Perimenopause Symptoms Can Start in Your Late 30s - Dr. Remina Panjwani | TUH 312

We live in a world that's constantly stimulating us. Having that cortisol spike is normal. It's supposed to be a pattern, but there are certain things that happen in your body that truly wants to be alert. So if you're in fight or flight after that period has passed, then of course you're overdoing it. And eventually that leads to burnout.

People think of burnout as like really hitting the wall. I'm exhausted. I can't get out of bed. But sometimes it doesn't flash red lights that brightly because they were so conditioned that they would push themselves so far into that physiologic threshold that by the time their body shut down, it was almost

Whatever it is, if you're constantly stressed, even if it was a physical or psychological, it turns into physiological, and that gets into your biology.

We have a society that doesn't really glorify rest, relaxation, sort of the sleep when I die, which are very often diagnosed as anything but nervous system dysregulation.

You cannot outperform a dysregulated nervous system that's always in fight or flight.

What does a lifestyle look like for someone who is trying to keep their nervous system from getting dysregulated?

Whichever decade of life you're in, the best thing you can do is The best, most simple thing to do is—

Ultimate Human.

Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecka, and I'll be honest with you, for years I thought I had the biohacking world figured out. Then my wife Sage went through menopause. And I felt completely defenseless. Today's guest is one of the people who filled that gap for me. Dr. Ramina Panjwani is a board-certified internal medicine physician who served in the military, worked the COVID unit, and walked away from conventional system just to practice functional medicine. I found her through a TED Talk called Regulate Before You Stimulate, and it changed the way I think about the nervous system. In this conversation, we break down the early warning signs of burnout before you hit the wall, why menopause symptoms can start in your late 30s, and what the Dutch test shows that The standard blood panel simply misses. And we go somewhere we've never really gone on this show, generational trauma. Because here's the truth, you cannot outperform a dysregulated nervous system. So let's get into it. Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecka, where we go down the road of everything anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today's guest is gonna want, is gonna be one of those everything in between guests, um, because we're gonna talk about where some of the biggest holes and blind spots are in the biohacking industry. And I know this from experience because as woke a biohacker as I consider myself, and I hate that word woke, but this woke biohacker, when my wife went through menopause, I felt completely defenseless and completely unable to help. And if you've seen the podcast that I've done with my wife, Sage Workinger, you know the journey that we both went on. So today's guest is not only a menopause and female health expert, but I first found her, Um, on a TED Talk. So first, I want you to welcome Dr. Romina Panjwani to the podcast. Thank you for coming on The Ultimate Human.

Thank you for having me.

I'm so excited to have you because, um, I saw a TED Talk, uh, of yours, and the title of it was Regulate Before You Stimulate. Um, and it sort of reframed the way that I thought about the underlying power of the autonomic nervous system. And this is not something that gets a lot of light or attention. I think people know that we have an autonomic nervous system. I mean, our heart's beating right now. We're breathing. We're sitting upright. Our hormones are being regulated. So something is in the background running the show. But really, the detriments of this part of our nervous system getting stuck in this sympathetic state, the state of fight or flight, and the consequences of that. Which are very often diagnosed as anything but nervous system dysregulation. And I thought your talk did an excellent job at framing that. So before we go down like the myriad of things that I want to talk about today, I, I'd love it if you would just, um, talk about what was the impetus for that TED Talk, um, and if you could bring the listeners up to speed that didn't get a chance to see it on what is the importance of regulate before you stimulate.

Sure. We live in a world that's constantly stimulating us, overstimulating. What's the next thing that's going to help me live longer and healthier and be around longer? What's going to make me smarter, have better memory, or have more muscle, right?

Mm-hmm.

We're always going on to the next thing, but we're overlooking the things that have been around at our fingertips for years, the years before all the advancements happened, right? So we get to the point where if we're overstimulating, if you're overdoing, it's still a stressor on your body.

The paralysis of analysis, right?

Exactly, yeah. So if you're trying to be balanced, that's the goal. Having some stress, having that cortisol spike is normal. It's supposed to be a pattern. It's supposed to be higher when you get up and taper off when you go to bed to get to sleep. But there are certain things that happen in your body that your body naturally wants to be alert, right? Like, if you're getting chased by a bear, or if you're about to perform or go to a meeting, you want to be aware. You don't want to be in resting, digesting.

Mm-hmm.

So if you're in fight or flight after that period has passed, then of course you're overdoing it. You're overdoing it, and eventually that leads to burnout. Then you add in everything that is at our tips today, all the expectations, taking care of our family, our elderly, the young ones, our careers, and then you stack it on everything else. So when you need to regulate, your system, that's when you can build that foundation of your biology. Then you can optimize. So the issue— that's what I started finding too. As much as I know, I can't just keep up as the things I used to do. Maybe it's perimenopause too, right? But these simple things start stacking up.

What are some of the signs like, um, of— I mean, I think people think of burnout as like really hitting the wall. Right? I'm, I'm exhausted. I can't get out of bed. Uh, maybe I, I, I had a panic attack for the first time in my life. But sometimes it doesn't flash red lights that brightly, right? I mean, sometimes it's just this underlying nagging issue, and it's not something that drives you to the ER or takes you and puts you in the car to the urgent care. Um, so what are some of the, like, the yellow lights? Like, so what are some of the warning signs? that you're heading for burnout or that your nervous system might be dysregulated? And what can you do to draw attention to it and then walk your way out of it?

Well, when you're a high performer, you're going to show up differently. Burnout is going to show up differently. It's little signs that eventually you're going to pay the bill for. And you don't notice that until you start seeing these subtle signs of fatigue, that your sleep is off, brain fog. Then it starts affecting your hormones, men and women. And then you start noticing a change in your body composition, your libido, your gut. You can't eat certain things. Maybe you're getting sick more often, you're getting inflamed, your joints are hurting, right? All those subtle things start showing up that will eventually affect your performance, that you have to stop.

