There's a particular pattern of neuroinflammation that happens when we're under chronicstress, that affects the hypothalamus to beexact, the SCNnucleus, and disrupts our circadianrhythm.
When we are on a path toburnout, three symptomsoccur.
Anxiety, adult onsetADHD, and insomnia in the traditional world of medicine are treated as three separatediseases, and treating one can often make the othersworse.
It actually turns out this pattern of neuroinflammation leads to all three simultaneouslyhappening.
So have you ever had those times where you felt just constantly frazzled andoverwhelmed?
Like your mind isn't a perpetual state ofbusyness.
Even when you're not actually doing anything if much atall.
So ifso, you're notalone.
In today's just a hyper connectedworld, many of us struggle to find focus and clarity amidst the incessant noise and demands on ourattention.
But what if there is a way to quiet that relentless mental chatter and reclaim a sense ofcalm?
My guest today isDr. RumiMoshdak, a pioneering voice in the field of integrative neurology andmindfulness.
So with over two decades ofexperience, she's helped countless individuals and organizations build cultures of wellness and harness the power of themind.
In her book The Busy BrainCure, the eight week plan to findfocus, tameanxiety, and sleepagain.
Rumi offers a practical roadmap for navigating the modern world without sacrificing your mentalwell-being.
So imagine being able to silence the constant hum of stress and anxiety to truly be present and focused on what matters most through her innovative brain shiftapproach.
Dr. Rumi has helped Fortune 500companies, professionalathletes, and global associations and individuals like you and me unlock levels of performance andfulfillment.
And now she's sharing her wisdom withus.
So whether you're anentrepreneur, seeking to maximize creative potential or a busy professional struggling to findwork,life,blend, or simply someone longing for a more peaceful state ofmind, get ready to really embark on a transformative journey with some pretty cool newinsights.
So excited to share this conversation withyou.
I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good LifeProject.
Hi, it's Mark Bittman from Food With MarkBittman.
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An excited dive atyou, the work you're doing is so interesting to me on a number of differentlevels.
I feel like we are all wandering through the world right now and we're doing this danceof, how do we open our eyes in themorning?
How do we do this thing called succeeding inlife?
Oftentimes a big subset of that is succeeding in whatever work we've decided to devote ourselvesto.
We often feel like there's a tension between thetwo, which I think is such a fascinatingphenomenon.
You have thisphrase, the stress successcycle.
Successcycle,yeah. So take me intothis.
Jonathan, thank you first of all for having me an honor to be ofservice.
And I want to start in a way that maybe your typical guests don't start and that I'm here on behalf of all fellow type A successdriven, high achievingprofessionals.
We don't want to be told to slow downJonathan.
This is one great life we have and especially if you're living a life onpurpose.
If somebody else tells us to go with theflow, eat berries andbreathe, we'll probably run over you with our wearable tech and our designershoes.
But I learned the hard way and we're going to unpack that in an honest way that sometimes we get stuck on what I've been calling the stress success cycle likeyourself, meeting thousands of high achieving professionals through keynotespeaking, executivecoaching, all the programs werun, that there's this wiring and process in our brain that somehow we've been taught and you and I come from the cassette tape era of reading in yourbooks.
You were the cool guy that probably never noticed me in middle school listening to your Durand Durandtapes.
I was so not the coolguy.
So it was just start rightthere.
100%not. I was the Doric off to the side like the so that was notme.
We would have been greatfriends.
Isn't it amazing the stories we tell from the books I read aboutmusic?
He was the cool guy listening to Durand Durand and had fabuloushair.
I was with frizzy hair as a young child and in the same dorky corner as you reading encyclopedias because I was being trained to be adoctor.
And somewhere in that generation we learned this awful mantra that became an embodiment fake it till you makeit.
In today's world it stillexists.
It's not real unless you have social proof and that social media proof is filtered and shot from the right angle and captioned the right way and you get enough likes that fakereality.
And I want to backtrack and say we can succeed in a goal that is truly in alignment with what we desire and hope for personally andprofessionally.
But we don't have to stress ourselvesout.
So we set setgoal. We use smart goals or whatever systems we've been taught at this high achievinglevel.
And there's a stress that's pushing us to achieve the micro steps until set goal or achievement is achieved in our personal or professionallife.
Mine your first home getting a promotion submitting a researchgrant.
Both of us releasing a newbook, whatever thatis.
And that somehow we're forced to keep pushing to that edge of stress or burnout because if we do we get that false dopamine high and we feelgood.
Like I'm striving towards success and guess what we get that success and there isn't truejoy.
A piece of mind because we're falling off that dopamine high and we look around and be like what'smissing.
I thought that was thegoal.
What's my nextgoal? And we start to stress all over again the stress successcycle.
I'm really here to say that when you heal a busybrain, we come back to a place I want everyone tolive.
And that is one of having hope and being someone else's hopeholder.
And when you're in thatplace, we succeed without living on the edge ofburnout, without stressing ourselvesout.
Imean, it's interesting that you started that by sharing alsothat, youknow, the last thing that certain people want to be told is dialback, youknow, like change what you're aspiringto.
And it'sinteresting,right?
Because we do thisdance, Ithink.
And I'm curious about where you land onthis.
I tend to tease out working towards something that is intrinsically meaningful tous, intrinsicallyjoy, youknow, producing to us and then pouring ourselves intothat.
And youhave, we can literally open our eyes in the morning and nobody says you have to go to worktoday.
We'relike, let me addit.
Youknow, and then there's the thing where you're working just ashard, but often the thing you're working towards is some indicia ofexpectation.
This is what I was told success is these are the signposts ofit.
They don't necessarily mean much tome, but I know that this is what I'm supposed to bedoing.
So you pour yourself into this same differentthing.
Now, from the outside lookingin, you could look at those two different people andsay, they're just working aton.
They are just all in on thisthing.
My sense is the inside is experiencing it verydifferently.
What's your take onthat?
You said it so eloquently and I have been both of those people and meek to weak were allhuman.
I want to start on the inside and the outside of what we're projecting and those twoscenarios.
In the scenario where maybe we've been programmed to your point of this is what success looks like from caregivers from themedia.
However, we define our externalworld, that's ego atplay.
That will push us to a stress and successcycle.
When we're in alignment with our internal soulcompass, when we heal a busy brain and you and I will unpackthat, ego shiftsaway.
You're really able tosay, youknow, that was a success mantra that was maybe projected onto me by amentor, acoach, aparent, a well-meaningindividual.
That isn't in alignment with what I truly hope in theworld.
When we have thathope, we then have agency and then we're able to create our own goals towardsthat.
That's the inner thing of ego versusnon-ego.
We all go through thatbalance, but theoutside,Jonathan, how do you know that that person is truly successful ornot?
I feel blessed to say this from a place ofgratitude.
You and Iembody, mostdays, neither one of us pretend to beperfect, this place of working and what is our lifepurpose.
We wake up in themorning.
Literally, how can I be ofservice?
People are drawn to thatenergy.
I'm that person I may have my headphones on on a flight coming in and out of a keynotelecture.
The person next to me will take off my headphones just to tell me about theirday.
Right? There is this something aboutyou.
They're drawn to theenergy.
