72. Dr. Pedram Shojai: Why Your Physical Symptoms Are a Spiritual Wake-Up Call

What if the root cause of burnout, inflammation, and hormone dysfunction isn't just physical—but energetic? In this episode of Extend, I sit down with Dr. Pedram Shojai—Taoist monk, doctor of Oriental medicine, and author of The Urban Monk—to explore how ancient wisdom meets modern health. We unpack why true healing requires addressing your qi (life force), how emotional stagnation leads to physical disease, and why regulating your energy is just as important as optimizing your bloodwork. From the microbiome to meditation, Dr. Pedram shares how restoring energetic flow can radically shift your metabolism, mood, and even your fertility. And we go deep on what most functional medicine still misses about the connection between spiritual vitality and long-term health. Dr. Pedram Shojai is a former Taoist monk, acclaimed filmmaker, and best-selling author who's helped millions reconnect with their body, breath, and purpose. His work bridges ancient healing systems with today's most pressing health challenges. We Also Discuss: How blocked energy leads to chronic illness The missing layer in functional medicine The ancient view of fertility and hormones Why energy management is the new stress management The true purpose of breathwork and meditation How to reclaim your life force in a modern world Why we can't separate emotional and physical healing The nervous system patterns that keep you sick Thank You To Our Sponsors: Deliverance: Give your liver the care it deserves! Deliverance is a powerful plant-based formula designed to support and restore liver health. Get 10% off your first order with code DRSHAH at https://loveyourliver.comloveyourliver.com http://loveyourliver.comhttp://loveyourliver.com Timeline: Upgrade your energy from within! MitoPure by Timeline helps power up your cells, supporting muscle strength, mental clarity, and overall vitality. Stay active, sharp, and strong at any age! Claim 10% off your first order now at timeline.com/DrShah Learn more about Dr. Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/ Learn more about Dr. Pedram Shojai Instagram: @drpedramshojai https://www.instagram.com/drpedramshojai/Website: www.theurbanmonk.com https://theacademy.theurbanmonk.com/link-in-bio-social-media-meta

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What is the secret to longevity isn't just labs, supplements, or technology, but it's actually about how we live, how we breathe, and we connect to the world around us. In this episode of the Extend Podcast, I'm going to be sitting down with Dr. Pedram Sojai. He's a Taoist monk, a doctor of Oriental medicine, and a New York Times bestselling author. We're going to explore how ancient ancient medicine holds answers that modern healthcare has been ignoring for way too long. We get into the energy systems behind digestion, sleep, and burnout, and the real reason so many of us feel stuck in survival mode. We're going to talk about how breathwork, vagal tone, and nervous system practices can unlock a deeper healing with no prescriptions required. Dr. Sojai and I talk about the Taoist view of aging,

• 1:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  why stress and stagnation are the root of most modern disease, and what it really takes to live long and well in today's world. Dr. Sojai is the founder of The Urban Monk. He's a host of the Conscious Vitality Platform, and he's a leading voice in merging ancient wisdom and modern living. He's directed many documentaries, and he's also the author of many books, including The Urban Monk, The Art of Stopping Time, and Focus. This is a great conversation with Dr. Pedram Sojai. Let's dive right in.

• 2:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Bedrum, it's been a long time coming for you to be on this podcast.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Happy to finally be here. This is exciting for me.

• 2:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you. It's exciting for me as well. The Urban Monk.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  I hear, I hear, I hear he's in the house.

• 2:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The Urban Monk is in the house. So, you know, just starting off with that, Bedrum, you're such an interesting guy and you've had an amazing story and I'd love for you to just maybe start off with, why, why do we refer to you as the Urban Monk?

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Great question. I will, I'll go bird's eye view for a little bit of elevation, come down, immigrant family, get over here, you gotta be a doctor, UCLA, trying to be a doctor. Like, man, these guys look miserable.

