Episode #72: Heal Your Busy Brain, with Dr. Romie Mushtaq

Hi, I'm Dr. Tabitha, the functional gynecologist. I'm a board certified OB, GYN and functional medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey. And I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. I want to be your functional gynecologist. So welcome. Hi, ladies. This episode is so good. I'm really excited. Excited. I just got done talking to Dr. Romy Mushtaq and it was a fun episode. Insightful and so chocked full of good, important information. And she is shedding light on such an important topic. Brain health. Right. There's my dog, as usual. So, brain health, we do not talk about enough like this. Adhd, insomnia, anxiety, panic attack, like all of these things that we're feeling. You know, you may be getting a diagnosis or you may feel like you have this going on, but we're not getting to the root cause. We're not talking about why this is happening. You know, it's more than just getting a diagnosis of something. It's figuring out why this is going on in your brain and then what we can do to shift out of that and get better to a healthy, functioning brain. So Dr. Romy's been doing so much amazing work in this space. She is a conventionally trained neurologist who has gone now on to become integrative medicine physician. And she's incorporating it all. She's a unicorn, just like me. I didn't, you know, every time I meet another unicorn, I'm just really excited because we have to get past this idea of you just search and search and search for a diagnosis and then you treat that diagnosis. You know, you find the right medication to go along with it. Because that is not where healing takes place. Healing takes place when you determine the root cause of the issues and then change those. You know, so much of our brain health has to do with thought patterns and behavioral health and how we function throughout the day. Those things can actually cause physical inflammation in the brain. And Dr. Romy is going to talk about all that. I just, I'm so excited for this conversation because I'm. You really are going to get something out of this today. This is very eye opening stuff. She even shocked me toward the end. She braced me. She's like, here I go. I'm about to like surprise you. So that was pretty awesome. You need to stay tuned and listen to like what the heck did she even surprise me with? But it's. I completely agreed like after she said it. So much good information. And I know this pertains to you because I'm seeing it all day long. Like almost every patient I see is struggling with some sort of brain inflammation and symptoms related to that. And so she's going to talk about why this is happening and more importantly what we can do about it.

Right.

She has a busy brain test that you can take. The link is in the show notes. I really urge you to do that. So good. And then follow her. But let me just sing her praises really quick before we get into it because Dr. Romy is. She's changing the world of neurology. I love it.

So.

So Dr. Romy Mushtaq is a board certified physician. She's an award winning wellness speaker and the founder of Brain Shift at Work. She brings together over 20 years of authority in neurology, integrative medicine and mindfulness to not just deliver programs, but create cultural change. She is on a mission to transform mental health in the workplace and currently works with Fortune 500 companies, professional athletes, global associations. Dr. Romy is also the chief Wellness officer for Evolution Hospitality where she scaled a mindfulness and wellness program to over 7,000 employees. That's so impressive. Her expertise is featured in the national media such as npr, NBC, TED Talks and Forbes. You can find the cure for your busy brain@drromi.com the link is in the show notes. Her, her social media handles are in the show notes, so definitely check her out. And I just want to point out like this woman is on a mission and we are in a diversity and inclusion committee together that we head up as part of the mindshare group that we're in. And the work that she is doing like continues to impress me. We are trying to, you know, bring cultures together to be representative in the functional and integrative space. We don't want, you know, just this one sided vision and we don't want it to be something that isn't available to all. You know, so often in our integrated and functional spaces we talk about eating clean, whole foods, like doing all of these things that sometimes people don't have resources or access to. And so, you know, that's part of the work that we're doing. But she is doing it on a larger scale. She is trying to really make this healthy lifestyle accessible for everyone. And I love that she has that mindset of inclusion. And so I just am a huge proponent of everything she's doing. I can't sing her praises enough. And I urge you to follow her and check her out. But today she is going to give you some actual tools, you know, so that you can start taking control of your busy brain and shifting what you got going on every day. Okay, so here we go. Well, welcome, Dr. Rominy, the Functional Gynecologist podcast.

Oh, my gosh. Dr. Tabitha, I'm so excited to be with you after we met in Mindshare. I love the work. I share it with all of our female employees. So thank you for having me today on a rainy day here in Florida, and I'm stuck in my home office in what used to be a dining room, and now it's like maybe a home office where my dog hangs out and where I meditate.

Oh, my gosh. You are so relatable. I think you and all the women listening have experienced that. Right. And it's raining up here in Michigan, so it's a dreary day, but we have to always find the light. You know, we got to keep going. And I think the way that you've pivoted is so beautiful. And I'm just excited for you to share your message and your insight, your wisdom with my listeners because it's so good. So thank you.

Thank you. Oh, my goodness. Where do we even begin to start? Tell me. Yes, Other than I used to live up in Michigan, I was on a high career trajectory path way not only as a neurologist, a brain doctor at a time where less than in the 1990s, less than 5% of brain doctors in the time in the country were women. I was also in academic medicine, and I did my epilepsy and epilepsy surgery fellowship up at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. And I grew up in the Midwest and I don't miss the winters, but if there was one place I would live, it would be back up in Ann Arbor.

Yes, it's a pretty awesome town. That was my rivalry, but I'll.

See. And this isn't exactly. I think we're bridge builders and we can all get along in today's world.