Even if they want nothing to do with myneurology, integrativemedicine, background and research on busybrain, they're drawn to that because there's not egoinvolved.
Give them you some of thatjoy.
Itcontagious.Now, when you're aroundsomeone, because I have also been thatdoctor, that is just going on the grind and getting to that nextgoal, I have to submit this researchgrant.
I have to get through teaching theseclasses.
I have a full clinic loadtoday.
Your energy propelsothers.
Okay. They'resuccessful.
But something about yourenergy, you don't want to sit next to thatperson.
You don't want to confide in thatperson.
You're notwondering, what's the secret sauce that they got inlife?
I want some ofthat. You're justlike,no, thankyou.
I don't know what thatis.
She's polished from theoutside, but there's something that I don't want any ofthat.
Yeah. It's sointeresting,right?
The way that we can pick up onenergies, on signals likethat.
I often call it being abeacon.
There's something where the internal is aligned with the way that it's expressed on the outside that youjust, you show up energetically differently without gettingthrough.
There'sjust, but we know those people who are in theroom.
We know when we are those people and we know when we're not those peopleall.
Absolutely. Youknow, and there is something aboutit, but it's a really interesting thing that you point to that as sort of like this indicator to sort oflike, youknow, tell ourselves when we are an aren't in that place or when other people have reallynoticed, youknow, what is this all comingfrom?
I'm curious also this cycle that youdescribe, this stress successcycle.
For many ofus, it will have the effect of at least in a certain amount of time or over a certain amount of time getting us to a certainplace.
What is thedownside? Why is this a bad thing for us to stepinto?
I want to backtrack and maybe offer an additional thought toJonathan, the question you just answered tome.
Most of us are programmed that we must stress in order tosucceed.
I lookat, I entered neurology at a time where less than5% of the brain doctors in America werewomen.
And I stressed myself out through every day of internship andresidency, although I enjoyedit.
I love brainscience. I have outstanding mentors that you read their stories of how an ally and a mentor and a sponsor shows up in the middle section of mybook, the busy braincure, those leadershiplessons.
But I thought that was theparadigm.
And that's just one example you can insert any example related to careers or a professional goal peoplehave.
I don't think that has to be theway.
Even if we were programmed that way in societywas, what if if we justsaid, I fully have hope in mylife,Jonathan, for who I am today as astimulus, my focus is on young girls inscience,technology,engineering, math and medicine from kindergarten to women all the way up in theC-suite.
I want all of us to learn the skills I had to learn late in life around mindfulness and emotional intelligence so that we're able to go into that internal soul compass andsay, what truly do I hopefor?
What is truly an alignment with me and be able to have the skills to quiet a busy brain and move forward to thatgoal?
And what is theexample?
How many ofus, if you're blessed to have young child in yourlife, your ownchildren, yourfriends, yourfriends, your niece'snephew, or do you see famous children on television that have a skill that feels like it is divinelyguided.
They are so young that they have an incredible singingvoice, ability to win a national spellingbee, all thethings.
That is a child that was allowed to succeed without the stresscycle.
It doesn't mean they didn't have bad days or asadults, we have good and baddays.
We have days that don't follow our best laidplans, but we don't tip to the edge of chronic stress and we'll break down the neuroscience in a second ofthat.
Yeah. You've used the phrase busy brain a number of timesnow.
What do you mean when you use itphrase?
Yeah.Jonathan, it was a term that I coined an unofficial medicalterm, but something that I noticed about myself first before I hit the physical symptoms of burnout and ended up in life-savingsurgery.
I was literally felt Jonathan that some days someone else had a remote control to mybrain.
Why was it that some days I was focused and executed my days and other days my schedule was in control ofme?
Well it turns out as I started to research in the pandemic and post-pandemicworld, the impact of chronic stress and burnout inworking, high achievingprofessionals.
That a few things stoodtrue.
There's a particular pattern of neuroinflammation that happens when we're under chronicstress, that affects the hypothalamus to beexact, the SCN nucleus and disrupts our circadianrhythm.
This pattern of neuroinflammation is not something new ingroundbreaking.
I entered neurology in the1990s.
We knew different patterns of neuroinflammation in different parts of the brain cause diseases like MS or Alzheimer's orParkinson's.
But in the last sevenyears, cutting edge science with advanced neuro imaging showing us that this area in the hypothalamusinvolved, to the lay person I call it our airport traffic controltower.
Well when we are on a path toburnout, three symptomsoccur.
And I'm here so boldly to tell you Jonathan that we in the neurologypsychiatry, neuropsychology field got itwrong.
Anxiety, adult onset ADHD and insomnia in the traditional world of medicine are treated as three separatediseases.
And treating one can often make the othersworse.
It actually turns out this pattern of neuroinflammation that you and I will unpack in a second leads to all three simultaneouslyhappening.
So it is something like regardless of the 24 hour new cycle or how many emails are waiting in yourinbox, you wake up and your lowenergy.
Don't get mestarted. My personality is not here without a stimulant like caffeine or riddleit.
And you need that toenergize.
And then you're feeling low key anxious or panic allday.
People, digital devices open in front of you and in yourbrain, this adult onset ADHD or just maybe inability tofocus.
You try to go and unwind and the skills that we all are taught to have some semblance of a pause in our work day and focus on a personal life and you can't turn itoff.
You need to set it up like alcohol to take the edgeoff.
And when you put your head down on the pillow because we know how important sleepis, you've done so many podcasts onit, there's 72 Warren conversations going on in yourbrain.
And the negative most inconsequential thought is theloudest.
And afterthat, you wake up somewhere between two and four in themorning, you're wideaway.
You fooled yourself tothink, I don't need thesleep.
Let me wake up at 257AM, knock out a few emails and ding at 301AM, you've woken up everybody else on your team because you hit replyall.
That is a busybrain. It's interesting as you're describingthis, I'mthinking, this has been me on andoff.
And in the not too distantpast, it's funny how you can hear so many of thesethings, how you can not along andsay,well,yes, this makes so muchsense.
And then you can tellyourself, I'm going to dothis, I'm going to dothat.
I'm going tochange. I'm going to say yes to thesepractices,skills,behaviors,tools.
And then lifehappens. Itdoes.
And then you just start tosay,oh, I'm back thereagain.
You have some really interesting strategies and tools and a whole process to sort of likesay, let's get underneath this and see if we can do somerewiring.
Butfundamentally, the big building blocks that you talk about are summarizing this acronym brainshift, with the word shift being the first initial of the letters of these five differentqualities.
Let's walk through each of these and unpack them a littlebit.
Yeah. We start out with that S representingsleep.
We started talking aboutthat, but I think we've all become more tuned to how important sleep really is just in terms of general health andwell-being.
The context that we're talkingabout, take me into atroll.
Yeah, I really want to unpackthat.
Thank you so much forasking.
How we came up with this is we took a validated neuropsychology test that has been in existence since the 1970s that measures the direct impact of stress oncognition,mood, and physicalhealth.
We've been able to the busy brain test so I could take it into corporateAmerica.
17,000 people took that in our 24 month research period and that gave me an incredible insightinto,well, what is stress in this modern day world and burnout doing tous?
