Habits and Hustle - Episode 9: Darshan Shah – Surgeon and Health & Wellness Expert – Dishes the Goods on Longevity

Episode Date: May 3, 2019

Dr. Darshan Shah joins us today for an eye-opening discussion on the latest health and wellness trends. He talks about becoming a surgeon at age 21, his first business ventures, starting Next Health and his podcast, Forefront. Darshan isn’t just full of information. He’s experienced his own wellness journey. Despite being a doctor, Darshan wasn’t always so healthy. The stress took a toll on his body and at one point he was obese and pre-diabetic. We also deep dive into health hacks and trends including journaling, mushroom tea, MCT Oil, breakfast, hormone health, sleep, exercise, leaky gut, retraining your brain, habit stacking, the importance of self-care, infrared saunas, intermittent fasting, brain health, preventative medicine and so much more. 📺 Youtube Link to This Episode Dr. Darshan’s Website Dr. Darshan’s Podcast: Forefront ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Set furnished by Fernish Art by ArtSugar Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vitamin water zero sugar just dropped in all new taste with zero holding back on flavor. You can be your all feeling. I'll play and all self-care you. Grab the all new taste today. Vitamin water zero sugar nourish every you. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of glass. Hey everyone welcome to Habitson Hustle. I love today's episode. We have Dr. Dar Shon Shaw, who is a renowned surgeon, a tremendous entrepreneur. He founded Next Health here in Los Angeles, which is all about optimizing your health. What I love about Dar Shon is he's obsessed with longevity and he figures out the best ways to basically health hack your way To be as healthy as you can. So we go over not only the hottest wellness trends like intermittent fasting, mushroom tea

But we also talk about ways that you at home can optimize your health by doing simple simple things. Today is a must listen, guys, so stay tuned. There. There. There. There. There. There. There.

There. There. There. There. There. There. There. There.

There. There. There. There. There. There. There. There. There. just as a side note, but you know some people are usually a doctor or surgeon actually is usually enough, but not this guy. He is a serial successful entrepreneur plus a plastic surgeon plus plus plus. So we're gonna get in and dive deep into who is Darshan Shah and all the different multifaceted of you. So thank you. Thank you for coming. Thanks for having me, Jen. This is so fun.

Well, I hope you say that at the end of the interview, not even at the beginning, but where to start. So like I was saying to Darshan before, I don't even know, I call you Darshan, even though you're a doctor. So you always call me Darshan. Okay, I'm going to keep on saying Darshan. It's feel kind of weird if I kept on saying like,

Dr. Shah, Dr. Shah. But that's not me. That's not my identity. No, you are your Darshan. You are like you are a saying like Dr. Shaw, Dr. Shaw. Right. But that's not me. That's not my identity. No, you are, you're Dr. Shaw. You are. You are, like you are a Dr. Shaw. Okay, good.

So, let's start with the beginning of Dr. Shaw. Okay. So, like people, Dr. Shaw, I'll say this, like currently, Dr. Shaw has something called Next Health, which has two locations in L.A. and it is really like a very innovative way of like next generation of how to take care of yourself and we're going to get into that in a few moments but that's not where it began. So what I found really what I find super impressive about you on a serious note is you have been doing tons of different businesses prior to this. You've become a plastic surgeon. You have like what like how many

actual surgery centers do you have? You have four. You have four surgery centers. So how did you start? Like we used always super entrepreneurial, always business-oriented and you like, how did it? No, not really. You know what happened was, I became a doctor at a very young age, so I've been a doctor for a long time. How young?

I was 21 when I graduated from medical school. Yeah, I did my first surgery when I was 21 years old. That was like a kid in the operating room doing surgery. Are you kidding? No. Where'd you go to school that day? University of Missouri, Kansas City. And I skipped a couple grades in grade school, high school, and then I went to this program that took me right after high school

into this compressed six-year program. Where basically you took away all vacation and you had no summer vacation, no spring break, and just powered through med school for six years. And my graduate from that one I was 21 years old. And so you became so what, you went to, you got your regular, your regular medical degree and then you also got your, you became a surgeon all-so. So you were literally a surgeon at 21. No, I was training in surgery at 21. I graduated med school at 21 and trained in surgery at 21. And, I was training in surgery at 21. I graduated in med school at 21 and trained in surgery at 21. And so you were operating on

people at the right, right? Right. Exactly. That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah, it was pretty young. And so, you know, what that gave me was kind of like the time bandwidth to reinvent myself a few times, which, which has been pretty interesting. And I'm a little bit ADD about what I'm doing with my life. Like, if I don't feel satisfied and fulfilled, I want to change things right away. And I did that a few times in my life. And really, I love being a surgeon. I still operate now. But when I first came out of surgery school, let's call it, I was operating 14 hours a day. Sometimes every single day, taking night call, being up at 4.30 in the morning. And it was really hard. It's a hard

career. Any surgeon will tell you it's a hard career. And luckily my dad taught me a lot about business. He's also an entrepreneur. He did a lot of things and I helped my dad when I was a kid, managed businesses and software programs for him and things like that. And he put like that little bit of that business gene inside of me where he kind of taught me that, look, you can do a lot as a single individual. But once you start replicating yourself through business, you can do a lot more. And I decided maybe about 10 years after being a surgeon that I needed, number one, I need to get some sleep.

And I could do more. And so what I was doing at that point in time was I started one of the first chains of medical spas in California and also surgery centers as well. So we did both those businesses at the same time. Where's the call? What did the surgery centers do? So the surgery centers, they have different names. Each surgery center is a different name.

But the Med Spa chain was called butology. And we still have that. I still have a CEO running that business. And since that time after going through those businesses, being a business owner and a surgeon at the same time was even doubly stressful I found. And as you know, as you age, stress really impacts you a lot more. And so I was very much impacted by the amount of stress I was under. I became pretty much overweight or obese.

You could say 30 pounds every then I am now. I was pre-diabetic. I was on two hypertension medications. I was pretty sick. I couldn't sleep. And I looked through the mirror one day and I said to myself, this is ridiculous. I'm busy and successful, but I'm going to die very early if I keep on this path. And that's what launched me on a new path in my life. And I reinvented myself again.

Wow. You're kind of like a chameleon in it. Or you keep on pivoting to more, you kind of find what your passion is and kind of just pursue that further. It sounds like. But like, so you, because even being a plastic surgeon, like, then there's another, there's another specialty there. So then when did you become an actual plastic surgeon? Oh, yeah. So I became a plastic surgeon in 2007. Oh, okay.

Right. So about 10 years ago, you obviously have a lot of drive, like innate drive and determination to be able to do that and have these other businesses, and to manage all of that. As a kid, you were saying your father was someone that you were a role model for the entrepreneurship. But within that, what is it that is there is something that drives you to keep on trying to become better, or just because of your own personal, like stress management, you kind of decided to kind of keep on going and further it.

No, I think there's two things that has driven me all the time. I know to be successful entrepreneur, it's gonna be very hard to be successful unless you work your ass off, right? Right. And so for me, I knew that working my ass off was part and parcel of being successful.

Right. If I wasn't gonna work hard, I could pretty much forget about being successful. And you know that. We talked about this all the time. Absolutely. Did you have specific habits that you were doing then? Do you still do the same type of virtuals and habits, or have they shifted and changed as you got more further along in your career? They have. I say a lot more of my habits now around health and I can care of myself versus just working hard all the time.

