Well, he would always tell me about this, Mark, you'd be so great at this. You know, it's really, it's actually transferable from bartending if you think about it, because it was very personable position. You meet a lot of people, you get to, you hear people's stories. That's really a lot of—

Well, you were also a communications major, right?

That's correct. Yes. Yeah.

Did that help you?

Not really, to be honest. You know, it's one of my— again, I know I'm throwing you a few curveballs on this interview here.

Yeah, no, it's fine.

But when I was in school, I really just wanted to get a degree. I didn't really have a specific area that— a specific thing I was interested in. And I was always good with communicating. And so I just opted into this major because I thought it would be a great way to just get through college, basically. You know, I wasn't really in a place where I was— I didn't know what my vocation was. You know, I was just trying to get a degree, which I thought was important, something that would be important to have for my life. But it wasn't like, oh, I know what I want to do for the rest of my life. Communication was broad enough that it wouldn't pigeonhole me, which is really what I was looking for. But I would say the skills that I learned in college about interacting with people and you know, things of that nature were helpful. But I would say that—

So that's interesting to me. So like, you totally don't fall back on anything that you learned in school, you think?

I would say that pretty much no. There's some psychology stuff that I found to be very— some philosophy stuff that broadened my mind, which I was very interested in. But that was actually my freshman year of college is when I took philosophy. And it was just a really interesting course that helped expand my thinking. And I took another course called Psychohistory that talked about how different cohorts of society or different societies are impacted, um, by what's going on in the culture and how that affects things. So we, we studied World War II from a, almost like we psychologically unpacked what was going on with people during that time versus the normal way you'd look at history, which is through, um, economics. Basically.

Um, right.

So those things were really interesting, but I would say that no, I, I'd say I could probably have done everything that I've done with my career. Uh, if nobody required a college degree, which actually my first position, I don't think I, I basically think I could have done everything that I've done without a college degree in my life.

That is so interesting.

I took a very circuitous route to get to where I am. My parents were definitely very concerned at the time, I think, in my lack of direction. Couldn't hold down a, a bartending job at Dave Buster's.

Uh-huh. But then I know you went into that whole orthopedic field, right?

That's right.

And you did it, you started your own company.

I did. Well, first I ended up through my friend, I ended up getting a job with a medical device sales company. And I did that for a while. First I supported a sales team, then I was on it, then I managed it, and then I trained reps for the company that I worked for. So I had a real knack for that. And along the lines, I ended up seeing an opportunity to start a business that sold a product that would, a niche medical mobility device that helped people with foot and ankle injuries. Lingerie. Mm-hmm. And I did that for quite some time. And the main motivation with that was really lifestyle. You know, I started the business to earn, earn money and be location independent was the main goal. So I started this thing, it was a completely remote team from all over the United States. It was actually a lot of moms that wanted the opportunity to work from home, which was great to give them a really awesome position.

And yay moms, right? I love moms, right?

Me and you both, Juna.

Yeah. How did you meet all these moms that you hired?

How did we—

did you hang out with moms somewhere?

You know, okay, so when I first started the business, we, we were a rental company, so we bought this product called a knee walker from, um, other manufacturers, and when we sold them— so I had to— I started the business with my own money, so I had to figure out how to do it lean, in a lean way, right? And so, and I didn't want to immediately quit my job to start the business because I wanted to make sure that it was working and my salary would have been a lot to support for a fledgling startup. So I found a mom in Pennsylvania who used to work for my company and left because she wanted to focus on being a mom and be home with her children. And I brought her on and she had a huge basement. And the way the company started is we bought our initial inventory and stored them in her basement. And we had FedEx come to her home once a day to pick up any orders that she got. And we had a 1-800 number that routed to her cell phone so she could take orders from anywhere. And, um, and that's how it kind of started. I put brochures out in all the doctor's offices that I worked with that wanted to help and support me. And the business kind of started that way. And then as we grew, it got to be too much for the initial woman we hired, Jodi, the initial mom. And so then we hired a second mom who, same thing, she wanted the opportunity to work from home, be with her children.

So, but you knew them in person?