Yeah. What does a lifestyle look like for someone who is trying to maintain balance and keep their nervous system from getting dysregulated. Because I agree with you, sometimes the more Type A, the overachievers, actually get further into that red zone before they shut down. I was an amateur triathlete for a period of time, and so I went to a lot of races. And if a professional athlete Bonked during a race, right? Like, I got so dehydrated or had a, um, an event during a race. Usually it was very, very serious. If an amateur athlete had one, they would just give them a saline IV on the side of the road. Sometimes they'd enter the race again because they were so conditioned that they would push themselves so far into that physiologic threshold that by the time their body shut down, it was almost a medical emergency. And I feel like A lot of people in society are the same way, right? You're type A, burn the candle at both ends. We have a society that glorifies productivity, doesn't really glorify rest, relaxation, you know, time to yourself. You know, it's sort of the sleep when I die kind of mentality, right? Take the hill, crush your competitors, always be achieving. And And I think that having people armed with maybe some of the warning signs, but more importantly, how do they get that regulation back into their life? What do some of those habits look like?

Well, starting simple, scheduling time for yourself again. You notice the most elite performers, instead of— yes, eventually your body will have those injuries, and you want to be injury prone, but that goes the same for your entire Body. We're mind, body, and spirit, right? We're all of it, not just a body of organs trying to function. So schedule time, schedule time for yourself. And the best, most simple thing to do is start when you wake up instead of reaching straight for your phone, the blue light, right? We know how dangerous that can be.

Just so, so curious, like, what's in there? Like, what happened today? Yeah, right.

It's okay. Start 5 minutes and that's gonna be your peak. And those simple moments start with breathing in bed, start simple, regulating that breath is with you everywhere, and that's gonna tap into your vagus nerve and set off your sympathetic, your nervous system, and balance that sympathetic-parasympathetic response. Then if you decide you want to start, maybe even have simple meditations, journaling, prayer, whatever it is, you're tapping into that brain, your nervous system, but you're rewiring that response, right?

Yeah.

So, of course, it takes about 21 days to tap into that neuroplasticity, of course, and it takes longer to sustain it. But these simple things, you start small, then you continue, then you stack it with the direct light. So all this, if you just schedule—

Love first light. And these things are free or low or no cost. So I don't think people really give them the priority that they deserve.

And I think it's a big mindset shift, because if you give yourself permission to pause, It takes you longer. You don't want to have to backtrack because the backtrack is gonna be longer. If you're at your peak performance, whether it's in your business or if you're a performer, anything, you wanna give yourself the nuggets now so you don't have to pay for it later. So if you schedule those simple moments, that's gonna regulate you throughout the day. Then you can do all the stacking, then you can get back to that email.

Yeah.

But if you take the first 5, 10 minutes, The moment you wake up, that's going to take you throughout the whole day.

You know, I want to shift to like a huge hole in in what I would consider the wellness movement, and it's starting to close thankfully. You know, slowly. But I had a very personal journey, which I've been very public about, and so has my wife with menopause. My wife going through menopause, and I think it took us. Probably 18 months to recognize it because it began slowly. It's not like she just one day went off of a cliff. Um, and she's in her mid-40s, not her late 40s. And so mid-40s, yeah, we always thought, okay, menopause, like 50s, start to worry about it. And it was like simple things like brain fog, like she wasn't as on top of her game. Um, started waking up a little more exhausted than she would go to bed. Um, she didn't have the same, like, organize— organizational capacity. Um, then the mood, you know, like, just became very irritable. Um, she would get sad. She, she would find herself crying for no reason. Um, then she started just randomly getting itchy all the time. Um, and then the big one was, um, that I never linked to menopause at the time was frozen shoulder. Right. She actually couldn't raise her shoulder above, uh, you know, straight, straight out, like 90 degrees. And she ended up going to an orthopedic, and they said, we can put you to sleep and we can actually break your shoulder. We can break these adhesive capsulitis. We can break them under anesthesia. And that's when I was like, whoa, we need to start figuring this out. And I started searching for menopause experts, and I went to Dr. Sarda, and I put people on my podcast like yourself. Um, what I will say is that 3 weeks after she got on hormone therapy, there was a completely different human being in the house. Libido, brain fog left the building, waking energy, her focus and concentration, and the— even the frozen shoulder went away. So what I found fascinating, and I would love for you to comment, was that, you know, I understand now this can start in You're late 30s as a woman, and a lot of women are not— it's not really appropriate to talk about it, right? You're just supposed to kind of suffer in silence and just sort of deal with it, right? So what do you say to those women, and how do they start to find their way through this journey?

If your body is showing you symptoms now, listen. And we are creating a space for women to recognize this, the information, and you can start early. Yes, of course, it starts earlier because of all the external factors and the way we live life and what we consume that does present menopause sooner. And I think if you know, if you listen to the signs that something is off, then you can do something about it. Even simple things in your 30s, like adding protein, getting 30 grams per meal. Yeah. Resistance training, all those stress response mechanisms, things to do to start stacking up to get ready for that. Because, yes, You will lose your hormones eventually, but that doesn't mean you have to suffer or suffer in silence.

Yeah. You know, I was really proud of the FDA recently for removing the black box warnings from female hormone therapy because Dr. Marty Makary, when he was still the chairman of the FDA, said the estimated 50 million women needlessly suffered because they thought that hormone therapy led to breast cancer or exacerbated their chances of getting breast cancer, which turned out to be patently false. That wasn't what the Women's Health Initiative said. And Just simply lifting that veil. But now I think there's such a paucity of places that women can go to get good information. So what are some— first of all, do you agree that it can start in the late 30s?

Absolutely,

yes.

Okay.

What are the warning signs? What are the hallmark tests that a woman should do? And where do you fall in female hormone therapy?

Well, women are also complex, and we have shifting hormones from— They are complex. We do.

Try to figure out women. Everybody would be working for me. Like, trust me.

I think you're doing a good job. Look, you're already supporting people.

Understatement of the century. Women are complex.

Right? And then we add in hormone shifts from the time you're, you're starting to get your first period, and then from the time you're about to lose your period, right? And then you're mixed with information and you need to decide what's good information. So of course, listening to your body, where to start. We've been told that the common symptoms are like hot flashes,

right?

And that's

what we waited

for,

right? Right. And they came at the very end. Exactly. And some women,

And they don't get it.

Right.

And it's different for everyone. What you'll notice is if you sleep, if you start having 3:00 AM wakeups, that might be one. Brain fog, right? If you're starting to forget things, if you just lose track, you can't focus. Mood, surprisingly, mood. I mean, you think you're going into depression or temporarily insane or something.

Yeah.

But that's a big one too, mood. Unfortunately, some women get put on antidepressants.

Yeah.

