Why Clutter Impacts Cellular Health (and How to Fix It) with Dr. Monisha Bhanote | Heather Aardema

This is the first time that I've interviewed a five time, five times board certified physician.

So I'm really excited about it. Yes, well, yes, I am five times boarded, which is unusual. I don't know if anybody else has that designation in the US I have a lot of friends who are like triple boarded or even quadruple. But, you know, five's my, clearly my lucky number.

Well, I love it and we are so fortunate to have you here today. So my first question for you, I am wondering, how does looking under or looking at a microscope, under a microscope at cells, how does that shape the way you think about your own healing?

It's a great question. So one of three of my expertise is in what we call pathology. And most people, when they think of pathology, they think of like, you know, a TV show that has like a morgue and it's like all dead people. But that is far from the reality of what is going on. So trained in anatomic path pathology, clinical pathology, and cytopathology, with additional fellowships in breast cancer, bone and soft tissue cancers, and cytopathology. But so this has shaped my expertise in the sense that I've been looking at human cells in individuals who are alive for decades now. And what that means is anybody who has gone to get a biopsy, whether that, you know, they went for a mammogram and something was found on their mammogram and they, they had a breast core needle bio biopsy or somebody who went in for their standard screening colonoscopy and they found something there. Basically anything taken out of the human body ends up in a pathologist's lab so we can give you the final diagnosis. And so pathologists are really seen as doctors. Doctors, because we're the ones with the answers. Like, we're literally looking at the cells and how the cells are creating disease over time and the different transformations that happen on this microscopic level. And so what happened is, is I'm sitting there doing this for years and years and, you know, over decades, and I'm like, wait a minute, I'm seeing common things here. I'm seeing these cells. But a lot of what's going on is preventable and reversible. But people don't think of their body in that way. They just think, oh, I got this. My, my parents had this. My family member. You know, it's, it's, it's genetics. Okay, I hear that also often. It's genetics. And I'm like, well, that's not really true because as pathologists, we test Genetics. So especially when it comes to cancers. 90 to 95% of cancers are not genetics. Wow. Wow.

I just pause for a second because that. That is massive. 90 to 95% are not genetics. So what are they?

What is it? It's. It, it is, it is our lifestyle. So what happens is over time, based off. Off of our lifestyle, whether that's, you know, the way we eat, the way we manage stress, which, you know, we'll definitely talk about that. The way we move, the way we, you know, sleep and have recovery, all of this is going to influence the way your cells function. And now imagine you have 37 trillion cells in the human body and. Or more, and you are sending signals to them with every action you do. So every next sip of water or coffee or alcohol sends a signal to your cells. Every, you know, let me sit on the couch and eat some donuts and not move my body. Ve going out for a walk cells sends a signal to your cells. So this signal goes on and on and on, and it communicates, you know, 24 hours a day. And for years, we're either, you know, helping our body go in the right direction or, you know, we're like, we have no idea that everything we're doing is influencing it because, you know, we're just focused on, let me just lose the weight or let me just, you know, look like this. Instead of understanding that our cellular makeup is going to influence how your, your mood is, how your ability to respond to stress is, how your ability to prevent chronic diseases is. And so that's what was so fascinating about this, because I'm looking and I'm looking at these cells under the microscope, and I'm like, wow, this person's story. I can see their story. And then I go look at their chart and I'm like, oh, yeah, so they've had this going on in their lifetime. But what if they knew that they could address this so they didn't need to come back to the doctors in and get another biopsy and keep doing this. And that's where I really started looking into how can we approach this from a preventative aspect instead of the end result that I'm seeing on the slide? Right.

Yes.

And so then I further trained in integrative medicine at the Andrew Wheel center for Integrative Medicine, and then also in culinary medicine and using food as medicine. And that's when I really started seeing a difference in my. When I work with my patients that when we change these things, their cells change, their lab values change, you know, and Their way to handle life changes. Wow. What.

What do you mean by their cells change? Like, you can see that visually?