No, I met them online. I met them through the first one I knew through people in my network, right? And then the second person I met same thing through people in my network. And then, and then we said, oh, there's a really good thing here because, um, moms are looking for the opportunity to work from home and they, they're great, they're great team members to have. And so then we started looking for them in different places and it turns out that work from home jobs is a thing that like moms are really looking for a lot of the time so they can spend time with their children. And we were able to provide that for them through the position. Um, so we ended up.

So if there are moms listening and they want to get jobs that they can do from home, where would they hang out, like online, you know, to find people like you?

It's been a while. I think there's a site called hiremymom.com. Hmm. It was, it was up and we definitely found some members of our team from that site. But we also posted in places like Indeed and things like that. But I think there are job boards specifically for people who want to be location independent. And I think it's just—

but not for moms specifically.

Not for moms specifically, but we weren't necessarily hiring moms specifically. It's just the people that we ended up hiring were moms.

I think that's— that would be an amazing business opportunity, just get moms, because they're, they're like a special breed, right?

I, I agree. I mean, moms are— they're superheroes, truly absolute superheroes. Yeah. So, so I did that for a while. And as while I was doing that, I kind of, I kind of reached the goal that I set for that business, which was I wanted to be anywhere in the world and being able not, not be like tied down to a specific location and live a comfortable life or, you know, live well.

That's right.

And I found myself in Brazil.

Oh, wow.

And I was working in between surf sessions. And so I'd kind of achieved this quote unquote dream.

Yeah.

And I felt kind of empty, actually. It wasn't— I wasn't as happy as I expected to be. Well, the reason that I was dissatisfied is because it felt a little— it was really all about me. You know, I felt really good about how well we took care of our team because, well, this is— if anybody's listening and wants the opportunity to work from home, you should know that a lot of times companies really exploit people in those positions. And, you know, they're just— I heard a lot of stories from our team members about the way that they were treated. So it felt really good to create an awesome employment space for them, or, you know, a nice culture where they were really valued and had the opportunity for growth and things like bonuses and raises and stuff like that, you know, um, that a lot of other companies out there unfortunately don't afford that opportunity. I'm sure there are plenty of great opportunities out there. We just found that was something that I heard a lot. But aside from that, it was really all about Mark and his lifestyle, you know. And I started a nonprofit with a good friend that supported underserved elementary schools in the Philippines with lunches because a lot of kids in these remote parts of the Philippines, in an island called Cebu, were malnourished because they didn't have food to bring to school, or a lot of it, or good food to bring to school. Um, and I was really lit up by that experience of being a part of that, going out to the Philippines.

So you were out there?

I was out there briefly just to see the impact of the donations at the schools, you know. Yeah, it's a beautiful, beautiful area. Great people too.

And you've done other startups, right?

Well, aside from— those were the two. I also sat on the board of Kindness.org for a while, but the two things that I—

So that was Kindness, right? Kindness.org, right?

But it was the knee walker business and then the not-for-profit that I got involved in with a good friend. And it was the not-for-profit that really made me realize that I could be a lot happier if I was doing something that contributed to people more than just myself. Because the feeling I got if we had a great sales month at my other business, it was actually nothing compared to the satisfaction that I got out of raising money for these kids or seeing the looks on their faces when we opened a new school and they all got this amazing lunch for the first time, you know?

And so, so you have like a soft spot for kids, right?

Soft spot for kids, soft spot for impact, you know? And I really thought to myself, like, well, how can I combine my passion for entrepreneurship with social impact. And that's when I was kind of searching around for something. Meditation had such a big impact on my life. And I ended up finding all this research that nobody was talking about, that shows that emotional states during and after pregnancy can significantly impact the health of a child, a baby, in ways that last a lifetime, mentally, physically, and emotionally. And as we spoke about when we first got our conversation going, it's just a huge gap in pre- and postnatal care. I mean, mental health can have as big an impact on baby health as nutrition and fitness. And yet there's tons of focus on nutrition and fitness and prenatal vitamins and things like that. But the conversation—

Well, also, if you don't have mental health, then you're not going to do— you're not going to exercise or eat as well, right? That's correct.

