Dr. Darshan Shah: The Most Important Habits to Prevent an Early Death from a Longevity Expert

I was looking at myself, and I was probably the sickest I've ever been. I was 50 pounds overweight. But what was worse than that was that I had an autoimmune condition. I had uncontrolled high blood pressure. Like, I was. I had this, like, you know, pill box full of meds I was taking every day. And really what I realized was I was just working so hard to control disease, and that's not what health is. Health is not controlling disease, reversing disease. And then you do that by getting down to the root causes of why you're sick of, but also tripling down on the basics of nutrition, sleep, de stressing, exercise and movement, et cetera, and really feeling like you've not only reversed disease, but now you feel incredible. Right? You love what you see in the mirror. We need to change our mindset. Like, it's not just about avoiding disease. It's making sure you feel incredible every single day. I'll be honest. I see patients every day. I would say over 75% of people don't feel incredible.

The following is an operation podcast production. So I was excited to come to work today.

Me too. You call this work, right?

Exactly.

It's like two friends talking. I love this.

I know Dr. Darshan Shah is here. Dear friend of mine, you've become soul family over the past few years. You were my saving grace when I moved to Los Angeles. I'll share the story again. I had nowhere. No doctors who would really run the labs for my clients when I came here. No. No one really understood the value of partnering with a nutritionist to get to the root cause of people's health. And then came you and Next Health, and we hit it off. I. I'll never forget my first night going into Next Health, and we've stayed connected ever since, and it's been the greatest honor, so thank you.

My honor, too. Like, if there's anyone that knows the value of partnering with a nutritionist as me, it's just been such an incredible relationship that we've had, and it's also helped me and my personal journey and the journey of our patients, and it's so important. I'm sure we'll talk more about that.

Absolutely. Yeah. You've got such a great story, too, so we'll dive into all of that to get started. You know, I really like to introduce guests. The entire purpose of this podcast, so rooted in wellness, it's really designed to help people get rooted in their health, in their life, but also their inner wisdom to heal. So I would love to know from you, after going through your health journey, what are three things that help you feel more rooted in your wellness?

Yeah, it's such a great question. And, you know, I think about this concept of being rooted in something a lot because, you know, of our roots being from India and being from that Asian background. And my dad was a physician, but he used a lot of ayurvedic medicine. And I found myself going through the Western medical system, becoming unrooted. And so it took me a long time to get back to my roots. And so I think a few things that I really hang on to on a day to day basis is I love the whole concept of a morning routine. And part of that morning routine is going outside. You know, our caveman ancestors did that. When they woke up, they just went outside. They were outside already. You know, if they weren't, they went outside. And even, you know, throughout civilization, that was part of just how we grew up. And I think being outside now has become a rarity in our life. And that's really sad. And it's kind of changed my life just doing that one little habit, going outside. I think first thing in the morning, I do that. And it also sets your circadian rhythm. We can talk more about that as well. The second part of that, part, two of that is taking off my shoes and socks. You know, I think it's so important that we have our feet touch the ground. There's a lot of science behind that, but also there's something so freeing about having your toes being able to extend and touching the ground. And, you know, I think once again, back to our roots. Like we did that growing up, we took our shoes off and our socks off when we got into the house and we walked around barefoot. And it's something that we don't do anymore. For some reason, we feel like we need this plastic interface between us and the earth and it's not supposed to be there. Actually, I love these.

No one said that yet.

Yeah.

And while you're speaking, I'm thinking back to when my kids were little. I didn't buy them shoes or we had shoes, but I never put them in shoes. They were just always more comfortable barefoot. Right. And I think that says a lot. And getting outside. Yeah. You know, when we think about our ancestors or even the concept you mentioned, your dad with Ayurveda, like, this is a foundation of healing, getting outside first thing in the morning. Right. Sun salutations. Facing the sun, taking in the energy of the sun. So.

Right.

I love that.

Yeah. So those. Those are some of the habits that I. I really love. I think you asked for three, right? So let me think of it. I think a third one would be, you're part of your night ritual being a prayer. I used to do that growing up my entire life. And then, you know, then I became a doctor, then a surgeon, and then I just, like, I was so exhausted, I just went to bed. I couldn't, like, I couldn't even keep my eyes open. And then I lost that. And when my kids were born, I wanted them to have some religion. And so part of that was them learning the prayers. And my parents were. Were. You know, thank God my parents are still around. They had a lot of time to teach my kids our prayers, and now I do them with my kids every night. And it's just such a game changer, Justin. Like, there's some thing about a prayer or a chant that activates your vagus nerves and your parasympathetic system, and it really just takes the stress away from the day. And just reconnecting with prayer has been something that has been not new, like, you know, 10 years now, but something just that I've reconnected with has really grounded me.

That's so beautiful, because they're going to take that on when they grow up, right? Yeah. I remember, you know, for me, I call a lot of the things that my dad did for me from his Hindu religion, but they were imprinting. Like, I would see him practice them in the morning and every single night. And one day, we have to bring you guys back to the ashram with us. We just got back.

I know. I saw.

And every single night, we would go for satsang, we would practice prayers, and then it was like this beautiful day bedtime ritual that prepares the body to go to bed. So those are great chairs.

Yeah. Thank you.

So on the flip side, you and I deal with a lot of people who are uprooted, right? And I would say, you know, a lot of these people are treating their wellness like a checklist. You know, every day they have the checklist of things that they do. The practitioners, the people that they are in podcast saying to do, they check them off. But they might not realize that those habits, One, they're not truly connected to them. Two, they could be uprooting them also. So what are three things that make you feel uprooted?

That's such a good point, because I think people think that wellness is a lot of things that you have to do. Right. Like, there's a Lot of a checkoff list of. These are my 10 things I do in my morning routine. Here's my 10 things I do during my workout, my nighttime routine. And yes, you do need to do things. However, I always talk to my patients that about the Pareto principle. There's a 20% of the actions that make 80% of the result occur. And that's about not doing certain things more than what you're doing, you know. And so, you know, I don't care how many sleep supplements you take, what kind of, you know, sleep mask you buy, you know, what devices you have on your bed and monitoring devices for sleep. There's one thing that absolutely, like if you take this one thing out of your life for 10 minutes before you go to bed, your sleep will be exponentially improved. Probably even better than doing all those to do's, you know, the improvement in your sleep, and you probably already know what that is, is getting that cell phone away from you 10 or 15 minutes. Just like before you go to bed. I plug mine into my closet now and so that way it's gone and I don't fall asleep with the thing in my hand, you know.

Absolutely.

And it was great about that too is when you wake up now it's in the closet. So you wake up and you don't have it right next to you, so you can't grab it and you know, you have to go to the bathroom first. I go to the bathroom, I do that and before you know it, 10 or. And then I go get a cup of coffee before, you know, 10 or 15 minutes has gone by before I've looked at my phone and I think just disconnecting from the world in that way before you sleep and when you wake up is, is huge. And like our world has. We lived so much of our life growing up before cell phones, right?

Y. Absolutely.

Our world is literally like a 10 mile radius, right? You went to school, you went to, you know, and we had the phone on the wall that you have to pick up and dial a number before you can get a hold of somebody. And there was no email. And now our world has expanded to basically the entire planet having constant contact with us. And it's just too much, you know, and, and so your body, mind, hormones, God, everything is not prepared to deal with that every hour of the day. And so disconnecting morning and night is super important, I think.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And are you noticing like, have you noticed a difference? You and I love data. So are you noticing a difference in the quality of your sleep and your stress.

Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I think. I think it just makes room to. To be more inside of your body and your mind and your soul at night. And so just having that room to spend some time there, Monumental improvements and stress levels and sleep. Like, I'm a different person now that I started to do disconnecting more specifically during those two time periods. It's really hard. Like, we're busy people. Like, we have to be realistic. Right. There's a lot going on. I have locations all over the world now, and I'm getting contacted all hours of the night. And it's just, you know, I just having that disconnection is. Is. Is important. And for some reason, like, we got convinced when cell phones came about that there's emergencies that happen every night and people need to get a hold of us. That's just not true. Right. People don't need to get a hold of you in the middle of the night. And so I think just getting my mindset wrapped around that disconnection has been huge.