Yes. So let me give you an example of something that is very common. Reflux disease. Okay, so I'll give you an example of reflux disease. And it's. It's very common. So common that proton pump inhibitors is one of the most prescribed medications. So what is happening in the body with this entity is that there is with your esophagus, it reaches the kind of GE junction and then goes to the stomach. At that junction, we call it the gastroesophageal junction, there is a sphincter. And that sphincter is supposed to close up so the acid does not go up. Now, most patients do know. They are told, don't have coffee, don't have chocolate, don't have these acidic foods, because this is what's making it. Right? But. And then they're given a medication like, oh, here. This medication will fix and suppress these acids. So what do people do? They're like, oh, it's fine. I'm taking the coffee and I'm still doing this. But on a cellular level, what's happening is that acid is changing the tissue. Normally at that area we have squamous epithelium, which is of. What's on your esophagus is a specific type of squamous epithelium. And in the stomach, we have gastric epithelium. Epithelium does different things. Squamous is really kind of more. It doesn't release, like, biochemicals or anything like that. But what happens with the reflux is because that acid goes up, the cells try to find a way to survive. And they're like, okay, well, yeah, I'm getting this medication, but that doesn't mean I can survive here in this kind of terrain, the body's terrain. So they. They're like. They're the masters of changing. And they change into something we call intestinal metaplasia, or goblet cells. And I can see this under the microscope. So this is when people who are getting endoscopies first, their endoscopy might. And their biopsy might show that squamous epithelium with an infiltration of eosinophils, which are a specific type of inflammatory cell that goes to fight off all this, like, trauma that's happening. But over time, it says, you know what? We can't do this anymore. Let's just change who we are. And it changes into these intestinal menoplasia. Well, that leads to a path of the cells in that area can, over time, if we don't reverse this. And once you have intestinal metaplasia, that's essentially called Barrett's esophagus. And now you are in a designation where you're going to be getting an endoscopy every six months to make sure it doesn't develop into dysplasia, which is precancerous, because that is the natural progression. But meanwhile, what's happening is you're still on your proton pump inhibitor. You're still living your life, ordering your pizzas, having your fast food, and lying down on the couch after you have a meal. Right. And this progresses over time. It's not like an overnight progression. Right. But this progresses over time that you go from dysplasia to low grade dysplasia to high grade dysplasia, which you get sampled. And then if it's high grade, you know, sometimes they'll take a bigger part of your esophagus out to eventually progressing into what we call a adenocarcinoma or a cancer of that area. So what happens then? All right, we go in and we get surgery, and we get this part taken out and nowhere along that pathway. Because I've sat in many conference rooms and tumor board rooms and conversations around these patients with the GI doctors and the surgeons and all this. Is the patient really educated enough on, oh, my God, okay, this is what's going on in my body. This is like, you know, an actual thing that's happening that you can't see, because most people just can only see what's out on their outer surface. Right. That's where I feel like my platform. Well, Coola Institute, we really aim to educate people, whether that's, you know, on our YouTube channel or in my clinic or however, because we want people to understand how their body works. And I joke that I'm like, oh, I put you through med school on your body and like, six months. Because when you understand how it works, you can also pay attention to the signals that affect the like, oh, that might not be normal, or this is normal, or these kinds of signals. So. Because otherwise, we. We have no idea. Right? Right.

We have no idea. I will tell you, Dr. Mohnisha, you don't know this, but you are describing my experience, like, to the T. I had heartburn. I was put on a proton pump inhibitor.

Oh, my gosh. I did not know this. No, I know you. I know.

I was on it for 18 years. I now have broken 18 bones. Because that right there are other right there.

So that's one of the side effects of long term proton pump inhibitors is cardiac issues, kidney issues, and for women, osteoporosis. So go ahead, Heather, tell us more. Exactly.

Well, and part of it is I'm.

A little bit of a klutz. Right.

And I like to play a lot of sports. And so some of these, some of these breaks happened before I went on the ppi, but others happen afterwards. Like, right, I just broke the top of my femur and a few bones in my hand. I was on a bicycle and got T boned. But exactly why did my bones break so easily? And a lot of that had to do with being on a PPI for 18 years.

Now.

I've been off of it for a long time, but I was never told, stop eating the pizza late at night. I was never given any kind of direction to change my lifestyle. Now, I did change my lifestyle, but it was not because it was motivated by any kind of conversation I had with, with the doctors that were prescribing the ppi.

Didn't. I did not know that that was your story. I know your, your more recent story with your injuries, but I did not know that. I don't know have chose to give that example.

I'm glad you did. I don't know if I would have told this part of the story. And I'm going to say, Dr. Mohnisha, I am so glad that you did. This is real life and real conversations. That's, that's what I want, you know, this show to be all about.