Yeah.

So, um, I— when did you start meditating and why? I started as a young man.

Yeah, I started meditating about, I think it's almost 8 years ago now. And I was, I was just going through a rough time in my life. I got out of a serious relationship with somebody that I'd lived with. And, uh, I was riding a lot of emotional waves as a result of that. So I turned to meditation hoping it would help me cope. And at first I wasn't sure if it was really doing anything for me. And about 6 weeks into my practice, I was biking to, uh, an appointment that I was running late for, and I pulled my bike up outside of the meeting place, and I went to go lock it, and my lock was getting jammed. It wasn't working. And for whatever reason, that would have been the type of situation that would just have crawled under my skin, and I would have lost my cool. And typically, I would have started jamming one end of the lock into the other as hard as I could, and would have gotten really red, and it would have grunted a lot, right? I would have just lost it. Yeah. And in this particular moment, I looked at the lock and I took a deep breath, and I made a conscious decision not to get frustrated. I saw the frustration beginning to arise within me, and I said, I don't want to feel this way. And instead of being overcome with frustration, I again took a deep breath, focused more intently on the lock, made it come together gently instead of forcefully. And probably at like 3 times the speed, you know, or yeah, I probably sped up the amount of time it would've taken to lock it. It happened very fast. Once I got present and focused, I had a moment where I said, oh, that was my meditation practice showing up for me. And when I saw that real world result and saw the opportunity to have such a gap between stimulus and response and to be able to change my reactions to things, then I was hooked. And yeah, that was really the beginning. Mm-hmm.

What about like relationship-wise? Did you see any difference when you started to meditate?

Well, I was single at the time, you know, but I think just in general with friends and people, yeah, I started to become a lot more aware of things. I think a lot of my life was very unconscious. I was unaware of a lot of the decisions I was making. I wasn't very discriminant about the relationships that I, I had, like with friendships, um, and things of that nature. And so, and even, even work is a great example because I think my life was just— I think a lot of things were just very unexamined. That meditation sort of— when I became present, I started to examine these things. Like I started examining how do I actually feel at work, right? So I was able to check in with myself to see, oh, I'd probably feel a lot better if I was doing something that had purpose. I was, I was actually aware enough to realize that you know, aware enough to realize that maybe some people that were in my life at the time weren't the right people to have in my life to be as happy and productive as I could possibly be, you know?

And right. And, um, what about surfing though? Surfing is kind of meditative, isn't it? Like you just, you have to be in the moment.

Yes.

To surf.

That is correct.

So you surf a lot. Do you still surf?

I love to. I'm honestly not that great at it. Um, and really? Yeah. And, but I enjoy it when I do. And I'm here in Brooklyn, so I don't do it as much as I'd like, but I've done it on trips. So I've done a lot of surfing in Brazil and Costa Rica and Nicaragua. And I like to go out to California and ride waves sometimes. But I'd love to live by a surf beach and really adopt that more. But it is an incredibly meditative experience. And I find that, yeah, I do generate a lot of those zen-like states when I surf. It's not just meditation that could take me there.

So how is it different when you're like physically forced into a meditative state versus the kind of peace that you get when you're sitting meditating? And I guess I should say, like, sometimes when you're sitting, you're not always in peace, right?

That's true.

Just kind of—

yeah, it's interesting. Um, it really depends on the moment. It kind of like meditation when you're surfing, the conditions vary., the quality of the waves vary, the experience varies. And so it really depends. Um, I think if I'm reaching the apex of a meditation or I'm reaching the apex of a surfing session, they might not be that different. I, I would just say that the surfing is probably a bit more gratifying because it's this beautiful interaction with myself, which I get through meditation, but also with nature. So there's a lot of times I love to surf during the sunset. And so the, the sun is setting and it's glimmering, it's shimmering over the water, and I'm interacting with the water. I'm riding— I'm actually riding water on my surfboard, um, and I'm interacting with nature in this beautiful way. So if I had a choice between the two, it's surfing. Um, but both, yeah, both create like just beautiful states of mind and relieve a lot of tension and stress and keep me in the present moment.