I think so too. I think a lot of our uprootedness also comes. We just have way too many tabs open, and then all of a sudden we turn on our phone and within seconds we're connected to news, media, work, emails, family. It's like instantly instant chaos. Right. For the mind, which is so disruptive. Those are great shares. Thank you. Something that I love. You are on a mission. You are traveling everywhere. You are on fire speaking to this, and I love your unique perspective. So you say health is not the absence of disease, but the presence of vitality. We're so diseased, focused, symptom focused. But you speak about vitality. Tell us about the inspiration behind that. Maybe share a bit of your story because I think that's relevant.

Yeah, yeah, it's really very relevant to my story because I lived in the disease care world for so long, so I became a doctor very early in my life. I was 21 years old. And so right away I wanted to do dive in deep into medicine and surgery. And so I did. I became a surgeon, and then I specialized in surgery, and I learned everything I could. I loved being a doctor and I loved medicine. But there was really one aspect to it, and that was like, when you're sick, how can I fix it? And Western medicine is so good at that. Like, we know that, like, if you get hurt or if you have a cancer or if you have a heart attack, Western medicine is incredible at, like, treating your body like A machine that can be fixed and it gets fixed. Right? But. But really, that happens when you're really, really sick. And it's almost like. It's almost like it's at the later stages of illness and. And you're already not feeling good for so long. And I found myself in that same situation. 20 years of being a doctor. I was in my 40s when I might. When we had our first kid, and I was looking at myself, and I was probably the sickest I've ever been. I was 50 pounds overweight. But what was worse than that was that I had an autoimmune condition. I had uncontrolled high blood pressure. Uncontrolled, meaning I was on multiple medications. Pre diabetic gout. All these issues. Yes, I was so, so bad. And, you know, I was like, diagnosing these diseases on myself, and I'm like, oh, okay. I know the medications I need to take. I saw a doctor like, yes, you need to be on this immune suppressant. You need to be on this metformin. Reverse your diabetes. You need to be on three blood pressure medications. And like, I was just. Had this, like, you know, pill box full of meds I was taking every day. And really what I realized was I was just working so hard to. To control disease. And that's not what health is. Health is not controlling disease or treating disease. It is, first of all, reversing disease. And then. And you do that by getting down to the root causes of why you're sick, but also tripling down on the basics of nutrition, sleep, de stressing, exercise and movement, et cetera, and really feeling like you've not only reversed disease, but now you feel incredible, right? You love what you see in the mirror. You feel like you want to wake up every morning and attack the day. And you sleep restfully every night, and you respect and you love everything you put into your body. And you kind of keep the bad things out just because you. You know, what. How. How good things make you feel good and bad things make you feel bad. And so health is. We need to change our mindset. Like, it's not just about avoiding disease and not getting into disease state and treating disease. It's making sure you feel incredible every single day. And I'll be honest, I see hundreds of patients a month. I mean, like, all the time. I see patients every day, and I would say over 75% of people don't feel incredible.

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Exactly. And that's. People don't remember what it, what they felt like when they were like 5, 10 years old. Which is the last time a lot of people felt great. Believe it or not. You know, like People are, you see, now kids are sick very early in their life. They're. They have problems with obesity, they have problems with gut health, they have problems with, you know, needing medications for disease diagnoses like ADHD, etc. And it's really sad that people don't even remember what it's like to be off medications. Many of my patients can't remember the last time they did wore. Not on a prescription medication. Wow. It was in childhood. It's sad.

Yeah. That's fascinating. I just realized to that point, a lot of the times when I asked my clients, when's the last time you felt good? They're often like they're going back to childhood. Like, I remember when I was little, I used to feel good. I was excited to start my day. And we've become so disconnected from that feeling. So I just love that that's part of your mission. It's such a big deal coming from a western trained doctor. To be able to have that story is powerful.

Right, right.

So what are the things that, you know, there's a lot of. We talk about disease being on the rise, right. Obesity, diabetes, metabolic dysfunction. You know, a lot of people are going out there, they're still looking for diets and trends and fads. What is some debunking that we can do? You know, people are doing all these things, yet they're coming into places like Next Health and we still see inflammatory markers off the chart.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think it has a lot to do. I mean, definitely, you're right. There is a lot out there to be debunked. Right. I mean, I mean, now everyone that wants a platform has it with social media, and they can talk about anything they want to talk about. And, you know, the more eloquent you are, the more forceful you are in what you say, the more confident you are. All of a sudden you can. You can say the craziest things and people will do it and believe it, you know, And I think that, number one, people need to be very suspect. Just because someone's shouting something from the rooftop doesn't make it true. Secondly, I think once again, people need to focus on what are the things that they should not be doing that is really making them sick before they go down these rabbit holes of technology, biohacking, what have you to try to achieve wellness. Right. And so, you know, I think I always talk about the Pareto principle, once again, the 20% of the actions that make almost all of the result. If you look at every category of health, the you know, you start with the basics, nutrition, sleep, movement, and then you can move on to things like cardiac health, gut health, etc. We could talk about all of them. There's one or two actions that move the needle the most and those are the things that you should really focus on and then you can go down a rabbit hole. So like for example, with nutrition, it's 100% was making most of us sick. And the reason that diseases on the rise, one of the biggest factors is a lack of adequate nutrition. Right. And so it's really about eliminating ultra processed food from our day to day diet. And, and I don't think people even really know what ultra processed food is anymore because as most food is ultra processed, you go to a supermarket and 90% of it is ultra processed food.

And go to a health food store and they think you can still find those foods at health food store. Right. Those are foods that come in boxes and packages and they could have all the, the healthy labels stamped right on them and they think that that is real food.

Do you go to Expo west at all?

I do. So, yeah. So with Jicama, we had a booth there and you know, here we are at this food and health expo and you go down aisle by aisle by aisle. And I've never seen so much processed fake food to the point where like you don't even know what the ingredients are, but they've got one ingredient that's trending like mushrooms or whatever it is. Right?

Yeah.

And it's like, God, what are we consuming?

I know, it is. It's gotten to an all new low. Like I have a, my, a buddy of mine, Chris Gevin, he posted something on Instagram the other day. Cheerios box with a heart shaped Cheerios.

Oh my gosh. Yeah.

And then, and it's like, you know, it looks beautiful. It looks like this is gonna like be the cure to all your health issues. And you look at the back and it actually says this product contains bioengineered foodstuffs. Like it's all just a bunch of chemicals that, that were getting thrown every single day.

Yeah. And this is probably one of the biggest challenges that you and I come up against because like a lot of people, you and I, obviously we're in the industry, we prioritize our health. There's a lot of people who live in areas of the world or different parts of a city where they go to their food stores and they just expect they see that label or the Heart Health association stamp on it. So it's got to Be healthy. Right. There's just like so much miseducation. There's a lot of things that are misleading people. Right, right, right. We'll dive more into food, but maybe let's break this down. So when we think about like big mistakes that people are making, what are two or three that you're seeing as a common mistake today?

Yeah. So I think another common mistake that people make on just the basics is in their day to day existence. As far as movement goes, people are spending a lot of time sedentary. And I. There's a study that shows that for every 10% increase that you have of sedentary, of sedentary time over four hours, there's actually a 10 increase in mortality. And so, you know, any more than four hours, you should not be sitting around. And even if you go to the gym an hour a day, every single day, that does not counteract the negative effect of being sedentary. It's actually better to not go to the gym and not be sedentary during the day then, you know, than the opposite. And so I think that's another mistake that people make is they're not mindful about that. I also think that a lot of people just the basics, they don't hydrate enough during the day. They, they assume that when they go to the gym that if as long as they follow the same workout protocol for their whole life, it's gonna, it's gonna work. And things need to change as you age to counteract some of the stuff that goes on just in our genetics, you know. And so I think there's, there's a lot of just tweaking that can be done that costs zero dollars. You know, it costs nothing. It's just being educated. And you know, what you're doing here is fantastic. Is really getting down to the roots and telling people like these are the kind of, the basic things that you can do that can move the needle for you and then you can dive into more of the, of the kind of the sciency stuff, you know.

That's such a good point too. And what I'm loving about everything that you're mentioning, these aren't like crazy expensive protocols that you go out and try. It's simply, you know, getting outside first thing in the removing ultra processed foods. The fact about like, oh my gosh, skip going to the gym for an hour, if you can simply choose how you can be more active during the day. Right. On that point. Can you share the egg timer?