Right. I think the other part of it too is just being passionate about something. Yeah. So like I find myself, I don't even want to work hard as something that I don't feel passionate about. Right. So that's what also kind of helped me reinvent myself

a few times. But also is part of my rituals and habits every morning now to visualize and to have gratitude and to talk to myself and to journal about what do I really want out of life and where and how am I going to get there. Right, you're a big proponent of this. And that's absolutely. And that's like a big reason why you and I connect so well, I think, is because you, I feel like you practice, you don't just talk the talk, you walk the walk, and like you are trying to always better yourself like that. So what is today, like in today's day,

what is your morning routine? Like what is your day to day morning routine? Sure, I can tell you. So I wake up every morning around five o'clock in the morning, sometimes a little bit early, and automatically wake up, I don't need an alarm clock. It just, after doing this for years, it just happens. I'm a morning person, too, of course.

But the first thing I do is I go down and make some coffee, of course, get my brain going, put some MCT oil in it. I'll see your big MCT person. I'll see. Do you think it works? I really think it's good science, and it works well for me. Right. It's not for everybody, but for most people,

there are benefits as far as energy levels and those kind of things. But after, and I'm drinking a lot of mushroom coffee now, so like forcing out of coffee. That's a big thing right now. Do you think, I don't know how much of this is, I can't, you know, there's so many different fads, right? I get confused with what's really now placebo,

what's really, I know there's science backing it, the MCTOs, one of them. I only see much I know there's science backing it. Right. The MCT, I was one of them. I only see much of a difference when I did it. Maybe I didn't do it long enough or the mushroom as well. Like I know those are like huge right now. Right. What do you find when you do that? What is it?

What is the effect on you? So I just find that more energy, but I don't have that kind of caffeine, high in caffeine down after I drink much mushroom coffee. And I also find just I have better mental clarity throughout the day as well. You feel that? Yeah, I really feel that. And you know, like, of course, these are all subjective, right? There's very hard to get end points on this, but there's a lot of research out there on MCT oil and a lot of research on cordiseps and mushrooms that, that, if you look at the research, it's pretty convincing that

there isn't a fact. What is the background research on that? So people would have done their sound. Besides you and I saying this research, what is the research that it would give us some doctor? So the biochemistry of how MCTO oil works, for example, is that it is absorbed through your gut and converted directly into energy, which is different than other fats, right? Because the other fats have to be digested and then go through the liver and those kind of

things. So MCT oil, that direct conversion into energy, is a huge biochemical advantage, right? Because you don't have to activate your gut basically to get energy. So that's one of the biochemical reasons. And then there's a lot of research, especially in the keto literature about the material. Yeah, exactly. You and I go down rabbit holes all the time. We can go down, this can be a four hour rabbit hole. Exactly. So, you know, suffice it to say that this pretty convincing research that shows that MCTO does affect energy without compromising or increasing insulin release or glucose.

Right. And then for mushrooms, what's the background on that? A good friend of mine who runs, a friend of mine who runs for sigmatic, he came and talked to us about the mushrooms and showed us a research on quartets and how they also affect energy levels, how they affect mental clarity and mental speed, I guess. And if you look at the studies on this, there is research behind this.

And he considers mushrooms as superfood. And so, there's about 50 different superfoods out there. And there's tons of nutrition research. Oh, tons! And foods in general, so. No, I know. And I've read a lot of the studies. But since you are a doctor, and I know that you're also someone, like I said, you dive really deep into a lot of learning on health hacks so much.

So if there's anyone to ask, I'm gonna as well ask you who's an expert at an guinea pig, basically. Yes. All right, so then go on. So you wake up at 5, you have the MCT coffee or the mushroom coffee. So first thing I do is I journal, and I have a diary. I've been keeping a diary since I was a teenager.

I basically now use an app on my iPhone which is awesome. It's called Day One. And I put some photos and I dictate a diary entry. What I love about keeping a diary that makes you reflect on what you've done, but it also kind of expands time for you. So as you look back in your journal entries, you can see that you've had this full beautiful life when sometimes you don't feel like you do. I like that I agree with that.

Yeah, then I have this thing called a five minute journal. You can get it on Amazon. It's an awesome, awesome way to kind of really take you to the process of visualizing affirmations and gratitude. And all three of those are very important, I feel. And so I've been feeling, you know, I think I'm on my sixth five minute journal at home. And, you've been telling me about those for a long time. Yeah, you should get it in trying. I know, I think I have.

I think I, I think you gave me one. It's sitting on my, on one of my, awesome. I want to my drawer somewhere, but I should take it out It's a lot of people are swear by that. Yeah, I don't care. It's that one He does you that's why I heard about it was a temporary. Oh see there Yeah, and I have one for my kids. They have one for kids too. So my kids do it and it's incredible That's a great that's a great idea Yeah, you start the kids early on that journey. That's a really great idea

Yeah, at least think it to talk about and think about it. Yeah, so that's been great as well Of course, then I'll work out. I just got a peloton, which is awesome. So I'm like just work out at home You lost like a hundred pounds. Literally like like 30 pounds Wow, and you do that every day every day. Yeah, I have to yeah, otherwise I feel terrible Yeah, so you know, I believe also that, otherwise I feel terrible the rest of the day So you know, I believe also that I don't want to work out too hard at my age Like I don't want to spend two hours on the bike, but a good 30 to 45 minutes is fantastic I feel amazing after the workout. Do you just do just strength weight weight training too?

Every day I do some weight training of 10 or 15 minutes Sometimes I'll use this app again called the seven minute workout. It's called the seven. I love the seven minute workout. You're telling this to the girl who created the five minute workout, you know, that's my five. Oh my gosh, I should do the five minute workout.

Too late now, I don't own it anymore. Do whatever you want. Should be the four minute workout. I'm gonna hold that right? Or like four and a half or whatever. I know. So you do the seven minute workout, which means you do seven minutes

of strength training every day with the peloton or what is the? Yeah, exactly. So it's a seven minute high intensity training workout, a hit workout, and it provides you with some strength exercises, some flexibility as well as different ones. You can choose on the app and I try to mix it up sometimes. And then after the workout, like for me, my brain really needs to learn something every day. So I'll always read for half an hour to 45 minutes. And so that's something I always do. And then my kids wake up and then it's making pancakes and getting the lunchboxes ready and all that stuff.

Keep coming back. You got plenty of space. Oof, not how you would have done that. You like working with people you can rely on. Like USAA, who has helped guide the military community for the past 100 years. USAA, get a quote today. Vitamin water just dropped a new zero sugar flavor

called with love. Get the taste of raspberry and dark chocolate for the all-warm, all fuzzy, all self-care, zero self-doubt you. Grab a with love today. Vitamin water, zero sugar, nourish every you. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of glass O. Wow, so wasted, so you read, right after you do your,

that's like, this is a good one. So after you do your workout, that's when you take that time the next 45 minutes to actually learn something. Read something new, you do something like for your everyday, every time, like that's kind of part of your routine. What is it? Is it anything? Like just something, what do you think? Is it just- I have a stack of magazines and a stack of books that I'm always calming through. So it's usually either a magazine or a book and by magazines, I mean journals and studies and those kind of things.