Exactly. No, I love everything that U of M is doing and, you know, good for you. So I have shared my story of burnout with my listeners in the past. You know, I went a whole decade of being an ob GYN and living a crazy stressed out, sleep deprived life. You know, you get it, being a physician. And I reached my burnout point. And that's why I felt so connected to you, because it's like you get it. And now you are taking that pain and finding your purpose and you're sharing it with others and you're helping people see that you don't have to reach the point of burnout. Right. Like, tell me your story. Tell the listeners.

Yeah. Dr. Tabitha, thank you so much for asking. You know, it's funny, people are like, oh, here's another burnout story. I will side eye. But can I tell you something? When I was going through it, it didn't have a name. It wasn't called burnout. Forget physician burnout. And now with a pandemic, you know, burnout is being recognized in corporate America. It was looked at. Well, she's a woman, a woman of color. She just can't handle it. Right? This is what happens when you let women into the academy. Literally, this is what they were saying. And I didn't know it was called burnout. All I knew was somewhere something happened, Dr. Tabitha, where instead of feeling excited and motivated to go to work, I would find myself crying on the way to work. And I was overwhelmed with, you know, we were the second hospital in the entire country to go onto electronic health records with the EPIC system. And so that was happening. And I was seeing patients teaching medical students doing really important research in how hormone hormones of a woman affect the brain and epilepsy and migraine. So I mean, I think this is why I just naturally am drawn to you and your work. And all I knew was I would have a witching hour somewhere between 2 and 4 and my staff, if they knew they had to ask me anything like adding another patient on or the neurosurgeons need you in the OR for an emergency monitoring case. Like they were scared to ask me, they would come with chocolate. It was my witching hour. And slowly it turned into. At first I thought I'm just going to buy myself another pair of expensive high heel shoes and feel better. And that didn't help anymore. I started to like not have time for family and friends and was missing. I still to this day regret how many engagement parties and baby showers of loved ones. I admit because I was a busy academic medicine important doctor that, you know, I just couldn't get on a plane and go away and that like you 120 hour work weeks, taking call, getting called in the middle of the night all the time. And I don't know at what point it switched other than I started to have chest pain and I was responsible I was only in my young 30s at the time. And I went to the doctor and what do they do? They write you off. I'm a doctor. And they're like, like every other type A personality coming in here, junior faculty. It's acid reflux. You need to stop all that chocolate and wine. And everybody does a collective gasp on this podcast right now. And you need to take these antacids and these antibiotics. We need to some more tests. And I listened and I took the antacids and I took the antibiotics. It didn't do anything. So I stopped that nonsense and went back to the chocolate. We have to cope, right?

Yeah.

Well, it turned out it wasn't acid reflux disease or a gastric ulcer. I have a rare disorder known as achalasia, which you know, but most of your listeners won't. And it's a disorder that's in less than 1 in 1 million people in the United States and typically discovered on autopsy or in your 70s. But my stress was so bad in my brain and in my emotions and my spirit that it was. Now the wiring, you know, we'll talk about it in a second, to my gut, was completely disrupted. And by the time it got diagnosed, I was waking up in the middle of the night choking on my own vomit and saliva. I literally couldn't breathe. And you don't know how important your breath is. Nobody is conscious of their breathing until you've ever had moments in your life where you physically couldn't breathe and you're choking and then I'm getting pneumonia and we're like, something is wrong. And it took years, by the way. I tell this story in 30 seconds, but this was like a few years of going through this over and over and nothing coming up and them even wondering if this was all psychological. But somebody who has a psychological problem with swallowing doesn't get pneumonia. It was crazy, right? And by the time they diagnose it, there's pre cancerous lesions and I need major reconstructive surgery. So in 2010, I went through life saving surgery. And back then, okay, we were still listening to cassette tapes. And I remember going home to Danville, Illinois, where I was born and raised. Small town in Illinois. And my elders and our family and our community, like, where is Romy? Where is that little girl who grew up who was always giggling and smiling? You would go read the encyclopedia, we give you chocolate. Always so happy. What happened to her? It's as if the lights are on and nobody is home. Oh, and I just remember that. And somebody Hands me a cassette tape with a guided meditation. I was like, what is this? I'm a serious brain doctor.

Right, Right.

And I start listening, and what happens? The post operative chest pain goes away. But more importantly, I'm lifting out of that dark tunnel of if you're burned out, you know what I'm talking about. You're just in this dark corner of the basement of your brain, and you don't know how to give yourself a get out of jail free card. And the last thing you want is somebody coming tell, oh, you just need to eat berries and breathe. Oh, no, no, no. Like, you know, you're shackled down there in this imprisonment of your. Your soul. And the meditation, mindfulness started to help. Now, okay, there was no yoga studio on every corner at this time, and there wasn't, like, an app on your phone. And so that sent me on a journey around the world. And I thought it was just about me, but, you know, you know, you've had your own story. When you're going through this. It's the universe preparing you for a higher calling and a higher purpose. But you have to p and heal your pain before you know what your purpose is. And here I am, like, in those days, Dr. Tabitha. And this is what I want your listeners to know. I didn't know any colleague I could talk to like you, that you've been there, and you have empathy and sympathy for others. Like, I didn't know where to turn. I was in guilt and shame for so long. Like, somehow I didn't cut it as a professional.

Yes, yes.