• 2:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I empathize with that story.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, right? It was just, I was interning with a guy and, you know, your angels come in different forms, right? He was just not a nice person, not, and I was like, man, do I want to be living this guy's life? I asked God for a clue and a book on Taoism emerges in my life. Weird story, but I'm like, what is this? You know, I grew up watching Star Wars, but what is this Jedi stuff? And so I read it and I go find a Taoist Kung Fu master the next week. I was just like, oh my God, this is cool.

• 3:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's incredible.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  So I go from, you know, biology, UCLA, to then suddenly being 30 hours a week at a Kung Fu studio studying Bagua, Shing Yi, Tai Chi, stuff that I was like, what is this stuff? And I was just all in because that's what I, that's what I do. Why? Because I don't want to believe something, I want to experience something. And within a week of doing some of these practices, I was like, what is this feeling?

• 3:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  And you cannot deny the experience of something. And so I just kept digging and digging, being a scientist, why, why is this working? What does this feel like?

• 3:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  And went down the path, became a monk of the lineage, became a priest of the lineage, became an abbot of the lineage and just kept going. Changed my trajectory from Western medicine to Oriental medicine, got a doctorate in Oriental medicine and came back from, I was in the Himalayas actually for six months. And I came back and realized that when you study the things that monks study, you are part of an ascetic lineage. The ascetics renounce the world. You leave, you go up the mountain, you don't deal with money, you don't deal with family, you don't deal with bills. And so as a student of the ascetic lineages. I was sitting actually in Rishikesh, India. Uh, cause I studied a lot of different traditions.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  And I'm like, you know, complaining to this Baba about, yeah, I don't know if I'm in place here. He's like, no, you don't belong here. You speak good English. You're an educated man. You've learned what you need to learn here. Go back to the world, be a householder.

• 4:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hmm.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  And I knew, I knew he was right, but I didn't want to hear it.

• 4:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  So what does that mean? Come back, be a normal guy. And the interface between being able to do yoga and meditate for three hours a day and pray for world peace and count your rosary and do all the things that you do as an ascetic with a regular guy life.

• 5:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Doesn't work. And so my work became understanding how to find peace as a householder for a guy who's got bills, a guy who's got kids, a guy who's late for soccer and a guy who's got payroll to come up with, right?

• 5:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  And that became the interface, which is saying, look, a lot of the people in these spiritual communities are following the wrong rules for people who live in the normal world.

• 5:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. Uh, that makes total sense, actually, because I've always wondered, you know, the, this lifestyle that you, you see these monks living in the mountains with, it seems like they have a lot of time to just focus on their craft, right? And taking care of themselves. Where do, where do you find the time or even the mental space to do that, living in this urban life that we live? And you've kind of figured that, figured out how to interface those two completely. And I'm so curious about Chinese medicine and some of the kind of the core tenants of it. I've learned a little bit about it. I know a lot about Ayurveda from my dad, who was an Ayurvedic practitioner. But I would love to kind of hear some of the core tenants of what you learned when you were getting yourself educated in Chinese medicine as a monk and then moving up the ladder.

• 6:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What are some of the core things that my audience can kind of learn through you that you've, that you've found?

• 6:14Speaker 01

  So I came to Chinese medicine by way of Taoism and Qi Gong and yoga. And then it set matched to what I was learning. And then I came, so I was studying Western medicine, then I came to Chinese medicine. And then I, it was functional medicine before functional medicine. And Jeff Bland just told me a story at lunch the other day about this, right? Where it was. You know, he went to China and he started, you know, presenting on functional medicine. And he, this guy got up and for 10 minutes was like, finally, a guy from the West that understands what we do here. Because systems work together. It's an integrated whole. And so for Chinese medicine, and you know, like every system has schools of thought. Is, you know, the earth school of thought is everything runs through the gut.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  And if you, if you heal the earth element, then all of the other elements run through it. And so I started, it just made sense. Yeah. Right? Is, you know, you have to have balance, you know? If your detox pathways aren't working and your digestion isn't working. You know, we look at it in a very compartmentalized way. You do. In Western medicine. And, you know, you have all of the, the specialists and everyone becomes hyper-specialized. And it's like, well, I can't talk to you about your heart. You gotta go talk to that guy. Yeah. Well, no, I'm an interventional cardiologist. You gotta go next door. And it just gets to the point where you don't even know who to talk to anymore. And not to poo poo the specialists because they are brilliant at what they do. You lose the big picture in, in this conversation, right?