And then you get more complications. But these are simple things that show up, changes in your body composition, that belly pooch that randomly shows up regardless of what you're doing. Maybe you're eating healthy, maybe you are doing HIIT, and maybe sometimes that's a little too much, but your body is changing. And if you notice those signs, that's Where it starts. And yes, it can start in your 30s.

Could your morning coffee be contributing to why you feel like crap? Fatigue, brain fog, headaches, even congestion. Those symptoms have 100 causes, but when I'm investigating environmental exposures, I want to know what you're exposed to every single day. For millions of people, that's coffee. Certain molds and heavy metals have been detected right in the coffee. That's why I created The Ultimate Brew. It's independently tested, USDA Organic certified. Find it October 7th exclusively at Sprouts stores, Nationwide. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. Yeah, I think, like I say, the frozen shoulder was the big thing for me. I was like, okay, something is—

And that too. Yeah. A lot of women show up with shoulder pain or any other joint pain. Now, what's beautiful about this is now the information is out there and available. If you're in your 30s, start now. You don't have to jump straight to bioidentical hormones. I think for the right women, they can be so So beneficial, and they can be life-changing, life-saving too.

Yeah.

There's so much information that it helps cardiovascularly. It helps your mood, your brain memory, right?

Yeah.

Why do you want to take that away from women? You want to give that to them and have that option. But even before you get there,

yeah,

there's more you could do, right? The lifestyle. And then adding my favorite is the Dutch test. I pretty much have huge fan. Yes.

We talked about this before the podcast. Yeah.

The Dutch test. So.

And why the Dutch test over a standard hormone panel? Because, um, you know, if you look at most, you know, blood panels— CBC, comprehensive metabolic panel, very poor in my opinion, lipid panel, just, you know, like triglycerides, uh, LDL, VLDL, HDL— leaving the vast majority of cholesterol proteins out of the panel. But it's, it's sort of this snapshot in time. You see the luteinizing hormone, the follicle stimulating hormone, the estrogen. A lot of them don't have progesterone, pregnenolone. They don't really have the whole complement of hormones. And do you feel that just blood testing can be misleading?

Absolutely. And, you know, I still pick up shifts in the hospital just to keep up those skills because I can see where the gap is and how to bridge it too. And that's a big misconception. That's the only thing that standardized medicine has is the basic snip, the snap point of simple blood work. And you're missing out everything to give you the whole picture. The Dutch panel gives you everything personalized to your body, like the breakdown of the pathway. If you're having the good form of estrogen, right? It's not just one form of estrogen.

Yeah, that was another fascinating thing for me. I just thought, like, men have testosterone, women have estrogen. They didn't know estrogen is like a category, and there's different types of estrogen, and they're high and low at different times.

Exactly. And you want to metabolize. You want to see if you're metabolizing appropriately. If you're deficient in certain vitamins, because maybe it's a simple B vitamin that you need to help regulate how your hormones are metabolizing and where your progesterone is, where everything else is. So I love it because it gives you a full picture and it gives you extra tools if you need to add supplements and where lifestyle can add in, right? If you're not detoxing, right? If you're not methylating, right? How much information you're hitting

all the

exactly. And that the testing gives you that much information. And you have a set of tools, and that's where functional medicine bridges that gap. You add in the LiveCell, the advanced markers, and the supplements if you need. If you need hormone replacement, then you have those too, and you know exactly where, how to dose, combine all the best of the tools.

Where do you think, because you're a classically trained allopathic physician, you're board certified in internal medicine, right? Yes. I always find it fascinating when highly traditional specialties in medicine start to adopt more of a functional approach. So was there an event? Like, how did you break free of the, just the conventional allopathic, you know, framework and start saying, I think I want to educate myself? Because you didn't get this education in medical school. No. Right,

right.

Very traditionally trained, and internal medicine, in my opinion, along with maybe endocrinology, they're usually the least likely to migrate to functional medicine. And I don't mean that as a slight on your profession by any means. And so, what was that? Was there a problem that you were solving in your life? Was there problems with your patient population that you just? Saw this hole and you said, there's got to be something more. What did that transition look like for you?

That and plus more. My personal journey, I definitely— my greatest teacher was not medical school. It was not training in residency. Part of it, noticing the system in itself. But little did I know, my journey actually started, yes, childhood, how I was brought up. The first one, In my culture, in my family upbringing, to get an education, go to medical school. But in the military, I started noticing, I know I'm tiny, right?

Yeah, no, you're tiny. I think you're a savage. You're in the Air Force, right?

Exactly. Yeah, it's amazing. I come packing with it. So,

did you actually fly planes?

I did not. Oh. And it wasn't my height, it was my vision.

Oh, really? You couldn't see outside the cockpit, right? I'm sure they have booster seats for F-14s, you know? Exactly.

They got fighter jet booster seats. waiver for that, but they drew the line with vision.

I just envision you in the little plastic, you know, friendly seat that they give you and then boosting you up, but still firing missiles.

Exactly right. So I, at that time, you know, trauma shows up in different ways, big T, little t. Then you add in all the environmental things and then the genetic things and how you're living your lifestyle. And You know, when I got to college, I started noticing a lot of panic attacks. And back then, mental health— You were having them? I was. Yeah. But I didn't know what they were. I mean, for those of you that have been through it, maybe you feel like you're dying. Your chest is hurting. You feel like you're having a heart attack. Your vision is gone. You can't focus. And then you're just— at that time, mental health wasn't even talked about. Forget women's health.

It was mental health.

You just had to ride it out. Yeah. Or you just get thrown antidepressant. My philosophy was, even at that age, like, don't just throw medicine at it. There's something more. Talk therapy, maybe it gets you the basic, but you were— I was just gaslit even in the conventional system. And I knew whenever I make it to medical school, I'm never going to treat anyone like that. And I knew I had a higher calling. Wow. I just didn't know how. I just knew it. I just knew inside there's something more. And it was, it was actually a yoga class that taught me how to breathe. I was in Austin. I went out to the trails. I went out in nature. And honestly, that was a practice that I kept through even to medical school. And I made it to the top of my class. I didn't know that would help me, but it was that. It was no medicine.

Wow.

And not only did I have to deal with those aspects, the challenges I understood through my journey, but I also saw it. And then add in the big, the corporate medical system, the big pharma, and the big gap. And I started noticing it was during COVID That was the next system.