Oh, my God. You hit so many amazing points. Like, it makes me want to cry.

It is completely true that we, you know, it's all put on the fact that you're a woman. You can't handle it because you're a woman. You don't belong here. I experienced that being in a surgical residency, and that was, like, drilled into us. If you complained and couldn't handle it is because you're a woman, and you better shut up. And, oh, my gosh, I just connect with everything you're saying, because mindfulness is what pulled me out of my dark basement. And I had that same feeling of just, like, the spark is gone there, you know, there's no light left. And I needed to be rekindled. And I personally found 10% happier. An app. You know, I put it on my phone, and I just started listening to Joseph Goldstein. He told me what to do, and I came out of it. He pulled me out of it. He helped me pull Myself out and, you know, and then I got back into my faith, and I realized, like, God is trying to give you signals, and he's trying to give you tools and help us. All right?

But we sometimes were stubborn. We're on that.

Stubborn.

I'm like, I'm wearing stress as a badge of honor, and I'm on a path to success. Don't tell me to slow down. And yes, God kept sending me signals. Was I listening? No, I was too busy being a professor. You know, you publish your parish and all of that stuff and. And that, you know, it doesn't matter if you're not a doctor. This pressure is for women everywhere. Dr. Tabith. I work with corporate clients all over the globe now. It is no different. And now in the pandemic, women have been set even further behind. We're less likely to get promoted. The pay gap is wider. The duties that are on women have multiplied. There's no longer a boundary between work and home. I mean, look at both of us. We're managing our home lives. And before we started to record this podcast, like, I'm getting real with all these people, I was like, wait, can I go brush my hair? I didn't know video was going to be on. I'm having a really bad day and my makeup is off and I'm so sorry, Dr. Tabitha. My dining room is a mess. Let me re. Angle the camera right.

Exactly.

Oh, my gosh.

Like, you go this way. Yes, yes, I'm looking good.

All the facade.

Right. We're all just doing our best to tread.

No more. No more facade. No more. And I think that's what it is. And that's why I was so excited to talk to you, because I was like, we can have real talk. Like, so. Yeah. So ask me anything, because I want people listen to this or watch this and be like, thank you, Dr. Tabitha and Dr. Romy, for keeping it real.

Yes. Amen. So you don't have to be a physician. You don't have to have, you know, some crazy high professional job. I think women in general are overstressed at this point in society. It's just the sign of the times. We are doing it all, trying to have it all, trying to be it all. And so I really want you to share this brain shift protocol that you've created to help women so they can have some tools to pull themselves out of it.

What I see all day long is.

Women just go, go, go from dusk till dawn. They're taking their kids here and there. They're participating at School, they're doing their job, they're taking care of their husband. You know, they're running the household, caring.

For elderly parents or relatives. Right. Women are more likely to be a caregiver. I mean, yeah, it's a lot going on. So I'm going to backtrack of where the brain shift protocol came from. It was busy brain. You know, as you said in the introduction, I've shifted from being a practicing physician, getting board certified in integrative medicine and certified in mindfulness, to saying, wait a minute, I don't want to be a doctor in an integrative medicine practice when people have exhausted all possibilities. My mission of our company was we're going to go and shake things up in corporate America and be like, hey, y', all, you need to take care of the brain and mental health of your people, or you can't take care of your business's bottom line. And, you know, right now, in a pandemic, people are having that conversation. But B.C. before COVID it was really weird that your keynote speaker is a brain doctor who's going to come talk about the busy brain and mindfulness. And that's exactly what I was doing. And this came from outside medicine. It doesn't matter. Success driven professionals, man or woman, we all have this, the same tendency. Have you ever noticed that there seems to be an on and off switch in your brain? And when you're on, you're on like Donkey Kong, if anybody remembers that Atari preference, right? You're going through the jungle and you're swinging and you're getting your tasks done and you're checking your to do list and everything. And then all of a sudden that off switch goes and. And you can't focus. You wake up in the morning and there's like no energy. And you're beyond getting an overpriced latte now. It's like energy drinks or Ritalin or Adderall or something like that to keep energy. But then there's like these multiple methods of communication and they're disrupting your focus and it feeds into this anxiety and add all day. You're wired and you're tired and you're churning all day and you finally hit that, you know, try to like go to bed or take a nap, and you can't shut off the 72 battling conversations in your brain. So you reach for wine to take the edge off a prescription sleeping pill or even some bougie overpriced supplement that an Instagram influencer was selling, and you can't sleep. Yeah, and it starts all over again. And that's the busy brain in clinical terms. I. From, you know, one doctor sister to another, I will tell you this. Neurology and psychiatry got it wrong. Anxiety, ADD, and insomnia are not three separate diseases. They're all one continuum of disease that I call the busy brain syndrome. And they all come from one root cause in the brain, of specific inflammation. And so as I started to research that over the last three years, like before the pandemic, that's where the brain shift protocol came along. And then you come to the pandemic and you're like, wait, I can't walk into companies and C suite offices anymore and administer this one executive or a group of executives at a time. So we created it virtually, and that's where we are today.

Wow, that's so awesome. I love all this work you're doing. It's so important. So you are saying that there is underlying inflammation at the root of all of this? Yeah, I completely agree.

Yes.

Where is this inflammation coming from?