Absolutely. And I think, you know, so that's really kind of what brought me to. All right, we actually have a lot more power over how we increase our longevity, our health span, our time on this planet, if we understand a little bit more. Instead of just kind of living blindly and just like, I don't want to say don't trust your doctor, but you need to educate yourself in order to have an actual conversation with your doctor. Otherwise you're speaking two different languages. Yes.

How do you, how do we, how do we educate ourselves? What's, what is your suggestion?

Okay, number one, do not go to social media necessarily, unless you find the right people with the right training to educate you. Don't go to Dr. Google because you will create more stress in your body. And also don't really use ChatGPT because there's a lot of misinformation. And I have seen people go on protocols there and then they, they, you know, finally get to Me as a patient and I'm like, well, oh, I did this on my own. I, I read about, I saw it on social media, I, I put it in ChatGPT and, and they don't realize because the body is quite complex, right? But there is ways that you can kind of learn about it. And one of the ways that I think about for how can we optimize our health span is really creating this like outer order inner calm, okay? And because first of all, when your, your body and mind is in a stress state, you're not going to learn anything and you're definitely not going to remember anything. So I'll give you an example here of like a client of mine. So imagine this and I think a number of people listening to this can, can maybe recognize themselves in this. So this is, this is a, one of the stories out of my book the Anatomy of well Being. And it's about a mom, Joanna, and high functioning executive, but she's also a mom, right? So she's high capacity, high working, high functioning, but she was living in a state of micro emergencies, okay? So I don't know if you guys know what micro emergencies are, but it's really like the keys are lost, I can't find the keys, I gotta get to work. The mail is piled up, the bills are overdue, there's nowhere to sit at the dinner table when it's time for dinner, right? And for this individual one night the power goes out in the house, right? So you know, I'm in Florida, so we get a lot of like hurricanes and stuff, so the power goes out, right? So now everybody is around the house trying to find the flashlight, okay? Because there's not an organized place where this flashlight lives, right? So you can imagine all these people yelling and screaming in the dark like to try and find this flashlight, okay? The flashlight is finally found, but guess what? The battery is dead in the flashlight. So now everybody is looking for batteries for this flashlight, right? So imagine this like, kind of like chaos happening and the stress that's building up in the body and the mind and now you're not sleeping and the next day she wakes up and she's like, I am so exhausted and I haven't started my day, right? So this is what like we look at as, as clutter is cognitive overload which then translates into this circadian drift because now you haven't slept properly, right? So think about this. Your visual clutter, the life that you live will age you if you live in a clutter, cluttered environment, right? Because it's nudging your body, your what we call our HPA axis, or a hypothalam pituitary adrenal axis, that stress response axis. It's basically nudging it to give you like a cortisol drip. Right. So we're not talking about an IV drip where you're getting all the good stuff in. We're talking about the flooding of the stress hormone in your body. And this chronic low grade stress creates inflammation. Inflammation creates sleep disruption, Sleep disruption creates decision fatigue. Right. So each of these is an accelerator to biologic aging, therefore chronic disease at the end of the day. And that's what I see under my microscope. Wow.

I have never connected the dots in that way before. That the physical clutter that we see and that we feel is directly related to accelerated aging. And so thank you for laying that out. That's so clear. That's so clear. And so what do we do about it? Where do we start? I know you talk in your book about micro nervous system reset. I love that when I saw that. And so can you expand on that?

Yeah.

So really it would be beneficial.