Were you in private practice then?

No, I was in the hospital in the COVID unit. And it was, I would say, an unimaginable time because as physicians, you were just a worker bee. It didn't matter. And you didn't know what you were dealing. But what I found was the ones that didn't really take care of themselves, the chronic diseases, the in and out, those were the sickest. And you know, sadly, those are the ones that would pass. And not to say that younger people didn't, but that was another part. And then I started noticing a different pattern after we got out of COVID is what is this in and out of the hospital? How are we really? Are we really treating people? Are we just? Putting more bandages. People with diabetes, with end stage, right? If you didn't even catch diabetes, you weren't even taught. You're told first line therapy is lifestyle, but you're not taught lifestyle. What does that even mean? Yeah. And then you get—

You don't even ask those questions, right?

No, you don't.

I mean, you don't tell you what kind of stresses are in your life or what's your diet like or do you exercise or how's your sleep?

Yeah.

I mean, you're not taught to even ask those questions, right?

And that's where I I knew there was a bigger calling. There's something more. What did I go into medicine for? And noticing that, then I went further to get functional medicine trained, and I was already doing the holistic things or integrative things. Holistic meaning not just practicing woo-woo, but actual evidence-based lifestyle. So integrative in that sense. And I did that on my own. I started adding it to my clientele, my practice. And I left a function— I left conventional medicine full-time and started my own brand. And now I get to help people. I get to show people how to take their life into their own hands, not before it's too late.

Yeah.

But pre-prevention. Imagine if you start talking to teenagers, to 20-year-olds about all this, how will their trajectory change? How will they change their generations?

Yeah, when you start thinking about what are the— you know, I come from a data science background, and sometimes the data flies directly in the face of conventional think, you know, and conventional medicine. You know, for example, we knew— you look at the data on just healthcare in general, we spend $5 trillion a year on healthcare, but 42% of our prepubescent teens have a— or prepubescent children have one chronic disease. You don't find that in any— on the surface of the earth anywhere else in the world. Even, even what we would consider third world countries, some that don't have clean water and sanitation, do not have the same level of chronic disease. So you got to say, you know, what are we doing wrong? Like, where did we go wrong? We're excellent, I think, at crisis intervention, like emergency medicine. I mean, the United States is— if you have a life-threatening emergency, this is the place you want to be, right? Um, but in some senses, I almost feel like the pandemic did us a bit of a favor because it sort of— everybody was touched by COVID, right? They either know somebody who passed or had a family member that was touched by it, and it rattled their cage. And at least it put their own mortality and the ability to take control of their own choices into their own hands, um, in some ways, and open the door for practitioners like yourself. So tell me a little bit about the book. Tell me about Odd Girl Out, because why are you the odd girl? Because you went into the military? Because you defied modern medicine? What makes you odd?

So little did I know when I was thinking, I always felt like I thought differently, right? And back then, not only did I look at the world a little differently? Because now, that's how people think. That's how you find your tribe of people. That's how you influence and lead. Leadership begins is thinking differently when you're younger. But when you're younger and there wasn't much cultural diversity at that time, so you add in that. And then my parents were working class. Mm. And so you add in all those different things. add that into a growing mind, right? So growing up, of course, my parents, even though I'm South Asian, I wasn't told you can go be a doctor, right? It was actually the opposite. I was told, go get married and just have kids. That's it.

You grew up in the States?

I grew up in the States, yeah. But I'm the first one in my family to have that. And I was just thinking differently, not only in my culture, but in my peers. And so I was always a little odd in that sense because I didn't want to succumb to what's normal, right? Yeah. that time, like, no, I don't want to go out and get trashed and drunk. Like, I don't want to do that.

Right.

I want to do more. I want to go see how I can change the world. I want to make myself better. I want to change the trajectory. I want to break generational trauma. And so those were things that at my age, I was getting myself into, bettering myself. And of course, that was odd. But it served me for a greater good because then I went to, quote, join in the military. It made me a rebel. At that point, I was like, you know what? Either you support me or I'm going to figure it out.

Yeah.

And then I used that as a tool. It gave me so much, not only to build my characteristics, it helped me figure out what a sense of worth was, right? To figure out what else to— the tools I needed to make a change in the world, to gain the knowledge and how that's a tool to help more people and help guide them. So then I became— what I noticed, I was just also in the wrong room and I started noticing As I grew older and got all the tools and started seeing this vision and bringing it to life, that there's a whole world out there and we can come together. So odd girl out and the doctor within. So despite all the odds against me, I created my own with, of course, the help with mentors and all those fortunate things that I found along the way. But the tools, the doctor within, because yes, we all can find the tools in get back to ourselves.

Wow.

And not fall into the traditional system. So I go through real tools, real life stories, memoirs, and give you the tools. Um, simple things like how gut-brain axis works, how nervous system regulation, like how to do breathwork, how journaling gratitude helps, what to eat, everything.

Wow.

And that's like your book to wellness.

That is so amazing. You know, I, I read a book called The Grain Brain and then another one called The Gut-Brain Connection. It was written by Dr. Perlmutter years ago. That was my first foray into the gut-brain connection and how much our gut microbiome influences everything in our body, our mood, our mental state, our emotions, you know, our feelings, our cravings are all governed by this gut. We have trillions of little brains inside of us that have more influence over us than I think we I've really been led to understand. But you said generational trauma, and we haven't really given a lot of platform time to generational trauma on this podcast. And more and more, I'm seeing that unlocking this generational trauma is leading people to these profound health miracles. And we call them miracles. But how do you define generational trauma? And, and then how do you deal with it? How do you spot it, get rid of it, face it? Um, because I don't hear a lot of people talking about that.

One of my favorite biohacks outside of breathwork by far is mineral salts. Baja Gold Sea Salt. It's got all of the trace minerals that the body needs. You know, most of us are not just protein deficient, meaning amino acid deficient, or fatty acid deficient. We are mineral deficient. So a quarter teaspoon of this in water first thing in the morning will make sure that you get all of the essential minerals that you need. It tastes amazing. In fact, I made a steak today. I actually made a grass-fed steak with grass-fed butter, and I put just mushrooms and a little bit of rosemary, and I sprinkled Baja Gold sea salt all over the top. Try it, it'll be your new favorite for cooking too. It's the cheapest and one of my favorite biohacks. I don't know, a $15 or $20 bag of this will probably last you 5 years. It's literally the world's best biohacking secret.

Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

Right, I think that's part of it is the knowledge of it. So it can— if you grew up with— it can happen with anything, right? So if you grew up with a scarcity mindset or financial issues or escaping war or some sort of thing that happened in your family history, right? So imagine if you're a mom, you're carrying a child in your womb, that environment is going to affect the human that's living inside your womb, right? Yeah. We already know that. Yes, of course we have so We have 2 nervous systems, right? We have the central nervous system, we have the gut nervous system, but we also have our bacteria that gets into our female reproductive system too, right? But your feelings, your emotions, all those is feeding into that growing human.

Hmm.

So if you're constantly stressed, whatever it is, if you're constantly stressed, even if it was a physical or psychological, it turns into physiological and that gets into your biology. And what that means is it has a cellular change, and that cellular change gets into your DNA and it's passed on. So if you're, if you see like pregnant women, you wanna try to have a, a nice calming environment because you want it to, you want it both to be healthy.

Yeah.

And so if you have a stressful stress response, right? So trauma, that trauma passes on and it can get into your genes. And if it passes on, it's gonna show up differently. So imagine if you have a calm, Um, pregnancy, then it's gonna show up. If you have trauma, not only from previous generations, but then how you grew up as you're growing up. Now put the, put the pregnant woman aside, but as you grew up, if you see your mom, like who, who may be anxious every time, like a child falls or how her response is for some sort of bad news or just a helicopter mom or anything, that's just one aspect. Like always crisis mode.

That's you maybe compensating for this,

for

whatever happened, previous trauma.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Whatever happened, if it was scary from resources or whatever the case is, right? Or maybe growing up with, maybe if you're very affluent, lots of pressure, lots of perfectionism, lots of, you know, you just don't know what it is, but it shows up in those manners. So how you parent your child or how you were parented, that's going to pass down. Now, that's not even adding in the additional lifestyle and what consumption you're living your lifestyle or nutrition and all that, right? Adding in just the mind and the environment and the stress or the calm. So if you're constantly on edge, then your child is going to be on edge. So how you respond, how you teach them to regulate. So anxiety, right? Anxiety. And then that's going to also go down the pathway of how that affects your body, your nervous system, right? Yeah. Taps into your nervous system. So that is embedded into your state. Your nervous system is always on. It's scanning constantly. Am I safe? Or do I need to go into protection mode? So if you're constantly in protection mode from generations and you're constantly in protection mode from this new generation that's happening,

yeah,

it's going to change in every way, whether it's how you respond, how your nervous system is. And we know that ties into your body. So maybe you're sick often, you're having gut issues. Maybe the gut issues passed down. Maybe it's— we know, let's even tap in chronic diseases, right?

Mm-hmm.

So if you're If that nervous system is, that cortisol is up, we know it's going to derange your meta— it's going to cause metabolic derangement, your insulin, your glucose. So all of that does tap into chronic disease in itself. But then imagine how you live in your present everyday life too, right? So if you learn the tools, first is recognizing it, right? Recognizing it. And you as an adult now, if your capacity was already drained when you were in a stressful environment growing up, how you were raised, then how you perceive life, how you function, how you are a leader, that's gonna show up too, right? So how that shows up in regular life, how are you performing? Are you focusing? Are you anxious? Are you in the conventional system getting thrown antidepressants, right? What tools do you have to regulate?

Yeah, you know, I think the sad thing about things like generational trauma is there's no test for it, right? It's not like you go to your primary care and they're like, oh, I see that you have generational trauma here, your generational trauma marker is elevated.

Yeah.

Um, so again, you know, just like burnout, how do we— how does someone recognize that? Because, you know, having very limited, um, experience with this in terms of treating, treating it or having any real training in it, um, just in the last few years when I talked to trauma experts, you know, the identification of this very often is something they didn't even know They had, right? They didn't— they, they either through hypnosis or through talk therapy or by somebody actually just piecing back together their childhood, they go, oh wow, I really did, uh, experience this. And I, and I remember how traumatic that event was. So what are the, what are the exercises or the mechanisms that someone can go through if, you know, they, they just feel like they're not right? And how do they go back and identify maybe this is a generational trauma issue? Because you hear things like, you worry just like your mother does. You have a temper like your father has. Just like, you remind me of your grandfather. Those kinds of emotional characteristics that are linked to these past traumatic events. What's a framework for identifying something like that?

Yeah, well, we know that pretty approximately every 7 years from the time you're born. So each 7-year increment, you have milestones. And the first 7 years, your caregivers have a big imprint on you. So that's where it shows up. Wait, the way I respond to certain things that may trigger my mood. Okay, so the fact that you said your anger is kind of like your mom or your dad or whatever the case is, right?

Mm-hmm.

Or how you respond to certain situations, maybe you just don't have the tools. And so maybe you lash out or something.

Right.

So at some point in your childhood, someone told you, oh, that's just hush down quiet. That's, that's, that's stupid. Right.

You'll never be a doctor.

Oh, exactly. Right. And then you go, or maybe the next 7, um, generation, the 7, like 7 to 14, then you go to school, maybe someone bullied you. Right.

Mm-hmm.

And then you start developing a complex, but that's where it starts. So recognizing it and then having certain responses, that's when you notice like, wait, I normalize this and it's not normal. Well, how do I find that imbalance, that dysregulation and get to it? So yes, having the integrative tools, that's where it shows up. There's a lot of, our body holds trauma and stress, right? And sometimes you can't release it.

Mm-hmm.

Especially if you're a high performer, You need certain modalities to first get into that rest and digest parasympathetic response, right? You need your body to tell you to relax, but sometimes you're constantly on the go. You're just used to performing that way. You're used to be on it.

Hmm.

So maybe getting back to your breath, breathwork, meditation, you can't really shut it off, right? Sometimes, yes, it's easy as giving yourself 30 seconds and then letting your nervous system balance, but sometimes it's not. So that's where all these other modalities come in to tap into your subconscious mind because you need to turn off that analytical mind and really get deep into it, right? You really want to rewire that response. So things like hypnosis, things like frequency, right? I mean, there's such a big, um, I would say there's so many options now for frequency, right? That's binaural beats. There's, uh, my favorite is, uh, vibroacoustic therapy, right? Some people may refer to it as sound healing.