Okay, let's talk about that. Right? So, you know, what happens is, where is it coming from? And then we're going to talk about what that pattern of inflammation is, because in this world, if people are listening to your podcast, they know about the importance of functional and integrative medicine. Right? Dr. Tabitha? But, you know, this inflammation is not the same outfit on everybody. Right. This black jumpsuit that I threw on today to try to look presentable was not. Is not likely going to fit the majority of your listeners. Like, it doesn't all, you know, get dressed in the same way. But let's talk about first, where it came from is we know this pattern that if you're using stimulants in the morning, caffeine, Ritalin, you are now kind of adding to the surge of stress hormones in your body. Sure, you get this initial adrenaline and specific dopamine patterns from these stimulants that are going on through the day. But what they're also doing is depleting you of calming receptors. And so this is kind of your stress mechanism is actually getting activated. And in fancy medical terms, it's known, and I know you've talked about it with other guests on your podcast. The hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, the HPA axis, we think about it a lot for adrenal fatigue and women's hormones. But as a neurologist, I look for men and women, what's going on in the brain that's affecting you downstream. So now, at Night. What do you do? You try to calm down. And alcohol is a common medication. I know we're about to lose a lot of friends here on this podcast. To calm down, I'm not going to take the wine away. We're just having some Dr. Romy real talk. Now, what happens is initially alcohol, any form of alcohol, or Ambien or Xanax or those, they calm down the chaos and they tell your GABA receptors, okay, we're calm and everything is fine. But it's a false sense of security because when the alcohol or the, you know, Ambien gets washed out of your brain or the Xanax now, now those GABA receptors are multiplied and they want even more. So where half a glass of wine or 5mg of Ambien used to work, you're now drinking the whole bottle or 20 milligrams and not getting the same effect. And by the way, you're waking up in the middle of the night going, why am I wide awake? I may as well answer some emails at 2:37am and do another load of laundry before the kids get up, right? This is where that cycle comes in. So that's why the busy brain is happening. We are temporarily medicating in what we think feels good just to survive our brains during the day and get through the day. But really, the negative impact of the stimulants and the sedatives are disrupting that inflammation and making it even worse. It's as if you walked into a forest fire that just started at a camping ground and now the high winds come and the entire, you know, 500 acres is on fire.

Oh, my gosh.

Yes. That is.

You are so right on with that. And the fact that it just increases, it multiplies. You need more to feel the same, right? You need more wine, more caffeine. And then you reach your breaking point. So, yeah, so what next?

So you reach your breaking point. How do you know you've gotten there without being in that awful place? You and I were burnt out, right? It doesn't go from a busy brain all of a sudden to burnout. There's steps in between. And those are the signs and symptom that I guess I would profit. I would guess to say you ignored. I certainly ignored. And here are those symptoms, right? Somebody, you did a quiz online and you're like, oh, I fall into adrenal fatigue. Why am I craving and stress eating carbs all day? I tried keto or whole 30 and I felt worse. Or I actually gained weight I'm not losing the weight. Why is everybody else losing weight with intermittent fasting and not me? Sound familiar? You're like, wow, my pen just fell on the floor. And I lost my temper over really what should have been nothing. But I didn't recognize that somebody else had to point it out to me because then all the other things I'm angry and anxious about start coming up in my life. Right. I think you have to recognize some of those symptoms first, that you start to have perfectionist tendencies that really behind it, you're so overwhelmed that your work is bottleneck that you just can't task, orient and get things done or delegate what's going on at work, what's going on at home. And I think you need to recognize, like, give it a name and say, hey, I'm anxious, I can't focus. I have something like add. I have insomnia. My sleep wake cycle is completely off. And I've tried everything I found on Google and it's not working. Like, what do I do next? So what next step is recognize. That's where you are. I don't know about you, but I think all those things were happening to me when I was in the middle of my burnout. I just wasn't paying attention. I was like, burn and churn. Right. Churn through the day. Burn the midnight oil. Burn and churn.

Yeah.

And the issue comes up over and over again that you go to your doctor and there's no abnormal lab value that. And they tell you you're fine and they send you on your way. And I just, you know, every day I get the patients who are just at their end, you know, listening. No one's finding out the problem.

Yeah. And they're like, what do you mean, thyroid? What do you mean? Vitamin D? Well, and so this is where the brain shift program comes in. And, and we're doing it right now for corporate clients. We're going to launch it to the public here in 2021 as well. But we actually have labs that we ask you to go get from your primary care doctor because majority of them are covered under insurance if you have health insurance. Here in the US we look for the expanded markers of inflammation to get to the root cause. And so the brain shift protocol shift. Your brain is shifting the inflammation in your brain, the five root causes. And it's different for everybody. The disturbance in your S sleep, wake cycle, hormones. And for women, it's specifically, we're typically looking at autoimmune. Thyroid is typically one of the more common with the busy brain pattern, not depression, but just this busy brain pattern typically is the hormones we typically target. And sure, other things can go wrong and that's when I send them to a colleague like you with your wealth of knowledge. But I'm in the brain. So we look at that for men. We look at testosterone and DHEA and then I is other markers of inflammation that we look at. And one example of many is the vitamin D3D as in dog. F is we look at how you're fueling yourself the food without putting anybody on a diet. And T is the role of technology. So in an eight week program we walk people through what we call brain shifts, little tiny microhabits that can shift, shift the entire perspective of your brain and your body's health. And we've put several teams through it now virtually and the results have been astronomical. I'm so excited. Dr. It's working. And so yeah, so oh my God, I can go on and on but like, oh yeah, that's amazing.