• 7:37Speaker 01

  And so in Chinese medicine, you have this systems thinking of like, well, okay, you're doing everything right. You are working out, you're eating better, you are getting your sleep down, but you're going through a divorce. But that doesn't matter. Let's just, you know, and so you're like, hold on a second. Let's talk about your stress levels and what we have to do to optimize your stress levels. Like you can't keep that off the table. Right, right. And so Chinese medicine is about the flow of health through the different systems of your body. And this currency of health that needs to, and I like, I like to consider like economically, right? Like energy economics. Do you have enough energy to spend on your basic operations? And then do you have enough for your brain to thrive and come up with better ideas other than just trying to get through your day? Mm-hmm.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  And then do you have enough to help that guy cross the street? Then you, you know, and so that's all function of energy and the currency of life. Right. And how efficient are your mitochondria? How efficient are your cells? How efficient is your system in being able to generate that glow? And extend beyond this life form trying to survive? And a lot of that has to do with coming out of survival. Dealing with safety signals and dealing with your body's ability to thrive as a biological organism. Right? And there's a lot of ifs there in a toxic world where food is not what it used to be. And so, you know, we've got a lot of work to do.

• 8:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  But the general operating system of Chinese medicine with my scientific background and all the weird stuff that I did, became a great framework to say, look, let's look at the big picture. And, you know, if we run out of where I can help you, I know a guy, I mean, I know all the specialists.

• 9:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Right? But you need someone in your corner that can help you see the big picture. Because you're gonna go walking around looking for a particular tree and this is a forest.

• 9:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And man, that's exactly, you said it so eloquently, like, that's exactly what I'm trying to do here with my practice is to serve as an interface between some of these integrative or traditional modalities in Western medicine. There's this big middle space that you can call it functional medicine. Like you said, Chinese medicine, Indian medicine was functional medicine before there was functional medicine, right? And how, how does bringing functional medicine serve as that gap between traditional medicine and some of these more ancient traditions? Because, like you said, functional medicine is basically looking at things like energy, mitochondrial health, inflammation, gut health. All of that is what we learn in functional medicine.

• 10:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But that's what we were talking about for generations prior in Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  It really is. And there was, there was a whole era, and we could get into the history of allopathy, where it's like, you know, surgeries, steroids and antibiotics.

• 10:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  Made this one form of medicine do really well. We got our guys on the battlefield faster than the enemy. Wow, we're winning, right? And then we lost sight of the whole.

• 10:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  And in doing so, we poo-pooed anything that wasn't in this model. And now it's all kind of coming back. And look, I am the first to admit, there's a lot of BS. There's a lot of people that just make claims. There's a lot of people that have, in my assessment, they don't have the right to give people health advice because they don't know what they're talking about. And so I, it's a very careful game of separating the baby from the bathwater, but finding this body of work that's evidence-based, that does. No harm that can help people in a more meaningful way. And I think that's where medicine is going.

• 11:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I totally agree with you. And we're at that moment right now, I think in history, where the pendulum is swinging back into being more accepting of traditional medicine and looking at the body as a systems-based approach versus, like you said, the compartmentalized siloed approach of traditional medicine right now. And it's really exciting to be in this time, I think. I think people are sick and tired of being sick and tired, as our friend Mark Hyman says. You know, it's traditional medicine has not reversed the trend of chronic disease because it's not looking at what is the root cause of what's happening, right?