Yeah, absolutely. So my philosophy is all on cell care. So most people know what self care is, but I really want you to take it to the next level and take care of your cells. Okay. And one of the ways that we do this is through rituals. And so the way I describe rituals in my book is habits are kind of done on autopilot. It's like we have a cue, we see something, we just go do it. You know, we have our daily habit of having some coffee. We have our daily habit of, you know, picking up the sandwich for breakfast. Just, it's, it's not. It has very little intentionality behind it and has very little self awareness. From habits, we go into routines. Now routines are those kinds of things. Like, oh, I'm going to the gym, this is my routine. What happens with that? We get burnt out from it because we're like, we just don't want to do that. Why are we doing this? And then we get into what I call rituals. And rituals have the highest amount of self awareness and the highest amount of intentionality. And the best part about rituals is you don't feel bad if you didn't do a ritual because it's not rigid. It's one of those flexible lifestyle things that you understand like, oh, when I am in this state or I'm experiencing this in my life, I know I can go to this to help my body kind of get into a State of lower inflammation and relaxation. Right? So two of the ones that I would recommend for this situation where we, we have this kind of nightly reset, you have a ritual around that. And that just means set a timer and clear the surfaces, okay. Don't go into any drawers or go do some reorganize. Just a simple 20 minute. Just so when you wake up the next day, you walk down and it's not like chaos, right? 20 minutes, I'm just asking. 20 minutes. And this gets compounded over time, right? So 20 minutes over here, 20 minutes over there. And then the other thing, and I do this often is never leave a room empty handed. Okay? Never leave a room empty handed. And what I mean by that is especially like, I travel a lot. I think last year I travel like 150 days. So you can imagine I've got suitcases, I've got bags to unpack. So I will never leave like that room. Like, even if my suitcase is lying open for me to, like, I don't bring it up the stairs or. Because it's usually like £70, but. But inside there I'm so organized that I have like the little cube bags and stuff. So I will make sure that every time I go up the stairs, I'm taking one of those up and I'm putting it away, right? So then it doesn't feel like overwhelming. And the suitcase is sitting there for like three weeks, which in my case it can't cause I'll be on another trip. But that automatically creates calm, right? And I. And you'll see like on my steps, like if I'm like, oh, I know I need to take that upstairs, I will just put it there for later when I go up the stairs. So now my dog knows, because I have a seven pound dog, right? She's used to me carrying her up the stairs, but now she knows I put her on the first step because then I have to pick up stuff to bring it up the stairs. So she'll go up the stairs before me and then she'll look down to make sure I'm coming after her, which I do because I have something in my hands, right? So this is just one of those things that, like, I don't want you to think of clutter as just messiness. I want you to think about it as like a biochemical tax on your longevity, on your health span, you know, and start reconsidering like how you kind of approach like your environment. And then like I said, we talked about it earlier, like, I love space as sanctuary, creating that just space where you can breathe. Yes.

I want to go back to the term ritual because something else that I like so much about it is when we think of rituals, we think through the lens of I get to do this, that it's a privilege, that it's a gift. And often when we think about, oh, I have to have good habits, the energy is really different, I have to do it, I have to do it, I have to do it. And it feels really heavy and it's rooted in scarcity. Whereas the term ritual and this feeling of I get to do it is rooted in an energetic abundance. And so using your, your perspective of a 20 minute ritual of decluttering in the evening, frankly, it could be anytime, right? But thinking of it as a ritual, thinking of it as a gift, because it truly is a gift to our longevity and our well being. And so I wanted to take a moment to go back because I think the term ritual has so much richness inherently to it. And so for everyone listening and watching, really get curious about the word ritual and ask yourself if you're open to exploring it, to playing with it, to getting curious about it and see what that does for you. See if all of a sudden decluttering doesn't feel so heavy and so hard and instead it begins to feel lighter because it's a ritual, you get to do this, you get to create this lightness.

Absolutely. And that just, that reminds me of another story. So I had this other client and her, you know, we're busy, okay? I mean, everyone's. We have a very, very busy lives, right? And I had this one client, she developed, she had a new role, a new job. And what she found was, once again, her kitchen countertops were cluttered, right? Like just so much so that she couldn't pack lunch, right? And so evenings became this time of whatever's fastest, whatever you can basically heat up in the microwave, right? So microwave dinners. Think about microwave dinners as microwaved moods, right? So I knew that her, her, her meal plans were affecting her mood. And then on top of that, her children were doing the same thing because the children were copying the same pattern. Let's just take something out of the freezer, it's quick, stick it in the microwave, right? This entire family who's on edge is puffy, bloated, wired and tired, right? And so for her, I really needed to explain the connection between gut health and her mood so she would understand that, like I said, every meal she puts in sends a signal to her cells to either, you know, create inflammation Gut dysbiosis, imbalance, inflammation, all these things. Or it goes to help her create her neurotransmitters for her mood and her hormones to keep her balanced, right? And she's like, oh, I just thought food was food, right? Because we don't think in this way. I mean, my patients do. My patients talk. Like, they talk about the cells. They're definitely trained to talk about that. So once again, it. It. You know, it comes down to, like, a ritual. And one of the rituals I gave her was it's called mise en place. And this is really about meal prep, okay? And meal prep, where you're kind of actually laying everything out so you can see, do I have what I, like, have, which is the colors of the rainbows? Do I have all these ingredients balanced? And so when she started doing that, she's like, my Sunday. Like, she would do it on Sunday, like, that Sunday prep, right? She's like, oh, this became easier. And then, yeah, she might have maybe one or two quick meals during the week, but a majority of them now were prepared. And it's kind of funny because yesterday my mom, she was telling me, my mom's, like, really into learning how to make videos on her. Her cell phone. She's like, I think I can make YouTube videos. I'm like, okay, mom, here you go. So I ordered her tripod, and the little. Like, we changed her cell phone case so it's like a magnet. So she sends me these videos that she made of her cooking, and she's like, this was the best day ever. I was making these videos, and she's like, you know what I did? I went and I put all the ingredients into these little bowls. So everything was organized. I'm like, oh, mom, you went and did a mise en place. And so here's the thing is, like, something as simple as that, like, brings you so much joy. Like, she loved, like, putting it together, laying it out, and seeing the ingredients, right? And she felt so good about it. And then she also felt good that, you know, she made her video. And I'm like, mom, you made it vertical. We have to make it horizontal. So let me put. You know, but my mom's 75 years.