Wow. I mean, Lee hadn't left the room. Like, She's big in the sound healing thing right now. I mean, I believe that emotion is frequency. You know, we, we talk about the universal law of attraction.

Yes.

Right. And how authenticity is one of the most attractive emotions that a human being can have. And, and what we refer to as intuition is our sensitivity to frequency. Like, my wife is very sensitive to other people's frequency, way more sensitive than I am.

Sounds like my type of people. Yeah,

you're going to love Zane. And, you know, she will spot right away, you know, just— there's something I just don't like, you know, about him. I hope that you guys don't end up doing business together. And I'm like, why? What? What? Nice suit. He had great shoes, drove up in a nice car. He seems like a great dude. And then 6 months later, you're pulling the knife out of your back and she's like, see, I told you. But I'm like, well, put a finger on it. What was it? And she's like, can't really put a finger on it, but it's just a vibe that I get, a feeling I get.

Yeah.

Um, and so to hear an internal medicine physician talk about frequency, first of all, is mind-blowing to me. Um, but for people that are early to this, um, and have never meditated before, um, one thing I will say about meditation is, uh, everyone I know, um, and these are people I hold in very high regard, that has incorporated meditation into their life has said that it's been the biggest game changer in their life. But for people that are going back and trying to recognize this generational trauma or some of these periods in these 7-year increments, where do they start? They go outside, they do breathwork, do they visualize, they start thinking about their childhood? Like, how do they start to land this?

Yeah, definitely want to start simple. But kind of going back to another thought that I had when you're talking about frequency, right? Because we do have frequency and this ties into where you start, making it simple. Because it shows up and people that are in tuned, that have like done the work, that are in tuned, because we are human beings, we feel, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so that is also another cue of your energy will be even more put together, right? How you respond to things. People will know if you're authentically a good person and sometimes you just need to tweak a few things, right? In identifying that. So So bringing in the science, I love heart-brain coherence. And there's, you could even track it if you want, like HRV, right? Mm-hmm. Bringing into science terms, but heart-brain coherence, we feel things first before it was the thought. So if you feel things first, you can breathe, whether you want to call it meditation or not, because there's different forms. The point is to regulate, right? So even if you start with breathing, You are bringing that heart-brain coherence. And imagine how much regulation you can do just by that. So starting simple, if you just breathe, you don't even have to make it complex, right? There's so many methods that have been studied, right?

I do it every day.

Right? We breathe every day. Exactly. But even being more intentional with it, right? Clear your mind. The racing thoughts will happen, but that's okay. Just bring it back to your breath. Even simple to that. You can get more advanced eventually, like mantra. Um, you know, you, but meditation's simple. It's at your tips. You could do walking meditation. It's simply being present and tuning in instead of going with that monkey mind. What's next? What's the next email? It's tuning into your breath, being present. So where you start is with your breath.

Mm-hmm.

And then you can get advanced. So there's box breathing, there's 4-7-8, right? Mm-hmm. That's the physiological sigh. All those, or just simple breathe, just breathe and focus on being present.

4-second inhale, 7-second hold.

Yeah.

8-second sigh. Uh, yeah, Andrew Huberman talks about the physiologic sigh.

Yes.

Um, and I had Wim Hof here a few months ago. It was an amazing day. Talk about a dude that is switched on, right? You could power a small city from this guy's energy, and he's in mid-70s, um, very in tune with, uh, breathwork. We did amazing breathwork session while we, we were here. But that has been the one thing for me that I would say the most portable thing in my routine, the most consistent thing in my routine. And I really credit it with, um, me being able to regulate my sleep-wake cycle, adjust to time zones, um, calm down and frame things before I have big events, big meetings, before I get on stage. I use breathwork to just sort of calm the zoomies. You know, like, even professional fighters will say, I still get nervous every time I step in the ring, right? For me, I speak for a living, but sometimes if I'm going to step on stage in front of thousands of people, I have that nervous energy and I'm able to calm it. So starting with the breath, that's an excellent one. Once you find that you have this generational trauma and you're like, I've isolated this thing in my youth, how then do you start to cope with it or permanently put it in your rearview mirror so that it doesn't frame the personality of who you are? Like, make you that helicopter mom, right?

Yeah, right. And then, or be that kind of crazy boss that you have to be very particular with, right?

Yeah, the micromanager, right? Yeah. Watch their ego. Their ego so fragile.

Exactly. Well, there's tools out there that conventional medicine only limits, right? And so going beyond that, the tools that really work for you. So there's so many different methods, right? And you can do things called shadow work, right? There's a lot of those tools that help you dive in and doing a lot of introspection. There's, of course, going back to sound hypnotherapy. There's different modalities, and you just want to find the one that's going to work with you and that's going to benefit you. And just knowing that there are tools and it's okay to feel it, that you don't have to be that way forever.

Right.

Then what I love to do is it's multifactorial, right? So that's part of it too, but also the lifestyle part adds in. So imagine if you get the feelings right, right? Let's just call them feelings. And then you get the mindset right, and then you get all the additional tools— the sleep, the nutrition, the stress relief, the right healthy relationships. Imagine how great the ultimate human you can be, right?

Yeah, yeah. Well, that question's coming too.

Yeah.

So, um, I have a VIP community, and normally what we do, um, with podcasts is after the podcast is over, we go into this VIP community, I have, um, my podcast guests answer questions directly for the community, and I usually don't read them on the podcast, but I— there was one that one of my VIPs asked that I thought was so well framed that I wanted to ask it to you on the podcast. Um, and she said, how does chronic stress impact the gut-brain connection, cortisol, thyroid function, and weight loss resistance? What advanced lab testing would you recommend for someone Who's eating well and exercising, but still struggling to lose weight? If you know me, you know I'm a huge believer in the benefits of hydrogen water. H2 tab delivers cost-effective portable tablets that generate ultra clean molecular hydrogen at 12 parts per million—one of the highest concentrations on the market—with over 1,300 published studies showing benefits of oxidative stress, energy recovery, brain function, and so much more. Taking charge of your health has never been easier. Or more cost-effective. Just drop a tablet in water, let it dissolve, and drink it back. It's less than a dollar a day, science-backed, and part of my daily routine. I never travel without this, and it is my favorite biohack. Visit drinkh2tab.com— that's drinkh2tab.com— and upgrade your hydration today. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

I love that question because it's all encompassed.