Butalso, let's heal the root cause of burnout because these superficial tips to yourpoint, eat parries andbreathe, they're no longer servingus.
And a lot of outdated paradigms that talk about acute stressmanagement.
Because I was looking at the rootcause, we broke it down into five keyareas.
S is sleepier circadianrhythm.
So as we alluded to it earlier here in the podcast is when that neuroinflammationhappens, itactually,surprisingly, in the chronic stresstargets, this hypothalamus in our circadianrhythm, we see increased inflammatory markers like IL-1elevated.
And withthat, a disruption of our circadianrhythm.
So one of the most important or obvious functions of our circadian rhythm in an easy way to treat that as moderating our sleep weekcycle.
Well, it's a chicken and the egg phenomenon and the busybrain,Jonathan, isn'tit?
Because we may be addicted on the stimulant sedativecycle.
Both of them are going to disrupt our circadian rhythm and our sleeppatterns.
So that's an externalbehavior.
But internallyinflammatory, think of it as the airport traffic control tower ismalfunctioning.
The typical things of sleep when the lights and the sunlight go down and wake up as the sun isrising.
Our brains are no longer in harmony with that and we actually need to resetthat.
There are serious other ramifications of that S or their circadian rhythm being off that affect other key areas that kind of build into the rest of theprotocol.
But they account for symptoms to break it down into simple terms for thelisteners.
You could easily be listening to Jonathan and I andsaying,well, Romeo and Jonathan are easily admitting that they've had periods of busy brain orstress.
So amI. You'restressed.
I'mstressed. Whoisn't?
But then all of a sudden you go to the primary care doctor's office and they tellyou, you've got pretty severehypertension.
You've got type twodiabetes.
Your autoimmune disease is now inrelapse.
All of a sudden your menstrual cycles became irregular and you'rewondering, is it infertility early menopause or PCOSdisease?
Has serious ramifications under that S or the circadianrhythm?
So that is kind of the core starting point of everything else we'lldiscuss.
Yeah. It's interesting we start with sleep also because in my mind it feels like the one to a lot of people and maybe I'm just raising my hand here that often feels least susceptible to really genuinechange.
And we've all heard sort of like the general guidelines about what to do incourt.
You're basically hygiene tools and maybe some people have triedit.
Maybe some peoplehaven't.
But at the end of the day it feels to me like this is one of those things where we feel like we actually have the least amount ofcontrol.
Thank you for thathonesty.
I feel like it gets into this chicken and egg thingalso.
You just got it like thatperson, you know where you lay your headdown, you know it's 11.30 at night and you feel tired but your brain is saying nope notyet.
You have no tired andwired.
Right. And it becomes this thing where when you're still there an hour later and you're stillup, then you're starting to tell thestory.
You're adding to the spin cycle with this everstop.
Will I ever fallasleep?
What's this doing tome?
I'm causing all this harm which then makes it even worse and almost ensures it will neverhappen.
Yes. Soit's, youknow, I feel like there are these layers when we talk about sleep in particular where people feel really frustrated trying to actually wrap their head aroundit.
Wedo. And yet when I was practicing instill seeing patients in the integrative medicineclinic, that was myspecialty.
People that were coming and eatingclean, doing ironman's, doing all the things right and they were suffering fromthis.
And I will backtrack to step one in the entire protocol which is please get your dizzy brain testscore.
It's thismoment. It's here in the UnitedStates.
I know you have a globalaudience.
We have something known as our credit score or creditworthiness.
If you're in any phase of your life wanting a new business creditcard, opening a newbusiness, getting a newcar, anothermortgage, whatever it maybe, you need to know your creditscore.
Most peopledo. Yet we don't know our brainscore.
We don't payattention.
So sometimes I want to backtrack to this Jonathan which is this idea that if I now know my brain score and I have a self realization that some of the symptoms that are hindering me from living a goodlife, a life on purpose is related to my brainperformance.
All of a sudden I have hope to fix thesleep.
And so it's dispelled this woe is me and this negative wiring of nothing is going to helpnow.
So step one is actually self awareness and healing that selfjudgment.
Step two is let's get practical and that's why in week seven of the protocol that we actually send people rightaway.
Jonathan, I actually checklabs.
I want to look for markers ofinflammation.
We recommend scientifically studied supplements that can actually number one help bring some calm to the neuro inflammation or the hyper activity of the neuronal state that's keeping us wired despite us feeling physically tired and also really help to reset the circadianrhythm.
And so between checking the labs and looking for imbalances that may be feeding into it and numbertwo, some supplements when we ran over 1000 executives through this eight week protocol in our testperiod, people thatsaid, I'll never fallasleep.
There's too much going on atwork.
We run global teams with the exception of new parents who had young children that wake up for feeding in the middle of thenight.
Or if you're a caregiver to elderly loved ones whohave, youknow, middle of the night or out of thehouse, things you can'tcontrol.
People actually were fallingasleep.
When we looked at our researchdata, sleep was the one area that had the most improvementperformance, like a40% improvement overbaseline.
Now that makes so muchsense.
And we'll be right back after word from oursponsors.
Hi, it's Mark Bittman from Food with MarkBittman.
Friends, a word from the folks at Whole FoodsMarket.
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And you don't have to sacrifice quality tosave.
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That'scare.com. I want to circle back to the 8 week protocol that you developed but let's move through these five different elementsfirst.
So we start out withsleep.
Next up the HNN word representshormones.
Take methere. You know hormones is a loaded word and the listener is casually and most people if we say hormones have a negative connotation around your sex hormones unless you're in a good relationship with your estrogen progesterone testosteronelevels.
That's actually not what I'm primarily talkingabout.
That same hypothalamus is connected to the hypothelamic pituitary thyroid adrenalaxis.
The hypothalamus also governs a total of 50 neuro hormones and hormones that circulate through the brain and the entirebody.
Jonathan, that govern every organ function in our body from our immune system to our GI system to ourrespiratory, to ourdigestion,etc.
The key things that we found looking at the research that weenumerate, which was eye opening to me and it shouldn't have been because this was my problem aswell.
You could have had your full hormones panel checked and you were feelingfine.
If you have symptoms of a busybrain, your score is now trending above a40, which we start to see trends towards having a busy brain or there'sneuroinflammation.
My biggest concern shockingly was the thyroid hormone levels in both men and women I want to beclear.
The data in thyroid disease and men is a littleisoterex.
Because there's so much focus on a male testosterone levels or giving them human growth hormone around sexuality and weightloss.
They're doing a disservice tomen, I think larger research studies areunderway.
But the research actually shows traditional endocrinology literature that one in eight women in the US has subclinical thyroiddisease, either an underactive or overactive thyroiddisease.
So I'm on the stress successcycle.
I have a busy brain on the path toburnout.
That hypothalamus is now negatively impacting my thyroiddisease.
The worst part is that we often with a traditional one medical screening test of the thyroid stimulatinghormone,TSH, are missing thethyroid.
It's why it is so important I just got some book from men and women to get a full thyroid panel so that we're not missing subclinical thyroid autoimmune thyroiddisease.
Fascinating.Yeah, Imean, these are fairly straightforwardtests.
I'm curious why you think they're not sotypical.
I personally grapple withthis.