Yeah. So there's a lot of research around sedentary behavior. Right now, it's, I mean, the massive amount of research and it's pretty much in my mind is proven that sedentary behavior leads to cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, obesity, autoimmune disease. All of this has been shown in research. So how do we counteract it? Because we all have jobs and a lot of our jobs require us to be in front of a computer or desk. Nowadays, just reality. And there's a really easy way to do it is called taking an exercise snack. So it's been shown that if every 45 minutes you get up and move around for five minutes, you basically almost eliminate all of the sedentary behavior that you had for the last 45 minutes. So it's very simple. Don't use your phone for this because you know you're. Once again there's too much going on in your phone. And you'll grab your phone to turn off your alarm and then you'll get sucked in. So I have an egg timer, just the standard cooking egg timer that goes to 45 put on my desk and when it goes off, you can get up and move around. There's an app now that you can put this on your computer that'll just blank out your screen after 45 minutes.

No way.

Yes. I can't remember the name, but I will share it for you. For you can put it in the show notes if you like. But it's awesome. It just blanks out the screen and you're like, oh, okay, I need to get off this computer for a minute.

Wow.

And then you can ask it for like an extra five minutes, but then you, you can get up, move around. And what's phenomenal about this 45 minute time period is if you are working in front of a computer a lot, that's exactly the amount of time that you need to get your eyes away from the computer screen and focus on something in the distance. And that'll save your eyeballs. And guess what? After 45 minutes, when your cortisol level gets elevated for 45 minutes in a row, it kind of resets to a new normal of cortisol for that day. And so at 45 minutes, you can get up and get, move around and get de stressed. You, the cortisol level goes down and you don't get that kind of resetting at a higher cortisol level throughout the day. And you can actually feel this like, you know, when you've been working for three hours in a row, you're all Amped up. Right. And you don't like that feeling of being amped up after working for a long time period. That's what leads to all the negative effects of cortisol on our metabolism as well.

Absolutely. So you shared that a couple weeks ago, we were speaking on a panel together, and that was a game changer for me because in that moment, I just flash through what my schedule looks like every single week, a couple days a week. I am just back to back to back to back to back with clients on Zoom, sitting down. I'll get up and go on a rebounder or something, but maybe for a couple seconds in between calls. But like, having the data and science behind that, should this not like this. This is the type of news where I feel like, you know, alarms should be going off. We should be reconsidering how we're having. How we're running our days, how we're running our meetings.

Meetings.

Shutting off at 45 minutes instead of an hour, giving ourselves that 15 minutes in between, like, what we could do. It just blows my mind just with that. Yeah.

You know, so awesome is if you have a Zoom account, which I'm sure you do.

Yeah.

Go to the free version because it automatically knocks you off after 45 minutes. It won't let you stay on longer.

Genius.

So that's a great excuse. You know, it's like, sorry, I only have 45 minutes because I didn't pay for Zoom, so I have to get off in 45 minutes.

Well, you know, I really took that to heart because, like, even running my meetings that way, it means that I'm practicing what I'm preaching. I can't tell people to go out in the world and do something if I'm not practicing it. So thank you for that. So that really ties into the Pareto's Law. Also, you know, I love that you've touched on it already, but if we're really going to put this into effect, how does Pareto's Law look with nutrition every day?

Yeah. So I, you know, people always, like, ask me, what's the best diet? Should I become a carnivore? Should I become a vegan? Should I go keto? Should I, you know, like, better training, like, what is the best diet? And really, number one is avoiding all the ultra processed food, getting all of that out of your. Out of your system. Okay. And so if you're never going to get all of it away, but if you're mindful about it, even if you get 80% of it out of your day, to day routine, you're going to be doing monumentally better. And you have to educate yourself on what ultra processed food is. So it's not just like the stuff in the center of the supermarket with a bunch of label stuff that you can't, you know, even pronounce or read. It's also when you go to a restaurant, these, they're using the cheapest food they can to put, you know, a lot of restaurants to put food on your plate. And they're using, you know, seed oils and they're using vegetable oils and they're using stuff that come in packages and refined grains and you know, white bread and white flour, etc. So all that stuff, you need to understand what that is and stop doing that. Number two is making sure you're getting adequate protein. And you know, I always say about 1, 1 gram per pound of body weight. You don't need to start with that because that's kind of a lofty goal. But we start, you know, somewhere around 0.8 grams per pound of body weight. And we monitor skeletal muscle mass in people and we make sure that we are at least staying stable or we're going up in the amount of skeletal muscle mass. So we kind of, you know, we use data to monitor what's the right dose. Every person is an individual, so it's not the same number for everybody. So you got to like be able to adjust and understand. Number three is making sure you're getting enough fiber and phytonutrients. And so, you know, we don't know the power of food even in today's modern society with all the science we have, there are phytonutrients and chemicals in food that in. When I say food, I mean organic vegetables and organic fruits that we don't even, haven't even discovered yet. And those have incredible effects on our biology and we need those things. And so making sure you have an adequate amount of vegetables in your day to day diet is I think very important. Now look, there's a lot of people that like to go carnivore, right? And that might work for a while. And more power to you if that's working for you for a while. And some people can keep that up for a long time. But I get super concerned in my patients that do that for, you know, a year or more because your colon needs fiber, your gut bacteria needs the fiber, you need the phytonutrients to have your gut function normally. And I'm sure some people argue with me about that, but I I've seen a lot of negative effects from not having that. And then lastly is controlling your glucose curve. And so that is done by making sure that you have the order in which you eat your foods. Right. So you want to start with either the protein or the fiber, and then last is the carbohydrates in your meal.

The starches.

Right, the starches, exactly. Sorry, the starches. And that's, that's going to mitigate the effects of the starches on your glucose curve. And so you want to avoid glucose spikes, you want to keep it stable. We could talk about the continuous glucose monitor being a great tool in achieving that on a personalized basis. So all of my patients, I put them on a glucose monitor, continuous glucose monitor for six to eight weeks. And you don't need to use it forever. But during that time period, you really learn what does what for your biology. Right. And you can really personalize your habits around food on what the data shows there.

Yeah, and I think that's a really good point. So let's dive into glucose monitors, because I can look at two clients, they have similar lifestyles, but when they eat certain foods, one will react completely differently to the other. For me, something as little as whether I eat white potato or sweet potato is completely different. So then I can diversify my diet accordingly. And wouldn't you agree? You know, once you have this insight around what foods help you optimize or not, or keep you on that metabolic dysfunction throughout the day, you'll see when sugar cravings come in, when caffeine cravings come in, when poor sleep comes in, or when mood disorders or imbalances come in also. So it's like, it's a great way to really take ownership for the foods that you should be eating. And I think that when you're in tune that way, after even a few weeks, when you go out on the weekend and you indulge in whatever it is, the glass of wine, the pizza. Pizza or whatever, you come back to a place of balance really quickly. It's no longer feeding the fire anymore. So I love this because, like that 8020 concept, it really allows you to step into, you know, enjoying all the things that we can enjoy in today's world. But if your body's in a state of balance, you're not going to do too much on the occasion when you go out and indulge in those foods, right?

Absolutely. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think, and I see this with my patients all the time, and I've seen this personally in me is That I used to not be able to eat certain foods. And that's because I just had no idea what certain foods were doing to me. And I would eat, you know, for example, certain fruits, for me, cause massive glucose spikes. Like bananas or watermelon could cause a massive glucose spike. And once I started noticing and cutting those foods back then, my biology changed, my microbiome changed. So now I can reintroduce those foods on occasion, and they don't have as much of an effect. And so I think we got to give our gut a break from constant onslaught, our metabolism a break from a constant onslaught of glucose spikes that are caused by certain foods and how we eat. And once you do that, your body has this incredible ability to recover itself and be able to reset how it handles, how to handle certain foods. So the occasional cheat meal, some people call it, or cheat weekend, is not going to affect you as much if you have it right 80% of the time.

Absolutely. Why don't we add in? So, like, I really want this to be tangible for people. You know, some of the things that we do. So when it comes to nutrition, for example, when you eat out at a restaurant, are there certain things that you'll do to make sure that you stay.

On track every single time? Okay, so exactly that one thing that I do is. And it works for me, it doesn't work for everybody. It works for me is putting. I have these individual packets of white wine vinegar.

Yeah.