Yeah.

And my school of thought is it does start with that nervous system. And yes, whichever decade of life you're in, if you're a man or a woman, women, of course, it's going to be more complicated because, yes, then you look at the fluctuation of hormones. But if you look at, let's break down what does that actually mean? What does that nervous system do? And then we can see how it affects the rest of your body. So we know we got the sympathetic nervous system, which has the catecholamines, right? Neurotransmitters.

I talk about this all the time.

Basically, right? So they're chemical messengers, right? They're going to different parts of your body and telling you what to do and how to function. And then you have your parasympathetic rest and digest, right?

So we

already talked about the different nervous systems, right? We have the gut brain, and it's connected through vagus nerve, and it goes bidirectionally, vice versa. So imagine if your body is dysregulated, if you're constantly thinking you're getting chased by the bear.

Yeah.

Or if you're thinking it, or something is happening, you're in a chronically stressed situation, you're gonna live at that state constantly. And if you're doing that, then your body, remember that nervous system is constantly detecting, well, you're in survival mode.

Mm-hmm.

You're scanning, you're constantly scanning. And so that's where, you know, PTSD or whatever that happened before may show up, or the way things are happening, you're constantly interpreting your stress. So if the main one I wanna focus on is cortisol, cortisol is up, you can also measure it too, right?

Mm-hmm.

But cortisol is up. So what does that do to the rest of your body? Think about the, the metabolic aspect of it, right? You need to use all your energy to fight or flight. So, you may have glucose derangements, right? So, if you're preserving all your energy there, it's pulling, you may have dips in your blood sugar, right? So, how's that going to show up? You may be hangry.

Yeah.

But, that's because there's something you're using your energy, right? Then, maybe you're reaching for different foods. So, that may not be the most nutrient-dense, right? And then, that affects how everything is going in. So, It goes into your metabolism instead of being optimal. You're going to fight or flight. Then it pulls from your hormones, right? If you're fight or flight, how's that going to show up, right? Yes, we go back to sleep issues. We go to brain fog. We go to irregular cycles. We go through just mood changes. Anything else? Early menopause or just whatever it is in your in your reproductive system, your libido, right? Hair loss. Then go into your thyroid. Thyroid also ties into metabolism, changes in weight, your skin tone, your hair, all of that, right? Your energy level. And then, of course, going into the question about the weight, right?

Yeah.

So cortisol will help you. Help you. It will store the weight in places you don't need, right? Nor do you want.

Nor do you want. Never puts it in the right place.

Exactly.

Never throws it neatly on the badonkadonk, right?

Exactly.

Or right up in the breasts.

Exactly. That's where you want it. Maybe not you, but that's where people—

Yeah, no, it never goes, shows up in the biceps. Exactly. You know, it shows up in the belly.

Exactly. And then you're pulling muscle, then you can't build muscle. And then imagine what that does chronically, right? It goes down the wrong pathway. So, if you know that's what's happening, you can prevent the cascade. And so, how do you test for it? Of course, I'm gonna, I love the Dutch test. I'm gonna say yes. Yeah, for women, yeah. I love the Dutch test. For women, for sure, because it tests all that.

Men can do a Dutch test too, but yeah.

Yeah, but it pulls that in. But if we go even further, you can look at your metabolism, right? You want to check your fasting insulin and glucose. You want to go in through the general stuff because it'll give you a pinpoint. If you look at your fasting insulin, it'll tell you what your body's doing, how it's managing it before you actually go into things called diabetes, right? We traditionally check A1C, which is your 3-month average of what your glucose is doing. So you want to test for that. Kind of going to the gut. So if you want to go into gut-brain, so if you're going back to symptoms that show up, you can't eat certain things that you used to, or it may be healthy. Well, because if you're in stress mode, it's going to create an inflammation in your gut. So your intestines, your intestines are lined, right? They're a protective barrier, and you want to have a tight junction. You want to Let things that are nutrient dense and things that are going to fuel you come through, not things that shouldn't belong. So what happens is if you're stressed, you're not digesting, right?

Hmm.

Whether it's inflamed from in your brain, like, are you stressed or whatever's going on, or just your gut. So if you're eating things, and this is where most common offenders we see, especially in the United States, we know overseas it's a different system, but Food, the most common offenders, it's gonna be gluten, it's gonna be dairy, and sometimes eggs. So if you add that stress response and you add in the foods, then it creates inflammatory states, right? So one of those, how that shows up is everything you eat, you just can't digest it. You get gut issues, you may get bloated, you may, it may come out a different end you don't want it to, right? Right, right. And it's not functional, right? And so if you can identify, yes, certain stressors, food, yes, can be stress, lifestyle can be stress, and then that nervous system, right? So if you can, you know what tools you need to regulate, and you can have that with lifestyle, right? You want to reset that response. You want to rewire the microbiome and everything and heal that gut so you can get back to to balance. So, one of the things I love to also test with the gut, you can do gut testing, right? Like GI Effects, it can—

GI Map, Gut Scan.

GI Map, exactly. Pick your poison.

Do you have any favorites?

It depends. Lately, I've been doing GI Effects because just the clientele that I've been seeing, they really like it. This is a stool test? Yes, it is. And, it gives you good information. Are you having gut imbalances, dysbiosis? What's the cause, right? What's what is your gut doing? Are we off balance? So I do like that. It gives you information for testing-wise, and you won't get that in conventional medicine. They just won't even consider it. But what also is getting back to healing your gut through the right types of foods, right? So having that, you can test with that. You could treat it, and then going back to, of course, regulating your nervous system as well. So if you regulate that, you're also affecting your other nervous system, your entire. Yeah,

your second brain.

Exactly.

What are, what are 3 or 4 must-have foods for somebody to have a healthy gut? And then where do you fall on probiotic supplementation?

I think the diversity is where you want to go for. So certain times, yes, supplements help, but you can't out-supplement a dysregulated, off-balance biology. So I think if you needed to help, um, help build up the good bacteria.

Maybe after antibiotics or something like that.

Yeah, especially that. So I like to, of course you can't get everything from food these days, but yes, if you wanna, especially if you're triggered, you're trying to build up the good gut bacteria, start it then, probiotics, as well as yes, if you had antibiotics. So yes, I'm for those if you have a targeted goal. And then with resetting it, I love going for kefir. Kimchi. Um,

oh,

I'm a big fan of—

like, I've got a plate of sauerkraut sitting on my desk right now.