Something that's interesting me at that moment in time. No, I love that. And the reason why I like that so much is because I always have the, my intention is always to, oh, I'll read that tonight. Before I go to bed, I'm going to read that. And what happens, I'm so tired by the time the night comes that I'll read like a half a page and I'll fall asleep. Right.

So I get nothing, like nothing accomplished. I've been reading the same book for four and a half months, which is not really productive, right? Because especially now, there's so many different people I'm meeting and I really want to kind of dive deeper. And then time goes by. That's a great one. I'm going to make sure I'm going to write that one down

because. Your brain is so on fire. I'm going to run it all down. You're so alert at that. You're so alert. Yeah. The key for the whole thing, though, is to knock it on your emails and knock it on your text

or Instagram. Just like, put that away until it's time to do that later in the day. Absolutely. Because that just messes up the whole routine. That's a great half. I think that's a great one. So after you exercise, because you're so alert,

you are so like your endorphins are all going. That's the greatest time. And you'll so alert, you are so like your endorphins are all going, that's the greatest time. And you'll probably like, it will resonate more in that time. I love that. That's a good one. Can you give me other like, okay, you've given me a few different health hacks. Let's go through in all of your findings.

Give me eight, eight more health hacks, just like that. Wow, okay. Okay, I know that's a lot, but like I said, she before, it's like someone like you who like speaks to, like you go to so many different conferences, you do all the TED talks, you speak to, you speak to like the best of the best, the best experts, I want another, maybe not eight,

give me like the next five. I mean, you can probably give me a 108, by the way, but I don't want to put you on the spot like that. No, no, also, I'll go through a few of them for you. So what I do at next health is, you know, a lot of people want health coaching, and they want to put you on the spot like that. No, no, also. I'll go through a few of them for you. So what I do at Next Health is a lot of people want health coaching, and they want to know what are all the health hacks. And hacks is not the best word for it, because it's just habits and routines

that you should do and enable that with technology and the latest science. So you're not taking a shortcut, but you're facilitating and enabling using technology and science. That's why I think about it. And what I do is I have everything kind of segmented into what I call the wellness wheels. There's 12 different aspects of your health and wellness that you should focus on.

And of course, we all know the pillars are diet, sleep, and exercise. So under diet, we could talk about that forever. But I really recommend people consider fasting, intermittent fasting. It's a, there's a lot of science around it. It's extremely helpful. And it might not help you lose weight, but what it is going to do, once you get past an initial week or two period, is you are going to have better control of your insulin levels and your glucose. You're going to activate all sorts of pathways and longevity, m-tour, and these kind of things.

And there's a lot of good research behind it. And I feel great when I'm fasting. So do you do the 12, the 14, the 16 hour fast? So I do time restricted eating where I only eat during daytime, during when the sun is out. So I make sure that I have daytime, during when the sun is out. So I make sure that I have my last meal before the sun goes down, all right? Of course, sometimes I can do that all the time,

like last night we were out with friends, and then it's kind of like, I can't do it, but you don't have to do it every day anyway. And then my breakfast, I always skip my breakfast because I eat my first meal at 11 o'clock is what I do. Wow. So then, okay. So that's about a 16 hour fast.

So then that's a long, that's a big one. So then, number okay, I got a couple of questions on that. So, because I know intermittent again is one of those like buzzwords right now is Akito intermittent fasting. Now with the intermittent fasting, you say you don't have to do it every day. Would you say five times a week is probably- Even if you do one or two times a week, you don't have five times a week, right?

Exactly. If you can make it a lifestyle, that's fantastic. But, you know, pretty intense people do it five times a week. I'm probably doing it two or three times a week, Max, is one that fits into my life and I think it can happen, you know? Because the reason why I haven't tried it was because of my lifestyle. Like with you have kids and you have other things going on, it was social life. It's very, very hard.

You can't be rigid with it because you'll just, you know, you'll disappoint yourself. Right. And then that's a whole other laundry list of like you go down a bad rabbit over there. Right. So, so then you're saying if you just do it a few times, a couple times, whenever it's convenient, it actually makes a difference. It's beneficial. Hugely. Wow. Okay. I think it's a great diet hack. You know, people who have done intermittent fasting for a long time, they will tell you that they have lost weight over time, they may be able to better manage their cravings for sure. How, what's the research behind managing your cravings like that?

So, you know, we're programmed to eat three times a day, right? Right. And so what happens when you're constantly eating three times a day, your hormones grow in a leptin or are going up and down and is causing hunger, right? Once you get out, once you get your brain out of that routine of this circadian hormonal release, then it no longer makes you hungry during those times anymore, because hunger is just something happens in your brain.

It's not happening. It's basically your retraining your brain. Exactly, exactly. It takes about two weeks to retrain your brain. Two weeks to retrain your brain, right? Because the initials, I'm so used to and I'm sure a lot of people are so used to having not only eating breakfast, but you've been hearing your whole life that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It like revs up your

metabolism and all the other things, right? But now it's everything is so contrary. So it's really hard to like tweak what your the psychology behind that, that. A lot of the research on breakfast was funded by the corn industry and the dairy industry. Because cornflakes and milk, right? That's where you should have for breakfast. Absolutely. I mean, now that all of this research funding has been exposed, now we're rethinking the entire concept of breakfast. I mean, our ancestors didn't eat breakfast.

Whenever they caught food. You know? Exactly. Exactly. It's just really like, it's retraining your brain and like, and basically doing it and kind of that's the only way to kind of actually change it, right? It's not just like thinking about it, but try it and know that it'll be like two weeks minimum or the two weeks or what around it.

Yeah, it's different for everybody, of course, but I would give yourself two weeks, you know. Yeah, I'm going to try that. Yeah. Well, these are good things because again, I didn't think that I thought intermittent fasting you had to do it more like five, at least five times a week. And I mean, and like I said, I guess it's true, you just have to retrain your brain for that.

Okay, give me some other habits. So we talk about exercise. I won't do that again. Just a good hit workout, seven minute app. It's like, if you have a... You're talking to the queen of hit right now. Now you're talking my language. So just listen to your podcast and make that happen.

As far as sleep goes, now this is a really important topic. Everyone's talking about sleep. You have to optimize your sleep in two ways. Optimize your sleep routine and optimize your sleep environment, right? Right. And there's a laundry list of things that we can go over with all those things,

but I'm a big proponent of watching your biological data. So you should get a sleep monitor. And the one I found, there's a couple that are really good. There's one that's a ring that you wear called an aura ring, which is really good. And yeah, that's fantastic. He's wearing it at night and it gives you pretty good data. And then these pads that go into your mattress,

which I don't like to wear jewelry, so I put this pad under my mattress and Nokia Health Cells One and also bedded a company that was recently bought by Apple Cells One, B-E-D-D-I-T-A. So if you really... Yes, yes. And this is great because you're just getting to bed and it monitors your sleep. recently bought by Apple sales one, B-E-D-D-I-T-A. So, it really? Yes, yes. And this is great because you just get in the bed

and it monitors your sleep. You wake up in the morning and get a sleep score. It's a score between zero to 100. And what's been awesome is my wife and I compare sleep scores every morning. That's crazy. I love that. So, you like, you know, like, I got a 90,

you got a 100. What did you do that made you sleep better? Yeah. And it's so great because even though you know, there's research out there that challenges the validity of the exact sleep score. Fine, but it gets you in the routine of measuring your sleep and trying to improve it. No, no, I agree with you. Sleep has become a big one. I think much of this, but a lot more focus on it.