• 11:34Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And I can, when I kind of left traditional practice, I had multiple clinics and was kind of, you know, I was in the trenches trying to help people. It was the MASH unit, as far as I'm concerned. And then I kind of tried to swim upstream and go to corporate wellness to be like, hey, guys, let's, you don't, you know, let me intervene here. Let me stop this before you get shot in the war, right? Let's negotiate a peace. And so I got to really get a view of the payer models and the like, the unit economics and all the stuff around healthcare. And I can tell you that in Washington, up to maybe this year, I don't know what's going to change, but it has not been a healthcare debate. It's been a healthcare finance debate. Who pays for this gargantuous problem?

• 12:17Speaker 01

  But even the wellness dudes, right, of which I am one, the business model around, you know, selling supplements and all this is, oh, no, you don't need Xanax, you need St. John's Wort. And it's still a transactional, lower-tier deal than solving the actual root cause of the problem. And I think a lot of the wellness people, because they got to eat and they got families to feed, are like, well, how do I make a living at this? And so I think there's another iteration of this that has a lot to do with solving problems, saving in costs and benefiting society. And there is a dollar amount that can be attributed to that. And I think that's going to be the next generation of how this iterates into a functional model for society, right? Right now, rich guys can pay for it, right? It's tough.

• 13:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. And I think, you know, the whole perception around the healthcare system and the massive expense that it that it costs us, right? It's like what is 25% of our GDP is now our healthcare expense, which is just ridiculous. Every dollar you earn, 25 cents of that goes to feeding this healthcare system that we have. Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, insurance companies, et cetera. I think that the more we try to turn that around, it's going to take forever. My philosophy is we unburden that system by using functional medicine, traditional medicine, and get people healthy from a root cause. And then you unburden that system and the dollars go away because people just don't need it anymore, like you're doing.

• 13:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You're focusing your energy there, right?

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Amen. I think Mother Teresa said it best, the people trying to get her to go to some anti-war rally, and she said, "I won't go to that, but when you have a pro-peace rally, invite me."

• 13:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  There you go. That's a great analogy right there.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Just create the model and show the value. Let it glow, right? And that's how functional medicine, Jeff Blain's been at this since the 70s, right? Is it started by people helping people and it starts to spread because goodness, people talk about. Hey, yeah, you've been going to this doctor for 35 years and you're overweight and your diabetes is there, like nothing's working. You're just stemming the tide versus, wow, look what happened to John.

• 14:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Dude, he looks healthy. What's he doing, right? I'm looking over there, right? That's what works.

• 14:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. Yeah, his book, Disease Delusion, is one of my, you know, my core reads for anybody. I think it's such a great summary of not just functional medicine, but also just the complete misconception of Western medicine being able to heal us. It's really just covering the symptoms of disease. And thank God, Western medicine is there, right? I mean, you get hit by a bus, like you said, because of surgery, antibiotics, and what was the third thing?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Steroids.

• 15:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Steroids, right. Western medicine became a thing. And yes, it's extremely helpful. Thank God we have it, but it's definitely. Obviously not keeping people healthy, right?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's and it's limited its scope. It's like saying, you know what? We had martial law and the police took over. And then they started governing things through martial law. But then the police are not equipped to run society. And so it just expanded beyond its natural scope. And it's very good at what it's good at. But it is not good at chronic disease. It is not good at lifestyle. It is not good. We we understand where its limitations are. It has taken on too big of a role for what it's good at.

• 15:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 15:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So I'm 52 right now, but I'm still pushing all of my limits. I'm running long distances. I travel across many time zones to support my work. And I just want to live my life to the fullest. Staying active as I age isn't just about willpower. It's about supporting my mitochondria, the powerhouses of my cells, with the energy that they need to recharge my muscles and recharge my brain. Mitopure is a supplement that I take. It's backed by solid research showing that it can boost cellular energy, increase muscle strength and support overall healthy aging. Personally, I take Mitopure every single day. It's helped me continue my active lifestyle, whether it's a high intensity workout or keeping up with my kids. So if you are looking to support your body

• 16:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  and want to feel younger from the inside out, my friends at Timeline are offering you a 10% discount on your first order. Go to timeline.com/drsah to get started. That's timeline.com/drsah. Your future self will thank you.