I'm really excited. So right now you're doing it with corporations. It's kind of in beta testing mode, right?

I think we're out of beta testing mode. We've now scaled it. So one of my many roles as you mentioned as I serve as chief wellness officer at Evolution Hospitality. So we just, we beta tested it in the fall, the online version with two technology companies and their executives. We've just now rolled it out to several hundred employees with great success. I think the difference is this is not just another online course. It's. We say we don't just deliver programs, we create cultural movements and people get me live weekly with them walking through it as well as online educational materials. But we have a really robust technology platform where they can input their, their labs and get the answers and they can input how they're doing, you know, with the variable things we're watching week to week and the results are astronomical. I think the number one thing everybody came back and said was I didn't realize I wasn't sleeping well. And now that I did the brain chip program, I'm sleeping soundly and I can wake up and get going with minimal or no caffeine. And then the second thing we typically hear is not from the individual doing it, but from their spouse or partner going, going, wow, I just got my wife or husband or girlfriend or boyfriend back. Like, I don't know what you did, but like the person I fell in love with is back. That whole phenomenon of we turned your brain back on, the lights are now back on your spirit is now, you know, ready to fly.

That's amazing. That. Oh, my gosh, I'm really excited. And your next step is you're going to be offering this at the individual level.

Right.

At some point.

Here we are, you and I are recording this interview in Q2. So towards the end of. Probably in the middle of the summer, towards the end of the summer, we're launching it to the public. You know, people have been watching me on social media going, wait, when do we get to do it? You know, when do we get to sign up? And so we are developing and updating the platform for the individual consumer right now. And we're really excited, you know, to. To get it going. And if people are like, wait, how do I know if I need it? We have a test on our website with free resources. We give the first seven days of the protocol away, called the Busy Brain Test. Like, I'm all about, don't guess if you're stressed, assess it.

Yeah, exactly.

And we look at a level like, are you standing in your brain power? Do you have brain drain, which is a slight energy drain, or are you in brain strain, which is at the level of burnout? So we look at three different levels and then tell you where you are and what to do next.

That's amazing. Can we go back to your brain shift a little bit?

And please do ask me anything.

I would love to know what are the inflammation markers you're recommending people have checked? I think my listeners would be super interested in that.

Absolutely. Yeah. So it's a lot proprietary. A lot of it is part of the program because it intermixes with what we're having them do with nutrition and sleep. But I think the key, especially for women, is, is the full thyroid panel. And I know you've gone over this in other episodes in yourself, but it probably bears repeating hair as a reminder, because somebody else has listened to it going, oh, and then they're going to listen to it again today and be like, oh, my God, this is the third time I've heard it on her podcast. I need to do this. So what happens normally when you go to the doctor? First of all, you may have subclinical hypothyroid symptoms. I certainly did. And it was getting ignored. I'm a doctor. I'm like, hey, I have irregular menstrual cycles. You're telling me I might have pcos. My hair is falling out my top of this line. And I mean, you could paint the picture. Your TSH is normal. And you're like, ah. So we get a full thyroid panel, including looking for the thyroid antibodies screening for Hashimoto's. We get the, you know, total and free T3, T4, respectively. So we, we get that whole panel and our system will kind of help analyze, you know, are you at risk for subclinical hypothyroid? Are you at risk for Hashimoto's? So we. That's one example. Markers of inflammation. We look at the other. Or that's more in the hormones and markers. Other markers of inflammation we look for is vitamin D3. You're fasting insulin levels, you're fasting glucose levels and hemoglobin A1C. So that. And. And then the high sensitivity C reactive protein. So when I get, for a woman, their thyroid panel and I get all these other labs, it gives me a sense of where, where the inflammation is in your brain and what degree and what needs to be done. Because what we find in the brain shift protocol is people either fall in one of two categories is the restoration cycle that we have to work on their. What we call sanity and sleep or its vitality. We need to help them biohack their energy and fuel systems during the day. And that's what those labs help us with.

Oh, my gosh, you're speaking my language. I mean, those labs are all part of my basic, like, that's where I start with everybody. If you don't have that basic information, sugar is so toxic to the brain. I would love for you to just, like, really drill that message into my listeners. Why is it that, you know, eating high fructose corn syrup and all these processed carbohydrates, crackers, chips, cereal, breads, what is that doing to their brain? Pain?

Okay, I'm about to shock you on this podcast, Dr. Tabitha, so I just need you to take a deep breath, okay? I need you to breathe. And I hope you're not going to regret inviting me as a guest, but know that I have science behind this. Comfort food is allowed on the brain shift protocol.

Wow. Okay, explain it.