I had the sleep doctor, you know, doctor Michael Bruce on. Good fun, yeah. Right. Who is fantastic. And he was giving us a lot of different ways to improve your sleep. But I didn't hear about the ring or that mattress pad. Those are great things to, because I think there's so much correlation between bad sleep, your health, the cortisol levels.

I mean, huge. That's a really good one. Okay, give me some more. Okay, so then if you go down the wellness wheel, yeah, we're on that wellness wheel. Yeah, exactly. So the next thing I talk about, of course, is cardiac health.

So this becomes more and more important as you age, but even if you're in your 20s and your 30s and you're listening to this, you need to start learning about your heart and what keeps your heart healthy and what makes your heart deteriorate over time, right? And one of the things that I recommend if you're 40s or especially for 50s is go get a study called the coronary calcium score. This tells us how much calcium deposition is in your

arteries and it tells us predictively what your risk of having a heart attack is. Wow. And so where do you get this? So you can get any radiology center and just ask your doctor to prescribe it for you and your insurance should cover it. If your insurance doesn't cover it, just call around. You can get it for like a hundred bucks or even less at a radiology center. And I can't tell you the number of guys in their 40s have recommended this to and and they have significant issues, and they are working on turning them around right now. That's amazing.

You can actually prevent a heart attack by having the knowledge and information. Absolutely. How come no one talks about that? I don't know why. I haven't heard anyone mention that. Yeah, it's sad, because there's so much out there in technology around health,

because we know our healthcare industry spends trillions every year developing this technology, but it only gets applied to when you're sick. So like all of a sudden, I'm having chest pain. Okay, well, go get a coronary calcium score. Well, by then, it's too late. Too late by then. Exactly.

Nye your scores like a thousand when you could have caught it when it was 400. You could have done something about it. Absolutely. And I think also with heart disease, isn't it much more prevalent now in women? That's what I heard. It's becoming, yeah, there's a huge push from women to understand that they're

just as at risk for heart disease as men are. So you have to be proactive in diagnosing and treating problems with your heart and especially the blood flow to your heart. Absolutely. Now that's a good one. Keep on going on that. This wellness wheel is great. I like it. You should just come on every you know and just keep on going. Yeah. This is the great. Well, for each one of these I can talk about. I was going to say it's hours. It's like each, each part, each like little like piece of the pie on this wellness wheel can be an entire podcast. Absolutely. Yeah. We're just like, we're just going to go through them. We're summarizing and then you'll come back again and we can kind of dive deeper later.

Exactly. Okay. Let's next thing I talk about is gut health. Yeah, huge topic right now, right? So one thing that everyone should get familiar with and Google and research on and read about is leaky gut, right? A lot of people have leaky gut, they don't even realize or understand it and they're causing inflammation throughout their body. So what's happening there is food particles, certain foods that you eat,

your gut is unable to protect you from those particles getting into your bloodstream. Okay? And the time, of course, of microscopic, but they get into your bloodstream and your immune system is like, what is that? That's not supposed to be here and a tax it. But you keep eating this stuff and your immune system is always attacking these little proteins of foods that are in your blood and you're constantly in this state of inflammation and immune system over activation. And when your immune system is over activated, it's not just destroying things that is not supposed to be

in your body, it's actually destroying normal cells as well, and harming you, normal cells in your brain, in your heart, everywhere throughout your body. And so getting to know where your gut stands and how well it's protecting you against inflammation is huge. And practice is probably going to be one of the most important things in health and wellness that we're going to learn this decade and there's going to be so much more about it. You have to protect, you have to make sure your gut is healthy. And the way you make sure your gut is healthy is a couple of different ways. One is to feed your microbiome.

The microbiome is a trillions of bacteria and viruses and fungi that are synergistically and symbiotically living inside your gut. And the way you protect them is to feed them with prebiotics. Okay. So my favorite prebiotic, which is very easy to use, is called Skinny Gut. You buy a bottle on Amazon. It's a fiber that dissolves very easily in your coffee. So I've also throw this in my coffee. Wow, exactly good. I've heard

of Skinny Gut. Isn't there? There's a whole brand. They have a lot of, don't they have a lot of different products for this though? Like they have, is it the right one? They have a few different products, but the one you want is their fibers supple. The fiber supple can. Exactly. And it's the green label one. And it's awesome. It's easy. You don't even notice this in your coffee or your breakfast. You actually have coffee in your coffee. I feel a lot of others up in the coffee except coffee. It really is like an elixir. I feel like it's like a fine. Right. It has coffee-ish something. Coffee-esque. Yeah, exactly. All right. You just speak my friend Ben Greenfield, his coffee is just ridiculous.

What do you put in there? Oh, I can only imagine. It's like a cocktail with 11 and 25 different things in there. But why not start your day off, right? With the first thing you put in your body, nourishes your gut, your brain, you know, you're energy, all of that, right? So then feed your microbiome and get that.

And also. How do you know, by the way, what are some symptoms that you would have if you to know if you have a leaky God fatigue and joint pains inability to get to sleep at night inability to wake up in the morning just overall It's be a new mom low energy. Yeah, I mean yeah, if you feel like a new mom. Yeah, you might have leaky Back to be their tagline that could be like the new mom, you might have a leaky gut. That could be their tagline. That could be the new commercial. All right, that was good, that was good.

And just real quick around this too, is get a food sensitivity test. They're really good at telling you what foods you should avoid to give you've got a chance to heal, okay? See, I find that these are great tips because I think, see again, what I love about you is like you're, you're filled with so much knowledge because you always take it to the next level. Like you're so curious and always want to learn and know. The problem

is most doctors, the truth of the matter is you go see a doctor, they don't tell you this stuff, they don't talk about this stuff, they just like give you one blood test or say, oh, take this, you know, take this pill, take that pill. But when reality, that's not what your body and what you need. So that's what's really frustrating. It's like you have to acknowledge this power. People have to take their themselves and take and like be their own best advocate. Exactly. You have to take your health and your own hands, become the CEO of your own health. Our entire medical system is focused around disease diagnosis, right? No preventative.

Exactly. I went to a doctor every single year that I was gaining like five, 10 pounds a year. Like you're fine going exercise. And that was not what was happening. You know, there was a lot around it. It didn't even ask me about my stress levels. You know, what's my sugar doing, none of this stuff, and it's so important to know this thing.

And you can actually heal yourself if you have the right information. you know, what's my sugar doing, none of this stuff, and it's so important to know this thing. And you can actually heal yourself if you have the right information. Easily, and then you can prevent all sorts of bad disease in the future. So, I mean, I'm really scared of getting cancer because cancer is rapid in my family. And, you know, reality is, like, I guess at the end of the day,

there's things you can do to prevent it, but you can still happen. But things like this, at least put you on the side of potentially less chance, maybe. Then, is there a way to prevent cancer in your mind besides inflammation? It's inflammation is a number one, right? Yeah, inflammation is one of the biggest precursors

to cancer. And so if you can keep your immune system focused on destroying cancer cells and not cause all this damage with your immune system, you're gonna do, you, I'm gonna give yourself a much better chance, right? And we can measure how much inflammation is going on in your body. It's very easy. How do you measure that? There's a blood test called an HS, a highly sensitive CRP test, HS CRP, and a homocysteam

level. Two tests. There's also a bunch of others, but, HSCRP, and a homocysteam level, two tests. There's also a bunch of others, but these two are easy, cheap. You could ask your doctor for them, and you can find out immediately if you have inflammation going on in your body. Why would you not want to know that?

