The Urban Monk Podcast

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🎙️ Your fascia is not just packaging. It's a sensory organ. Dr. Pedram Shojai introduces fascia as a continuous connective tissue web running from feet to skull, densely innervated with mechanoreceptors that contract under stress and release under safety. Drawing on research from Robert Schleip, Helene Langevin, and Antonio Stecco, he explains how chronic stress becomes physically written into tissue tension, and closes with a guided fascial listening practice designed to build interoceptive awareness from the ground up.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why fascia contains smooth muscle cells with contractile capacity regulated by the autonomic nervous system, meaning stress doesn't just feel tense, it physically remodels your connective tissue over time
How the loop runs both ways: chronic fascial inflammation causes thickening and restriction, and those changes feed inflammatory signals back into the nervous system through nerve endings linked to the brain's interoceptive felt sense
The three fascial conversations: postural narrative (fascia records movement history as tissue density), emotional residue (unresolved stress contracts connective tissue structurally), and the present moment signal (fascia as an interoceptive instrument connected to the insular cortex)
Why the ancient Daoist instruction to relax the tendons before moving the Qi is precise functional anatomy, and why Qi moves more freely through hydrated, neurologically alive fascia

🔑 Key Insights: "Stress is not just psychological. It physically remodels the fascial network. Tight because you're stressed, stressed because you're tight. The loop runs both ways." "Willpower-based postural correction rarely works. Direct tissue work does." "Feeling the body beats thinking about the body. Fascia is the substrate of felt sense."

💡 Action Steps:

Do a three-minute full body awareness sweep daily: bring attention from feet to crown, noticing pressure, tension, and ease without adjusting or fixing anything
Choose one routine movement this week and perform it at half speed with full fascial awareness. Notice what the tissue is telling you that normal speed hides

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone with chronic tension, pain, or postural issues that willpower hasn't fixed, people doing somatic or trauma work who want to understand the tissue layer, or those ready to treat the body as a sensory instrument rather than just a physical structure.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Robert Schleip (fascia research, Ulm, Germany)
Helene Langevin (Harvard Osher Center for Integrative Medicine)
Antonio Stecco (University of Padova)
A.D. Craig (interoception research, Barrow Neurological Institute)
Bessel van der Kolk and Peter Levine (trauma and the body)
Urban Monk Academy Q&A (support@theurbanmonk.com)

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Fascia #SomaticHealing #NervousSystem #Interoception #Trauma #Qigong #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ Your gut isn't reacting to your emotions. It's generating a large share of them. Dr. Pedram Shojai unpacks the real science behind the gut-brain connection, showing that the vagus nerve carries roughly ninety percent of its signals upward from the gut to the brain, not the other way around. He walks through the enteric nervous system, explains how it produces most of the body's serotonin and about half its dopamine, and ties the modern research back to Daoist teachings on the lower dantian before leading a live enteric listening practice.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why the enteric nervous system, with an estimated 500 million neurons, produces ninety to ninety-five percent of the body's serotonin and about half its dopamine, and keeps running even if the vagus nerve is severed
How the four channels of the gut-brain axis (neural, endocrine, immune, and metabolic) connect a damaged gut lining to systemic inflammation that crosses into the brain and shows up as fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, and low mood
Why classical Daoist practice always warmed the middle and regulated digestion before working on higher consciousness, and why you have to fix the gut to stabilize the mood regardless of which system you follow
The three gut signals to learn: the baseline hum, the rapid reflexive response to context (faster than the prefrontal cortex), and the recovery signal after meals or stress

🔑 Key Insights: "Ninety percent of vagal signals travel from the gut to the brain. In most cases your emotional states are being generated by your gut, not the other way around." "When mood dips without a clear psychological story, the first move should be a gut inquiry, not introspection." "Supplements support the work. They do not replace eating and lifestyle change. Reducing chronic stress is one of the most powerful microbiome interventions in the literature."

💡 Action Steps:

Each morning before coffee or screens, place a hand on the belly, breathe, and journal one sentence on what the gut is broadcasting
Keep a food mood log for twenty-four hours, tracing mood shifts back two to four hours to specific foods. Note how quickly the gut settles after meals or stress

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone whose mood, energy, or mental clarity seems disconnected from what's happening psychologically, people with chronic gut issues they haven't connected to their mental health, or those ready to build real body literacy from the second brain up.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Michael Gershon, The Second Brain (Columbia University, 1998)
Emeran Mayer, The Mind-Gut Connection (UCLA, 2016)
Frontiers in Psychiatry meta-analysis on gut microbiome and major depressive disorder (2019)
Upstream App (Pedram's Socratic inquiry tool)
Yellow Dragon Monastery training tradition

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#GutHealth #GutBrainAxis #MentalHealth #Serotonin #Microbiome #NervousSystem #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ Your bad mood might not be psychological. It might be inflammation. Dr. Pedram Shojai unpacks psychoneuroimmunology, the decades-old field showing the brain and immune system are in constant two-way communication, and explains how chronic low-grade inflammation produces sickness behavior: a state that looks and feels exactly like depression, fatigue, and social withdrawal but is actually the brain doing precisely what it's wired to do. He introduces his three fires framework and closes with a guided cooling breath practice to begin addressing all three simultaneously.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

How pro-inflammatory cytokines like IL-6 and TNF-alpha hijack tryptophan away from serotonin production and flood the brain with neurotoxic byproducts, physically shrinking the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus over time
Why a subset of depression patients don't respond to antidepressants because their root cause is inflammation, not serotonin, and why Ed Bullmore argues the neurotransmitter focus was a fifty-year detour
The three fires driving chronic neuroinflammation: the gut fire (intestinal permeability letting LPS into circulation), the signal fire (chronic stress and unresolved threat perception), and the metabolic fire (visceral fat secreting pro-inflammatory compounds)
Why ventral vagal activation through slow breathing calms all three fires simultaneously and why psychological work becomes far more effective once underlying inflammation is addressed first

🔑 Key Insights: "A significant portion of what we call mental illness may be a predictable output of chronic immune inflammation, not a failure of psychological resilience." "Cytokines don't just make you physically sick. They make you behaviorally sick. The flatness, the friction, the irritability: that's your brain responding to an immune signal." "Psychological work is valuable but difficult on an inflamed brain. The prefrontal cortex must be functional before deeper insight work can happen."

💡 Action Steps:

Identify your dominant fire this week: gut (food sensitivities, dysbiosis), signal (chronic stress, loneliness, unresolved threat), or metabolic (poor sleep, processed food, inactivity). Name what feeds it and eliminate one inflammatory driver for seven days
Practice the cooling breath daily: four count inhale, eight count exhale, paired with a visualization of signaling the immune system that the threat has passed

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone with treatment-resistant depression or mood issues that don't respond to standard approaches, people with chronic fatigue or brain fog, or those ready to address the inflammatory roots of mental health from the body up.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Robert Dantzer, University of Texas MD Anderson (sickness behavior research)
Andrew Miller, Emory University (inflammation and depression, 2009)
Ed Bullmore, The Inflamed Mind (2018)
Charles Raison, University of Wisconsin (social threat and inflammatory gene expression)
Lights On Program, Module Two

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Inflammation #MentalHealth #Depression #NervousSystem #GutHealth #Breathwork #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ Most people oscillate between stressed and crashed without ever finding ease. Dr. Pedram Shojai breaks down why that's not a willpower problem, it's an architecture problem. Drawing on Stephen Porges's polyvagal theory and Deb Dana's ladder framework, he maps the three rungs of the nervous system and introduces three gates (acoustic, facial, and breath) that can shift your state in under two minutes. No equipment required.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why the nervous system has three distinct rungs: ventral vagal safety and connection, sympathetic mobilization, and dorsal vagal collapse, and why most people get stuck cycling between the bottom two
How the three Dantians in Daoist practice map directly onto polyvagal theory, and why fluency across all three matters more than trying to live permanently at the top
The three gates to ventral vagal: the acoustic gate (humming activates the vagus within one to two breaths), the facial gate (softening eyes and unhinging jaw signals safety in ten to twenty seconds), and the breath gate (longer exhales boost heart rate variability)
Why the retreat high fades fast without daily practice, and how consistent repetition builds the speed and reliability of returning to ease

🔑 Key Insights: "Most people oscillate between stressed and crashed. It's not a willpower issue. It's an architecture issue." "Replace 'what's wrong with me' with 'what rung am I on right now.' That reframe alone changes your relationship to your own state." "Nervous system state isn't identity. The gates offer a way back rather than a life sentence."