And I put that in my water. So I bring those with me to a restaurant. I put in my water, I drink a glass of water. And that really seems to help me keep my glucose levels low throughout the meal. I always refuse the bread and the chips at the beginning. And I start with a crude a day or a salad or even, like, the vegetables that they have as a side dish. I'll bring that out first. And, you know, at first, I even thought it was kind of weird. You know, my friends thought it was kind of weird. But then I got used to it, and now I actually like it. Like, I don't. I. I want to start my meal that way, you know?

Oh, yeah. And people love the people who take ownership. It's like, okay, yes, that's what we're doing. We're gonna stay on this health track together. Like, they really appreciate it.

Exactly. Exactly. And so just those two actions right there has made a massive difference in how I feel after a meal. And guess what? Like, and then. Okay, so then I. Then I start with the protein always, and I end with starches and by the end of the meal, like, I, I'm, I'm not eating a lot of the starches, you know, and so because I'm already like kind of full from the vegetables and the, and the protein, and I feel great, you know, and so also, it also, I used to always eat a ton of dessert and I would get a dessert and I eat the whole dessert. And then, you know, if I was with a friend or someone else, I would taste their dessert. And now it's like, now it's like just a couple pieces of fruit or, or, you know, like, I don't even crave that anymore. And so I think cravings are a big, they're a big factor in people's dietary choices. And I think people think that they're a victim of their cravings and that those cravings will always be there.

Yeah.

And the truth of the matter is you can completely change what you crave it completely. Like when people tell me they have a sweet tooth, I'm like, you don't need to have a sweet tooth. You're just programming your brain to think you have a sweet tooth. It doesn't need to be there. I thought I had a sweet tooth, and I, I really don't. It's just the way I was eating and my glucose spikes and my crashes afterward that created that.

I mean, this is a good segue too, to move into gut microbiome. So I'll never forget when my health was at its worst. I was on the Atkins diet. I was hardcore Atkins diet. I was exercising hardcore. And if I didn't have a meal that was satiating, I had such this, like, emotional connection to the food or the sugar cravings. If I didn't indulge in it, then I just was completely unsatisfied. But little did I know I was going through massive gut dysbiosis, which played a lot into my mood, which was causing the cravings to begin with. And today this, you know, it's trend worthy. It's. Gut microbiome is trending. I know you talk about all the time like the science is still emerging, but there's some foundational truths that we know about the gut microbiome today and why so many people are experiencing this dysbiosis. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, absolutely. So I think that, you know, when I got into my journey about treating myself, gut issues was a big part of what was causing all of my illnesses, including the autoimmune, the high blood pressure, all of it was a lot of it. I Think now, looking back retrospectively, was caused by gut dysbiosis. But the sneaky thing about gut dysbiosis is most people don't even really know they have.

You can't feel it.

Exactly. So you and I, you know, we do testing on people and we see Almost universally like 80 of people have a leaky gut, and they have no idea. And it's, you know, we measure the serum zonulin level to see whether they have those connections broken down between their gut cells. And I see it in 80% of people that they have a leaky gut, and that's because their gut bacteria is not healthy. So just getting back to the basics on that, you know, your gut is basically three layers of protection from the outside world to the inside world. And the outside world is all the toxins that we have in our food and our water that come into our gut, that our gut is exposed to, to those three layers of protection are first, a mucus layer. Secondly is our gut microbiome, which is the trillions of bacteria and viruses and fungi that live synergistically with us. And then is our gut cells. And our gut cells are just one cell layer thick. There's not a lot there. So they're easily injured and they're easily. They're easily spread apart from each other, which is what causes the leaky gut. When you have leaky gut, then your body is now dealing with tons of toxins that are of flooding your system almost every single time you eat a meal. And that was. That's what causes inflammation, which is when you're. When your immune system is overactive and it's attacking normal cells and also trying to attack toxins. And so this is what exactly was going on with me, and that inflammation is what led to all of my disease processes. So, that being said, there's a lot we need to find out about our gut microbiome. Like, what are you, the bacteria that are beneficial, what are the ones that aren't, what is the right ratio of these bacteria, et cetera? But it all boils down to you have to care about your gut microbiome because these bacteria, viruses and fungi are living synergistically with us, which means that we help them, they help us, we kill them, they can't help us, you know, and so it's so important. And this is where fiber comes in. You need an adequate amount of fiber because that's the food that they eat. You also need things like fermented foods that help feed your gut microbiome as well. And then the things that kill our gut bacteria are ultra processed foods, high amounts of sugar and fructose in our diet, things like antibiotics like Cipros, like, and also non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs. These are like nuclear bombs to your gut. Like alcohol. Exactly, exactly. So I've seen patients that have taken Cipro and antibiotic and it took literally six weeks to get their gut microbiome back. It took forever. And so these, these are the kind of things like, look, antibiotics are great when you need them, but don't take them willy nilly, you know.

Yeah. And most people don't leave the doctor's office with a protocol for what to do when the probiotic zero, when the antibiotic prescription is done. Right, right. So this is a good segue. Tell us about Next Health because I want to go into some of the, the biomarker testing that I do with you.

Yeah, for sure. So, you know, like when I was going through this health journey, I had to go through, you know, one doctor here and then my nutritionist was here and then my, you know, and then I got into some of these other healing modalities like things like cold exposure and heat exposure with things like cryo and sauna, but those are at two different places as well. And I had to go to my friend's house, use a sauna. And so I'm like, I just need everything in one place because this is taking way too much time. Like, my health routine was taking up most of my day now. Yeah. And I couldn't get the testing too. And so, like, even being a doctor, I had to order my own test, you know, find someone to draw my blood for me, bring it to the lab myself. And it was, it was just such a disjointed, crazy experience to try to be healthy.

Yeah.

And 10 years ago, when we started Next Health, no one was doing all this under one roof. So I was like, for my own benefit, I put it under one roof and then I opened it up to my patients and they found benefit in the two. So we basically do intense diagnostic testing, which is super valuable. What we, you know, some people refer to as functional medicine testing. We do genetic testing, we do microbiome testing. But then we also have in Next Health some of the modalities that have been very helpful for me. Things like hyperbaric oxygen therapy, intravenous nutrient therapy, cryotherapy, sauna therapy, infrared therapy.

Yeah, absolutely. What I love about that. So I stopped a long time ago. I noticed I would put people on what I thought was A healthy diet, which most people could stick with. And it might look like paleo could be vegan for some other people, they would have success until they didn't. And then they would be back. They fell off the wagon. Life took over. There is no wagon. As I say, like, life is just going to have you moving in different directions. Right. So when I found Next health, this was an amazing opportunity for me to finally understand the biology of the specific, specific person. So when I was recommending a food, it was a food that I knew they needed. If I recommended a supplement, it was a supplement that I knew they needed. And today, gosh, because of things like social media and even podcasting, people are on. I took someone off 67 supplements that they were taking last month. But she heard it was great on this podcast and this was number one here and she saw the science here and it's like she's taking all these things. It's like, gosh, it's, it's too much. You just, you don't need it. Right? So this idea of personalization, why not take ownership of it? If you really want to take ownership of your health, understand what your constitution is saying. So recently, you know, here I am back on my own healing journey again. I shared with you. So whether it was long haulers Covid that led to mold exposure, that led to completely compromised immune system that I think I was living with for a really long time. But like most people, a lot of the symptoms that I was suffering with, I started to call them normal. Like, oh, you know what, I'm working a lot, I have two little kids, my husband's traveling, I'm really busy, my parents are getting older, so a lot of responsibilities. But I didn't realize the toll that it was taking until I did a three day water fast. And on that three day water fast, I gained weight. I noticed over time my hair was falling out, I developed body odor, and I knew that's when I really just had to own it. Went to Nextel. Sure enough, I figured out through mycotoxin testing, I had mold, I had a lot of other. My HSCRP was really elevated. My food sensitivity list was higher than a lot of the clients that were coming to work with me. So here I am. And one of the game changing tests that I did was a total baseline lab as well as the gut zoomer test. So can you talk about those?

Absolutely. There's a lot of sneaky things that happen that we don't even think about and you get sick and you have no Idea. Mold is a perfect example of that. Like, it can grow. You could be at your work, and they didn't change the air filters at work for a year or so. And now everyone's exposed to mold, you know, and that happens over and over and over again, and you can't see it. You have no idea. And it's one of these indolent kind of infections that lives in your body and just causes havoc. And there's so many things like that. You know, a lot of people suffer from Lyme disease. Long Covid. They. There's heavy metal toxicity that we see a lot. Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth can occur with that. And so there's these. There's these things that happen very often that people have never heard about, and they don't know that even exists. And you can't feel it. Like, you don't feel like I'm sick with mold. It's just. No, you just don't feel good.