Okay. And I'm the contrarian. And let me. Let me explain it in two forms. Cold is the diet culture of please eat this, don't eat this, eat this in the United States is doing one very dangerous thing to our mind and our spirit. It's. The diet culture is fostering guilt and shame. Well, why did Dr. Tabitha lose weight? Or why did intermittent fasting work for her and why didn't it work for Romy, number one, right? And when we get into that guilt and shame cycle. It further fuels these markers of inflammation and the busy brain, right? And it fuels to burnout. But here's the second thing I need to say is I am a woman and a woman of color and I serve as a chief wellness officer now for over 7,000 employees of very diverse backgrounds. Every single diet plan that is now promoted in our holistic health and wellness circles is very white centric, white upper class centric. And I will tell you this, I. I apologize to our company last year when I started to do the research of the relationship of diversity, equity, inclusion and our physical and mental health, because when you tell me I'm going to just use myself as an example is my father is originally from India and my mother's originally from Pakistan. Nothing that our culture and our religion celebrates in food. Food is allowed on most of our integrative and functional medicine plants. So now the foods of my ancestors, the foods of my religion, the foods of our family celebration are tied to guilt and shame. We found that with our Hispanic employees, our Eastern Asian employees, our South Asian employees, our employees who came from the deep south in the United States, any. And I do. And so, so I don't get on anybody's podcast now. And in the Brain Shift protocol, comfort food is allowed and we celebrate it. We open every virtual session sharing what comfort food we had and recipes. And Dr. Tabitha, you're not going to believe this when I tell you people lose weight on this program because we are doing the biohacks, we are doing the microhabits, the brain shifts and it is bringing down your stress levels. So see, there is a difference difference between eating the foods of my culture or your culture around a holiday or a special occasion to celebrate with your family versus opening the bag of popcorn, potato chips and stress eating the entire box. There's a big difference. So I won't get on anybody's podcast anymore or YouTube or on any company and tell them this is what you need to eat. Now, to go back to your original question, pure sugar, when it's paired with caffeine, and we go over this in the Brain Shift protocol is like literally putting gasoline all over the house and lighting a match. When you pair the both of them together, it's really awful because caffeine in itself will raise your cortisol and your dopamine levels. And that's why it gives for some people that initial energy surge to go right now when you add add sugar to that, both of them and you know, they, they create a toxin system that crosses the blood brain barrier that is now just overloading your brain circuitry and causing inflammation. And we know that the combination. So if you're eating donuts or bagels or whatever with your caffeine, you're actually speeding up the inflammation in the brain that fuels this busy brain and not to mention a myriad of other brain health diseases. But we're here to talk about busy brain today and feeling anxious, ADD and can't sleep. And so if I had to ask your listeners to do one thing, it would be to uncouple the two things. If you're going to have anything that contains white flour, white rice, white sugar, white potatoes, is to not put it with caffeine. Right. Now, in an ideal world, yeah, I want you to eat whole and healthy foods. But Dr. Tabitha, can I keep it real? I mean, I'm working with corporate clients. We're in a pandemic for people to have the time and the money to cook these elaborate meals that most, you know, integrative and functional medicine influencers post on their Instagram. That's not reality. And you brought me here to have Dr. Romy real talk. So that's what I'm here to do now.

I am so happy you brought that up. I think it's so important because we do need to honor, you know, the food of your ethnicity and what you're used to, what brings you comfort. I feel bad being an American because our diet, our culture of food is garbage. It is created in a factory. It is so much based on high fructose.

Not everybody. Let's backtrack and say this. I would say it's all over the world now, processed foods, right. Because food needs to be scaled and cheaper because of the population and the climate crisis. That's a topic for another expert on another day. Right? But what, what I even see with our, you know, know, folks that, you know, are several generations here in the United States. They may, their ancestry still may be pasta or meat and potatoes. Right. The difference is, is me cooking my Indian food from scratch or my, you know, colleagues who have Mexican heritage cooking a meal from scratch or with as many whole ingredients as possible or pasta versus me buying a microwavable Indian meal, right, that has all the preservatives in it and you buying a microwavable, whatever, you know, foods of your ancestors. So in an ideal state, yes, we're eating with whole foods. But, you know, if you do that, 80% of the time, your brain is going to be fine. Like it's, it's, you know, progress not perfection. And, yeah, I'm all about keeping the brain shift protocol simple, about nutrition, like our promise. And I mean, we get more eyebrows raised every time. And literally, I had a grown male executive break down in tears on the phone of George in front of the entire company. He said that in the pandemic. Remember, this is hospitality. They have been at the front lines. They haven't gotten a day off. Right. And they have had to lay off employees. And they are doing the work of six or seven people. And he says, I've gained 30 pounds. I have all these health issues. I went once to the doctor and they told me about my blood sugar and my blood pressure and cholesterol from all the weight gain. And I was so overwhelmed with work, I. I never went back to him. Eight weeks later, he's on brain shift. He's not only sleeping in eight weeks, he's lost ten pounds. And he's like, and I'm not dieting. I can still eat, you know, the Italian and Mexican food of his family and his wife's family that they're honoring. It's just because we had them follow the brainchild protocol. And. And he's well on his way and says he already feels a difference, you know, getting 10 of those £30 off. And that's what we're promoting is a health lifestyle. It's a new way of thinking. And, gosh, I know so many of our integrative functional medicine doctors are going to be listening to me, just shake in their heads, going, and I'm going to just wait. I'm writing the book. It will come out and come through the brain shift protocol and see the results for yourself. It's great.

Yeah.

No, I think you're onto it because it's so much more about how you're managing your stress and getting control of those thoughts and those emotions. But because it's very common, especially for women to eat when you're stressed out.