💡 Action Steps:

Pause for one minute before each meal and run all three gates: three cycles of quiet humming, soften the eyes and release the jaw, then inhale for four counts and exhale for eight. Notice which rung you're on without trying to fix it
Track your rung at morning, midday, and evening this week. Note your personal signals of dorsal collapse versus sympathetic activation, and which gate feels most accessible

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone stuck in cycles of stress and burnout, people who feel great after retreats but can't hold the state at home, or those ready to move from understanding polyvagal theory to actually using it.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Stephen Porges (polyvagal theory)
Deb Dana (polyvagal ladder framework)
Bessel van der Kolk (trauma research)
Yellow Dragon Monastery and the Daoist three Dantians

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#PolyvagalTheory #NervousSystem #StressRelief #Vagus #Mindfulness #Breathwork #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ You've stopped noticing the noise. But your body hasn't. Dr. Pedram Shojai opens with a live listening experiment revealing how much sound we're swimming in without realizing it, then builds a clinical case for why chronic noise is one of the most underappreciated drivers of cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, and disrupted sleep. A 2015 Duke study delivers the counterpoint: two hours of silence per day was the single most potent trigger for hippocampal neurogenesis. Silence isn't passive. It's biologically required.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why chronic noise keeps the amygdala on low-grade alert and the HPA axis perpetually activated, even during sleep, through cortisol spikes and sympathetic activation below conscious awareness
How sound hits the amygdala before the cortex has time to think, firing 50 or more times daily from traffic, offices, and notifications without knowing these aren't predators
The three acoustic gates: redesigning your external sound environment, developing interoceptive awareness of how sound lands in your body, and training witness consciousness to hold sound without being captured by it
Why experienced meditators process sound with less amygdala activation, not because they hear less, but because the witness faculty interposes between stimulus and reaction

🔑 Key Insights: "Tuned out is not the same as gone. Your body is still processing all of it." "Silence is not the absence of noise. It is an active biological stimulus. Noise keeps you on the surface. Silence is the depth." "You cannot always control your acoustic environment, but you can always work gates two and three."

💡 Action Steps:

Do the Auditory Witness practice: expand your hearing like a panoramic field of vision. Let each sound arrive and leave. Then rest attention in the silence between sounds rather than the sounds themselves
Conduct an acoustic audit: map where silence exists in your day, create one deliberate ten-minute window of genuine quiet daily, and ask honestly what the noise might be helping you avoid

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone who feels perpetually overstimulated, people whose sleep never feels restorative, or those ready to treat silence as a biological need rather than a luxury.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region (2011)
Mathias Basner, University of Pennsylvania (sleep and nocturnal noise research)
Joseph LeDoux (low road subcortical amygdala activation)
M.K. Kirst, Duke University (2015, silence and hippocampal neurogenesis)
Stephen Porges (polyvagal theory and the acoustic vagal reflex)
Origins (film by Pedram Shojai)

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#NoisePollution #Silence #NervousSystem #SleepHealth #Mindfulness #StressRelief #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ The past has no location. It cannot be found, weighed, or measured. Dr. Pedram Shojai builds a scientific and contemplative case for why the present moment is the only place anything is actually happening. Drawing on Einstein, Carlo Rovelli, Julian Barbour, and David Eagleman, he shows that modern physics and neuroscience have arrived at the same conclusion the contemplative traditions reached thousands of years ago. He then introduces three temporal traps and leads listeners through a four-step return practice to find their way back to now.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why physics, neuroscience, and contemplative traditions all arrive at the same address: Einstein's block universe, Rovelli's timeless quantum equations, and Eagleman's neuroscience all confirm the present is the only real location
Why when the mind time-travels, the body pays in real cortisol and real stress, and why that gap between where the mind is and where the body is constitutes a primary driver of chronic stress
The three temporal traps: rumination (contracted attention, chest heaviness, jaw tension), anxiety projection (shallow breathing, chest tightening, shoulder elevation), and planning trance (feels virtuous but locates attention in a place that doesn't exist)
The four-step return practice: locate the present through body sensations, name the trap without judgment, return to the breath, and rest with one recognition: past and future are thoughts occurring right now, not elsewhere

🔑 Key Insights: "Most people move through the present as if it were a waiting room between somewhere they've been and somewhere they're going." "The masters are not free from time. They are free in time." "When the mind time-travels, the body responds as if those events are current. Cortisol rises, muscles brace, the nervous system activates around circumstances that are not occurring."

💡 Action Steps:

Practice the four-step return whenever you catch yourself in a temporal trap: locate what's actually happening in the body right now, name the pattern, return to the breath, and rest 30 seconds with the recognition that past and future are thoughts occurring now
Take the weekly challenge: catch yourself in one of the three traps today, take a breath, ask "what's actually happening right now?" and estimate at day's end what percentage of your attention was actually present

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone caught in chronic worry or mental replay, people who feel perpetually behind or always oriented toward the next thing, or those curious about where modern physics and ancient contemplative wisdom actually agree.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

The End of Time by Julian Barbour (1999)
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli (2018)
Time Reborn by Lee Smolin (2013)
The Brain by David Eagleman (2015)
Killingsworth and Gilbert, "A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind," Science (2010)
Lights On Course: lightson.theurbanmonk.com

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#PresentMoment #Mindfulness #StressRelief #NervousSystem #MentalHealth #Meditation #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ Your nervous system reads a low bank balance the same way it reads a predator. Dr. Pedram Shojai opens by naming what wellness spaces rarely do: money stress is not a mindset problem, it's a documented biological process with measurable downstream effects on immunity, cardiovascular health, sleep, and cognition. He walks through the biology of chronic financial stress and introduces three intervention gates from the Lights On framework, closing with a live Financial Body Scan practice that integrates all three.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why chronic HPA axis activation from financial pressure never turns off the way acute stress does, driving immunosuppression, elevated inflammatory cytokines, and a 13% increased risk of cardiovascular events
How financial stress measurably reduces cognitive bandwidth and IQ-equivalent reasoning performance, producing worse financial decisions under exactly the conditions that require better ones
The three intervention gates: a neuroceptive reset through vagal tone, a scarcity-to-resource shift through somatic anchoring, and tracing the body's patterned relationship with money back to early conditioning
Why the chest tightening when opening a bill is likely old inherited patterning activating in a current context, and why fusing past financial fear with present data makes it impossible to see your situation clearly

🔑 Key Insights: "The HPA axis was built for threats that resolve. A credit card balance that's been there for four years has no resolution signal." "Financial stress measurably reduces cognitive bandwidth. Worse decisions get made under exactly the conditions that require better ones." "The goal of body practices is not to feel better about your finances. It is to restore the nervous system capacity needed to think clearly about them."