You don't have vitality symptoms.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so with the total baseline, we. We include all of the testing that gives us directionality in which way we need to pursue for you as an individual. Right. And so, like you said, your HSCRPO was high, so we know we have inflammation that we have to deal with. So where is that inflammation coming from? We look in your gut. Wow. You have a lot of food sensitivities, and you have leaky gut. It's coming from there. You have the. We do what we call a total toxicity panel where we're checking for heavy metals, mold, all the chronic exposure pathogens, and we're finding these things. And now we know, oh, wow, you have mold exposure. You might be a candidate for ozone therapy. And so we can really personalize versus just like, throwing a thousand supplements at you and just seeing what happens.

You know, for all the detox products that you can try out there now you can really understand the first kind of a plan of action. Right. And the team that you have there also are just incredible because they take that into consideration, but they also really own in on a personal approach to what your lifestyle is. So I'm just so grateful. And what was the name of the urine test that was available?

Total tox. Yeah.

Total toxicity. Okay. Yeah. So to that point, too, I'm shocked to see that that came back showing that I have high levels of parabens and plastics.

I know, I know.

And then I'm like, holy moly. So here I am, nutritionist. We make some pretty healthy choices at home. We really set up Our home to be low toxin home, low toxin makeup. But I have to say, do you think that a lot of this is the result of living in today's modern world? And what we're exposed to plastic is.

Is such a sneaky thing. Almost everything around us is made out of plastics. We have constant exposure to plastic. Did you see the study that came out last week about, they were doing, they were doing cross sections through people's coronary arteries that had heart attacks. And they found microplastics.

Yeah.

In the blood vessel wall. And so, you know, and the study that came out a month before that was, was, and this made a bunch of news, it was that there's 10,000 times more microplastics in a plastic bottle of water than there are in than we thought there was. Okay. And so we have chronic exposures to micro, microplastics. And I also have microplastics in my system as well, and they're in my total tox screening. And it's a constant battle. You just gotta keep kind of, you have to keep mitigating against those exposures. So I'll tell you where I think I'm getting mine from, is that recently we had a water leak at our house, like probably about a couple years ago. And they replaced the copper pipes or the pipes, the metal pipes with the new plastic pipes.

Oh, wow.

Yes, yes. And so we have a whole house reverse osmosis system. But it's after that the water is going through these plastic pipes. And so now we have to kind of rethink this whole thing. And you know, now we're filtering our water even after going through reverse osmosis system. So people don't think about those things until you see it on a blood test. You're like, wait a minute, I don't drink out of plastic bottles. I don't like expose myself to plastics on a day to day basis. Where is it coming from? And then you just got to think through where is it coming from?

And just with that awareness, like, just take our advice, go through what's in your home, what you're drinking out of. Look at all the products that you purchase. They all come in plastic. My common denominator I will have to double check on the taps. The pipes is clothing, fitness clothing. Right. And I'm looking at all the labels, even for my children's clothing. It's like, God, there's plastic in everything. So really great, mind blowing insight. So here we are, we're talking about our food, we're talking about sleep, we're talking about toxins, we're talking about biomarker testing. And what really I think drives my partnership and like draw to you and Next Health is really the idea of integrative healthcare. So when you first walk into Next Health, the first thing that you see is Dr. Shah's wellness wheel, which I'm obsessed with. And I swear I take a picture of it every single time, like it's new to me because it's just such a good reminder that when we're thinking about healing a specific imbalance or a symptom, we can't just be microscopic about it. We have to take a global picture of your habits, your rituals, and this pillar of your wellness wheel. Can you talk about that?

Yeah. Yeah. So it basically came from me sitting down with patients over and over again and realizing that people are getting a lot of information from a lot of different places and it's massively overwhelming. And people get paralysis by over analysis. There's just too much information. Right. And like, do I fix my hormones or do I focus on my gut health or do I fix, fix my diet or do I, you know, de stress? Like, what am I supposed to do? There's so much going on. And I tell people that, look, we actually do need to focus on a lot of different things. And here's how we're going to organize it for you. So there's 12 aspects of the wellness wheel. We will always triple down on the basics. So the first aspect is nutrition, exercise and sleep. And then we focus on some of this stuff I learned in western medicine. Like Western medicine still has a lot that it can help us with.

Absolutely.

And it's really about diagnosing the major causes of death 30 years before they kill you. Okay. And so that's the best way to explain it. If you look at the CDC top 10 causes of death, number one for men and women is heart attack. How do we make sure you don't get a heart attack? And how do we turn heart disease into a rare situation versus, you know, what most people have right now? And most people, you know, most people, they get diagnosed with heart disease as their first heart attack. And 50% of those are fatal. It's just way too late. Right. So we can pre diagnose heart disease, metabolic syndrome, cancer and Alzheimer's disease, neurocognitive impairment, 30 years before it is actually a problem. Okay. And then when, you know, early, you can make changes, micro changes that completely steer your ship in a different direction. And so now these things that kill most humans on the Planet for you and your reality become a non issue for a very long time. Okay, so that's part two of the wellness wheel. Part three then is the whole concept of root cause medicine and functional medicine, which is gut health, hormone optimization, detoxifying your life and also de stressing and treating your brain, your, your mental processes and dealing with things like trauma, dealing with things like addictive behaviors and how and that mind body connections, that's that third part. And then the last part is longevity medicine. And so, you know, people want to start at longevity medicine. They're like, tell me all the biohacks I I can do to get healthy. And I'm like, wait, wait, let's rewind all the way back to the beginning and start at the first part of the wellness wheel. And then we take people through this kind of 12 step process. 12 step journey of health optimization, longevity health span and lifespan extension. And what's really incredible about the wellness wheel is that it's really a flywheel. When you improve one thing, everything else in the wheel improves. So for example, you treat your gut health, you'll see changes in your hormone, you'll see changes in your risk of cardiac disease, you'll see changes in your longevity. Everything is improved on each aspect of the wellness wheel. So it's just a system of organization of the information for people and getting people then to do things in the correct order and also getting people to understand once again the Pareto principle that if we focus on a certain few things on each aspect, everything will just get better.

Yeah, and those are three great pillars too, because again, biohacking and longevity trending, they cannot become the new version of a medication or the supplements that we just take for prevention. Right. It's about getting to the root cause.

Exactly.

Nutrition and digestion. The power of digestion, I think is just everything. If you're not digesting what you eat, then nothing else will function.

Right.

And I think that for you and I just talking about those initial three pillars, you see so many imbalances go away. I know for a lot of my clients they'll see inflammatory markers come completely decrease. Right. Hormonal imbalances all of a sudden improve, which is really great. And one big foundation that you also include there is stress and emotional health. Right, Right. Stress has never been higher than ever before in history. I think a lot of our emotional well being, you know, when you ask somebody how they are, I'm stressed, I'm busy. Busy's not even an emotion, but we just accept like, oh yeah, me too, it is now. Now it is, yeah. Right. And so we're, you know, adapting to technology, we're adapting to living in a world that's more stressful, with access to more information. But our physiology is not getting the upgrade, which I think is why people are becoming so addicted to biohacking.

Absolutely.

But there's gotta be a way, you know, how do we keep our stress under control?

Yeah. So I think the first step is realization that stress is a normal part of life. And just kind of sitting with that and just understanding that the idea is not to eliminate stress from your life because it's not going to happen. I mean, if you're living any sort of purpose driven life, stress kind of comes with that because you are, you just have to redefine stress in your life. And so the number one enemy to stress causing a biological problem is interruption of that stress at specific intervals. Okay. So we talked about the egg timer. After 45 minutes, if you stop cortisol release, it can't reset to a new set point. And that's such a key concept because now, yeah, we have stress. We're in front of our computer, typing away at a document, whatever, an email, that's stressful, 45 minutes, we stop and then we don't let that kind of stressful mental process turn into a biological negative effect. And so the same can be expanded upon by having one day minimum of self care. Even if it's half a day of self care in your weekly routine. Right. Unplugging 15 minutes before sleep and 15 minutes in the morning when you wake up. Those things are all ways to not eliminate stress, but to mitigate the effects of the negative effects of stress on your biology. And so also there's just things like, you know, just take a vacation, you go into the ashram. It's incredible, right? I mean, if people can do that even once a lifetime, it makes a huge difference. Right. And so I think it's just being very mindful about programming breaks from the stress that are, that can really help you mitigate the negative effects of stress. And then also, you know, a lot of people put a lot of things into that bucket of stress, okay? So they also put their traumas into that bucket of stress. Trauma is trauma, trauma's not stress. Right. And so now you have to understand that if you're going through a traumatic relationship, you need to handle that. And we need to figure that out and figure out either, you know, how to, how to work through that so that it doesn't affect your biology, but yes, it causes stress, but it's also. So that's something that needs to be dealt with separately.