I know we're supposed to have a scientific discussionhere.
I don't knowwhy. I find myself gettingemotional,Jonathan, at thispoint.
And I share the story in thebook.
Remember when I told you I was doing research in my early careers inneurologist?
There was a big gap at thattime.
Stillis, but at thattime, looking at women's hormones as it related to brainhealth, specifically migraines andepilepsy.
I was reading about thyroid and I waslike,God, this sounds likeme.
My hair is falling out in chunks that remote control feeling on mybrain.
And by thistime, I had never had a regular menstrual cycle in mylife.
I went to male endocrinologistsaying, could you check my entirethyroid?
I really intuitively feel like something is wronghere.
And fertility at this age is important tome.
This is before I got sick and ended up insurgery.
And they missedit. They just checked theTSH, that standardprotocol, very old protocol and traditional medicine that needs to beupdated.
I think those of us in integrative functional medicine are fighting for why it's important we have thisconversation.
They're covered by USinsurances.
They're part of standard lab testingglobally.
And it wasn't until I got sick and recovered and found an integrative medicine doctor that that doctorlistened.
Numberone, did the full panel turns out at age39, I get diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiddiodes, get put on the correct prescription medication by an MD licenseMD.
And for the first time in mylife, I had a regularperiod.
And I heard this story over and overagain.
And by theway, the story is similar inmen.
They can't understand why in their 20s or30s, they're feeling pretty anxious or irritable compared to the typical man they workwith.
Maybe a doctor checked their testosteronelevel.
They're getting pumped full of testosterone and even moreanxious.
And a thyroid hormone panel wasmissed.
And it turns out why this is so important in a busybrain, leaving testosterone fertility out ofit, is that for men andwomen, when you look at40% of those that have a subclinical thyroiddisease, what are thesymptoms?
Non-specific mental healthsymptoms, feeling anxious and I can'tfocus.
Which could be misdiagnosed ormisderminstalins, like there's so many different things without even ever looking atthat.
And you get put on an anti-anxietymedicine, you get put on riddle inner viavans and the thyroid disease is missed and only becomesworse.
Imean, sointeresting.
And earlier in aconversation, you mentionedanxiety,ADHD.
There was one other you mentioned that are often seen as these three distinct differentthings.
We areseeing, I'm curious whether data issports.
It's at least anecdotally what it looks likeon, youknow, I'm seeing more people as adults in the 40s and 50s being diagnosed withADHD.
Is thataccurate? Do you know the data ornot?
Okay. Ido.Absolutely.
Let's break itdown. We can break it down indetail.
When I first went into neurology and was doing my psychiatryrotations,Jonathan, there was no such thing as adult onsetADHD.
If you diagnosed it for the first time in anadult, you could typically backtrack if someone had that ability to look back and childhood or talkto, youknow, family members and see that it wasmissed.
We now know looking at the last decade as we've transitioned into primarily digital society as adults for our both work and our personaluse.
That multi digital device use is actually quoteunquote, use lay person's phrase rewiring ourbrains, the structure and the function of our brains that repeated dopamine stimulation of touching thescreen.
How many likes did Iget?
Let me check myemail. Let me thumb back a response reallyquickly.
Being on multiple screens atonce.
How many people have been watching something on Netflix and they have their phone open at the same time or aniPad,right?
So very similarthing. So the data is there androbust.
Numberone, numbertwo, we see that not all of these adults were missed inchildhood.
Typically women more than men because in certaingenerations, if you were born in the1960s,70s, early1980s, it was boys that were considered impulsive and the inattentive type of ADHD wasmissed, which is typically inwomen.
So sure there's a subsegment ofthat, but we actually know that adult onset ADHD is a realphenomenon.
Now myconcern,Jonathan, is that we as doctors are over prescribing stimulants such as the Ritalin AdderallViavans,85% of these stimulant prescriptions are taken here in the UnitedStates.
And so I do think we're missing the underlying rootcause, the disruption of their circadian rhythmsleep, being one ofthem, the second one being hormones and we're going to unpack the rest ofthem.
Imean, the hormones side is reallyinteresting.
As you'respeaking,actually, it was recalling somebody I've known formany, manyyears, who in school and college was really strugglingwith, youknow, goodkid, like devote a kid workedhard.
It couldn'tfocus.Literally, they didn't mind just spinning all thetime, which showed for atest.
And all of asudden, just couldn't doanything.
Andthankfully, he was in touch with some fairly forward thinking physicians and who testedit.
Theysaid,okay, so we're seeing these cognitive things showup.
He'sspinning. He can'tfocus.
Let's actually do a thyroid test and it turnedout, youknow, he wasvery, I guess it washyperthyroid.
So as soon as they figured thatout, they figured out a course of treatment with literally in a matter ofweeks.
I remember himsaying, I feel like my old selfagain.
I feel like that's looked for more in a kid in his late teens or 20s because maybe it's more expected like this is something we should look at rather than somebody when they're a little bit further into life rather thansaying, maybe there is something hormonal underneath this rather than something else goingon.
Soyeah. And there's a movement inmedicine,right?
I loaded this term some clinical because what it's alluding to by traditional doctors is your case isn't as severe enough to land you in the hospital with an abnormal heart rate or metabolicsyndrome.
Okay, if your hair is fallingout, your period's notregular, it'sokay.
Youknow, and men and women are getting dismissed likethat.
And so there is this movementnow.
And one of my hopes as I brain shift myself is this labslip, we designed it Jonathan in away.
I wanted to say this was important tome.
So you go to the otherextreme, which is being able to work with a board certified into creative functional medicinedoctor.
Those labs are extraordinarilyexpensive.
So I knew I was working with a certain type of clientele that are still privileged to have healthinsurance.
What were the labs that could give us the answers we needed that are covered by most traditional US insurancesystems?
And that was how we designed this so that we didn't want people to feel that we left out apocket.
And we wanted a primary care doctor to look at this lab sit andsay, I could dothis.
This makessense.Yeah.
And this is such a huge part of thisconversation, youknow, because like youdescribed, there are a whole bunch of tests that are available to you through functional medicinedoctor, infrom, youknow, integrativemedicine.
That can provide a tremendous additional value andinsight.
And most of them still to thisday, many of them at least are notcovered.
And they can be almost obscenelyexpensive.
Thousands ofdollars, thousands of dollars for thelabs, not to mention the fee for thedoctor.
And this is one of the things I will tellyou, I'm genuinely proud of that we figured out in thebook.
Yeah. Now it'sfantastic.
That brings us tothe, the eye in the modelhere, which isinflammation.
And you started out earlier in our conversation talking aboutuses,phrase, neuroinflammation.
Yeah. Morebroadly, what are we actually talking about when we're talking aboutinflammation?
Youknow, inflammation is a process that should occur naturally with checks and balances in the brain and thebody.
It's how we maintainhomeostasis.
Non-inflammation in thebrain, however unchecked is nothealthy.
It will lead todisease.
Again, we know the genetic and lifestyle things that can lead to diseases like multiplesclerosis,Alzheimer's,etc.
But what was chronic stress doing that literally causing this neuroinflammation?
Well,Dr. Roeme, do I have neuroinflammation?
Youknow, we can't just biopsy the brain and look forthat.