💡 Action Steps:

Run the Financial Body Scan three times: once today, once before sleep, and once tomorrow morning. Bring the financial reality to mind, drop attention into the body and map the sensation precisely, then introduce a resource anchor without leaving the body
Identify one financial uncertainty currently running in the background and open it, not to solve it today, but to look at it clearly with a regulated nervous system. Avoidance of financial reality is itself a significant driver of HPA activation

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone whose financial stress is affecting their sleep, health, or decision-making, people stuck in scarcity thinking they can't seem to think their way out of, or those ready to address money anxiety where it actually lives: in the body.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Mullainathan and Shafir, Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much
2013 meta-analysis on chronic stress and immune dysregulation, Psychological Bulletin
European Heart Journal study on financial strain and cardiovascular risk
2011 UCLA neuroimaging study on economic exclusion and pain processing
Urban Monk Academy Lights On Curriculum

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#MoneyStress #FinancialAnxiety #NervousSystem #StressRelief #MentalHealth #Wellness #SomaticHealing #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ Have you ever been flooded by a feeling that had nothing to do with what was in front of you? Dr. Pedram Shojai explores the pain body, the accumulated emotional residue stored in the body that triggers disproportionate reactions in everyday life. Drawing on Eckhart Tolle's framework alongside the neuroscience of Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine, and Lisa Feldman Barrett, he grounds this spiritual concept in biology and leads a guided somatic witness practice to begin metabolizing what's been held in the body.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why unprocessed emotional experiences are stored not as memory but as sensory-motor patterns: muscle tension, visceral bracing, postural holding, and autonomic dysregulation that the brain reads as current and reacts to accordingly
The three stages of pain body dissolution: recognition without identification (catch the first contraction before flooding begins), presence without narrative (feel it as pure sensation stripped of story), and somatic completion (let the body finish its full physiologic arc with awareness present)
Why catharsis is not the same as completion: catharsis releases pressure but leaves the pattern intact, while somatic completion actually finishes the job
Why interoception is the foundational skill: without it, past and present blur together, the pain body colonizes the present without your awareness, and talk therapy alone cannot complete what the body still holds

🔑 Key Insights: "The pain body does not dissolve through understanding it. It dissolves through feeling it all the way through without flinching and without feeding it more story." "Catharsis takes the pressure off but the pattern remains. Completion allows the nervous system to finish its full biologic cycle." "The pain body feeds on identification. The moment you can observe it without merging with it, its grip loosens."

💡 Action Steps:

Do the somatic witness practice for ten minutes: scan from crown to feet, find the oldest weight in the body, make contact with it as pure sensation (location, quality, texture, temperature), then stay and allow without trying to explain or resolve it. Note whether the sensation changes quality, shifts, or moves
When a disproportionate emotional response arises this week, pause before reacting and ask one question: is this current or is this old?

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone who reacts out of proportion and can't explain why, people who've done years of talk therapy but still feel stuck in old patterns, or those ready to do the somatic work that actually metabolizes emotional residue rather than just describing it.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Rise and Shine by Pedram Shojai
The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
Dr. Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing
Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, Northwestern University
Shaking Qigong (Lights On course)

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#SomaticHealing #Trauma #NervousSystem #MentalHealth #Mindfulness #EmotionalHealth #BodyMind #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ What if a significant portion of what gets diagnosed and medicated as depression isn't a chemical problem at all? Dr. Pedram Shojai makes the case that chronic sensory starvation, not a neurotransmitter deficiency, is driving much of the flatness, numbness, and low-grade emptiness that modern medicine calls depression. Drawing on neuroscience, clinical research, and his own training at the Yellow Dragon Monastery, he walks through the brain's need for varied sensory input and closes with a guided Sensory Re-Entry practice to begin rebuilding perceptual bandwidth from the ground up.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why chronic understimulation from screen-dominated environments narrows the emotional signal reaching your limbic system and can look and feel exactly like clinical depression, and why the medical system never asks the prior question
The neuroscience: sensory cortices are use-dependent, narrow the input and cortical thickness measurably decreases, and those same cortices feed directly into the limbic system so emotional experience narrows proportionally
The three thresholds to rebuild: biological complexity (two hours per week in a biodiverse natural environment produces depression relief comparable to first-line antidepressants per a 2019 JAMA meta-analysis), tactile restoration (mechanoreceptor activation drives serotonin, oxytocin, and cortisol reduction), and olfactory reconnection (smell is the only sense with a direct pathway to the limbic system)
Why you cannot supplement your way out of perceptual poverty, and how the Sensory Re-Entry practice rebuilds all three thresholds simultaneously in under three minutes

🔑 Key Insights: "The standard clinical question is what is wrong with this brain's chemistry. The prior question the system never asks is what is wrong with this brain's input." "Depression is not always a chemical problem. Sometimes it's a perceptual poverty problem." "The hike is the fail-safe. Nature restores exteroceptive bandwidth automatically, continuously, and for free."

💡 Action Steps:

Do the Sensory Re-Entry practice daily: ground touch in a varied natural texture, take deliberate nasal breaths to open the olfactory channel, and soften your gaze into panoramic vision. Hold all three simultaneously for even a few seconds
Start the 24-hour assignment today: 20 minutes outside in the most biodiverse environment available, two minutes of tactile contact with a natural texture, and three slow nasal breaths before your next meal

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone experiencing low-grade flatness, numbness, or emptiness that doesn't fully fit the depression label, people who've tried medication without full relief, or those ready to address the perceptual roots of mood from the ground up.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

John Lilly (sensory deprivation research)
JAMA Psychiatry 2019 meta-analysis (nature exposure and depression)
David Strayer, University of Utah (fMRI nature study)
Tiffany Field, Touch Research Institute, University of Miami
Andrew Huberman (panoramic vision and autonomic nervous system)
Yellow Dragon Monastery

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Depression #MentalHealth #NervousSystem #SensoryAwareness #NatureHealing #Mindfulness #BrainHealth #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ What if your exhaustion has nothing to do with stress, sleep, or mental health, and everything to do with what's inside your walls, your water, and your air? Dr. Pedram Shojai shares the story of Marcus, a patient who spent four years exhausted with normal labs and twelve medications before discovering the real culprits: mold behind his bathroom wall, mercury from decades of fish consumption, and VOCs off-gassing from new carpet during sleep. This episode breaks down toxic burden, the cumulative effect of environmental toxins that silently degrade your energy and cognitive function over years, and what you can actually do about it.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why your body cannot distinguish between emotional exhaustion and chemical exhaustion, and why standard blood panels miss chronic toxic burden entirely
The three most relevant categories of toxic exposure: mycotoxins from mold (potent mitochondrial disruptors affecting an estimated 25% of the population), heavy metals (which displace essential minerals and inactivate detox enzymes), and synthetic chemicals like VOCs and endocrine disruptors
How Phase I and Phase II liver detoxification work, why genetic variants like MTHFR reduce enzyme efficiency, and why an imbalanced system produces intermediate metabolites more toxic than the original compounds
Why gut health is foundational: constipation and dysbiosis allow beta-glucuronidase to reactivate cleared toxins, creating a reabsorption loop that keeps toxic burden elevated no matter what else you do

🔑 Key Insights: "Your body does not distinguish between emotional exhaustion and chemical exhaustion. They feel identical from the inside. No one asked Marcus about his environment." "You cannot meditate your way out of a mycotoxin load. You cannot breathe your way to clarity through a nervous system running on impaired mitochondria." "Toxic burden is a silent tax on your body's capacity to perceive, integrate, and respond to the world. Reducing it is not optional maintenance. It's upstream medicine."

💡 Action Steps:

Run the structured body inventory: scan for energy quality (diffuse vs. focal fatigue), cognitive quality (brain fog, mental sluggishness), and gut tone (bloating, sluggishness, low-level noise). Diffuse whole-body fatigue with no clear cause is the classic pattern of mitochondrial compromise from toxic burden
Do the environmental audit this week: identify your top three highest exposure environments (bedroom, workspace, car). In each space ask: what am I breathing, what surfaces am I touching, what is this space made of, and how old is it. Audit the bedroom first

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone with unexplained fatigue, brain fog, or chronic symptoms that normal labs can't explain, people who've tried everything and still don't feel well, or those ready to take seriously what conventional medicine largely ignores.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Dr. Richie Shoemaker (chronic inflammatory response syndrome research)
Dr. Jill Carnahan (mycotoxin and Wi-Fi research)
Urban Monk Academy Lights On Course

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#ToxicBurden #Mold #HeavyMetals #BrainFog #ChronicFatigue #Detox #MitochondrialHealth #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ What if your brain could learn in hours what normally takes years? Dr. Pedram Shojai sits down with Dr. David Bach, serial entrepreneur and former physician now leading Optios, a company born from DARPA research on accelerating human performance through neuroscience. David walks through how real-time neurofeedback helped novices move 80% up the learning curve toward expert-level performance in just hours, and shares his vision for an AI-powered coach that integrates every sensor in your life to optimize your focus, energy, and performance in real time.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

How DARPA scanned 100 elite snipers to find the neurophysiological correlates of expertise, and how giving novices real-time feedback about that brain state rewired their brains in just 2-3 hours
Why neurofeedback works: your brain doesn't know what it looks like when it's performing well, and a closed feedback loop teaches it to find and hold that state on command
The gap between research-grade neurofeedback tools and consumer devices like Muse, and why the research-to-product pipeline hasn't yet delivered on its original promise
How Optios pulls data from Oura, Whoop, Apple Watch, environmental sensors, and proprietary brain metrics into one AI platform that learns your patterns and coaches you in real time

🔑 Key Insights: "Expert brains access a measurable flow state. Novices don't know how to get there. Neurofeedback closes that gap faster than anything else we've found." "Athletes and performers describe the zone but can't reliably access it on command. Neurofeedback gives you a map back to it." "The future of human optimization requires connecting all your data streams into one intelligent platform that learns and adapts to you specifically."