Absolutely. That's why I think I think you need to do your research. But the flip side to that is people then Google, like if they become hypokontriacs, right? I think I have this, I have that. You think you have everything. How does someone find someone like you? Seriously, because you're only here, you're not like everywhere around the country. Right. I mean, it's- So, here's the thing. So, Google, when you put your symptoms in,

it's going to diagnose a disease for you the way a doctor does. Right. Right. Is it not going to help you get to the root cause of what's going on? Right. Few of the ways to get access to this information, I hate to say this to your audience, but it's really a lot about self-education. You've got to get yourself listening to podcasts like yourselves, like our next-tell

forefront podcast, Ben Greenfield. There's so many out there that you can listen to that give you good information, and that really make you think, and then you research some more, right? There are a group of doctors called functional medicine doctors that are Kind more focused on this. They want to get to the root cause of disease versus versus disease diagnosis and giving you a pill But we're defining I feel in next health a new type of experience which is called the health optimization center And this is where you can come and get all this testing in a package and just understand

everything all at once. And then we tell you, here's what you need to know about every aspect of the wellness wheel. And then just do these things and you got it. You know, that's why your business is crushing it seriously because I think that it's become people who are in the know. It's one of those things like if you know you know and if you don't know, you don't know. So I feel like you're doing a really good job

of kind of spreading the message and getting it out there, but you know, you're only in LA. Like next health is only in Los Angeles. Are you gonna be going into other cities or? It's our plan, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Of course, we're gonna cover the big cities first and then kind of start branching out more

and all this information, I'm gonna be putting on an online course as well, eventually. Absolutely. For sure, of course, we're going to cover the big cities first and then kind of start branching out more. And all this information, I'm going to be putting on an online course as well eventually. So people can learn it all just very, you know, here's the most relevant information. Here's links to studies if you want to read more about it, but here's the things that you need to do. And really, once you have someone filtered through all the information for you, it's really not that hard. It's actually, I don't wanna say easy,

because it does take time, but you have to invest time and money into your health. Absolutely. Well, you're gonna pay for on the other end. Exactly. You know, either way you're gonna pay, depends is you're gonna pay for now, or you're gonna pay later, really.

100%. So keep on going on this wellness wheel, okay? So the leaky got, we finished with the leaky got, well, you said that it's about inflammation, symptoms you said, it's kind of like being a new mom, you're tired, you're fatigued, you're kind of like not feeling all that great. Exactly.

Okay, then give us a nut, give us some other, oh, you said for cancer also, it's about inflammation. So you want to take those two tests. Right. Right. Just preventing inflammation. You know, there's a lot of genetic markers for cancer as well.

And a lot of people are scared to know if they have a genetic marker for cancer, well. And a lot of people are scared to know if they have a genetic marker for cancer, right? And I understand that fear, but there's stuff you could do about it now. Now we can direct our proactive diagnostic testing to look for those cancers. Like say you have a BRCA gene, for example, right? This is one that's very popular.

Now we know you need to get a mammogram much more frequently and an earlier aid Right is better to know than to not know is what I like to tell people because we do have the technology to look for things Right and then every single cancer out in care which one it is the earlier you find it the easier to citrate it Oh, 1,000 percent so why not get genetic testing? And there's a great test called the color test that You can get is online. You can just send in a swab and they'll send you back. It's called the Color Test.

Color, COLR, just search Color Cancer Test online and it gives you some genetic markers of cancer. And then you know what to look for. What you're found in the research. Wow, keep on going. It's amazing. I'm not going to get to all my other things I wanted to talk to you about.

This is great. Because you have like, well, again, what I I love about you is you're explaining it and there's a solution behind it. It's not like you're just like yammering on and on. You're like saying, how about this and you can actually hear some practical stuff that you can do about it. Right. Right. Exactly. And what I try to do is organize the information. So it's not overwhelming and it's organized by body systems so that you can, you know, understand what you're looking at. Because there's so much information out there.

It's like it's waterfall. And then like you have all sorts of like bloggers and people who are scientists, but not clinicians and clinicians, but not scientists. All these people are writing about stuff. And you don't know what's real and what's not. That's a problem with everything. That's why people are, you know, in a place where

there's so many different options for weight loss, people are gaining, people are more obese than ever, right? Because the other side is like too much information is also dangerous, right? Because you don't know what to do. And now it's just paralysis. Exactly. Because you don't know, you're like, oh my god, there's like so much. And that's why I think it's good to also have a few trusted sources and listen to them And like kind of be myopic in that way, right? Like know who's good know who's trustworthy and then listen exactly I think that's the key and just find someone that you connect with find someone that you know that you've gotten some good information from the You've kind of validated yourself. It's not something that's crazy, you know, like they're not telling you do something that's

like get a frog to buy right right like it's practical and it's doable right no it's true. Okay, give me one more and then I want to ask you some other Okay, sure, um, so um, let's see. Why don't we talk about hormone health? Okay, so every single person needs to know that when you turn 30 or Sometimes a little bit after a little bit before you you're going to start declining in your hormone levels. And that happens because we're genetically programmed to start doing this, right? And unfortunately, to be young, healthy, and vibrant, you need a certain amount of hormone. The stress in our lives after we turn 30s, 40s also severely affects our hormone levels. And so the more stress you have, the more out of balance your hormones get.

Right. So a lot of people will go to their doctor and say, you know, I feel like my hormones are out of balance. And the doctor will measure their hormones and they'll say, yeah, you are a little bit out of balance. You might want to just take a little bit of hormone replacement therapy. Right. And then, you know, there's a lot of controversy around which hormone replacement therapy

you should do. But what I want to tell everyone is focus on one number, men and women. If you're in your 30s, late 30s, definitely early 40s, get your testosterone level measured. So for men especially, the number that's not kind of like at every single lab sheet, it says if you're over 200, if you're over 200, you're fine, okay? But if you're under 200 and maybe you should do something, well, that number's not really right. So 200 is like the bare minimum. For men, it should be closer to 7, 8, or 900 to be optimized.

Wow. Exactly. That's a big difference. Yeah, there's studies out there that say that if you optimize your testosterone level, you're going to protect against Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, all sorts of things. Wow. For women also, you want to optimize your testosterone level and it totally helps with your

energy and helps with keeping muscle, not getting a sarcopenia, all of these things. And so it's something to consider. And then, unfortunately, a lot of doctors. And so it was something to consider. And then unfortunately a lot of doctors were trained when hours trained or even before where, you know, the hormone replacement therapy was just like poo-pooed and then there's this big study that came out using synthetic hormones that said that hormone replacement therapy was bad. But the study was done on, you know, synthetic hormone on very elderly woman, and it kind of misguided hormone therapy as a general category.

But there's a lot of doctors like myself, most doctors I would say now understand that your hormones are very, very important and you need to optimize them. And so you shouldn't know what your testosterone level is. And it shouldn't become when you're symptomatic. You should just find out what it is. And you can get that test online now too.

There's a lot of places online where you can get a testosterone level measure. And I think it's good information. Can you do that at next health though? Of course, yeah, we offer all these tests at next health. I'm trying to make this more general so if you're not in L.A. No, I know.