• 16:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  At my practice at Nex Health, I'm often amazed by how many of my patients have liver health issues. It turns out that 38% of Americans have fatty liver disease, and most people have no idea. You wouldn't really know until you do something like a liver scan using ultrasound shear wave technology, which we offer to all of our patients at Nex Health to get a good idea of how much damage has been done from metabolic disease and alcohol consumption. This is where a new product called Deliverance comes in. Invented by Siggi Clavion, it uses natural plant extracts that you drink as a liquid shot, which have been shown in studies to prevent and reverse fatty liver disease. I personally have a history of metabolic disease, which I work really hard to keep at bay.

• 17:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I use Deliverance myself three times a day to prophylactically make sure that my liver stays healthy. It's super easy to use and actually tastes good, too. You can save 10% on your first order when you use the code DRSHAH, that's D R S H A H, at the website loveyourliver.com.

• 17:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Now that, you know, we've kind of laid the framework of some of your expertise, we could talk forever, and you have so much expertise in so many areas, but I do know you have some particular thoughts and expertise around gut health. And specifically, the reason I even want to bring this up is this is a massive issue. And I would say 80% of my patients, 80% of the people I see have some level of gut health issue that is underappreciated and not addressed, leaky gut being one of those. And I'd love to hear kind of how you talk to your, how you talk to people about this. What is your, how do you bring this to people's, the forefront of people's consciousness?

• 18:37Speaker 01

  This all actually started with this guy not sleeping. Like, so I've, you know, I've done a 10-part series on gut microbiome. I did another, I mean, I've been in the space around, I've been in all the labs, I've talked to all these people, yeah, gut health, gut health, gut health. I go to Portugal for a summer and go weapons-free on pastas and gelatos and just, hey, we're in Europe, this stuff's better, right? Fine during the trip, come back to, you know, a leak in the house and some cortisol and some, you know, kind of compression of the cells, and I'm not sleeping. And so here's a seasoned meditator who's lying in bed at 2:00 in the morning going, why are you not sleeping? Why are you not sleeping? And then my instinct from being a guy who grew up in the West is, how do I shut this crying baby up? Right?

• 19:22Speaker 01

  So take some melatonin, take some gab. So, so what kind of remedial effort can I put to silence this noise? And then I'm like, monkey, no, you know better than that. What is your body telling you? And as I started kind of tracing what my body's telling me, I started, I just, I started nerding out. It's like, if you're up, you might as well be on PubMed.

• 19:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Right? And so I just started nerding out, looking at this literature, a huge body of literature on endotoxemia and the mind body effects and the downstream effects on not just anxiety, but sleep and your clock genes and all this stuff. And so I just started following these breadcrumbs, no pun intended, back to being, oh God, you compromised the permeability of your gut lining.

• 20:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Your zonulin. So, so I just basically started testing and looking at myself being like, oh yeah, this is gut permeability. And what happens when you have permeability in your gut from one good summer in Portugal is lipopolysaccharides from the gram negative bacteria that can now proliferate in a gut that's having more carbs and things that you're not supposed to be eating, jump the castle wall. And now your immune system is saying enemies.

• 20:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Right? And what does that do? It triggers something called neuroception. It triggers your safety signals to say, hey, something's wrong, dude. And here's the problem. I don't know about your body, but my body doesn't actually speak English. It speaks irritation. It speaks anxiety. It speaks insomnia. It speaks this kind of halo effect of like, something's wrong. But because I'm too busy looking at a TikTok feed or watching the news or, you know, worried about getting my kid to soccer, I've learned to not listen to that. And the drug companies say, oh no, if you got that, take this.

• 21:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Right? And so it all goes back.