And I know you, um, trained with, uh, I think Tom Knowles, or you did a mantra meditation.

Yeah, I do.

Is that what you learned how to do?

I actually trained with Emily Fletcher, who was—

who trained with Tom Knowles, right?

Yeah.

Tom Knowles is actually my meditation teacher.

Oh, cool. Amazing.

The meditation that he taught me was one of the most efficacious for me, and I know there's many different types, so I'm not saying that there's one way to do it. The way he taught me was, I found to be the most relaxing and the most easiest. For me. And how did you find it?

It was incredible.

I went to him because somebody told me about him and I just happened to just— I'm just interested in getting to know all different types of meditation. So that's why I ended up in one of his talks. Oh, beautiful.

You know, so his meditation, like you said, he calls it Vedic meditation. That's his technique for your listeners. And it's very similar to a different technique that's a bit more popular called Transcendental Meditation. Um, but they're both mantra-based. They both, um, you, you repeat a Sanskrit word to yourself, um, for 20 minutes. And when you realize you're not, inevitably you'll start thinking, you wanna bring your mind back to that mantra very gently. And you're just, both of them encourage you to do it 20 minutes twice a day. It's a specific type of meditation technique that, um, I, I've certainly enjoyed. You know, I practice other types as well, but I, Vedic meditation is a great way to relieve stress.

Yeah, so I mean, I trained at the Benson-Henry Institute at Mind-Body Medicine at Harvard, and Dr. Benson, everybody always asks him, and he was— he actually did his research on mantra meditators, and it was to lower blood pressure. Everybody always asks him like, what is the minimum amount of time that I have to sit in order to get the benefits, the physiologic benefits, mental benefits? And he always says like 17 and a half minutes.

Oh wow.

Is the minimum that they've seen, uh, changes on the MRI scan of your cortex. So when I did train at the Benson-Henry Institute, they did talk about doing 20 minutes twice a day. And I know that that's what you do on good days, you know.

I mean, on great days, I'll meditate for an hour in the morning. That's like my favorite, you know.

Wow.

Which is just so awesome. But, um, my ideal is 20 minutes twice a day, but a lot of times Like this morning, I was short on time, I chose to be in the gym more than I chose to meditate. Since I was short on time, I did a 5-minute meditation instead of my usual minimum of 20, but I'll probably meditate later today. So, I don't always get 20 minutes twice a day, but I will say that my life runs optimally well on 20 minutes twice a day. It is like the second meditation midday is like the greatest life hack. Forget about coffee.

Oh yeah, you do it in the afternoon then, right?

Yeah, it gives me so much energy to power through the day. So much better than a cup of coffee. There's no letdown. It just gives me so much energy.

Right, but as you said, like sometimes you just only have 5 minutes and then you want to do your exercise and that's fine too. Exactly.

Yeah, it really depends on your preferences. I mean, if you have the time, definitely. I mean, but yeah.

And what do you use mostly? Do you use like a recording or do you set it on your phone?

Well, you mean it's been medic, so just the mantra. I'll repeat the mantra to myself. I really like the Waking Up app by Sam Harris is great. So I've done, but I really like that. And I really think that for any hopeful pregnant or new moms listening, I think Expectful is an, it's really, it's a really great resource that we put together. It's one of a kind. It's only one like it. And there are meditations for, for example, for fertility, if you're trying to conceive, for the 2-week wait and other typical challenges that arise. We're about to launch an IVF library of meditations there. We have for pregnancy a meditation for every single week of pregnancy that connects you with the developmental changes with your baby, meditations to help you connect with your baby, meditations to help you connect with your partner.

Yeah, it sounds amazing, and I'm definitely going to have notes on it. How is Expectful going for you now?

It's going great.

Are you still privately owned?

We took on some investor capital, so we have some shareholders that are part of the company. Um, yeah, we love our investors. Um, and it's just been an exciting time. We keep adding to our library. We, we're really listening to our audience. You know, we actually never touched on that. I don't have kids, come to think of it, but I interviewed a lot of women and we had a bunch of like moms inform the product that are, you know, have been on the team or are on the team for things that they need and want to see in the platform, and we're adding it. So recently we launched a whole library of meditations just for pregnancy loss, for miscarriage and stillbirth.