Old, so pretty amazing that you decided to do that.

So here. You know, my. My advice really is consider mise en place. The thing I want you to consider is eating 30 plants a week, fiber first. So that's one of the things that I have seen when it comes to people's cells. They are not eating enough fiber. If we don't eat fiber. We can't create something, what we call short chain fatty acids for the gut and th. That helps actually keep inflammation down. And why do I care so much about the gut is because 70% of your immune system lives in the gut. So if you are chronically getting sick, look in your gut.

All right, you're talking about fiber. And so what are your personal favorite ways to get fiber in?

So I will say I am plant based, so I eat a lot of fiber without like even thinking twice about it. So definitely dark leafy greens. I admit I am not a fan of broccoli, so I don't really eat it. I mean, I don't have to because I eat plenty of purple cabbage and I eat like cauliflower and brussels sprouts and all this kind of stuff. But the other thing is fiber can also be found in whole grains, which I know a lot of people eliminate from their diet completely, which you actually need, and then additionally resistant starches. So kind of getting all those different things in. There are three types of food that don't have fiber, and that is what a majority of people's diet is. Okay, number one is going to be dairy. There is no fiber in dairy. So for all you cheese lovers, which I used to be, I used to be, there's no fiber there. Secondly is going to be sugar. So think about all the sugary foods you eat. There's going to be, you know, like the refined grains and the pastries and all that kind of stuff. No fiber. And lastly is going to be meat. Meat, simply animal protein, simply does not have fiber. And that's a standard American diet which creates chronic disease 100%.

And I, I'll tell you, the dairy, I can't even go close to dairy anymore. I used to love cheese so much. In fact, I probably still do love cheese. I just haven't eaten in so many in so long. But sure, those things don't provide fiber. Are you okay with fiber being in the, like in a smoothie? Is that, does that work for you? If people throw it in their vitamins, yeah.

I think you just gotta be careful how much sugar overload you get with a smoothie. Like, I would just be careful of that.

Okay.

Smoothies can get a little sweet, you know, so it depends what kind of smoothie you're doing.

You know, I feel like I'm pretty safe because my kids still say if they take a sip of my smoothie that it's super gross. And so I feel like, I feel like I'm I'm. It's pretty safe in terms of sugar content and the broccoli. This is interesting, right? Everybody is different. My 15 year old loves broccoli. That's. That's like the only.

You're lucky.

Yes. And for people, if you're thinking, oh my gosh, my kids hate vegetables or whatever, you know, keep introducing them or introduce them in a fun way. When my kids were younger, they wanted to be dinosaurs and they wanted to be herbivores, and so they would stuff all the spinach and things into their mouths. And that's kind of how I got them into vegetables.

Yeah. So one of the ways that we kind of sneak in veggies. So I, I do a lot of cooking classes with my, my patients and stuff. Like, we just did a entire tofu cooking class this week. And I was like, I made like two different dishes to, to do tofu. And I was like, oh, I'll save this one for tomorrow. And I'm like, it was so good, I just kept eating it. But one of the ways that I recommend getting fiber in is I like to make spring rolls, like fresh spring rolls. So we do the whole rainbow of different colors and stuff in there. And it can be really fun for kids because they can put whatever they want in there, you know. And then the other one I like to do is savory types of pancakes. So it's chickpea flour pancake, and then you chop up the broccoli and the green herbs and, you know, dark leafy greens, really small. So then it's more like a pancake or you can even do it in a waffle maker. And it's more handheld, which is always fun.