Yeah. And maybe the way that you've experienced trauma caused you to have this learned reaction for how you deal with stress in your life. Right. But yeah, I agree they have to be separated. And if the way that you react to stress is the same, like, often for people, whether it's low grade stress or high grade stress, they're metabolizing it in the exact same way, but they're not noticing that replay to their body. For you, you talked a little bit about the evening prayers with your, with your kids. And I ask, you know how you're modeling this for your children. Because my husband right now is traveling. I'm single parenting at the moment, which is insane. We've done this before. We pay. Me too. But my son said to me yesterday, he's like, mommy stressed. And for a moment it just like stopped everything. Like, oh my goodness, what am I modeling for my kids that they're going to take on and learn? But it was also incredible because it forced me to stop and take a deep breath and be like, okay, what is really that stressful in this moment? And we dropped everything. We went outside for a walk. And I'm a big fan of just stopping and getting outside.

I love that.

Yeah. What about you? What do you model with your kids?

So what? I model with my kids. I actually tell them when I'm stressed and I say, you know, kids, I'm stressed. So I need to go for a walk. I need to sit here and do some deep breaths. I need to take a break, you know, and so I think for, for my children especially is not trying to paint a picture of the unstressed dad. Because it's not reality for me. It's just showing them that I have productive, effective ways of dealing with stress. And here are some of the things that I do that you can model in your behaviors as well. And so, you know, it's, it's funny because, like, when they get a little riled up, like, they'll. They themselves sit there and take some deep breaths through their nose, out the mouth, you know, like, try to like, calm themselves down.

The imprinting is working. It's working. Yeah.

Good.

I just think that that's an important share.

Right.

Okay. So another key topic that you talk about in your wheel is detoxification.

Right.

So we touched a little bit on this. But, you know, in this world of people going on hardcore detox protocols, 7 day juice cleanses, 5 day water, fasts you know, there's a lot of hardcore that's happening there. How can people incorporate detoxification into their everyday life?

Life that, that's a fantastic point. And so what I will say is like, you know, detoxification, out of all the aspects of my wellness wheel, is probably the most overwhelming for people because we live in one of the most toxic societies in the history of humanity. Right. And so there's thousands of toxins that you're exposed to on a day to day basis. And so really this is where the Pareto principle makes all the difference. There's a few things that you can do to detoxify 80% of your life and that's good enough. Let's just stop there for a little while and live in that environment and then we can start adding little things in there. Okay, So I always start with air, water and food. Right. So your air, where do you spend the most time in, in your day to day life? You spend it in your bedroom when you're sleeping and probably your work environment if those two areas you can make sure the air is filtered or clean. There's different ways of testing the air. There's great meters out there that you can use use one's called Aware. I have no relationship with the company, but it's one that I use. And then I have an air filter in both my bedroom and also my workspace. I'm lucky, you know, I live close to the ocean so the air is pretty good anyway. So, but, but I think just doing that for your air, your water. We talked about already, you know, filtering your water. Very simple. Everybody should filter your water if you're getting tap water, everybody. And lastly is your food and that is avoiding ultra processed food and eating organic whenever possible. And I think a lot of people, they get, they think organic is going to be so expensive, it's going to be overwhelming. And in reality, in certain parts of the country, yes, but still most people, I think we're doing an incredible job as society leaning that direction. You can still find organic stuff and food. And so I think it's, yes, it is going to be a little bit more expensive, but it's a little bit more and it's worth the investment and the amount you'll save on the back end.

Totally. Like food and water keeps us alive. Right. If we're not investing in that, like that's our greatest source of healthcare for the future is what I say.

Right, exactly.

Okay. Then we have the flip side of detoxification. So through genetic testing at next health I found out that I'm a terrible detoxer. So additional measures, if people are aware of that, that we can do every day. What are some things that you would practice outside of air and food and water?

Yeah, absolutely. It's, number one, staying hydrated as much as possible, right?

Yeah.

Just to try to drink the right amount of water every day. Kind of monitor the color of your urine, make sure that you're. You're not overly concentrated. I think that's really important. I think staying away from alcohol is important. So, you know, I think that the. The goal is for most people, you know, they're not going to be able to completely stop drinking.

Right.

It's just as part of our social example, resistance. And I do have a drink every once in a while myself. And what I would say is that if you have a few simple kind of rules around that, for example, one is no more than, you know, one or two in a day. But then when you have over indulge when you binge, which is just. Which is defined as more than four in a day, then take a week off of alcohol if you can. Okay. And so just putting those little simple kind of like structures and constructs in people's kind of rule set in their brain has really helped them kind of detoxify. So I have some patients that have fatty liver. Okay. So we do full body MRIs in some of our patients, and we very often find fatty liver. And fatty liver occurs from overexposure to alcohol and also metabolic disease. But a lot of people don't have metabolic disease. They still have a fatty liver, and it's almost always from alcohol. And so I think just. Just seeing that helps them understand, like, you know, I need to change my relationship with alcohol.

Got it. Maybe let's go back to the fiber piece too, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Like, increasing our fiber is such a crucial aspect and, you know, the power of your elimination. If you're not having bowel movements every single day, like poop is part of the conversation in our house, especially with our kids, they understand if the quality of their bowel movement was poor, it's likely because of something that they ingested that wasn't good for them.

Right, exactly, exactly.

Any firm, no food ingredients that aren't allowed in your house.

Oh, there's a lot of them. Yeah, absolutely. But they still find their way in. You know, when you have kids, they still find their way in.

I know.

I always joke, like, I'm like, I tell people, like, if you have a pantry in your house, it's better if you just hire a contractor and turn that into a wine cellar. That's actually going to be more beneficial for you because a lot of stuff ends up in the pantry.

Right?

Like a lot of junk ends up in your pantry. And so, you know, we really try to avoid cookies, cakes, desserts that come in packaging. That's probably some of the most toxic stuff out there. No cereals at all. Anytime a cereal finds its way in, I just take the box and throw it in the trash can.

Same all types.

Yeah, Every single type of box cereal, none of it's going to be good for you. And then, you know, we avoid vegetable oils completely. Every time a vegetable oil makes its way into our house, we take it and we throw away the bottle too.

Yeah, yeah. Thanks for pointing that out. The people. You know, I get hate texts whenever I post about things like goldfish crackers or these common kids foods or kids cereals. You know, it's not about an idea of being privileged or spending. Having the money to spend on more expensive foods for my kids. I simply don't buy those foods because a lot of those vegetable oils and inflammatory seed oils, they're found in kids foods and they're typically the first or the second ingredient. So for setting them up to start, we think about this idea, we talk about accumulation a lot. Right. Like a lot of our imbalances, they're not the result of the here and now, the things that we've accumulated since we were little kids. Right. So it's so important to look out for those ingredients if we're going to exist and feel optimized in today's modern world. Simple thing, just focus on the basics for detoxification. It's not always about going hardcore.

Right, Absolutely. And you know, that whole argument that, you know, is privileged to avoid cereals and goldfish, like, the last time I checked, a box of cereal was like 10 bucks or something totally ridiculously expensive to buy a box cereal. It's actually cheaper. You know why kids eat for breakfast? It's crazy. They. Broccoli.

Yeah.

And if people think I'm crazy, but, like, that's ridiculous. And. But yeah, they. They really hated it at first, but now they love it. Broccoli and eggs. And this is what they eat for breakfast. And they get used to it. Kids are very malleable in their taste buds and their brains, and you just gotta just make. Do it for a week and it very likely can happen.

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's what they have. It's what's put in front of them. If you don't have the other foods in the house, you can't eat them, right?

Absolutely.

Okay. We talked about sleep, what to remove the things to add in. Sorry, let's, let's do that again. We've talked about food ingredients, we've talked about biomarker testing, which is essential to stay ahead for longevity. I think for me, when I speak to clients about their health, nutrition is slowly kind of moving to second place and sleep is taking number one place. Talk to us about sleep.