• 21:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Take some Ambien.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Take some Ambien. I mean, what's wrong with you? We have a solution for this. Just you could take it for the rest of your life. Chaching, right? And so I was like, holy crap. And I just got deeper and deeper into gut permeability. And I could tell you one thing that we did, like early days, I'm, you know, I'm the guy, I like arguably, I did the definitive work on the microbiome. There's 10 part series that, you know, it's like this vast archive. of the who's who and I sat with them and I'm like I know the microbiome.

• 21:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Your documentaries.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  In my documentary, yeah.

• 21:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What's the name of that one?

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Interconnected.

• 21:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And yeah, so people should look that up because I've I've watched a few of those and they're really good. You talk to like the world's experts.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm very good at getting in the room with the smartest people and asking them, you know, good questions, I guess. And so I'm like, man, microbiome, microbiome. So what did we all start doing six years ago when the microbiome, we started testing the microbiome?

• 21:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  And you know better than any, when you test someone coming in off the street with just any sort of gut issues, you're like, wow, your microbiome is a dumpster fire, right? Because there's all these inflammatory issues, all sorts of issues. So as a good functional medicine doctor, what do you do? Say, oh, you know what? Why don't you go do an elimination provocation diet? Come back in 30 to 60 days, then we'll retest, then we'll start doing the work. And it's like six months before you get these people any results. And so as a guy who likes results, it's painful. And so what did I start doing? I said, okay, well, what are the major issues here? We started looking at food sensitivity testing and gut permeability testing, saying, dude, did you know that you have a four plus reaction to cherries? Oh, my God, I love cherries. Says here you can't eat them.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  So then after a couple of months of taking away the foods that that they're having immunological issues with, and then fixing, whether it's a cludan or zonulin or candida or or LPS and just fixing a few things. Then we go test the microbiome, then we make micro adjustments. And you know better than any, my joints are better. My sleep is better. I'm in a better mood. The energy starts to come back because your body comes out of wartime economy.

• 23:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Right? If you're worried about building bombs, you're not making school books.

• 23:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Right? And it all happens at the gut permeability level of your body. And so here I am, a seasoned meditator, trying to like meditate off like a

• 23:30Speaker 01

  right, right? Like this alarm signal in the middle of the night. And it occurs to me that you gotta go backwards and fix what your body is telling you. And then your body is at peace. And so all these people going to yoga and taking Kava and doing all this stuff, it's still remedial. If the root cause is something else. And so in this example, it was my gut.

• 23:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. Such a great story. And I think what the highlight that people should get from that is. You had insomnia. In traditional medicine, never would they work you up with any type of gut health testing for insomnia. Absolutely.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  No one's looking at that.

• 24:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. No one's looking at that. And so just the interconnectedness of your gut to your brain and stress levels and inflammation, your immune system, is what functional medicine is all about. And I think the ancient Chinese medicine practitioners and ancient India medicine practitioners also knew this because a lot of what they offered people were plants, herbs, that would help fix their gut and help them repair their gut when people had symptoms of headaches, insomnia, et cetera.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  So you would take the pulse and you'd say, okay, your spleen is deficient, you've got a little dampness in your spleen yang and all this kind of stuff. And you'd put them on a formula that includes ginger and maybe some carbon additives. And so now we go back and study these herbs and we're like, how the heck were they so spot on? How is ginger the primary thing that moves the motor, you know, the motor cortex, what is it, the MMC of the small intestine for SIBO? Like, it's unbelievable how well these align now that we understand the underlying mechanisms. And I'm not going to propose, I understand how they got there, except thousands of years of trial and error.

• 25:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  But they are evidence-based.

• 25:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Because if, like, as a practicing physician, if I make a recommendation to you and you're suffering and you come back and say, I'm worse or I'm not better, that is a data point that I will have to micro-adjust around immediately, or you're going to go see the next guy. And so for thousands of years, millions and millions of people, this is a refined system of evidence-based humanistic medicine.

• 25:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Right?

• 25:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Where's the published studies? Come on. Right? You can do those later. We know this works.