Like, I know I'm not the only one. Oh, my God, like a Girl Scout box of cookies, gone.

I feel overwhelmed and can't handle it anymore. I'm in the pantry. Yes. Like, I am great all day long. And then if I've had a stressful day and I didn't plan my dinner, six o', clock, I'm eating garbage. And I.

And good. I'm glad I'm not the only one going to the pantry. And I'm bypassing the almonds and the apples and all the stuff we say on these podcasts to eat. But what if I Said that when you do the brain shift protocol, you're literally resetting your circadian rhythm with these little microhabits that now your stress won't get that high, that your brain is like, DEF CON 1. Get me to the pantry now. No, no. Your brain wants boundaries. It needs clear boundaries, and that's what brain shift does. So I. I'm. Yeah. And. And so, like, I want everyone listening and watching right now to know we just had real talk. We're not judging you if you had to get up and go to the pantry. Dr. Tabitha and I just admitted we both do. Like, there is no judgment. And. And it's done. Not perfect. And, you know, we're recording this, and I'm in the middle of a holy month. I am going to make basmati rice for my evening meal tonight and enjoy it.

I want to come over.

Well, you know what? When this is all over, I would be honored to host you here in my home and cook you some of my grandmother's recipes. You know, Dr. Tabitha, I would. And. And that's why it's so important for me, because food is a love language in every single culture. I mean, tell me, in your family, like, if your child, you're celebrating a birthday or a good report card or something, don't your kids have favorite foods that they know mom or dad are.

Going to prepar for dinner? What, dessert?

Oh, yes, right. It's a love language. And foods are tied to certain religious, you know, occasions. You know, I was so blessed as a child growing up in Illinois. We grew up with celebrating as children with our circle of family friends. My dad was a doctor and the other doctors. We got to celebrate the Valley, Ramadan, Passover, Easter, Christmas. And with that came all the foods of those cultures, which, as a child, it's heaven. And you're getting desserts from cultures around the world and tied to religions. And, you know, we need to honor those family traditions and the religions. And so, yeah, no diet. But there's a difference between having comfort food and honoring your ancestors and your religion versus stress eating. And that's what I think. You know, you and I are getting up, but we've derailed a lot from the conversation.

Makes total sense. I just. I don't want people to think comfort food should be, you know, Twinkies and derived burritos.

Totally different. Yeah, we. And so we name your comfort foods. Like, we create a menu of your comfort foods. But really what happens is when you're doing the other micro habits during the eight weeks and tending to Your sanity and your sleep and then how you're energizing yourself. The stress eating just naturally calms down and that's what happened. Your brain that on switch to say, run to the pantry, Tabitha. Run to the pantry, Romy. Bypass the healthy stuff stuff. No, that doesn't happen anymore.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. One more thing I want you to hit on if you have time, of course. You know, I love to give my listeners something tangible that they can start doing today.

Yeah.

I want you to drill in the idea that we don't need to wait until the end of the day to get control and decrease our stress. You know, don't go live this crazy life all day and then grab the wine. Like, what are some things we can do while we're at work in the moment, you know, feeling like we're drowning.

Okay, so people are going to get this and download the entire thing if they take the busy brain test. But first I want you to assess and not guess your stress levels. Right. Because it's a little different for everybody where you are on the assessment if you're in brain power, brain drain or brain strain. So number one, just take that. It's a free resource we give to everybody. The next step is we call it the 3:30 method. Dr. Tabitha, can you give me three minutes in the day and 30 minutes at night before bedtime? I need you to take a couple schedule a couple three minute breaks. You know, and I'll be honest, I was on a really stressful call before we were going to do this podcast. I had like a 10 minute window scheduled so that I could get my hair and makeup in order and I could do my three minutes and we didn't get to do it it. And you were so gracious. You gave me that three minutes before we hit the record button. I just needed to get up and recenter in that three minutes, you know, because the truth of the matter is we're in a pandemic. A lot of people are working from home. There are multiple screens and multiple methods of communication open in front of you right now. I need you to get up, away from it all.

Yeah.

And I call it a sensory reset. And what that is is I need you to literally get up. I typically go out, though it's hard today when it' raining here in Michigan, in Florida, where we both are, and I go to my oak tree in the backyard. But for me, I just went to the other side of my house and I needed to just do a reset and it's what are two Things you can see right now other than the computer screen, right. Or your iPhone. If you're listening to this audio podcast, and I just need you to focus on the size and the color and the shape, and then you take another deep breath. And what are two things I can hear right now other than Dr. Romy and Dr. Tabitha's voice? And you take another deep breath. And what are two things I can touch other than my digital devices? And notice the texture and the temperature? And take another deep breath and what are two things you can smell and taste right now? And just notice the aroma and the scent and take another deep breath and in that moment say, I am now going to focus on. On and pick that one thing, and you just reset your senses. Because the only way we can get back in control of our busy brains in the middle of the day is through sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. These senses go directly to that center in the brain, the amygdala and hippocampus, and it tells the busy brain up, calm down. This is your way to hack it, right? And just literally take. It takes three minutes to start bringing that stress response down into relaxation response through your senses. And that simple. And then you just kind of go and say, what am I going to focus on? So your, you know, your action is going to match your intention. So, you know, I said, I'm going to focus on Dr. Tabitha and being of service to her podcast, podcast listeners. And that's exactly what I showed up. And then I kind of put that last conversation that was stressful out of my mind. And I share that not for sympathy, but because we go from one stress reaction to another as women during the day, and you can give yourself that three minutes. So it's three minutes for sensory reset during the day.