Yes. So, you know, I don't know really if it's like what should be first place or second place, but definitely like, I feel like movement, sleep and exercise should have an equal standing in everyone's. You gotta focus on all three and on the sleep piece. And this is so true. Like nutrition and sleep are so intertwined because if you eat too late in the day and if you eat poorly late in the day and you drink late in the, late in the evening right before you go to bed, which is most of us do. Most of us, you know, like the most popular dinner time at a restaurant, you can't even get a reservation is 8pm, right. So people are eating, drinking, going home and crashing. That's the worst thing you could do for your sleep. That is going to lead to all sorts of sleep disturbances. And so really moving that last meal earlier to 6pm is massively important to your sleep. The second thing about sleep is getting into a good sleep routine and a good sleep environment. We talked about routine earlier. Your sleep routine starts the moment you wake up. If you get up and go outside, expose yourself to the sun, even if it's not shining sun outside, just getting outside, even a little bit of light that's natural outside sets your circadian rhythm at that moment. And your melatonin starts accreting 14 hours later. And then at nighttime, you know, unplugging, turning your white lights to red lights at nighttime an hour before you go to bed is extremely important. And then setting up your sleep environment like a cold, dark cave, like what our ancestors slept in. Cool the room down to 65 degrees or less. Make sure it's completely dark. Even the little lights on your tv, if you have one, or your alarm clock, if it's a lit up alarm clock, get that out of your room. And then lastly, quiet. I can't stand super quiet for some reason. And so I have a noise machine, a white noise machine that works just as well. In fact, I started getting an hour and a half of deep sleep up from an Hour of deep sleep, an extra 30 minutes of deep sleep when I put a white noise machine in my room.

Incredible.

Crazy. Yeah. I think tracking sleep is important for 68 weeks for everybody. Just so we know what interventions are making a good difference and what our baseline is, we need to make sure you have enough deep sleep in REM sleep and is ordered in the right order as well. And then lastly, I think, you know, one massive problem out there that doesn't get enough attention is if you have sleep apnea, you have to get it treated. And so every single person should just take a simple online questionnaire. It's called a stop Bang questionnaire. Just search S, T, O, P, B, A, N, G. It asks you eight questions, it gives you a score that you might have sleep apnea. And if you do, just ask your doctor to get you tested. It's so easy to get tested now. You just wear this little device at home at night for one night. It'll measure how many times in the night your oxygen saturation went below a certain level. This is when your body is not getting any oxygen to it. Your brain isn't, your heart isn't, your liver isn't, your kidneys aren't. You're deoxygenating your entire body for several seconds every few minutes. And this is literally killing you, you know? And so people with sleep apnea have a very high rate of high blood pressure, Alzheimer's disease, heart attacks, etc, so.

And they don't know it oftenly, right?

Yeah, they don't know it. Right. And so one of the questions is like, do you snore a lot? And does. Does your significant other tell you that you're snoring a lot or you're waking up gasping for air at night? You don't know because you're asleep. Right. And so it's very important to know if you have sleep apnea and get it treated.

Yeah, that's such a good point about setting the stage. No electronics are found in our bedrooms whatsoever. As you mentioned, white noise. My air doctor makes a little bit of noise. I wonder if that's enough for me, but I'm gonna try the white noise for sure. Sleep is something I just. It's really consistent for me since turning 40, I would say there's like such a connection with how I feel, but also my hormones throughout the month and how that shifts and the quality of my sleep. This is like that love hate with data. Because like, if something's defining that I've had poor sleep, then it really dictates the quality of my day.

Me too. Right? So I don't even look at that. I just, you know, once a year, I just use the data, kind of just see what's happening for a couple weeks. Because I feel like I had my sleep pretty much dialed in. But initially I had no idea that I was getting like 20 minutes, 10 minutes of deep sleep a night. That's what I started with as my baseline was 10 minutes of deep sleep a night. When I first started measuring it, it took me a year to get to the point where I was finally getting incredible sleep. But I think it's important to know up front. And then, you know, like, I'm just like you. Like, if I look at a sleep score and it's bad, it, like, ruins my day.

I'm so disappointed. Yeah. And it doesn't often even align with how you feel in the morning. Exactly, exactly. And the point of deep sleep. So a lot of my clients, they'll get poor deep sleep. When I had mold, I noticed there was a trend of my deep sleep. It was continued to go down and functioning with 20, 30 minutes of deep sleep on average a night. It was like going through life with complete brain fog. Like, I could not show up the way that I wanted to at all. So I agree with you. Good to track here and there, but it doesn't have to be consistent.

Doesn't that be all the time?

But what about sleeping our hormones? If we're, you know, hormone optimization is such a thing. You guys talk a lot about this. You talk a lot about this.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought this up because, you know, I feel like if there's any place where myth busting needs to be done, it's hormones. We've had an onslaught of bad science and that got too much publicity for decades on hormone replacement. And your audience needs to know that for men and women, having adequate estrogen levels for women, testosterone levels for both men and women, and even estrogen for men is so important later in life. And so, you know, we're genetically programmed to stop making less hormones. But that problem has become much worse with the toxic environment we live in, the lack of sleep that we get, the poor nutritional quality, and now our hormones, like, take a nosedive. And for women, having low estrogen levels leads to osteopenia. Lisa. Skeletal muscle loss leads to Alzheimer's disease and heart attacks. Having adequate estrogen levels prevents all of those. Same with men and testosterone. Okay, so if you can't get those levels normalized through non medical methodology like weightlifting, will Definitely help you increase your testosterone levels. Some simple supplementation like, you know, ashwagandha is helpful, but. And creatine is also helpful, but if you can't get it to where you're asymptomatic or not feeling the symptoms of it, then hormone replacement therapy should definitely be considered.

So it's been a seven or eight months through next health that I Through next health that I've been doing testosterone pellet therapy. The first thing that I go to when I go into next health is the in body scan. The one number. I could care less now about the number on the scale, but the one number that I consistently follow is my skeletal mass, my muscle mass.

That's the one I follow, which over.

The past few months has continued to. Gone to go up.

Exactly.

And that for me, when I'm thinking about longevity, you know, I have this vision of me hiking with my grandkids when I'm a hundred. And I want to be somebody who's older, but with posture and definition and so strength for. For my kids and my grandkids. And this, to me, this is like the sweet spot. Like, if I can see results go up in this way, I'm doing so much for my future than anything else, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I talk a lot with my patients also about becoming the CEO of your own health. And that really resonates with a lot of business people because, you know, you want to be in control of your health, be the CEO of what's going on in this incredible machine that we have. And the way you do that, the way a good CEO operates, is by looking at numbers and. And following those numbers and seeing where it's trending. So what you're doing, following skeletal muscle mass, probably one of the most, at least top three most important numbers you can follow, because our longevity, our metabolism lives in our muscle. Okay. And so people don't really understand that. And the reason is, is that most of glucose conversion to energy happens in our muscle. Our skeletal muscle also is what is holding up our bones and keeping our bones healthy as well. So a lot of people, you know, when you get to be 70 or 80, you will have massive osteoporosis. And that's because of low skeletal muscle mass. It's not because of, you know, not eating enough calcium. It's because having low skeletal muscle mass for so long. And so that's what you're talking about earlier, about varying your exercise routine after turning 40. You know, I grew up in an era where you spend an hour on a Treadmill every day. And that's exercise, you know, that's all you have to do. And now we know so much more about having a good weightlifting routine to build strength becomes more and more important as you age, especially after the age of 40, three times a week, at the minimum, even 20 minutes, three times a week makes a big difference.

Thank you for bringing that up because, yeah, sleep and movement is, is connected to, you know, the way that we sleep. Right. Our hormone function and everything. And so the type of movement is also really important. You and I talk a lot about this. Yesterday I went to the park with my kids. We're going up slides, climbing ladders, running around. And I noticed just a lot of working on my agility and moving around and things that I don't typically do.

You do this stuff too?

Yeah. Totally.

Awesome. I love it.

Such a great workout, first of all. But I think as we age, you know, going to the gym, especially if you're somebody who's been going to the gym for a long time, we do these repetitive movements and motions. Right. And isn't the sign of longevity also being able to get off the floor?

Yeah.

Right. Cross legged and. Yeah.