It doesn't work thatway.
So we needed other measures orclues.
One is yoursymptoms,two,okay, we can do this neuropsychology test that we have labeled a busy braintest.
Butnow, youknow, I'm a doctor in addition to that brainscore, I want to quantifythings.
What were other proof-for-labs that in combination could give me apicture.
One that talks to us about inflammation in the body and the brain is your high sensitivity C reactiveprotein.
Butagain, that could point to inflammation in manyareas, your bodydigestion, your immunesystem, yourbrain, I really was looking for two key things that Iknow.
One, we needed to fix two are heavily related to the functioning of your brainproperly.
Your vitamin D is in dog D3levels.
It sounds a little off base when you hear the wordvitamin.
I think we miss market vitaminD3.
It really needs to be the superhormone, super hero of yourbrain.
It plays an integral structural part of all 50 hormones of your brain and yourbody.
And structure and function of many chemicals in the brain andprocesses.
And by theway, I'm not giving you anything groundbreaking and neurosciencehere.
It was in the1990s, I started a neurology and we knew our MSpatients, low vitamin D3levels,schizophrenia.
And yet nobody wassaying,well, how could if you've just run a littledepression?
How could if you want to be a peak performer in yourbrain?
What do we do with your vitamin D3levels?
Now we have thatdata. And that is probably one of the most common abnormalities we screen for andfind.
Even if you're living in a sunshine state or country with chronic inflammation and stress in thebody, the mechanisms of you having exposure to sunlight and that metabolizing to the correct form of vitamin D3 isstunted, not tomention.
The skin exposure needed in sunlight without sunblock is not recommended because of skin cancer risks inanybody.
So vitamin D3 was one ofthem.
And the secondone, and then we can unpackthis, is you're fasting insulin levels and you're fasting blood sugarlevels.
Reallyimportant, we have insulin receptors in thebrain.
We know that we can see a blunted or elevated fasting insulin levels and blood sugar levels when there is stress in thebrain.
So this combination of a vitamin D3level, you're fasting insulin blood glucoselevels, hemoglobin A1C and highsensitivity, C-reactive protein kind of point meto,hey, we're looking at a parlius and a normal inflammation in thebrain.
It'sinteresting,too, and youknow, around D3 that it feels like this is one of those things where itboth, and from what I've seen the data showsthat, youknow, the vast majority ofpeople, at least in NorthAmerica, are pretty deficient inthis.
Yeah. And it's so critical in thisprocess, can theexistence, so we know that the D3 can be in some waypreventative.
It can help keep inflammationor, but does the presence of inflammation in someway, can affect the way thatour, we process D so that it will keep us from effectively being able to haveenough, like high enough D levels to really beeffective.
Not in the braindirectly, butindirectly.
You've had many guests before allude to this pattern ofneuroinflammation.
I just want to double click onit.
We can link to those podcast episodes here is the importance of the gut brainconnection.
Again, I go back to thehypothalamus, the airport traffic controltower.
We've talked about the hypotherlemic pituitary thyroid adrenalaxis.
It also modulates the entire autonomic nervous system and the enteric nervoussystem, the parasympathetic sympathetic innervation of ourgut.
When we're under highstress, there is a plethora of literature that just the chronic stressalone, even ifI'm,quote, clean eating an anti-inflammatory appropriate diet for mygut, is disrupting the gut microbiome and that disruptsdigestion.
So now we're orally taking a vitamin D3 pill and also if we're not taking it with a healthyfat, it is a fat soluble vitamin aswell.
So both things are true that it can actually blunt the absorption and metapalism ofthat.
So that's kind of why we actually backtrack andsay, I wanted you to start with sleep and reset the circadianrhythm.
So hopefully there should be some rest in the gut aswell.
Yeah, that makes a lot ofsense.
You alsomentioned, you mentioned like glucose level and insulin level andA1C, which I think a lot of people are starting to become much more attunedto.
I feel likethat's, it used to be this thing wherelike, do you feellike, youknow, your doctor islike,well,you're, youknow, if you hit a particularnumber, thenyou're, we diagnosed you as having type 2diabetes.
Now there's this sort oflike, there's this pre clinically diabetic category that is commonly called prediabetes.
And I feel like because ofthat, a lot more people are now falling into this range when they get their labs back and the eye bras are being raised a littlebit.
It'slike, wait aminute.
So I don't have thething, but the physician now has an opportunity tosay,yes, but this is a range where we want to do something aboutit.
And we have a window of opportunity to actually address itnow.
So I feel like the conversation has really expanded aroundthat.
So yes andyes, to all of those things being veryimportant, but I'm going to also talk about a different role in insulin diabetes type 3 and why it's important and busybrain.
So let me address the first question about prediabetes.
This isthe, as workplace wellnessexpert, youknow, when I'm thinking of a wellness of an entireorganization, there are two things that we'readdressing, the mental health crisis and the other one is this pre diabetes diabetes crisis that coming out of thepandemic, the high stresslevels, the pooreating, the sedentarylifestyle, all the things we know are now predisposing us to pre diabetes that there's actually concerns that in the adultpopulation, once you get to about after age 32 to35,70% of individuals are at risk of pre diabetes from their lifestyle factors and chronicstress.
And this is reallyconcerning.
And soabsolutely, and I think advanced level physicians trained in lifestylemedicine,family, primary care doctor watching these things should be flagging someone at a borderline hemoglobin A1Clevel.
I look at insulin for a differentthing,Jonathan, in diabetes type3, a defined by the MayoClinic.
There are separate insulin receptors in thebrain.
They are really important for modulating the main energy source glucose to thebrain.
But here's the thing thathappens.
I am under highstress. I stress eat and eat a high sugarymeal.
We know what happens with thepancreas.
The insulin is released and in response to a high blood sugar ofeating, youknow, high glycemic food and insulin gets released and it drops the bloodsugar.
When this happens in thebrain, these insulin receptors are now being kind of utilized elsewhere to modulate blood sugar fluctuations in thebrain.
And overtime, this will create neuroinflammation in thebrain.
Their role is to modulate your energy orfocus.
So set in a simplerway, we eat these sugarymeals.
In mybook, I discuss combining it withcaffeine, the mume takaro phenomenon for myaunties, youknow, that a cup of tea should be taken with some sweets or anywhere else in theworld.
You're mourning coffee with a croissant or a bagel or adonut.
We can't do that because that combination of the caffeine binded to the adenosinereceptor.
And now the triggering of the insulin receptor from a high sugar meal is actually promoting that neuroinflammation and the hypothalamus and also disrupting your attention mechanisms verycomplex.
And so you'rewondering, why can't Ifocus?
Why did my energy gooff?
I just pumped myself full ofcaffeine.
I got an energy jolt inthat.
But you'll see the quality of your focus is actually reduced and the valley is pretty low from a dopamine high to acrash.
And then what do wedo? We give ourselves more sugar or more caffeine and it's just keep the cyclegoing.
So it's actually almost a completely different metabolic pathway that we're looking at at the role of the insulin receptors in thebrain.
Yeah. That makes so much sense tome.
I'm curious also about the role of the relationship between non-nutritionally triggered stress and like glucoselevels.