💡 Action Steps:

Pay attention to the conditions under which you naturally access flow states: sleep, environment, movement, timing. These are the variables an AI coach would optimize first
Explore optios.ai if you work in performance, health, or productivity and want to be early to the next wave of neuroscience-backed optimization tools

🎧 Perfect for: High performers, athletes, and entrepreneurs looking to optimize their edge, anyone curious about the neuroscience of flow states and skill acquisition, or those ready to understand where AI and human performance are heading next.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Optios (optios.ai)
Muse and BrainCo (consumer neurofeedback devices)
Oura Ring and Whoop

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#BrainHealth #Neuroscience #FlowState #Performance #Neurofeedback #AI #Biohacking #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ Where did this year go? If time feels like it's slipping through your fingers and the days blur together, your chronoception is under attack. Dr. Pedram Shojai explores how the attention economy has systematically compromised your nervous system's ability to perceive and track the passage of time, and introduces the Day's Edge Practice, a four-step evening ritual designed to restore temporal boundaries and make your time feel real again.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The science of your three biological clocks: circadian (24-hour), ultradian (90-minute), and circannual (seasonal) rhythms, and what happens when they fall out of sync with natural light and rest patterns
How social media platforms use variable reward scheduling, the same mechanism behind slot machines, to collapse your temporal boundaries and keep you in perpetual dopamine anticipation
Why bypassing your natural 90-minute ultradian rest cycles by reaching for your phone overwrites recovery with stimulation until you lose the ability to naturally cycle at all
The three temporal anchors for restoring chronoception: morning light exposure, completion signals, and embodied presence check-ins throughout the day

🔑 Key Insights: "A regulated, embodied nervous system experiences time as spacious. A dysregulated one experiences time as a blur or pressure." "High-frequency micro-stimulation compresses subjective time. Social media doesn't just steal your attention. It steals your felt sense of the day." "The Day's Edge practice doesn't create more time. It makes the time you have feel real."

💡 Action Steps:

Run the Day's Edge practice tonight: declare out loud "the day is complete," take inventory of what actually happened, spend a minute near a window receiving ambient light without screens, then check in with where fatigue sits in your body
Do it three nights in a row and notice whether tomorrow feels distinct from today and whether the night actually felt like a reset

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone whose days blur together, people who feel perpetually behind despite being busy, or those ready to restore their relationship with time using neuroscience and ancient Daoist wisdom.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Dr. Sachin Panda at the Salk Institute (circadian biology research)
Dr. David Eagleman at Stanford (time perception research)
Harvard Division of Sleep Medicine (circadian misalignment research)

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#TimeManagement #CircadianRhythm #Mindfulness #NervousSystem #SleepHealth #DigitalWellness #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ When did you last actually taste your food or feel the temperature of air on your skin? Dr. Pedram Shojai breaks down exteroception, your sensory connection to the external world, and why 11 hours of daily screen time is causing measurable cortical thinning in the brain regions that process sight, sound, and touch. He introduces the three bandwidth gates where modern life constricts your sensory array, then leads a live 5-4-3-2-1 practice to reopen all channels simultaneously.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why chronic sensory restriction from screen life rewires your brain toward narrow-band input, showing up as brain fog, anxiety, emotional flatness, and disconnection from your body
The three bandwidth gates modern life constricts: attention (tunnel vision vs. panoramic awareness), processing (low vs. high resolution sensory data), and integration (weaving multiple streams into coherent presence)
The 5-4-3-2-1 practice to reopen all sensory channels simultaneously: five things seen, four felt, three heard, two smelled, one tasted
Why Daoist masters spent years restoring sensory channels before any subtle work, and why you cannot develop interoception or do consciousness work when basic sensory hardware runs at 10%

🔑 Key Insights: "Eight hours sleeping, 11 hours on screens means your brain optimizes for a flat rectangle. It stops expecting more, stops looking for depth and texture in the real world." "Quality of perception determines quality of reality. Not thoughts about reality." "Talking about consciousness without practicing awareness is meaningless. You have to taste it yourself."

💡 Action Steps:

Practice the 5-4-3-2-1 technique daily: five things you can see, four you can feel, three you can hear, two you can smell, one you can taste. Hold all five channels simultaneously
Try three full sensory meals this week with no screens, no podcasts, and no multitasking. Use 5-4-3-2-1 before eating and notice whether the meal tastes different and whether fullness signals come through more clearly

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone dealing with brain fog, emotional flatness, or feeling disconnected from their body, people curious about consciousness work who want a practical entry point, or those ready to trade screen time for full-spectrum sensory aliveness.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Dr. David Strayer, University of Utah (research on nature and sensory restoration)
Urban Monk Academy Lights On Curriculum
Austin Consciousness Community / Center for Consciousness, University of Texas

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#SensoryAwareness #Mindfulness #BrainHealth #ScreenTime #NervousSystem #Consciousness #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ The sounds you don't hear are keeping your nervous system wired. Dr. Pedram Shojai reflects on completing his 100-day gong practice and shares a powerful teaching on silence, sensory awareness, and what constant background stimulation is quietly doing to your body. From the refrigerator hum you've stopped noticing to the screens and notifications that never let your nervous system rest, he explains how becoming aware of your sensory environment is the first step to reclaiming genuine recovery.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why modern technology keeps you in a constant state of sympathetic nervous system activation, and why your body can't recover without true parasympathetic rest
The refrigerator experiment: most people don't notice the constant hum until it cycles off, revealing how deeply habituated we are to unnoticed background stimulation
How tuning into your perceptual arrays (sounds, sights, and sensations) lets you understand their impact on your nervous system and make conscious choices about your environment
The practice of drinking silence: raw walks without devices, using silence as a grounding tool, and why pauses are one of the most powerful techniques in communication and presence

🔑 Key Insights: "Most people don't notice the refrigerator hum until it stops. That's how habituated we are to the stimulation running underneath everything." "Silence isn't empty. It's where your nervous system finally gets to exhale. Drinking silence is a practice, not an accident." "Gong rules are for you. If they don't mean anything to you, whose rules are they?"

💡 Action Steps:

Try a raw walk: leave your phone, earbuds, and devices behind and pay attention to every sound, sight, and sensation in your environment without labeling or judging them
Do the refrigerator experiment: sit quietly and identify every background sound you weren't consciously aware of. Notice how your body responds to each one

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone who feels perpetually wired or unable to wind down, people whose rest never feels restorative, or those ready to explore silence and sensory awareness as serious nervous system medicine.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

100-day gong practice
Shaolin classics: tendon changing, muscle changing, marrow washing sets
Lights On Program Module Two
Ghost body practice
learn.theurbanmonk.com

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Silence #NervousSystem #StressRelief #Mindfulness #SensoryAwareness #Wellness #Qigong #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ Most of us spend more than half our waking hours somewhere other than the present moment. Dr. Pedram Shojai unpacks temporal displacement, the chronic habit of living in the past or future, and why it quietly drives stress, poor decisions, and accelerated aging. Drawing on Harvard research by Killingsworth and Gilbert, he walks through the neuroscience of mind wandering and introduces three somatic anchors (breath, gravity, and peripheral vision) that make rumination nearly impossible when held simultaneously.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why mind wandering correlates directly with unhappiness regardless of where the mind goes, and how temporal displacement activates your HPA axis and burns resources meant for now
How the default mode network is designed to wander through threat simulations and autobiographical maintenance, and why the real question is who's driving the bus
Three somatic anchors to return to the present: breath (the only autonomic function you can consciously control), gravity (proprioceptive circuits interrupt default mode wandering), and peripheral vision (soft gaze quiets internal dialogue)
What temporal displacement is costing you in relationships, decision-making, immunity, sleep, and inflammatory aging

🔑 Key Insights: "We're mentally present only 47% of waking hours. Mind wandering activates your stress response to things that no longer exist or haven't happened yet." "Holding three present-moment channels at once makes rumination nearly impossible. This isn't philosophy. It's neuroscience." "Presence isn't a destination. It's a direction."