Oh, that's so beautiful. Thank you so much. I think that is going to be so helpful for women because it is really hard to get out of those moments. You know, I mean, as physicians, we're kind of trained. You go from patient to patient. You have to, like, set it aside. But even I struggle with that. And so I do my own version of that reset. But I love the sensory reset. That's a great way to remember it and to just hone in on it. So thank you so much.

You're welcome. Dr. Tabitha. It's great to be with you. And I learned so much for my. My. My own health as a woman and for our, you know, my female team members and. And all of that. So thank you for everything you do. And I know this is the first of many conversations you and I are going to be having across both of our platforms.

Oh, I love it.

Good.

So all the links are in the show notes. Everybody needs to take your brain test and Brain test.

Yes, the busy brain test.

And where can they find follow you?

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Join the conversation at Dr. Romy on Twitter, on Instagram, on LinkedIn and if you put the hashtag brainshift anywhere, I will find it and respond to you. So yeah, just come on in and have a conversation. It's me answering you on social media. I want to know everyone in our global brain shift crew like, what's happening today? And remember, no judgment. If you walk past the healthy food and went to your pantry today, that's okay. There's no judgment. Judgment. It's. And there's another opportunity to brain shift. And when you do, instead of being in busy brain, you can stand in your brain power and feel focused and energized and sleep.

Oh, I love it. That's so wonderful. So thank you so much for all you're doing. I'm excited that it's going to be rolling out for everyone. We'll be looking for that. That's amazing. And when you write your book, we'll.

Have you back, back so much. Dr. Tabitha, thank you for everything you do in the world and thank you to all the listeners who hung in there with us in my kind of upside down day. Welcome to my dining room, home office.

Yeah, exactly. I love it. All right, Dr. Romy, thank you. Take care. Oh my gosh, that was such an awesome episode. I really Hope you take Dr. Romy's advice and do the five senses reset. You know, think about your touch, taste, smell, sound. Just get away from your computer, your phone, go outside and just focus on something else for three minutes a day during the workday to reset your brain, calm down that inflammation process you got going on and just be more mindful throughout the day. And trying to stay in control of your thoughts and your feelings can have a direct effect over what's physiologically going on in your body. You can get out of that parasympathetic crazy drive system where you feel like you're way up here all the time and you can't handle stuff. You can come out of that. And when you do that, your inflammation markers decrease. You stop making all these crazy cytokines in this whole inflammatory cascade. Like physiologically you shift what's going on in your body and that has long lasting effects if you do that every day. And so don't just wait until the end of the day to grab the wine to de stress. Do it during the day while it's happening. Little resets, little resets all day long. And get out of that mindset, right? And get into a positive mindset. Reframe things, especially when you go on to something new. Like Dr. Romy said, you know, you finish one conversation, process it or set it aside for later, go into a different mind frame and start anew. Like, that is beautiful. That's awesome. I try to do that when I am seeing multiple patients throughout the day because I get into their stories, I listen and I, I feel what they're feeling. I, you know, that's the empath in me. I want to help them feel better, but I feel their pain and their frustrations and so I go on this roller coaster of emotions, but I can't take that into my next patient. Right interaction. So I need to reset, set. And you probably have to do the same thing. You're probably interacting with people all day long and you don't want to give them some stressed out, you know, worn out. You, you want to refresh and be ready and give your best. And especially for our kids and our spouses or our loved ones, right. I think that is such a. Often where they get the short end of the stick because we have given ourselves all day long to everyone else. I am, this happens to me and I feel horrible about it. You know, you give and you give and you give and then you have nothing left and then you get home and you still have kids and loved ones to give to. And so it's super, super important to recharge reset. I love listening to beautiful music on the way home, you know, talking to God, praying, just getting out of my stressed out mindset and getting ready for the, you know, the evening or whatever it is. So if you can be more mindful in that area, it's gonna do you a world of good. So check out Dr. Romy, take her busy brain test. I think it's super important. And don't hesitate to reach out to me if you feel like you want some guidance on doing this. You know, this is what I do all day long with patients, is we work on changing our physiology through mindset, through food changes, through movement, all of it. We get you sleeping, we get you feeling balanced, we get you de stressed. And then naturally when you get back into balance, the weight comes off and all of those other issues, you start sleeping better and everything else. Right? So if you are looking for some guidance. I would love to work with you. I'm licensed In I think 25 states at this point across the country, so don't hesitate to reach out. The links are in the show notes. You can always call my office and schedule with me. You can shoot us an email. Go to drtabitha.com T A B A T H A no eyes and check me out and see if you would like to work with me. It might be something that would really get you to the next level in your health journey. So thank you so much. I'm honored that you sit and you listen and you do this with me. I'm doing it for you so I'm hoping you're getting value out of it. I would love it if you'd hit the subscribe button or send me a review. That would be amazing. I want to hear from you. But go out and have a kick ass week ladies. Because you can do it all, have it all be it all might not all be at once but part of it is getting mindful. So keep working at it and go have a kick ass week ladies. Bye.