From what Iunderstand, even if you hit that point and you don'tsay,okay, so I'm going to go grab somecaffeine, I'm going to go have somesugar, I'm going to go have some things wherenutritionally, now we have a responseset.
Youknow, like changes in insulinlevels, which increases our bloodglucose.
So we have tothat, even withoutthat, that stress alone can actually raise blood glucose levels and inflammation because that canhappen.
One of the things that actually can do that as secondary mechanism is stresshormones.
Absolutely.Yes. So I think that's beenwell-cited.
I think prior to thepandemic, that'sactually, it's there as a protective mechanism in acutestress.
I use this example in my book is I was raised in the coldMidwest.
Acute stress response where you want it to work is if you're driving a car in the winter and you hit a patch of blackice.
Youknow, that acute stress response is going to make me focus to getmy, youknow, foot off the brake and steer into which way the car isserving.
That is acute stress response working in yourfavor.
Think about that protective mechanism of that airport traffic controltower, the hypothalamus is triggering this adrenal response through that hormonal pathway to release cortisol with that it's releasing bloodsugar.
It's giving energy to my muscles that fight or flight response that needs towork.
That was designed to be there forseconds, ourminutes, not fordays,weeks, months on ends and chronic stressresponse.
So now when we're chronically stressing thehypothalamus, pituitary thyroid and adrenalgland, we're actually constantly pushing out this cortisol that is going to constantly push over our blood glucoselevels, constantly pushing out theinsulin.
So to yourpoint, and I said thisearlier, you're running in chronic stress and you're just writing it off and all of a sudden you go to the doctor and they'resaying,hey, you're pre-diabetic or diabetic because your pancreas has been under tremendous amount ofstress, modulating and trying to keep homeostasis with the stable bloodsugar.
It gets toolow, you could getirritable, you could get even like loseconsciousness, you can'tfocus, it goes toohigh, same thinghappens.
Yeah, Imean, it's so interesting also because it helps explain why somebody who's sitting theresaying,hey, I do all the things I try andeat,right?
Youknow, Ido. And they show up and theyactually, they see the labs and they see these numbers and it'slike,oh, chronic stress can have a huge impact onthis.
And it'slike, so actually I really need to deal with this in a meaningfulway, which does bring us to foodalso, youknow, because this is oneof, youknow, this is the F in the model that youhave.
We've talked about it abit, but talk to me more broadly about how this works into themodel.
I think this is going to be controversial with a lot of your health and wellness experts that comeon, but I'm putting my stake in the ground here is that we don't need to put the world on anotherdiet,cleanse, calorielimiting, tastelessprotocol.
It's high achievers in a busybrain.
You actually know when you're following a rigidprotocol, it actually raises stress hormone levels in thebrain.
Numberone,right?Two, it can feed into an orthorexia or eatingdisorder.
I,Jonathan, you and I both speak for a livingand, youknow, it's lovely boost to the ego or youknow, you're being a service if you get a standingovation.
Only once have I gotten a standing ovation in the middle of my talk and that was speaking at the American Counseling Association when I was going through the date ofthis, got a standing ovation from a room full of almost 2,000 psychologists who really want thisobliterated.
Butalso, I talk about thehumanity.
Now I'm a chief wellness officer and I want all of our pack members are employees to feel like theybelong.
So does any other company that you and I workwith?
Whether you'revegan,paleo, a carblover, a meatlover, achocolate,the, I don't know what I put in my lunchbag, whatever I could find in thefridge, everyone belongs at thetable.
And so we need to be really careful that we're honoring and make sure everyonebelongs.
So that was step number one when I was looking atfood.
Step number two was I feel like food and meals are the sixth love language anywhere in theworld.
And there are foods that bring us comfort so much so that at the end of thebook, I share mynon-e, my maternal grandmother's beloved non-e'slamb, bring on yourrecipe.
Your family members share it there that I want you to have joy in yourlife.
I want you to feel at hope how much healing can happen when you eat a food that's tied to a religiousholiday, a familymemory, a trip you took to somewherespecial, a child's birthdayparty, whatever thatis, and be incommunity.
That is actually healing foryou, even if it's thequote, badfoods.
So I had to find a system that could alleviate this problem in the brain of theadenosine, the caffeinereceptors, and the fluctuating bloodsugar, and still honor all thetraditions.
And so we call it themume-tuk-ado.
Like mume-tuk-ado literally means to sweeten yourmouth.
And myaunties, if I was being irritable or talking too much when I wasyoung, would give me a piece of chocolate or a sweet to quietdown.
Mume-tuk-ado, it also means to sweeten your words a little bit if you're talkingacidically, youknow.
And mume-tuk-adois, if I'm going to have that comfortfood, and it is a high glycemicfood, whitesugar, whiteflour, whiterice, whitepotatoes, goahead, haveit.
I hope you're having it enjoy and not stresseating.
But then don't consume caffeine one hour before orafter.
And if you're going to choosecaffeine, we hope it's in the morning according to the brain shiftprotocol, and not after about 12 to 1 pm yourtime, and whatever time zone you'rein, but then skip the high glycemicfood.
And what we found in the 1000 executives is most of us high achieving professionals at sometime, mid-morning to earlyafternoon, prefer the coffee and not the high glycemic carpohydrate.
And by theway, by thistime, we're five weeks into theprotocol.
Most of us have restored our sleep in sense ofsanity, so that stress eating ismitigated.
So if you're to enjoy a child's cupcakes and ice cream at the birthdayparty, you're not going to sit off and polish the entire pint of ice cream eating your emotions because you're worried about work the nextday.
I love howyou, youknow, we'll get into the protocol itself in aminute, youknow, but it is sensible andprogressive, youknow, it's sequential saying firstthis, thenthis, andthis, because we need to scaffold the way that you're doingit.
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Let's loop in the last element of the biggermodel,though, which is you referenced it a bitearlier, which istechnology.
Whichis, this is this thingwhere, in the world ofaddiction, at a conversation years ago with afriend, wassaying, youknow, it's when people's addiction or they perceiveaddiction, however you describe the behavior towards food is the center of thisconversation.
It's a different conversation because food is not something where you can justsay, we'll just stop doingthat.
Youknow, it'slike, just stopeating, just stopdrinking.
It doesn't work thatway.
You have to do thisthing.
So you have to figure out how to have a relationship withit.
I feel like the use day is increasingly technology is starting to fall into that category because if you ask so manypeople, can you live without yourdevice, yourphone, whatever itis?
They'll literally sayno.
I remember seeing a survey that was askingteens, youknow,like, what would you giveup?
The last thing that they would giveup, they would give up all of everything that they valued that theytreasured, but it was theirphone.
They werelike, this is a part of my life that is so central to who Iam.
So it's an interesting relationship that we havenow.
I don't know if anyone listening is one of the blessed to be at a Taylor Swiftconcert, the hottest ticket in the world or any musicalconcert.
I grew up in the era as you did of record albums and cassettetapes.
And I'll saythis,Jonathan, is I can close my eyes and remember the concerts where I was present and I didn't have a cellphone.
I think of my biggest crush on the world's sting or my very firstconcert, WhitneyHouston.