💡 Action Steps:

Set three alarms daily, stop, ask where your mind is, and run the three anchors for 15 seconds if the answer isn't the present
Reverse-engineer your sleep and wake times around full 90-minute cycles, and get morning sunlight first thing to set your circadian clock

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone stuck in chronic worry or mental loops, people whose stress has no obvious current cause, or those looking to build a simple presence practice backed by neuroscience.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert Harvard mind wandering study
Upstream (root-cause health research app, Academy students only)
Urban Monk Academy Austin Retreat (May 30-31, 2026)

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Mindfulness #PresentMoment #StressRelief #MentalHealth #NervousSystem #Meditation #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ What if a wearable device using a single frequency could reverse mild cognitive decline in 30 days? Dr. Pedram Shojai sits down with Mark Fox, former chief engineer for NASA contractor Morton Thiokol and creator of the Blue Vibe, a device combining 40 Hz light and PEMF to address memory loss and cognitive impairment. Mark shares results from a 41-person clinical trial where every single participant improved, and Pedram connects the technology to his own family history with Alzheimer's and his clinical work linking gut and oral microbiome imbalances to cognitive decline.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

How an accidental MIT discovery about 40 Hz flickering light and amyloid plaque in mice led to the Blue Vibe, the only device combining both 40 Hz light and PEMF simultaneously
Why the clinical trial results are extraordinary: 100% of 41 participants improved on the validated PROMIS cognitive questionnaire, with a P-factor of 0.000001, ruling out placebo effect
Why 40 Hz gamma frequency is associated with peak cognitive states, reduced inflammation, and aha moments in meditators, and why Mark considers it the single most useful frequency for human health
How oral and gut pathogens like P. gingivalis are directly linked to Alzheimer's, and why adjunctive therapies like the Blue Vibe matter for anyone with mild cognitive impairment

🔑 Key Insights: "Two participants said they didn't feel better, yet their own self-reported scores showed measurable improvement. That rules out placebo effect." "40 Hz is broadly documented to reduce inflammation, which underlies an estimated 80% of all human ailments. It may be the single most useful frequency for human health." "An 83-year-old woman began ordering groceries on her phone and dancing in her living room after 10 days of use. Her daughter didn't realize her mother had been depressed until it lifted."

💡 Action Steps:

If you or a family member are experiencing mild cognitive impairment, explore the Blue Vibe as adjunctive therapy alongside addressing gut and oral microbiome health
Start with one hour a day for 30 days as used in the clinical trial, then shift to maintenance sessions a few times per week once improvement is achieved

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone with a family history of Alzheimer's or dementia, people experiencing brain fog or memory lapses, or those looking for evidence-based tools to support long-term cognitive health.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Blue Vibe by Vibe (Mark Fox)
MIT 40 Hz light and amyloid plaque research
PROMIS cognitive behavior assessment
Original Vibe PEMF device
Urban Monk Academy gut microbiome program

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#CognitiveHealth #Alzheimers #BrainHealth #PEMF #Memory #Wellness #GutHealth #Frequency #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ The spring equinox isn't just a date on the calendar. It's a biological signal your body is already responding to. Dr. Pedram Shojai breaks down the science of seasonal biology, from circadian clocks ticking inside every cell to annual rhythms that shift your hormones, immunity, and gut microbiome with the seasons. He walks through a seasonal gates framework, explains what's happening in your body right now at the spring activation gate, and delivers a simple three-step circadian reset protocol you can start today.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why chronic circadian misalignment drives elevated inflammation, disrupted glucose regulation, suppressed immunity, and impaired emotional processing without most people realizing it
How your body tracks four seasonal gates: spring activation, summer peak output, and fall and winter for repair, storage, and immune fortification
What the spring gate means for your biology right now: liver detoxification ramps up, appetite increases, melatonin drops, and the body primes for outward energy and movement
Why seasonal allergies may be a signal that your internal pace is out of sync with the season rather than just a reason to reach for Claritin

🔑 Key Insights: "Every cell in your body has its own molecular clock. This isn't a metaphor. It's driven by real transcription factors: BMAL1, PER, and CRY." "Your spring is only as good as your winter rest. If you didn't get enough downtime, adjust your throttle now instead of forcing full output." "Artificial light delays melatonin onset by 60 to 90 minutes. You are fighting your own biology every time you stay on screens after dark."

💡 Action Steps:

Follow the 24-hour circadian reset: get natural light into your eyes for at least 5 minutes within 10 minutes of waking, move your body before solar noon, then dim lights and cut screens at dusk
Eat local seasonal foods and try local raw honey from a nearby beekeeper for allergy support. Match your burn rate to the season

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone dealing with seasonal allergies, fatigue, or mood shifts, people whose sleep never feels restorative, or anyone ready to stop fighting their biology and start working with it.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Clock genes: BMAL1, PER, CRY
Circadian misalignment research
Seasonal biology and circannual rhythm studies
Local raw honey for seasonal allergy support
Melatonin (1 mg or less for travel resets)

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#CircadianRhythm #SeasonalWellness #SleepHealth #Hormones #Springtime #Sunlight #NervousSystem #Wellness #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ When the world feels overwhelming, where do you put your attention? Dr. Pedram Shojai explores how to navigate anxiety and chaos by anchoring inward rather than being swept up in headlines and external noise. He shares his decision to release the Lights On book for free rather than water it down for mass market, previews an upcoming AI health research tool called Upstream, and addresses student questions on embodiment, journaling, and building a daily practice that actually sticks.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why living headline to headline keeps you in a fear state, and how finding agency through local service restores calm when global problems feel out of control
The science behind the Lights On practices: how perceptual arrays activate consciousness, and what's coming in the pineal gland and decalcification work in week 40
Why embodiment through consistent practice matters more than peak experiences, and how to use the 3-2-1 Daily Reset as your non-negotiable anchor
How journaling by hand creates different neural pathways than typing and provides real-time biofeedback about your nervous system state

🔑 Key Insights: "A scared animal is a dumb animal. Focus on local problems you can solve rather than consuming fear-inducing headlines about things beyond your control." "Students deserve the real work, not a watered-down version. The attention economy serves no one. Dilution serves no one." "We can't accurately track progress subjectively. Document your practice because the changes you can't see day-to-day show up in the data."

💡 Action Steps:

Use the 3-2-1 Daily Reset as your anchor practice daily, then follow weekly homework assignments in sequence. When a practice feels particularly challenging or powerful, linger there
Separate physical sensations from the emotional labels you assign them. Explore each perceptual array individually before integrating, like the elephant parable

🎧 Perfect for: Lights On course members looking to troubleshoot their practice, anyone feeling anxious or overwhelmed by current events, or those ready to trade peak-experience chasing for real embodied transformation.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Upstream (AI health research tool, launching for academy members)
Lights On Book (releasing free)
Ancient Practices Retreat (May 30-31, 2026, Austin, Texas)
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
3-2-1 Daily Reset
support@theurbanmonk.com

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Anxiety #Mindfulness #DailyPractice #Wellness #Presence #NervousSystem #Journaling #UrbanMonk #LightsOn #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ What if the missing piece in your healing isn't a better supplement or meditation app, but something simpler: feeling safe in your own body? Dr. Pedram Shojai sits down with Dr. David Rabin, Stanford-trained psychiatrist and neuroscientist, to explore why safety is the biological prerequisite for healing, sleep, immunity, and even spiritual states. From neuroception to breathwork to the gut-anxiety connection, this conversation delivers a complete framework for reclaiming control over your nervous system.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

How neuroception, your body's unconscious threat detection system, locks you out of healing, learning, and recovery when it perceives danger
Why Descartes got it backwards: you are the observer of your thoughts, not your thoughts themselves, and why "I feel, therefore I am" changes everything
The four pillars of self-trust from Shamanic tradition (self-gratitude, self-forgiveness, self-compassion, and self-love) and how they form the foundation for healing
Why food sensitivities trigger anxiety: your immune system reads them as threats, and removing them eliminates symptoms in 9 out of 10 cases

🔑 Key Insights: "Your nervous system will not let you meditate, recover, or learn when it perceives danger. Safety isn't a luxury. It's the prerequisite." "Calling something a disorder locks people into a negative identity. Depression and anxiety aren't the diagnosis. Fractured self-trust and chronic fear are the real issues." "Words are spells. Indigenous traditions teach that language literally defines our reality. Proper use of words is one of the most powerful tools we have."