If you can't get off the floor, sitting down, cross legged and getting off the floor without using your hands.

Yeah.

Try it. Like if most people after the age of 45, 50 can't do that anymore. And that's, that's a massive sign of not having enough skeletal muscle strength, not even having a mobility, not having enough balance. That's one of those things.

I love that you brought that up at the ashram too. We have these swamis who are like in their 60s and 70s. They're sitting for 60, 90 minutes cross legged. They don't have to move, they don't have to stretch their legs out the way that we are. So I use that. I thought of you when I was there and maybe let's just close this off with movement. You know, the differences that you recommend to your patients in their 40s and 50s and beyond the differences in men and women and the way that they should be working out.

Yeah. You know, I actually think that between men and women when you become 40 or 50, I think that the, the workout routines kind of converge. Actually, I don't do too much of a difference between men and women because I feel that all humans need an adequate amount of strength training. And that is, I put them, I put everyone on three time a week protocol and then they need some cardio. I, you know, I try to get them to not Overdo it. That cardio needs to be divided up into zone two and also VO2, max training. And then I always use some sort of mobility routine to go, go to your point is how do we get you moving in ways that are functional that will help you live a longer life and be more active as you live and have improve the amount of activity that you're able to do. So like if you love to travel, for example, if you can't pick up your bag and put in the overhead compartment, you're not going to be traveling as well. Right. And so getting up from a seated position without having to have someone help you up, that's a major sign that you're not going to be able to do a lot of the things that you're used to doing in, in your older age age. Right. You need to want, you need to be able to do that when you're 70 or 80 and not lose it when you're 50. Right. Because it is super downhill after that. So I always put in one mobility kind of, I call it like a longevity routine or mobility routine once a week as well.

I love that. Yeah. Just asking yourself what feels really good. Right. You know, I think for me, my one, my one and only non negotiable this year was to have yoga twice a week.

That's awesome.

Yeah. And what I'm loving seeing at the gym is that now more than ever before, women especially are picking up heavier weight weights than they ever have. And we're feeling really good. Right. We're going to get into some closing questions, but I just wanted to thank you. You know, the fact that you can come here and talk about vitality, but something really special is just the intelligence of the body to heal. Using western medicine to really understand what the deficiencies are, but then honoring the fact that our body does have this wisdom to be able to heal and come back into balance, that we no longer have to accept aging as being something that is so detrimental or sad or depleting, we can actually take ownership. And you're such a perfect role model for that. And you practice what you preach. I see you doing it and I'm just so grateful for that.

Thank you. Thank you. And yeah, I think the message there too is it's never too late to get started.

Absolutely.

No matter how bad you feel, you can feel a hundred percent better. Just, you just gotta start, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Thank you so much for everything.

All right, some rapid fire questions. So what is, what is one way that many women are making healing and Health too complicated, huh?

That's a really good question. I think I just looking at a lot of my female patients, I think they stress a lot about, you know, what stage of life they're in, whether they're in perimenopause or menopause or. Or pre menopause. And really, I try to get them to, like, not try to define it so much and just look at the levels and let's see what your body needs and let's see if we can help you get there. And so, you know, I feel like there's a lot of stress about being in menopause. And it's not that it's. It's. It's going to happen over the time course that it's going to happen. Every woman is different. And you don't need to really get into a definition on it. It's just. Just getting. Making sure that we're not seeing the negative effects of it and getting you treated if you need treatment.

I love that you brought that up, especially as a man. So right now, what's happening, it is incredible that women are getting more awareness on hormones and different stages and phases that happen. But it's also like this definitive, oh, my God, I'm in my 30s. This is happening. Oh, my God, I'm in my 40s. Here's what I can expect. And it's like, no, it doesn't have to be about that. So thank you for that. That's really important. What is your favorite ancient healing remedy?

Oh, my favorite ancient healing remedy, turmeric. My mom used to, like, rub it all over my body when I was icky and, like, you know, true. You know, big raised Indian. Turmeric was a cure to everything. And there's definitely something to that. Right? I mean, you know, and I try to take in as much turmeric as I can, and turmeric is made more bioavailable by combining it with pepper. And so, you know, that's something spices that we put on almost everything when we can. And I also take a curcumin pipaverin supplement on a daily basis to reduce inflammation.

Yeah, I love that. That's one trend that needs to stick around. If you had to pick something about modern medicine that excites you, what would it be?

Yeah, that's a great question. Because I, you know, I live in that world right now as well. And what I would say is that the diagnostics that we have that have been locked up in Western medicine are finally getting cheap enough and ubiquitous enough that almost everyone can use them to, like we talked about at the beginning of the podcast, is to diagnose potential huge issues 20 to 30 years earlier. And if we can do that, we can eliminate a lot of disease. Okay, so can't. For example, cancer's biggest enemy is being diagnosed as stage one. What if everyone had access to a full body MRI and liquid biopsy on a yearly basis? Right. Almost no one would have stage four cancer where now you're talking five year survival rates.

Absolutely.

And that would be such a monumental change. And so as these technologies become more ubiquitous, they become cheaper. And when they become cheaper, we can all benefit from them. So I see. There should be no reason that everyone on the planet can't get these things covered by insurance. And it will eventually happen. Drive down this massive cost of health care that we have because we're so focused on the last year of life.

Yeah.

You know, there's like incredibly expensive chemotherapy treatments out there and radiation therapy. Like, if we had diagnosed this at stage one, we wouldn't need any of that.

Absolutely.

I think the trend is definitely shifting now and we're seeing that even in the, this massive medical, you know, world of spending trillions of dollars on healthcare, people are really realizing that we need to front load this a lot more.

Yeah. And that's one takeaway that I hope everyone takes ownership of. Like instead of focusing on health on the back end, it's the here and now. The more that you can take ownership and take action, you're adding years to your life. Exactly right. All right, what are the top three things that we can start doing right now to optimize our hormones?

Oh, okay. Weightlifting for sure. Okay, so that's. Number one is lifting weights. Number two is decreasing the amount of. If you drink soda, like eliminating sugary beverages from your life. Soda, orange juice, juices, etc.

Yeah.

Stick to like, water as much as possible. You can put some electrolyte powder in it, but water is, you know, so healing for your hormones especially. And lastly, is getting enough sleep. I mean, you know, getting seven, eight hours and not thinking that, you know, sleep is for the weak, sleep is for the strong. Absolutely strong. It'll keep your testosterone levels up and you'll be able to enjoy the benefits of that.

So absolutely love that. If you could leave our listeners with just one key takeaway that you're most passionate about right now, what would it be?

I think it's the Pareto principle. You know, focus on the 20 that's going to make 80% of the difference. It's actually very simple and become. I always say, you know, I want my patients to become habit forming ninjas. Become. If you learn anything, if you do a deep dive in anything, before you focus in on reading every nutrition book or every exercise book, first read a book on how to form habits and become really good at forming habits. Because there's not going to be one intervention done at one time that's going to be helpful. It's going to be the sum total of the little things that you do on a day to day basis consistently.

I love that as a closing takeaway because I think, you know, people look at you and I, yes, we work in the industry. It's a lot of the research that we put into to supporting people, but it's also the result of having lost our health. When you lose your health, you have nothing. Nothing else matters. And over the years I think what we've learned is that healthy living rituals, they become you over time. It's not about what to eat and what not to eat anymore. It's about this makes me feel really good. I want more of that.

Right, right, right, exactly. It's the abundance of vitality. That's what you want.

Vitality. Thank you for being such an incredible thought leader. That's out in the world. You are so kind. You are an incredible human being. I'm just so honored that our paths crossed and you're one of the first people to really bring this idea or concept of integration, honoring ancient rituals and the future of medicine in one place. And, and I just think everybody needs to know that. How do you like to communicate with your audience? Where can they find you?

Yeah, I mean if you want to look me up, we're at, I'm at Next Health www.next-health.com. we have locations in LA and in New York, but we're also franchising so we're going to be all over the world pretty soon. We're opening in Dubai and Nashville and Austin and Miami. So we're having a lot of locations open and you know, everyone will be trained in this methodology as well. I have an Instagram at Darshan Shahmd and yeah, some podcasts that are out to search me on your podcast player.

We'll put all the show notes listed below. And God, thank you for, for being here.

Oh, thank you so much for everything you do and spreading the word. Honor to be here. Thank you. All the feelings are mutual. You know that, that.

Thank you.

Thanks.