They were decadesago. And I can remember the entireset, but these recent concerts where we're holding up a cell phone to capture the video simultaneously to share on social media or maybe watchlater, but we reallydon't.
You may not have as much of a memory or that feeling of immersion ofjoy, that brainshift, the power of sound healing that we talkabout.
And digital devices can grab us ofthat.
But to yourpoint, you really can't function in your workday, schoolday, even social life without a cellphone,right?
Unless you're like one of my cramajony aunties that lives in my forever busybrain.
And we excuse them that they still want to rotary phone in their home and a flip phone in theirlife.
Butreally, you can't dothat.
And so there has to be a guardrail aroundit.
And when we're motivated to say this is going to improve my quality oflife, my quality of mentalhealth, and the performance of myteam.
Well, then all of a sudden we're a little bit moremotivated.
It's such an interestingmoment, not too longago,Jonathan, I came out with hisbook, youknow, about anxiety and kids related totechnology, and which created a big stir and a bigdebate.
As it shouldhave.Yes. And now you're starting to hear aboutschools, school districts that are saying not until they're16,like, there'sno, which is an interestingthing, experiment to run because so many kids also their social context is built around thedevice.
So you're not justsaying,like, let go of the technology and thedistraction, you're saying opt out ofthis.
But the only way to actually do that in a way that allows them to not freak out is if everybody is opt out for the same window oftime.
So it's so interesting to see the policy developing around thisnow.
Itis. And so for someone to beclear, myresearch, busy brain is around the adultbrain.
The pediatric brain and development is in the anxiety ADHD and children is somethingdifferent.
It's like talking apples anddragons.
Even as I look at the medicalliterature, youknow, my research started in2017.
We started to do the protocol and research that in about 2020 and the manuscript went in and it's first form in2022.
I say that we're recording this podcast in2024.
Even in the last 24months, there's been a wealth of medical literature and psychology literature that's come out that came out post publication from a book that we just couldn't enterin.
But the key I look at is even if maybe 25 andolder, youknow, is what we're lookingat.
And what I know to be trueis,again, I don't want to take away the joy to your point of food and a comfortmeal.
There are moments that are appropriate professionally and personally that we need our mobilephones.
But if we all did a selfaudit, the screen time that popsup, the amount of time we lost scrolling through emails or socialmedia, we could be honest with ourselves that we've lost that time that could be better utilized inboredom.
Reading abook, somethingelse.
And so the brain shifts that wereally,one, I think the science of it was understand that using devices non-stop and playing a videogame,tap,tap, tap socialmedia,swipe,scroll, that's feeding into the dopamine reward network that is like the addictionsystem,Jonathan.
And so I'm feeding into the ADHDcircuit.
I'm feeding into theanxiety, not to mention the emotional context of thepost.
Now, I may see a post that angers me or irritates me or makes me anxious and you may notreact.
So it's also personal on thatlevel.
It's a double-edgedsword, the dopaminehit, but then the content and the emotions it maytrigger.
And that's different foreveryone.
Yeah. And the fact that simultaneously so often it pulls us away from the in-person relationships who are right in front of us or next to us that we claim to holddear.
Yes. And yet we're sitting therelike, youknow, side by side on acouch, like each with your device scrolling and scrolling for aschool.
And you'relike, what if we just put them down and had aconversation?
I actually like this person and I hope they likeme.
Can we justtalk?Yeah. It feels like agesago,pre-pandemic, but I did the first study in2017.
It hadn't been done to do digital detox outside of a sleeplab.
I had beenworking. I hadn't been in chief wellness officer yet of evolution hospitality at thetime.
I went to a really forward-thinkingCEO, JohnMurphy.
And I waslike, I have this researchidea.
Could I tell your employees to shut down theirphones, 38 to 60 minutes beforebedtime?
And by theway, I'm going to do all these invasivetests.
Like, youknow, anxietyscales.
Look at theirsleep. Look at theirstress.
He was so forward-thinking as was the VP of HR at thetime.
They werelike, could you just turn it into a fun wellnessactivity?
Youknow, while you're doing the research on theside.
Let's clinical morefun.
Yeah. Let's clinical make itfun.
And by theway, so we did 21-day digitaldetox.
And to yourpoint, we saved in that 21-day 500 executives went throughit.
We saved four marriages or partnerships during thattime.
And people were forced to put down their iPads or theirTVs.
Andlike, what do we donow?
And I remember them reaching out tome.
And a couple ofthem, I waslike, let's go to marriage and family therapy councils for others I foundbooks.
We came up withactivities.
And I waslike, look at that rekindling communication and romance with yourpartner.
Imean, for all of you that are blessed to bepartnered, please do that tonight on behalf of all of ussingletons.
Youknow? That are wondering what's thatlike, youknow?
And I loved that moment to know it's that simple to improve a relationship in yourlife.
And by theway, this was a company and still was managing at the time 125 hotels in the United States and Canada that are open 20-phoys aday, seven days aweek, 365 days ayear.
And the rulewas,look, if there was an emergency at the hotel and the generalmanager, these leaders needed to becalled, you would call them and not text or send anemail.
And youknow, the data is in the book andthat.
But that alone wasenough.
And by theway, that is the still the most requested wellness activity that that company wants todo.
When are we cycling through another 21day?
Right. Thedetox.Yeah.
Yeah. It's like any permission to dothat.
Like give me the noseon.
Yeah. It's sointeresting.
And we want to do it incommunity.
Right.Right. So that the entire work team is agreeing that I as yourcolleague, I'm not going to text you at a certain point at night over work things that could wait until the nextday.
Yeah. So you feel like you're not being left out or not by leaving thenorms.
Yeah. Make someonesense.
So this is certainly the load of context of themodel.
And you've referenced a number of times when you're on aconversation, the protocol that you have developed over a period of years that kind of walked youthrough.
Okay. So all five of these key elements are built into thisprotocol.
But you do it in away, which is really fascinating tome, which issaying, let's not do all five at once because I know that behavior change doesn't work thatway.
Even though we often try to dothat, you sort ofsay, let's take twomonths.
Let's take eight weeks and let's describe them as microhabits.
Like, let's kind of go step bystep.
Let's pick the things it makes sense to do in the order that makes sense and go a little bit at a time and build and build and build so that we can eventually feelbetter.
Yeah. Take this busy brain and bring it down to a place ofpeacefulness.
Yeah. Take me into the protocol a little bitmore.
You've dropped seeds about a littlebit.
Yeah. Give me the download on thisprotocol.
I wanted to say I created this protocol because when I was an integrator medicine and we would do these 90 minute intakes and I would have this comprehensive plan and I'm working with a high achievingprofessional, I remember overwhelming them with everything to your point that you needed todo.
And then it creates this inertia of where to startor, youknow, confusion andthis.
So that was onething. The second thing was was we'rebusy, youknow, abusy, a term I don't likeproductive, fullschedules.
I didn't want this to disrupt your personal or professionallife.
I wanted it to feel so easy that you almost felt like am I really doing anything that's going to makeimpact.
And the third thing we learned the hard way was read the bookgreat, but get someone to doit.
Cohort based learningcommunity, doing it in context with a loved one or teams where there'scompetition.
It was fascinating to watch the change ofdynamics.