💡 Action Steps:

Try the 60 to 90 second reset: intentional breathing for 60 to 90 seconds brings you back into your body and signals safety to your nervous system
Run through Dr. Rabin's toolkit daily: intentional breathing, meditation, movement, touch, humming, rest, nutrition, and sensory grounding. These aren't wellness trends, they are biological safety signals

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone stuck in the knowing-doing gap with their health practices, people dealing with chronic stress, gut issues, anxiety, or depression, or those ready to shift from symptom treatment to building a true foundation for healing.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

A Simple Guide to Being Alive by Dr. David Rabin
Apollo Neuro wearable: Apollo Neuro
Dr. Dave Rabin's website: drdave.io
Polyvagal Theory by Dr. Stephen Porges
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Healing #NervousSystem #MentalHealth #Wellness #Trauma #Breathwork #Mindfulness #GutHealth #Safety #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ Your posture isn't just reflecting how you feel. It's creating it. Dr. Pedram Shojai breaks down the bidirectional relationship between physical posture and emotional state, drawing on embodied cognition research, polyvagal theory, and ancient contemplative traditions. He introduces the Three Structural Gates framework (root, heart, and crown) that anyone can use to shift their nervous system state in under 60 seconds, and guides listeners through a live practice to experience the posture-consciousness feedback loop in real time.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why William James was right in 1884: your body comes first and emotional interpretation follows, meaning posture generates mood, not the other way around
How slumped posture physically compresses the vagus nerve and narrows the channel your parasympathetic recovery system depends on
The Three Structural Gates: root (pelvic floor and sit bones), heart (sternum and thoracic spine), and crown (cervical spine and skull), and how each one opens or closes your nervous system
Why forward head posture adds nearly 10 pounds of compressive force per inch and how it activates a dorsal vagal shutdown response at your brainstem

🔑 Key Insights: "Your posture is a mood generating machine. It's been running on autopilot your entire life. Not responding to your mood, it's creating it." "When you collapse your chest, you physically compress the space vagal tone depends on. Slumped posture is physiologically compressive, activating the sympathetic nervous system through mechanical pressure." "The modern world is a collapsing machine. Chairs, screens, and social conditioning conspire to pull us into submission posture. Submission posture generates submission consciousness: withdrawn, small, defended."

💡 Action Steps:

Set three phone alarms throughout the day. Each time, pause and run through the three gates sequence: root down, heart floating, crown lifted. Take three breaths in corrected architecture, then go back to your day
Try the gates in standing position: weight balanced between feet and heels, knees slightly bent, pelvis tucked to sweet spot, shoulder blades back and down, crown lifted as if pulled by a golden thread

🎧 Perfect for: Desk workers and screen-heavy professionals, anyone dealing with chronic tension, low mood, or fatigue, or those ready to understand why every contemplative tradition in the world includes posture as part of practice.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

William James (1884) theory on emotions and physical states
Amy Cuddy's power pose research (Harvard)
Sabine Koch's research on posture and depression
Lights On Course (weekly content)
Upstream Gut Course (weekly drip)
Austin Retreat (coming May 2026)

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Posture #MoodBoost #NervousSystem #Wellness #Mindfulness #PolyvagalTheory #StressRelief #BodyMind #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ Your mind is wandering 47% of the time, and it's making you miserable. Dr. Pedram Shojai explores the science of temporal displacement and why constantly living in the past or future is destroying your health. Drawing on Harvard research tracking 15,000 people, he reveals how your nervous system can't tell the difference between a memory and a real threat. Learn three anchors to bring yourself back to the present: breath as clock, sensory grounding, and the witness pause. This isn't spiritual theory. It's neuroscience-backed practice that can rewire your relationship with time and restore your body's ability to heal.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why a wandering mind is an unhappy mind: Harvard found minds wander 47% of the time, and the disconnection itself causes suffering regardless of what you're thinking about
How ruminating about the past or catastrophizing about the future activates your HPA axis in real time, exhausting you with stress that isn't happening now
Three anchors to return to the present: breath as clock, sensory grounding, and the witness pause
Why temporal displacement impairs mitochondrial function and how making your body feel safe cues ventral vagal dominance so cells can recover and heal

🔑 Key Insights: "Ruminating about a conversation from last Tuesday makes your body produce cortisol as if it's happening now. Chronic anxiety is exhausting because you're stressed about things distributed across past and future simultaneously." "The present moment is the only place where anything actually happens. Every decision, breath, and connection you've ever experienced happened in a present moment." "A scared animal doesn't heal. A tired animal sleeps with one eye open. Learning to make the body feel safe puts you in a position to rejuvenate, restore, and reparent your psyche."

💡 Action Steps:

Take the seven-day challenge: set three alarms daily, and each time stop, take one breath, feel three physical sensations, and ask "where was my mind just now?" Don't judge, just notice
Practice the three anchors throughout your day. Don't outsource your resilience to external tools. The anchors are yours anywhere, anytime

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone stuck in mental loops about the past or future, people with chronic stress and fatigue, or those ready to build a presence practice rooted in neuroscience.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Matthew Killingsworth's 2010 Harvard Mind Wandering Study
EMDR therapy
Lights On Course (weekly drip, sleep module available)
Urban Monk Academy
Spring Retreat in Austin, Texas (May 2026)

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Mindfulness #StressRelief #MentalHealth #Wellness #Meditation #Anxiety #NervousSystem #PresentMoment #UrbanMonk #HealthPodcast

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🎙️ Financial stress isn't just a money problem. It's a full-body physiological event. Dr. Pedram Shojai breaks down exactly what's happening inside your body when financial worry takes hold: the cortisol cascade, the inflammatory markers, the gut disruption, the sleep destruction, and the narrowed thinking that makes bad decisions feel inevitable. More importantly, he delivers three body-based tools to interrupt the stress cycle before it does lasting damage. You can't think your way out of a stress response, but you can breathe, move, and practice your way into enough resilience to carry the weight differently.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why chronic financial stress drives inflammation, gut disruption, and the stress-sleep loop through three major physiological pathways, and why it perpetuates the very conditions that created it
How every advertisement is engineered with neuroscience to trigger emotional spending, and why developing attention hygiene is foundational to financial decision-making
Three body-based interventions: the cortisol interrupt (physiological sigh + emotion labeling), the body boundary practice, and scheduled parasympathetic recovery
Why your body runs either a wartime economy (fight/flight) or a healing economy (rest/digest), and why gadgets and supplements can't substitute for intrinsic, body-based agency

🔑 Key Insights: "Your nervous system can't distinguish between a saber-tooth tiger and a credit card bill. Both trigger the same cortisol and adrenaline flood." "Don't outsource your resilience. When the battery dies, you still need to function. The state you're in before you eat matters more than what you're taking." "Financial stress is a trap that keeps you too distracted and depleted to make clear decisions. Take your time back, manage your energy better, and the financial picture starts to shift alongside it."