I'm in L.A. I love you for that, that's great. But I do, I love you for that. So then, what can I ask you then, let's just, because of next health, or the whole thing about it's so great, the optimization of your health, you guys do all these, would you think of like,

infrared sonnets? Would you think of all these other things that people are doing for cellular generation, or anti-aging, and do you want to talk a little bit about that? Or? I love it. There's a lot of studies. Yeah, I, you know, there's a lot of studies Yeah, I think I think it does. There's a lot of studies

that have been done on heat sauna therapy showing that exposing your body to heat Activate long-gevity pathways, okay, and I've been doing it for a while and I love it And I feel so much better after I do a heat sauna. Infrared, there's, you know, there's infrared saunos even better. What's the difference? I think that's the thing. So you, I know the regular traditional sauna we're talking about right now. Then there's the infrared. Right. There's like a billion other, I mean, this can you explain this? It's not a billion, it's a couple.

But, you know, there's a pod. Like, even for, and next to tell if you have a pod, you have a bed that looks like a tanning. Right. Bed. You have the ones outside. You have the ones that you go to the gym and you have a sauna sauna. Like, what are the different breakdowns?

So the most popular kind right now is a kind of walk-in turn. You sit there and ask on the wood inside. Right. And those are now being powered with infrared light. And infrared light has been showed to help energy levels, hormone levels also help with sleep. There's studies out on all of this. So you get kind of like a double benefit from being

a heat and have the infrared light. And then we also have an infrared near infrared light pod. And what that does, and near infrared light, that infrared light going up against your skin, releases nitric oxide from your blood vessels increases blood flow. So that's the one that looks like the tanning bed. The tanning bed, right? Exactly, but it's not ultraviolet light is near infrared. So it doesn't cause cancer, but it does activate mitochondria and releases nitric oxide, which is very important substance for blood flow and overall health. Attention, Croger Shoppers. Did you know there's a world of innovative services and patient care right in store? It's where an award-winning pharmacy and nationally recognized care come together.

Connect with one of our licensed pharmacists today at your local Croger and experience the care you and your family deserve. Croger Health, a world of care is in store. Services and availability vary by location, age and other restrictions may apply. For coverage, consult your health insurance company, visit the pharmacy or our site for details. So how often do you have to do that to see the results, though?

You know, it's kind of like anything, like how, how many it's broccoli do you have to eat to feel healthy, right? Right. Right. You just, you just do it as much as you can in, in your routine. Do you have to do it every day? No.

If you're very wealthy and you have the time, you can certainly do it every day. It's not going to be harmful. Right. Um, but, um, I would recommend once a week is a great amount of time to spend, um, once we go into a place like next health or a place that has these devices, um, that are vetted and, you know, you make sure that you're going to a place like Next Health or a place that has these devices that are vetted and you know you make sure that you're going in a good device and really works, I think that's good. So the benefits, you still get the benefit even if you don't do it all the time basically. It's still like it, so it's more like even a little bit is effective. Exactly. Right,

so because this is the thing, even with it, that would the intermittent fasting with the infrared. So I was like a lot of these things, I think a lot of times people don't start because they think it's too like, well, I don't have the time or the money or the energy to commit to something full time. So then they don't do anything, right? Even me who's in this industry, like it's the same thing. It's like, oh, I can't do all the time. I'm not going to be able to do. So it's interesting. It's actually, it's very like, it's the same thing. It's like, oh, I can't do all the time. I'm not gonna forget it. I'm not gonna be able to. So it's interesting, it's actually,

it's very like, it's actually good to know that even a little bit makes a difference. It does, right? Yeah. What I tell people is, if you can give yourself two hours a week on self-care, which is like, no one does that, right? No, who spends two hours a week on self-care?

Other than going to the gym, right? So, right, and it's gonna be, it's true. And the reality is like fitness as we just talked about earlier is just one component of overall wellness and health. It's just one component. You've got to do all these other things that work in that wellness wheel. Exactly. And a thing. So it's two hours of self-care otherwise. Oh, wait. Yeah. Just blocking out in your calendar. Like, if you can't spend two hours on yourself in your calendar, make it happen because it's gonna keep you alive for years longer.

Right. What are other habits that don't require someone going to a place like Next Health besides exercise, besides diet? The one we always talk about, meditation. In meditation, I knew you were gonna bring up meditation. Can I tell you, I can tell you, almost every single human being

who sits at where you are right now, when they talk about their habits, their rituals, like what kind of like centers them, makes them kind of extra productive or on point, they always say meditation every time. And here you are again, I mean, but you do the TM kind, which is different. Yeah, I tried all of them and you know,

I think there's a different form that will work for any for everybody Right, I don't think it's there's necessarily one right form but fine will works for you Experiment get some apps if those don't work go take a TM class If that's what's TM can tell the difference between TM You told that to me on your podcast, but for those of you who want to know what we're talking about What's the difference between TM meditation and just you know using a nap on your phone, but for those of you who want to know what we're talking about, what's the difference between TM meditation and just, you know, using a nap on your phone for meditation? Yeah, I mean, there's different kinds of meditation.

If you want to kind of categorize them, there's focused meditation where you're focused on something like, you know, one object in your head or one god even if you want to make it secular, which you shouldn't you know You don't have to be religious to do meditation of course, right? And then another type of meditation is Where you're thought where you're using your breath, right? Right and you're you're trying to clear your mind completely So you're not focusing on something you let thoughts come in and you let thoughts go out and you're trying to clear your mind

and then the third category in my mind is transcendental meditation where you're going into a deeper level. So thoughts are still occurring, you're letting them occur and then you're just like getting under the thoughts. So the way people that describe TM meditation is like it's the ocean, a cross section of the ocean. The top is still very wavy and there's might be a storm at the top of the deeper you go the calmer and calmer it gets. And how much did you do that like every day? It's supposed to be 20 minutes twice a day and honestly I probably hit that maybe like 10% of the time.

But at least once a day I try to do it. That's a lot. So like you have that's like another habit. Like there's a lot of different things that you have to, like, you're hitting daily. You have your learning, you have your meditation, you have your exercise, and you have your journal English. Those things don't take that long. They don't take a lot of time. They don't take a lot of time. And if you stack them and you put them all together into like one routine, like before

you know what it's done, you know, like two hours and all this is done or an hour and half and it's all done. And in fact, actually, I think it makes you even more productive and more efficiently later on because you've done those things. Exactly. If you get like an app on your phone, like the new iPhone does this, it tells you how much time you spend on social media. Easily, it's like two, three hours for some people. Crazy. Or more, right? Absolutely. Cut that in half and do this instead. Oh yeah 100%. I think this is like the worst thing that's ever happened to like to society now because it's because people are so preoccupied

and obsessed with it. It like is there something I wanted to ask you? Is there something like on the medical side that what is a duty or brain? Because I feel like the second that you start with it, it becomes a worse and worse thing. And like you become like addicted. It's like, it's an addiction like it would be alcohol or drugs. It just gives you that dopamine hit. Every single time you're on your, you're like looking for a message, I got a message, I got a message. And you're like looking for validation and gives you dopamine hit every single time.

Right. And your body gets used to having dopamine all the time. And when it doesn't, it's like, where did I find that last hit a dopamine? Oh yeah, my phone. I need a new grab for it. So how do you make it, how do you tweak it? Because it would be unrealistic to tell people, just, oh yeah, don't do it. How do you, it's like eating, right?