So fun. See, yes, food can be fun. We can.

Food is fun. Food is medicine, actually. Or actually, instead of food being medicine, food is a communication to your cells. I mean, it's a molecular message.

Wow, that's fun to think about it through that lens. And I also like to think that food, depending on how and when and what, can also be clutter or not clutter. So for me, if I'm eating right before I go to bed, that means for me that food is clutter in my body. It's disrupting my sleep. But I could eat that same food hours earlier and have it not be clutter. Fun ways to think about food.

It slows down the body when you eat so late at night.

Right, Right, exactly. I want to go back quickly to nervous system regulation tools because so many of us are walking around in fight or flight, freeze or Fawn. And do you have a favorite tool or two that just can snap you back into a grounded, more regulated state?

Yes. Yes. Well, okay, so I'm going to give you two, but I want to do this with a story. So this is a recent. Recent story as of last weekend. So picture this, okay? Two travelers, you know, me and you were in the same conference last week, right? So traveler one has a suitcase that pretty much, when you open it, it looks like it's a explosion. Like, there's nothing organized. Like, there is, like, shoes in the same area as, like, notes and clothes just, like, everything wrinkled up, right? And, you know, they're rummaging in the suitcase for their passport. And, you know, by day two of the trip, they. They basically discover that the one dress that they wanted to wear for the event, they left behind, right? So that. That. That's picture number one. And. And so that person is. Instead of savoring this, this weekend that they're having, they keep replaying in their mind the weight of that regret of I didn't pack that. I didn't, you know, And. And they're. They're replaying it, and they're replaying it right now. Imagine traveler number two. Traveler number two, you know, rolls in, and you open up the suitcase, and everything has its home and its space. So they've got their cubicles for, like, you know, the little, like, things for their clothes. They've got their stuff for their toiletry. They've got the. Basically, their shoes are like, everything's organized. It's just, like, beautiful, right? So that energy isn't spent managing stuff, okay? For that individual number two, it's spent enjoying that journey, enjoying that trip. I am that traveler number two. And I know we. We've been a number of events together. My, Like, I don't think about what I'm gonna wear in the morning because literally, at a conference, I've already got it organized. The five things are hung up. They're all color coordinated. I'm known to wear green, and that's really to make my life easy. Okay? It's. It's not to, like, you know, yes, it's become a brand thing, but it was really to make my life easier and to shop less, because if it's not pink, I'm not spending, or if it's not green, I'm not spending money on it. Right? But here's the truth. The truth is, most of us live our inner life like traveler number one, that person where we carry too much, the old decisions, the half finished Project the regrets. Right? And that's where I think, like longevity doesn't come with dragging the past behind, like along with us, right? It comes from the intentional, light, focused life of traveler number two. So that's where that cortisol part comes in, right? So think about this. Your suitcase is a mirror of your cells. So I don't know how you pack your suitcase, but this is a way I kind of think of it, right? So when you overpack, you are overloading your brain's executive function. And so each rummage that that triggers is triggering that HPA axis or your stress response axis, right? It's the stress command center. So you're asking what happens with stress? Right. Cortisol, our stress hormone releases or blood sugar rises and that inflammation comes to play, right? So it's, it's turning on a switch in our body. And at that cellular level, what we see is inside our cells. And I'll pull up my cells. So here our cells are, we have 37 trillion of these in our body. But inside these cells are cute little organelles, these mitochondria, right? So when our body is in a stressed state, that mitochondria divert the energy from repair to survival. This is happening constantly. If we are always in a stressed state, the body is simply trying to survive. What happens further down that path is your gut slows down. So now you're not able to digest that food as much, the immune system decreases. So what did I hear from some of my colleagues? I got messages. You know what, I'm sick. I got sick after this conference. And I'm like, well, let me tell you, let's talk about this. But that's what I'm seeing, right? Because their immune system just totally shut down. So even ruminating on that forgotten dress keeps the body in that stress, stress loop. It keeps it live, that stress loop where that low grade inflammation is happening. So we have control over how we live our life, right? So we don't need to make this like, complex thing of like, oh, we need to get rid of all the stress in our life. But think about these small things that just kind of creep up on us. So definitely being organized. And I know I've had clients say, well, I'm just not an organized person, right? There's simple ways, right? So like, I like to do quartet kits, right? So specifically, like for packing, think about what do you need for sleep? A mask, A sleep mask. Do you need earplugs? And just kind of have that set up. What do you need for your gut to keep your gut settled. Do you need ginger chews? I often give my patients a ccft, which is basically cumin, coriander and fennel. And so they have those herbs to kind of relax, relax them. Think about what do you need to be calm? Do you need a 10 minute, like I have a 10 minute meditation just for travel on YouTube. But do you need something that you can replay for yourself again and again just to center and do the breath work? Right, because breath work is going to be one of the easiest things to kind of disrupt that stress response. Because what happens is we often don't breathe when we're under stress. And then lastly, part of the quartet is food. Always have your snacks, right? Because we are not eating the pretzels and the cookies on the airplane. No, we are not. And it's funny because airplane food, there are some things that I will eat at specific airports that I know. But I watch people sitting there eating these big heavy meals and I'm like, oh, yeah, you're gonna be bloated on the airplane. You're gonna have jet lag. When you arrive, you're just not gonna feel good. Right? Because people don't understand. So really the message is I want you to start thinking of your body in a different way and how you can hashtag self care. Your body so powerful.