💡 Action Steps:

When financial anxiety spikes, do a physiological sigh: double inhale through the nose, slow exhale through the mouth, two to three rounds. Follow with emotion labeling ("I feel fear right now") to activate the prefrontal cortex
Schedule 20 minutes of deliberate parasympathetic activation once a day: Qigong, slow diaphragmatic breathing, walking meditation, or restorative movement. Genuine restoration, not distraction

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone whose financial stress is affecting their sleep, digestion, or decision-making, people making big financial calls while under duress, or those ready to regulate their nervous system before trying to fix their finances.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Vitality (film by Dr. Pedram Shojai)
Focus by Dr. Pedram Shojai
Lights On Course (Week 9 now live; Week 10 covers sleep and ultradian rhythms; medical portal now open to members with biometric devices)

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#MoneyStress #FinancialAnxiety #CortisolControl #NervousSystemHealth #StressRecovery #PhysiologicalSigh #ParasympatheticActivation #DecisionHygiene #RestAndDigest #LightsOnCourse #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ You took the weekend off. You slept in. You did nothing. So why do you feel worse? Dr. Pedram Shojai breaks down the Recovery Paradox: the frustrating phenomenon where rest leaves you more depleted than the work itself. Drawing from polyvagal theory, he explains why simply stopping activity doesn't equal recovery, and why the way most of us "rest" (scrolling, bingeing, zoning out) actively works against us.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The two faces of parasympathetic: ventral vagal (safe, social, regulated—genuine recovery) vs dorsal vagal (freeze, shutdown, foggy—collapse masquerading as rest)
The four recovery mistakes: passive collapse (couch spiral keeps nervous system running), media consumption (triggers threat detection), stimulation switching (trading work stress for social stress), guilt rest (rumination keeps cortisol elevated)
The Recovery Stack for actual rest: extended exhale breathing, body grounding, panoramic vision, sound expansion, witness practice—10-15 minutes between high-demand activities before you crash
Why sleep without recovery fails: high cortisol suppresses REM and slow wave sleep—8-9 hours means nothing without quality

🔑 Key Insights:

"Rest is not the absence of activity. True recovery is an active biological process that requires deliberate nervous system signaling. Dorsal vagal shutdown looks like rest but it's collapse."

"Cortisol doesn't stop on your schedule. When you abruptly stop after sustained stress, the biochemical momentum keeps going—hormonal withdrawal creates irritability, fatigue, brain fog."

"Your body needs evidence, not permission. It needs signals that it's safe to let go. Gentle movement metabolizes stress hormones while keeping you regulated—stillness without safety is just suppression."

💡 Action Steps:

Use the 10-15 minute recovery stack between high-demand activities: 2 min extended exhale (4 count in, 8 count out), 3 min body grounding, 2-3 min panoramic vision, 5 min witness sitting
Try three quick ventral vagal triggers: tongue to roof of mouth, lower diaphragmatic breathing, relaxed calf muscles

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone who feels worse after vacations or weekends off, people experiencing "spring break syndrome" (getting sick the moment you stop), those whose 8-9 hours of sleep never feels restorative, or anyone stuck in couch spiral collapse instead of genuine rest.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Lights On Course (52-week program)
Polyvagal Theory by Dr. Stephen Porges
Lights On Module: Neuroception
Academy Sleep Coaching and Toxicity Coaching

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#RecoveryParadox #PolyvagalTheory #NervousSystemHealing #TrueRest #VagalTone #DorsalVagal #VentralVagal #StressRecovery #SleepQuality #RestAndDigest #LightsOnCourse #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai breaks down proprioception—the sense that tells your body where it is in space—and why losing it erodes balance, posture, and neurological resilience. He shares how moms crawling with their kids stopped having migraines, then shifts to time perception: challenging the mindfulness industry for reducing ancient practices to stress-relief apps, and arguing that your relationship with time drives anxiety and quality of life.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

How slow, intentional movement reactivates dormant sensory pathways shut down by injuries, desk jobs, and sedentary habits
The crawling/cross-crawl brain connection: moms doing floor exercises saw migraines disappear—whiplash and desk work crimp neurological pathways
Why time scarcity is a nervous system problem, not scheduling: spaciousness is trainable—"cramped" vs "spacious" time is inner state, not outer circumstance
Turning daily annoyances into cultivation cues: flat tires, red lights, Costco meltdowns—adjusting your inner frequency in real time

🔑 Key Insights:

"Your relationship with time is your relationship with life. Time scarcity often stems from diagnosis narratives, anxiety, and unexamined cultural programming."

"Two-minute stress-relief apps are 'Advil for a tequila headache.' Cultivation is about awakening your eternal self, not just optimizing performance."

"Nobody stays centered 24/7—the skill is noticing when you've drifted and choosing differently. Catching yourself is the practice."

💡 Action Steps:

Try the slow walk practice: pick a tree 100-200 yards away, take one minute per step—your nervous system will wake up
Use the red light hack: every red light = five deep breaths, every yellow = one breath

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone with balance issues from injuries, desk workers with declining proprioception, people feeling time scarcity, or those frustrated with surface-level mindfulness apps.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

The Art of Stopping Time by Dr. Pedram Shojai
Lights On Course
HeartMath
Temple Grounds

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Proprioception #Chronoception #TimePerception #NeurologicalHealth #CultivationPractices #TimeAbundance #BalanceTraining #LightsOnCourse #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai returns from a week of illness with hard-won lessons about pain, healing, and what happens when a teacher has to drink his own medicine. After battling mast cell activation and histamine overload post-COVID, he found himself lying on the floor at 2am—and instead of running from the discomfort, he leaned in. What followed was an hour of breathwork, deep listening, and what he calls the alchemy of nociception: transforming the lead of physical pain into the gold of self-knowledge.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The alchemy of nociception (pain reception): shifting from "make it stop" to "what is this telling me?"—catching the old pattern and redirecting toward listening, breathing, and staying with sensation
Sensory fasting as nervous system reset: giving your eyes, ears, and nervous system a break from information overload—the radical idea of looking at one leaf for two hours to restore sensitivity
Why pain is a treasure map: the body speaks through discomfort, and when you slow down enough to listen, pain has something specific to say about what's breaking down
The crutch problem with psychedelics: therapeutic value exists, but don't hand your introspective power to a plant—develop your own nociceptive intelligence through practices

🔑 Key Insights:

"The instinct to escape discomfort is human, but the real work begins when you shift from 'make it stop' to 'what is this?'"

"Pain as alchemy—transforming the lead of physical discomfort into gold through awareness. The body is a treasure map."

"Listening alone won't transform your life. The practices are the teacher. 'Do the work' isn't just a tagline."

💡 Action Steps:

Try sensory fasting: deliberately limit visual, auditory, and gustatory input to restore sensitivity and nervous system regulation
Next time you experience pain, catch the "make it stop" impulse and redirect: breathe, listen, stay with the sensation—ask "what is this telling me?"

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone dealing with chronic pain or post-illness recovery, people who run from discomfort instead of investigating it, those with overstimulated nervous systems from information overload, or practitioners working with psychedelic-assisted therapy who need somatic grounding practices.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Lights On Course - 52-week program (evergreen, self-paced, modules drop every 7 days from start date)
Lights On Module: Neuroception (just released - polyvagal theory and vagal tone)
Lights On Module: Nociception (coming soon)
Carlos Castaneda - The Teachings of Don Juan

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Nociception #PainAsTeacher #SensoryFasting #NervousSystemHealing #MastCellActivation #PostCOVID #MindBodyConnection #PainReception #HolisticHealing #LightsOnCourse #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai dives into chronoception (time perception) and why most people feel trapped in time scarcity. He explains how rushing creates compression, which makes hours disappear into autopilot—and how presence does the opposite, expanding time into something rich and spacious. This teaching breaks down why one present hour beats ten distracted ones, introduces three core practices for creating time abundance, and challenges the cultural trance of "slave time."

🎯 What You'll Learn:

How time compression happens: autopilot mode processes minimal information, making time compress and days blur together
The vicious cycle of rushing: time scarcity makes you rush, rushing makes you less present, creates more compression—most people spend entire lives in this cycle
Three Core Practices for time abundance: pause for three breaths 10x daily, single-task with full attention, notice your rush habit (most times you're not late, just habituated)
Why trauma and ADHD compress time: heightened fight-or-flight, trauma tears you out of now and anchors you in the then

🔑 Key Insights:

"Time scarcity isn't real—it's about your relationship to time. When fully present, time expands subjectively. One present hour beats ten distracted hours."