How do you minimize your, the, the, the necessity of using it, but to a minimum. Like, you know, like food, like you have, like if you have a food addiction, people still have to eat three, three times a day. Right. So how is it? Well, they don't have to eat three. Like food, if you have a food addiction, people still have to eat three times a day. So, they don't have to eat three times a day. Well, they don't have to eat three times a day. But, of course, if you have to eat like once a day and they're fine. But, like, no, but you know, like, how is there a way, is there

a way, or has it been medically shown or research proven that there's a way to kind of my... Modulate your phone usage. Yeah, I mean, look, it's all around. Or your food, or any of these addiction addictive habits Right the only way that you're gonna you're going to Eliminate one habit is to replace it with a different one. I knew you're gonna say that was the answer I would say but I'm not a doctor But so you just have to again get your dopamine hits from something else right? You don't mean head from exercising get you don't hit from a seven minute workout or a five minute workout or whatever, you know, all that.

Don't you say a seven minute workout? It's good. But I know that's again, that's like the, that's the obvious answer. It's common sense. It's just sometimes sometimes it's harder. So I thought that'd be a trick or something that you can kind of tell us.

You seem to have tricks for everything. Yeah. I mean, habit stacking is a great trick to need for developing habits. Like start a habit really small, okay? Habit stacking, okay. Like a habit stacking is an amazing trick actually. So what you do is you start a habit really small.

Say you don't even exercise. You're gonna wake up every morning and do one push up, okay? You're not gonna end up doing one push. You're gonna do five push ups, right? And then once you start getting into routine where you're like, oh, I'm not, I'm doing 100 push ups every morning, then you're like, I need a journal.

100 push ups, journal for one minute. Just write one thing down, right? One sentence, build that, then do another one. Like I didn't put all these habits together like overnight. It took me a couple of years to make this routine. Absolutely. And if you stack them all together and get them done, like you get programmed to doing it.

Just like when you wake up in the morning and you grab your keys to your car and you go out to your car and you drive to work, you're like, how do I get to work? I don't even remember getting into my car. Yeah. It just happens. It becomes autopilot. It becomes part of like, it's like brushing your teeth.

But like how, did you say it takes about, is that part of the mental training, mental tricks? Would you say that takes about two weeks to kind of get comfortable with that or longer? Because they say that takes longer. Yeah, it takes about, is that part of the mental training, mental tricks? Would you say that takes about two weeks to kind of get comfortable with that or longer? Because they say that takes longer. Yeah, it takes about 21 days. Everyone's different, 21 days to develop a new habit. So if every 21 days, if you added a new habit to your habit stack, you'll, by a year,

you're going to have like, you know, over 12, 13, 14 habits added. I mean, it's true. You and I talk, I mean, we say 14 habits added. I mean, it's true. I mean, you and I, I mean, we say the same things. I never called it habit stacking. I think it's a great way of putting it though. Okay, the other thing I want to touch on, I know we're like kind of like short for time, is ex-price.

Oh yeah. Right, okay. So like, Darshan, from what, he's kind of, you're kind of obsessed with like living forever basically longevity What is ex-price tell us okay? Well ex-price is one of the organizations that I'm a member of It's an organization put together by Peter Diamandas an amazing entrepreneur and person He has his book called abundance, which is just a beautiful read you to read this book. I read it and I'll take me seven years

I'll start the morning okay. I'm gonna say I'm gonna start in the morning. You'll finish a book every single month if you start reading in the morning. I that's exactly true. You know what? I think that's I love that okay. I'm gonna do that. But what I love about X Prize is that they develop competitions will you win a significant prize, millions of dollars sometimes for solving a problem that people have not been able to put, have not been able to solve yet, okay? So one of the first private space flights into space

was because of an X-Prize. Peter said, I'm gonna give this huge price to whoever develops a spacecraft that goes privately into space. And then that's what turned into Virgin Galactic later on. Wow. Oh, I like that. So after the success of that, what Peter did was he created many different exercises for different things. So there's an ex-price for getting water to places that need water. There's an ex-price for taking carbon out of the air and making it into

something usable. All sorts of amazing concepts of things the world really needs. And team from all over the world brainstorm and try to figure out how to win this prize. And so think about that. Like, I mean, the motivation of people to solve these huge problems in small teams is just amazing. That's amazing. How do you get in? Can anyone just be a part of X Prize? Can I just join and name my kind of dollar membership? You have to apply and it's a, you know, you have to apply and they're looking for individuals

that can really support their mission. So yeah, if you go to xprice.com and then see, see what it's all about and you can definitely participate. But what I really like about, you can definitely participate. But what I really like about xprice is just part of my learning journey. Yeah. I learn so much from xprice. I learn so much from going to TED every year. I learn so much from going to abundance 360 every year.

I learn so much from all these conferences. Like I- What was your favorite TED Talks? I know you go to them all the time. Oh, wow. My favorite TED Talks. Yeah, your favorite one. Yeah, that's a hard one. I would say, you know, Tim Ferriss had a really good one the last time I was there. I'm gonna give him one of my favorites.

Yeah, he was just talking about how he beat, how he beat his own mind. He was suicidal for a while and how he beat that as a child. That's a child, that's a college student, yes. So that was your favorite one? Okay, that was recently. What was your, because give me one more, I want one more. But I know you go, like, Darshan goes to the TED talks, I think, literally, every year.

And you go, you have it, like, you don't miss any of them. Right. There's one of vulnerability that is like the most. Oh, I know that one. What's your name? Brunei Brown. Brunei Brown on vulnerability. What a great talk. Oh my god. Yeah. Well that one I think had the most one of the one of the most YouTube. Yeah hits I think ever. She also Brunei Brown did another YouTube talk before vulnerability that was also massive. What was that one called? I don't remember where that one was called.

Oh, okay. But that was amazing. She does great on that platform, obviously. But how incredible is it, like, humanity makes that the most watched video of Ted, right? People want to be vulnerable. Absolutely. And that's part of the wellness wheel too. We talk about brain health. Connection is one of the major aspects of having good

brain health. That's a great segue back into the wellness wheel. No, but I think that's also why it's probably one of the most important things I agree with you. And it's one of those things that people like, again, they overlook, they look at the diet, they look at the fitness, but stuff like, you know, having spiritual connection, emotional connection, all of those things create for your strep. It actually creates your stress levels do go down from that and you become a healthier, happier person. Exactly. Which, okay, tell me about the brain, tell me about that a little bit more. Just touch on the brain. The brain now. Okay, so loneliness is one of the major causes of dementia and Alzheimer's and early death, actually. And so the one of the key aspects of maintaining

good brain health is to not be lonely. And unfortunately, you and I are very lucky, right? We get to meet tons of people every single day and interesting people. And there's just not enough time in our lives for all the people we get to meet, but that's not true for many people. I know, it's a mystic shameful. Yes, yes, and I think it's a responsibility for people that do have the good fortune of being

well connected to find the people that are not well connected and bring them in. of being well connected to find the people that are not well connected and bring them in, you know. A lot of people, and if you're introverted, take an online test to see if you're introverted, if you feel like you are, being introverted is not something bad. It's just something you need to know about yourself, you know? And once you know that about yourself, there are techniques and ways of getting out there. Right. That's a really good point. And it's not social media. It's not, I know, exactly. I think social media can be very harmful because you see other people living their best life quote-unquote, which are, it's, it's usually spoken mirrors, as we know, right?