There you go.

Yeah, I have like sauerkraut, berries, and a slice of sourdough toast every day. It's so boring. It's good.

It tastes good. It's good for your gut.

No,

it's great with those. Yeah.

Okay, so, um, so fermented foods, um, kefir, uh, maybe, maybe, maybe, uh, raw dairy sauerkrauts. Those those those kinds of things. I actually started incorporating more lentils and beans, which wasn't a big part of my diet. The more I'm really understanding about you know fiber and all of its positive effects on colorectal cancer, things like that. I've I actually enjoy them. I just didn't eat them for years. So I've I've put a lot of fermented foods and a lot of fiber back into my diet, and actually really like it now. In fact, they're they're like Like they're they're they're soft and kind of watery, so they almost act like a sauce, right? So you're not using like branch dressing or something, you know. So they'll they'll like soften meats and and things like that. So I found it pretty easy to to throw back into my diet. So let's reframe everything that we talked about. Where's your TED Talk on on the nervous system? Two or three things that. Someone could do at home today to draw attention to whether or not they might be facing burnout, and then I would love for you to speak directly to the women that think they're going crazy out there. That may be in their late thirties to let's say mid-sixties or mid-fifties, and don't know if it's time to get their hormones tested. I'd love for you to just land both of those because. Those are big topics that we started with.

And that's one of the biggest takeaways, is you cannot outperform a dysregulated nervous system that's always in fight or flight. So getting into the mindset of really giving yourself permission to pause, because in that pause, you're doing so much. You're giving back to yourself and getting the tools Get to that next level and prevent burnout. Whether if it's, even if you're doing the biohacking techniques, it's still a stressor on your body that is so dysregulated. That's just trying to get through the next project or just trying to get through whatever the next goal is and honoring yourself to do that because that's what's going to keep you going long. Mm-hmm. So the biggest takeaways to start with, because if you're constantly go, you're thinking, well, where do I have time? You can create the And you do it just starting simple. Start with your sleep too. Even give yourself the sleep because it's restorative.

Gosh, it's our superpower.

Yeah, it is.

We bully it so much.

We do.

Yeah.

But it's doing so much, right? It's detoxing naturally all the toxins that will build up and disrupt your brain, right? So we think about early cognitive issues, right? You wanna preserve that brain. That's also something that's gonna keep your longevity, right? How are you gonna keep performing? If you don't have your brain.

Yeah.

And then your body, right? We also know that. So sleep is the best place to start there. Then, of course, once you get the sleep, start going in with those, what you wake up with, right? Starting with your breath, regulate your nervous system. And then I would add in a couple of things. If you want to add in, of course, nutrition, because you want to fuel your body, right? Getting back to whole foods, protein, fiber, right?

Yeah.

And then you can make it more complicated than that. I would say master the basics instead of going straight to the complex issues, 'cause that's what the burnout is.

You know, it's funny, I talk about it all the time. I have, you've been and walked around my place here. I have all of the gadgets, right? I have all the upper echelon of biohacking gadgets. But I say all the time, you know, we have a home in Colorado in the mountains, like 10,500 feet. I'll throw a weighted vest on, a little zip-up weighted vest, and go for a 3.5-mile walk, this loop that I go through the woods. I don't think anything makes me feel better than that. There's like something spiritual. Like, I come back from that, I just feel like I took a limitless pill, or like, I feel like that calm sense of zen focus. Like, I'm super ready for the day, even more than me getting in this crazy hyperbaric chamber or the red light bed or, you know, my cold plunge or my sauna. It's just an hour and 15-minute walk in nature with a little bit of weight, a little bit of stress as I'm going up and down around the hills, 10,000 feet. So you're under stress anyway.

Yeah.

But I come back out of those woods and I'm like, man, I feel like Superman. And I feel like sometimes we're just so disconnected from the basics. And that's what I love a lot about your messaging. Final thing, I'd love to get your opinion on, if you have one, is peptides. So much in the news right now. There was just a big PCAC meeting, and the committee recommended that the FDA allow the compounding of 6 peptides, moving them from Category 2 to Category 1. So compound for research use only to compound for human use. Do you use these in your practice? Have you taken them? Have you recommended them to patients? Where do you fall on the peptide bandwagon?

Yeah, it's such a big topic. Yeah, I get asked this all the time. It's what I love is it's almost like the biohacking advanced innovation. I love it. It can be helpful for the right person. I mean, we have peptides, our body makes them, right? What are they? Essential leaders, molecules, right? Exactly, right? And so I think for the right person, they can be helpful. I've seen friends as well as as clients that are also pro athletes. I've seen, you know, people use them, just regular, uh, everyday people for pain, for, you know, weight loss. So I believe you have to put everything in the right picture. Yes, more information is being released, but there are certain ones that can help you, that can help you be healthier. Why not? So if it's right for the, the right person, looking at, of course, the whole picture I'm for it.

Yeah, yeah, me too. Well, first of all, thank you for coming on the Ultimate Human Podcast. This has been amazing. We're going to go into my VIP group now because they have so many questions for you. But I always wind down my podcast by asking all my guests the same question, and there's no right or wrong answer to this question, but what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

I love this question.

Did you cheat and know that this was coming?

Maybe, but I also love it too, right? Because everyone's asking, how do you— what's longevity, right? Like, what's it— if you go back to what is longevity in general, right? It's, it's not living longer, longer number of life. It's being present. It's showing up for the people you love, for the things you love. It's being functional. It's being creative. It's being alert. It's vital. Right? So if you can put into your bucket now, building on those blocks, your biology, if you can regulate, if you can recognize, if you can personalize and optimize all those, that's where the ultimate human is to me. Because the ultimate human then can lead. They leave legacies. And it gets back to starting with those basics.

Yeah. Well, that's a great answer. Thank you so much for coming on to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'll make sure that I put a link to Odd Girl Out. How does my audience find you if they want to follow your work or find out more about you?

It's been an honor. Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed this. And feel free to reach out. I love hearing from you. Ask me questions. I keep it simple. Call, find me on Instagram @drremina, D-R-R-E-M-I-N-A. And my website is the same, www.drramida.com.

Amazing.

Shoot me a message.

All right, I'll put those in the show notes. And until next time, guys, that's just science.