• 25:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And that's my point exactly, is that I'm really excited about the convergence of functional medicine, Western medicine, and ancient medicine. I think we're at the perfect moment in time to bring all of this together. And, you know, now studies are being done. There's a lot of studies with ashwagandha, for example, with rhodiola. And we're seeing, the reason we don't have a lot of studies is not because these things don't work, it's because there's no money in doing those studies, right? So that's the whole reason the studies aren't there. And you're familiar with the Flechner Report, basically, yeah, mandating that Western medicine-trained doctors only use

• 26:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Molecules that have been proven with randomized control, large expensive studies, right? And so that's kind of where we are.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Shackles.

• 26:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Shackles.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is a form of thought slavery that we are going to bind you to. And then the entire system looks at you and your white coat and says, he must know what he's talking about. So it's being duped at the highest level through the education of Western medical doctors. And there are plenty that have shaken it off and are like, come on, man, look at this. Right? And so we are in an upheaval.

• 26:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Of a thought control system.

• 26:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  That has been financed by the Rockefellers and Big Oil. There's a lot of story here. I don't need to get into that crap. There's a lot of dark history about how we've come to believe that this is the only way to think about health.

• 27:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  And if you look downstream, it's a great business.

• 27:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Because everyone's sick and everyone's on drugs and everyone's paying.

• 27:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Three trillion dollar business, right?

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, wake up and smell the trap, right? And there's a piece to this that I went down, of course, because we started looking at NF kappa B, which is a high level genetic expression that the switches are the darling. Like if I come up with a pill that can modulate NF kappa B and bring down inflammation on a systemic level, you'll be going on a trip on my private jet next week.

• 27:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  That is billions and billions of dollars of value to healthcare and society. They haven't been able to make a pill. But if you look at the studies, it is overwhelmingly apparent that mind, body, practices and meditation and prayer flip this switch. Oh, I'm so sorry, there's no money in that and I gotta do something. So doctor, what can you give me? And that's where my heart just quivers.

• 28:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  It's right there.

• 28:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's, there's so many examples of that in medicine, though, that, you know, we have something very simple that's right in front of our face that makes a huge difference. And we don't use it because we're waiting to develop a pharmaceutical drug that has the same effect, right? And it's just not gonna happen, right?

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's not during our lifetime at least, right? And so let's dive in. That's the way I want to go with you next is NF kappa B. Can you? Explain to my audience what that is, what is it a switch for and why is it important?

• 28:37Speaker 01

  So we all have our genetics and we have our epigenetics. Everyone's listened to all the podcasts about epigenetic this and epigenetic that. This is one of the major switches that will bring down cytokines. This is one of the major switches that will optimize the body to say, hey, baby, it's safe, you can grow, you can heal. So it's one of the switches that will drive us more towards parasympathetic dominance and the ability to be in a peace time economy. So we're growing crops, everything's good. We're not spending 25% of our money on healthcare or war and all this kind of stuff. Like this is where the good stuff happens. And so modulating this, we know certain things will bring this. And so that has become one of the kind of the eras of,

• 29:19Speaker 01

  you know, the areas of where we do our medicine is we look to how we can get this expression. So people will say, okay, you go in a cold sauna, you go in a hot thing, you do, you know, all these things that have hormetic stressors can can optimize along that pathway. So then everyone goes and gets like a $12,000 ice bath because some dude said it's good for you. And I would argue that that is not the necessary master switch for certain people. I think certain genetic profiles will actually do worse in that.

• 29:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I agree.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  Right? And you gotta be careful.

• 29:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's not for everybody.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  It's not for everybody, right? Like I'm a brown guy. I don't like being cold, right? Like I don't know if it's good for me, but like that's not, uh. Right? And so when you talk about the free stuff, the easy stuff and the like peace and love stuff, it starts to really skew into the realm of woo. And as soon as you look at the data of what actually helps with this particular genetic pathway, it's just that, but it's free and it's, and it's just, it's what you do. It's how you decompress yourself out of time and how you stop the world from having the walls cave in and take some moments to re-center yourself. It has such a powerful effect on your systemic inflammation, which then

• 30:37Speaker 01

  downstream from there, you could tell you better than I can, right? What that does systemic inflammation causes arterial issues, it causes blood sugar issues, it causes brain fog. I mean, just go downstream. Everything anyone's coming into a clinic for, this is above that.