And then you judge yourself based on things that are artificial and not even, you know, authentic, which is terrible. Exactly. But there's a lot of different, like, groups that people can take. And I think it's hard when you are an introvert, though, to take that step. But I think, like you just said, I think it does make a difference for your overall health overall, and your longevity, which is your other obsession.

Right. So what do you do if you're so obsessed with, so like I said, Darshan is obsessed with living forever. What do you do to kind of counter? Is this, are all these things kind of, everything we talked about on this podcast because you are scared of dying young really? Or?

No, I'm not really scared of dying young. I'm not really scared of dying young. I do want to maximize amount of time that I get to spend on this earth healthy so I can see my kids grow up and maybe their kids grow up. Right. I mean, that would be amazing.

I tease you because I'm not young. I know. I know. I know. But I'll tell you that one, I'll give you another great hand. Yeah. Another test that you can do. Okay, good. All these tests, we're going to be like over, you know, over school. I love it. Okay.

What I love about this test is that it really gives you a marker to tell you how you're doing overall with all of your wellness habits. Okay, so it's like an overall marker, a big picture marker, a big picture score card, and it's your telomere length. Have you heard of this? You've mentioned this to me, but I don't, tell it, say I have heard of it, but I don't know the details, so please talk about it.

So your telomeres are the end caps of your DNA, and they get shorter as your cells divide more and more, okay? And people that- This way, NAD is good, right? No, NAD is really- I'm jumping. NAD, we don't know if it affects your telomere length or not, but it does affect a lot of things, energy levels and might accondual strength. But anyhow, so telomere length is increased with all of the healthy habits we're talking about having good hormone health, sleeping, having good nutrition, making sure that you get exercise on a regular basis. All these things that we talked about, they will increase your telomere length. So you can either go to Next Out or you can get it online, coming called telomere years,

which was founded by Elizabeth Blackburn or discovered the Talamurais and the whole Tilo Mir thinks you want a Nobel Prize for it. You can go online, you send in a sample, and then they will tell you what your Tilo Mir length is. And they will say, this is your Tilo Mir length compared to everyone else in your age group. And if your Tilo Mir length is lower

than the other people in your age group, then you know you have some work to do. It's higher, you're doing good. Right. All your different routines and habits. So if it tells you that it's lower, so all these things we're talking about can actually enhance your telomere really. Yeah. So I tell every, the beginning of every year, January 1st around that time period, I get a telomere length done.

I've been doing it for a few years now. And I can see how I'm doing compared to other How are you doing compared to other people who are 29? I'm doing pretty good. Are you doing pretty good? Okay, so how do you take it? Thanks. So tell me go to this website Tell them your to tell you years. Teelo year yellow y e a rs.com And you send in I think it's like a little blood spot sample. I haven't done their testing.

You do it in next health. Yeah, because I do it in next health. And so we just take a blood sample and we send that in. Can I go to, I'm telling you, can I go tomorrow to get all the stuff done in next health? I'm serious. You're my guest. I know, no, I'm serious. So you can do it in next health.

If you went to your doctor, someone who doesn't have a next health, can they do that kind of test? They're still very few doctors know how to get this test or where to get it from or, you know. So they could go online, they take a, because taking a blood, how would you do that?

Like prick your finger? Like a little finger prick, or I think they might even do it with a cheek swab. I think it is a finger prick for now that I remember correctly. Like I said, I haven't used that test for years. But whatever it is, it's easy. And you just send it in and in a month

you get your results back. Well, you know what I think, and what I think you should do, I mean, I'm serious. You should, like I said, I know you said you're doing this online program to teach people, but I wish you were like a virtual doctor for people.

Because seriously, again, I'm just praising you because you are so knowledgeable on like so many levels. It's unbelievable. Like you have like such a, you're so determined and to learn and to know. It's amazing. Like there's never been one thing I've ever asked you and you're like, I don't know about that. Let me go find out. Like you seriously have like and you're like, I don't know about that.

Let me go find out. Like you seriously have, like you know, not just a little bit about a lot of things, a lot about a lot of things. No, it's amazing. And I know I'm blessing you. You don't like to talk. You're very shy and you're very,

I know you have a lot of humility, but still I'm just telling you, it's amazing. I don't know how much time we have. Are we good or okay, I gotta wrap you up because I know you gotta go to a meeting. I have to go to a procedure. A procedure. Oh right, could you still even do plastic surgery?

Like once a week. No, I'm not doing plastic surgery. I'm actually using hormone pellets on a client. Oh excuse me. And this is great because a great way to replace your hormones with pellet therapy is we put a small pellet underneath your skin. You don't have to inject yourself all the time.

You're doing that? I'm doing that on a client. Yes, yes, yes. How we do hundreds of them that people love it because it's just so easy. Okay, I'm making it, I'm seriously, we're going to wrap this up. We're going to talk about it first of all. Okay, not even first of all. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on.

You were seriously, like just a wealth of information. Will you come on again? Of course. And like we can like delve deeper into all the different parts of this wellness wheel. I love that. Yeah. For sure. Let's do it. How do people find you? I'm at an Instagram at HealthHackerMD. That's my Instagram handle. You can find me at nextout at next-health.com. Those are the two best ways probably. Yeah, probably right. Well, thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Bye! Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye! Thank you. Thank you so much.

Bye! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you enjoyed this episode. I'm Heather Monahan, host of Creating Confidence, a part of the YAP Media Network, the number one business and self-improvement podcast network. Okay, so I want to tell you a little bit about my show. We are all about elevating your confidence to its highest level ever and taking your business right there with you.

Don't believe me? I'm gonna go ahead and share some of the reviews of the show so you can believe my listeners. I have been a long time fan of Heather's, no matter what phase of life I find myself in, Heather seems to always have the perfect gems of wisdom that not only inspire, but motivate me into action. Her experience and personality are unmatched

and I love her go-getter attitude. This show has become a staple in my life. I recommend it to anyone looking to elevate their confidence and reach that next level. Thank you! I recently got to hear Heather at a live podcast taping with her and Tracy Hayes, and I immediately subscribe to this podcast.

It has not disappointed, and I cannot wait to listen to as many as I can, as quick as I can. Thank you, Heather, for helping us build confidence and bring so much value to the space. If you are looking to up your confidence level, click creating confidence now. Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is this. Let's go, let's go! Show up on day one. Work out with us for 30 minutes. Feel good right away.

Yo! Repeat five days a week for three weeks. Three weeks? Five workouts a week. We're a body, and we call that a body block. You pick the block, and you're going to love the experience. On week four, this part is really important. Take the week off. Seriously, we made it. Rest. Go on vacation.

Or try something new. Maybe some yoga. Notice you're not holding on to any tension here. Or a dance class. You get sexy, we're the daddy. You do you. And then, start again. Be committed to this process. Choose a new body block each month.

Get a new challenge each month. Have fun every day. Avoid burnout. You're not going to quit on yourself today. This is how you reach your goals. You in? There is nothing that we can't do if we work together. Sign up for your first body block today.

Visit body.com for a free trial. That's B-O-D-I-D-I-D-C-O. Are you ready to get started?