I saw that. That's amazing.

That feels so good to put out there because there's so few resources to support that community. And 1 in 5, 1 in 5 pregnant, 1 in 5 women are going to experience a miscarriage, or 1 in— not even 1 1 in 5 women, it's 1 in 5 pregnancies. So it could even be more than that.

I know.

Yeah.

So let's go back to, um, why you started Expectful. I mean, you know that my whole thing is about prevention, right?

Yes.

And if I can have my way, I would— well, first I would reach the moms, then I would reach the kids at certain times in their lives that are critical, you know, going into school and transition from middle to high school. And you're— what you're doing is awesome because you're actually going all the way back for until when the mom is actually pregnant.

Yes, yes, exactly.

I love that you're doing that.

Yeah, when I found— I just found all this research that nobody was talking about, right, that we spoke about, the mind-baby connection, what I would call it, and realize it's a totally unaddressed area. And I got very connected to that as we spoke about because of my connection to my my mom grew up in a very traumatic environment as a child and has struggled with anxiety and depression and anger. And the thought was, is one, how amazing would society look if women had the knowledge that meditation was a tool that can really help them give their baby the best start in life and have, tap them into their themselves, give them a healthier, happier pregnancy and postpartum experience. And then had a tool to make the practice really easy, right? To make it really simple to learn and practice. And so on the societal level, that was just such an incredible thought. Like you're saying, it starts so early and have children raised by mindful parents. And then personally speaking, I was saying to myself, how cool would it have been if my mom had a tool like this and had knowledge like this? What might her life have looked like? Because meditation totally And where is she? She's in a great place in her life. She's retired in Florida with my father. She's been taking antidepressants for the past decade, you know, and she's happy with that in her life. But the thought is, is, oh, maybe she could have found a more holistic, you know, way to navigate things. That would be really cool, you know.

And does she know what you're doing now? Does she like what you've put out there in the world?

She loves She loves it.

Yeah. Does she use it?

She's really proud. Well, you know, it's— we're for new moms, so we're really for like the first 3 years of motherhood. Okay. It's not really a product for my mom. But yeah, we've— sometimes when I go home, sometimes we'll sit and we'll meditate together, you know.

So she meditates now?

She does a little bit. She's more indulging me when I'm there. She's never developed a practice for herself. But I think, you know, in speaking out loud, I should probably do a better job of getting her into the practice, right?

I don't know. I mean, I guess if she, if she's open to it, right?

So yeah, I try not to be too prescriptive or give too much advice, you know, but I'd love to see her adopt more of the practice. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, medication is great when you need it, but definitely meditation on top of medication is even better or can substitute and prevent things. So yeah, thank you so much. And, and if we ever could meet up for coffee, I'd love that.

That sounds great. All right, cheers.

All right, Mark.

Okay, thank you, Juna Bobby MD. Take care, bye-bye.

That was Mark, social entrepreneur, showing us that you can make a difference by building businesses that help other people. Since we recorded this episode, Expectful has been growing exponentially with new rounds of investors and an exciting new CEO, Natalie Walton. She Natalie discovered evidence-based wellness tools, including meditation, when she found out that she was high risk for preterm labor. She used Expectful during her pregnancy, and shortly after giving birth, she partnered with them and began advising them. As a Black woman, Natalie also understands that the rate of Black mothers dying at childbirth are 3 to 4 times that of white mothers, and she's working to get Expectful into the hands of women who need it the most. Most. They've also partnered with Johnson Johnson in their Helping Hands program to give memberships to anyone in need. Find out more about the Expectful app and get your exclusive RxChill pill 14-day trial in the show notes at mindbodyspace.com, podcast episode number 60. Thank you so much for listening. Look out for the upcoming Monday meditation inspired by Mark for moms. As always, you can email me at podcast@mindbodyspace.com with questions for myself or my guests on our new Tuesday Q&A segment starting in 2021. This is Dr. Juna wishing you and your loved ones wellness.