• 30:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Oh, but let's not, let's not turn the dial over here. Let's come over here and ask what supplements you recommend, doctor. Right, and that's where my mind just kind of breaks on this, right? It's just like, yo, it's a trap. Right? Like, I take ginseng, but I don't take ginseng. I take ginseng as a remedial way of allowing my body to have some of the botanicals that help with hormetic stressors and help with the dual directional whatever, right? And yeah, if I bang my knee, I might take an Advil. But that is not the solve to the problem. How do I not bang my knee next time? And so I think that this NF cap B pathway, I think that the ability for us to understand, and I'm writing a whole book on this,

• 31:36Speaker 01

  but how the anterior cingulate cortex and the default mode network are activated when we fold our attention backwards on our own perceptual arrays. There is this incredible body of research that's coming out now. I was a guy who came down from the monastery, hired a neuroscientist, built him a brain lab and said, "I don't know why this works, but I want you to study this and tell me what you're seeing." And so we started seeing really interesting stuff, right? That'll be published soon. But a lot of it has to do with, okay, so here's like a yoga practice, okay? You are upside down balancing yourself. Your legs are burning, so now we have proprioception. We have pain reception.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  You are now focusing your breath internally to your lower abdomen, which is a part of interoception meets extrareception. You are feeling your heartbeat, which is interoception. And so we have multiple perceptual arrays that you are now being asked to hold in your attention simultaneously. And there's something very special that starts to happen in the brain. As these multiple arrays come online in our awareness, that then starts to switch the lights on. And that's, you know, that literally, the next book's called "Lights On", because this is what's switching us on. And so is it actually the cold plunge? Or is it the forced pain and breath and awareness

• 33:05Speaker 01

  that brings you back into your body that makes? You aware of all of these internal arrays that TikTok has taken away from you?

• 33:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Cause your eyes are away from your your own perceptual raise and being pulled away by advertisers into a world that doesn't exist. Right? And so there's there's a whole thing about the attention economy and how it's turning us into zombies. That is becoming incredibly too true in what I'm digging up in this literature.

• 33:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Incredible. So we started a conversation talking about gut health and there's how it affected your sleep. So there's this gut-brain connection, but this connection is bilateral. Your brain actually controls a lot of what could be happening in the rest of your body. One of these control mechanisms is through NF kappa B, which is through modifying inflammation, which is the root cause of every disease out there, pretty much, right? And so, so what you're saying is that by being able to turn on our perceptual systems, that we're able to turn on an NF kappa pathway and modify our inflammation?

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Yes, it is a master switch of us being able to be back in the driver's seat and being able to access this internal neurology, this internal neurochemistry lab by allowing our perceptual arrays to come back online. We can modulate many things, including vagal tone.

• 34:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, definitely vagal tone.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, right?

• 34:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You've had a tremendous amount of work out there and I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. And so thank you so much for joining me and I can't wait to just keep having you on. I mean, there's so much to talk about.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  This was so much fun. It's it's I love sitting with people who are switched on and just get it and want to talk about cool stuff. So this was really enjoyable for me. It was an algorithmic. It was hanging out with a smart guy, having a good time.

• 34:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No, I love it.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Really appreciate that.

• 34:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We gotta do this more often.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Happy to come visit Hollywood.

• 34:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How do people find you? I'm gonna come visit you in Laguna, actually.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 34:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How do people find you?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  TheUrbanMonk.com.

• 35:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Everything's there.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, everything's there. Everything's there.

• 35:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you, man.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 35:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you liked this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best, and it's always important to seek their guidance.