So that wasit. So we wanted to make it easy and do these micro habits that we call brainshift.
So we've all read the best selling books and you've had them on your show talking about tinyhabits, BJ Fog or atomichabits, JamesClear.
But Isaid, I'm going to take it a stepfurther.
I'm going to pick the habits for you and we're going to research them for you before we go tomanuscript.
So I've given you the menu todo.
There's no other questions asked and there's nothing else you need toadd.
So we're not going to disrupt yourlife.
So that wasit. Stepone, week one was I want you to get your busy brain testscore.
This replacing self judgment with selfawareness.
What's my brainscore? And I go back to that place of what is myintention,Jonathan?
What is it that I hope for for my brain and mybody?
Because if it is back to that original thing how we open in alignment with agency and goals and I'msaying, here's the steps to get you to thatgoal.
So you have less back pain when you're stressed or blood sugar is under control for yourdiabetes, recondyl romance with your partner athome, then you're more likely to be emotionallyinvolved.
That's stepone. That's the hardeststep, by theway.
You get pastthat. Everything else iscake.
Literally comfortfood.
Now, I loveit. What I really enjoyed about the particle also is that you're taking people as theyare.
You're not saying you need to actually change before you even startthis.
You'resaying,okay, let's acknowledge the state of yourlife.
There's a lot going on and maybe there's a lot going on that you don't necessarily want to say no to because maybe you're working towards something that you really do want to make happen or it'senjoyable.
But at the sametime, there is harm that's probably being caused as a part of the way that you're sort of functioningnow.
So let's find ways that areaccessible, that aredoable, that you can bring into yourday, that don't feel like aburden, don't feel like another thing that youquote, have to add your schedule to make it that much morebrittle.
But you can kind of just not longsay,well,sure.
I love what yousaid, which is that it feels like such a small lift that you're almostasking, could this really make adifference?
I think it's actually the effectiveone.
It is the one that we'veheard.
Itdoes. Itdoes. Here was the bestpart.
So weektwo, we start the seven day sleep challenge and we loved doing it withteams.
Every company and organization we went to was highlycompetitive.
We game up byit. We gave them points for various cognitive behavioraltherapy.
We will tell you most of the people who foundsuccess, they partook in the supplement recommendations wegave,right?
It was fascinating because while people were coming back week three to thecall,like, whowon?
Who had the mostpoints?
And I didn't need alcohol or I gave up my sleepingpill.
The phone call I was getting was from the CEO and theCHROs.
What's going on in that brain shiftprotocol?
People arehappier,Dr.
Rooney. Youknow, these two executives or this team that was in fighting and we were going to have to bring in amediator, they're all getting along all of asudden.
The person that was ready to quit is finenow.
It was that simple and that's how transformational itwas.
And so by the time you get to weekthree, that's the time we add in step three digital detox 30 to 60 minutes andbacktrack.
And many people werelike, give me the nextstep.
They were kind of boredalready.
But we did it because that was one of the harderweeks, Jonathan aswell, because the firsttwo, threedays, they're literally is like a drug withdrawal from your phone or your iPad or whatever youhave.
And so we really had to work with people and our coaches had to work with them one onone.
Like, let's make an actual list of what are different things you cansee,touch,smell,hair,taste, do that are processing through your senses that will keep youbusy.
So I wash my dirty dishes and I take my senior dog out for a last walk atnight.
So it'll keep me away from my digitaldevices.
That was the example weused.
And then week four or stepfour, I had to find a addition to traditionalmedicine,Jonathan, ameditation.
I'msorry.Look, I've been meditating and I talk about it in my TEDtalk.
It's made all the difference in mylife.
But people with a busy brain willsay, my anxiety or focus is worse when I sit down andmeditate.
And so stepfour, we introduced sound healing as a modality and really went into the data of music therapy and the minoralbeads.
If you could put this on before you sleep or if you need to focus on a task during the day for just 20minutes, the difference it couldmake.
And that's the first fourweeks.
And most people hadhonestly,like, it soundsunscientific, but I just feel so thankful for thethousand, over 1000 executives that went through this for our researchperiod.
Like, I and my team were moved for the stories that they were coming back and tellingus.
And I give thanks to the nine executives that gave us their actual names for thebook.
They'relike,Dr.Romney, please put my story with this brain shift so that if someone else is adoubter, they will doit.
And I just sit here andpause.
I do have been in thisgo,go, go alone with this book launch and my new role and kind of having a pinch me moment of like the impact and it was sojoyful.
Like it reallyworked.Yeah, it'samazing.
As we start to wrap ourconversation, you shared this notion of thestress, successcycle, how oftentimes we have this thing called the busybrain, what it does tous, even though we sometimes think that it's actually doing something forus, deconstructing all the different elements that go into what's going on inside of us and how we start to what are the critical building blocks of how we do some using as you describe in lay person'sterms,rewiring.
And then the protocol willcertainly, youknow, for those who are really curious about the D so protocol by allmeans,like, take a look at thebook.
I think it's it's laid out beautifully and it's docare, which is what I so prepared toappreciate.
Like this is not something that says you need to make big disruptions in your life all atonce.
Itsays, let's take a step by step and thescaffold, it's like you lay down the scaffolding in a way where we're behaviorally the thing that you needed to be in place for the thing that comesnext, you've just done so that it makes it so that you're not fighting against yourself in your own sense of willpower and self regulation the wholetime, which is unusual because we can't just rush past all that stuff andsay,yeah,yeah, of course thatmatters.
Just get the real stuff that will make a difference and then itfails.
It pretty much always comes crashingdown.
And so theintelligence, the thoughtfulness behind the progressiveness of theprotocol, I just find really compelling and honor coming fromyou.
Thank you somuch. I justreceived.
I want to take a moment and receive that because this is years and years of research and thoughtfulness and thank you forthat.
Feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation aswell.
So as I always ask the end of every conversation here in this container of good lifeproject.
If I off rope the phrase to live a goodlife, what comesup?
Two weeks before the day we recorded thispodcast, I turned50.
And when I was in my early 30s sitting in the surgeon's office and they were tellingme, do you have disabilityinsurance?
Jonathan, I didn't know what even thatmeant.
Little Rog had been lifted out from underneath my entire life and hope departed mysoul.
And today by living through the suffering and understanding what worked for me and researching a protocol and service to others who don't feel hope in their lives at this moment because of a busy brain andburnout, I'm cognitively sharper today than I was at 25 when I graduated from medicalschool.
And so when you ask me what is a goodlife, it is humbly to have been in that dark place devoid of hope and knowing that there were people that held hope for me when I didn't haveit.
And so now coming and being that hope holder for others and me particularly having hope for all the other busy brains that are out there tosay, I will hold hope for you and your healing and your best version of dreams of success for yourself as you brainshift.
That is what's living a good life is to be that hope holders forothers.
Hmm, thankyou.Hey, before youleave, if you'd love thisepisode, say that you'll also love the conversation we had with Lightwalkins aboutmeditation.
You'll find a link to Light's episode in the shownotes.
This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox andme, JonathanFields, editing helped by AlejandroRamirez, ChristopherCarter, crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Del for her research on thisepisode.
And ofcourse, if you haven't already doneso, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listeningapp.
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