And my takeaway from what you've just shared is that mind clutter, the ruminating, the resentment, the frustration, all of that, the mind clutter is absolutely correlated with the low grade inflammation, the cellular clutter.

Clutters your cells to function.

Yes. And, and that is, I mean, there.

Are a lot of people out there.

A lot of declutters. And the reason why I like to look at this holistically is because decluttering doesn't have to be painful. It doesn't have to be, you know, even just thinking about the clutter, if we can adjust it from this holistic perspective, we benefit mind, body, spirit so that we benefit in so many more ways. And so, yeah, clutter, clutter is neutral, but it definitely impacts our physiology.

Yes, 100%.

Well, okay, Dr. Manisha, we talk about the lighter path at school of living lighter. And of course it can mean whatever one wants it to mean. I am curious, as a five times board certified physician, what does the lighter path look like for you?

Yeah, great question. So the lighter path looks like for me is really taking each day and living it intentionally. And you know, every day will look different and that's okay. But like waking up and going, what does my Body need today. What does my mind need today and what does my soul need today? And really following that so we can kind of live our best life because really we all have a short amount of time on this world, in this planet, and most people are kind of running on autopilot and I would love for them just to slow down enough to listen to what their body needs. You know, I kind of joke, I'm like, well, stillness is a biologic need. And nobody sits still, nobody is just still for a few minutes. If you just take that time to do be still. Like I've done like silent retreats, like, you know, where all we do is just sit and be still and meditate. The amount of creativity and spark and happiness that you can get just from that stillness, it's profound. It's absolutely.

Stillness is a biologic need. And if we don't give the stillness.

Us to ourselves, we can't recognize what our body needs to. To. Yeah, it's that simple.

Well, the truth is simple, isn't it? It's we, we create all this over complication, which is part of our biology, right. To. To make things harder to look for danger, that type of thing. But stillness is a biologic need. What a great way to close out this conversation.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Heather, for having me.

I want you to share the name of your book again.

My book, it's called the Anatomy of well Being. And yes, it's green. It is available at all retail booksellers online. It's a bestseller in Mind, Body, Medicine and Workplace. And then also we now have the audiobook out. So if you're like me, who does not like to sit and read pages of pages, you can do the audiobook. But I promise you there's. There's things in here that you're going to go and highlight. So you might actually want both because this book is really the handbook to how your body works. This is a book you read before all the other health books so you can actually apply what they're telling you to do. Because if you don't understand that foundational aspect and make it so simple that you're creating rituals and all this stuff into your life, you're going to make health harder than it has to be.

Yes, yes. How can we find you online?

Yeah, so My website is drbonote.com. my social media, whether there's Instagram, Facebook, YouTube or Pinterest, is Rbenote. We've got plenty of recipes up, we've got a lot of ebooks available for you and yeah. And check out my website because I do do retreats. So that's a perfect way to come hang out with me in a beautiful location that, you know, usually I'm focused on how can we increase our natural killer cells so we can fight off disease in these beautiful locations. I love it.

I love it. And you are just such a such a gift to humanity, everything that you are doing and sharing. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Heather.

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