"The Gandhi paradox: Trying to save time by rushing creates scarcity. Being present creates abundance. 'Busy day, so I'll meditate two hours instead of one.'"

"Your relationship with time is your relationship with life. Always rushing means surviving, not living. Time scarcity equals life scarcity."

💡 Action Steps:

Implement the three practices: pause for three breaths 10x daily, single-task with full attention, catch yourself rushing when you're not actually late
Audit your calendar: every no to something new is yes to your stated priorities—who controls your calendar?

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone feeling trapped in time scarcity, people always rushing despite not being late, empaths who pick up others' rushed energy, or trauma survivors with compressed timelines.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

The Art of Stopping Time by Dr. Pedram Shojai
Lights On Course - Week 6: Chronoception module
Time expansion meditation

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Chronoception #TimePerception #TimeManagement #Presence #Mindfulness #FlowState #ConsciousLiving #TraumaHealing #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ In this Lights On course coaching session, Dr. Pedram Shojai guides students through week three: interoceptive awareness training. Most people have been trained their entire lives to ignore their bodies—overriding tiredness with caffeine, hunger with schedules, and pain with pills. This disconnection means missing early warning signs before they become injuries or burnout, and struggling with emotional regulation. Dr. Shojai breaks down the eight dimensions of internal awareness and explains that emotions are your brain's interpretation of body states—when you can sense your heart racing and chest tightening, you can regulate the physiology instead of spiraling into panic.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The 8 Dimensions of Internal Awareness: cardiac (feel heartbeat?), respiratory (sense breath moving?), gastric (true hunger vs boredom?), elimination (sense fullness without ignoring?), muscular (holding tension?), vascular (sense blood flow?), temperature (feel internal heat/coolness?), pain/inflammation (read discomfort?)
Why emotional regulation requires interoception: Antonio Damasio's research shows emotions are your brain's interpretation of body states—anxiety is rapid heartbeat + shallow breathing + chest tightness + shoulder tension + stomach churning + cold hands
The Four Common Blocks: dissociation (trauma-based nervous system disconnect), alexithymia (difficulty identifying emotions—trainable as adult), chronic stress (stuck in fight-or-flight), Western "mind over matter" conditioning
The Two Dimensions of Interoceptive Skill: accuracy (correctly perceive what's happening) and sensitivity (appropriate attention without overwhelm)—goal is high accuracy with appropriate sensitivity

🔑 Key Insights:

"We treat bodies like separate vehicles we're driving rather than integrated systems. The cost: missing early warning signs, inability to regulate emotions, poor decision-making—gut feelings are interoceptive signals."

"If you can't feel emotions in your body, they just happen to you. When you can sense 'chest is tight, heart is racing,' you can identify emotions accurately, regulate by shifting physiology, and respond instead of react. This is the core of emotional intelligence."

"Interoception is trainable—it's a life skill that develops with practice. Some days clear, some days foggy (perfectly normal). Practice isn't about perfection—it's about repeatedly turning awareness inward."

💡 Action Steps:

Practice mini check-ins throughout the day: morning body scan before touching phone, check hunger level 1-10 before eating, notice fullness after eating, ask 3x daily "Where am I at? What am I feeling physically?", evening body scan before bed
Use the 8-dimension body scan: systematically scan cardiac, respiratory, gastric, elimination, muscular, vascular, temperature, and pain/inflammation awareness
Try heartbeat detection meditation for cardiac awareness training—build the skill of feeling your heartbeat in chest, not just neck or fingertips

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone who overrides body signals with caffeine or schedules, people struggling with emotional regulation or identifying what they're feeling, those who miss early warning signs (aches become injuries, stress becomes burnout), trauma survivors experiencing dissociation, or anyone who can't distinguish hunger from boredom or fatigue from depression.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Lights On Course (Week 3: Interoception module)
Antonio Damasio's research on emotions as body state interpretations
3-2-1 Reset meditation
Inner landscape practice audio
Heartbeat detection meditation
Eating awareness audio

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#Interoception #BodyAwareness #EmotionalIntelligence #MindBodyConnection #InteroceptiveAwareness #NervousSystemRegulation #MeditationPractice #FunctionalMedicine #EmotionalRegulation #TraumaHealing #Mindfulness #Consciousness #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai explores how your physical environment is actively shaping your mental and emotional state every single moment. He breaks down the neuroscience behind environmental influences on your nervous system, explaining how clutter increases cortisol by 25%, how specific colors affect mood, and why silence has become medicine in modern life. He guides listeners through a comprehensive environmental audit covering visual chaos, acoustic pollution, olfactory triggers, spatial dynamics, and energetic residue, offering practical strategies to optimize your space for mental clarity and peace.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The Five Environmental Influences hijacking your brain: visual clutter (increases cortisol 25%, reduces focus 40%), acoustic pollution (unpredictable sounds activate amygdala), olfactory triggers (directly connect to limbic system), spatial dynamics (ceiling height affects thinking type), energetic residue (spaces hold stress/joy)
The neuroscience of neuroception: your brain constantly scanning "Am I safe? Can I rest? Is this stimulating or depleting?" unconsciously, constantly, and powerfully
Light regulation and circadian rhythm: morning bright/blue light for alertness (10,000+ lux), indoor lighting rarely exceeds 500 lux, evening dim/warm light for melatonin, blue light suppresses melatonin and disrupts sleep
The Environmental Assessment Exercise: visual scan (does gaze have place to rest?), acoustic scan (sounds soothing or agitating?), smell check (fresh or chemical?), spatial feel (cramped or spacious?), energy quality (nourishing or depleted?)

🔑 Key Insights:

"We spend thousands on supplements and courses but meditate in cluttered rooms, work in harsh lighting, and live in visual chaos. Like trying to grow a garden in toxic soil."

"Silence is medicine—rare in modern life. Traffic noise increases stress hormones, open offices reduce productivity by 66%, and nature sounds reduce sympathetic activation."

"Your olfactory system is our oldest, most primitive sensory system. It directly connects to the limbic system, bypassing the rational brain entirely. Lavender reduces anxiety, peppermint increases alertness, rosemary enhances memory."

💡 Action Steps:

Complete the environmental assessment right now: Rate your current space on visual, sound, spatial, and energetic factors—fix the room you're in first
Audit your bedroom next (where you spend most time): Clear clutter daily, train yourself and family to maintain order, everything out of sorts creates subtle anxiety
Optimize circadian lighting: Use bright/blue light in morning (10,000 lux or natural sunlight), dim/warm light in evening (no blue light 2-3 hours before bed)

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone working in cluttered or harsh lighting environments, people with environmental sensitivities or chemical triggers, those struggling to focus or experiencing background stress, anyone spending thousands on health interventions without optimizing their physical space, or practitioners wanting to enhance meditation and consciousness work.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Lights On: Advanced Urban Monk Mastery course (Module 2 and Module 3 releasing Thursday)
3-2-1 Meditation (10, 5, and 2-minute versions)
Sanctuary course
Full spectrum lights for upper/lower climes
Protocol for pineal gland decalcification (coming in future modules)

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#SpatialAwareness #EnvironmentalHealth #Neuroscience #Neuroception #CircadianRhythm #ClutterFree #MindfulLiving #SensoryIntegration #HolisticHealth #ConsciousLiving #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Most people respond to pain with one goal: make it stop. But Dr. Pedram Shojai reveals that pain isn't a mistake—it's a message your body is desperately trying to send you. Drawing from decades of treating patients and studying traditional medicine, he teaches you how to separate pain (the raw sensation) from suffering (the story you tell yourself), and decode the specific signals different pain locations are sending about what's breaking down in your system. Through a guided practice using witness consciousness, you'll learn to read your body's language with precision, track patterns like a detective, and finally understand what your pain is actually trying to tell you.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The crucial difference between pain (raw sensation, the data) and suffering (psychological reaction—fear, story, catastrophizing)
The Six Types of Pain requiring different responses: acute warning, inflammatory healing, chronic pattern-related, referred (problem elsewhere), neuropathic (nerve damage), and emotional (stored trauma)
The Body's Pain Map decoded: frontal headaches (digestive stress, blood sugar), neck pain patterns (thyroid vs. posture), shoulder blade pain (heart, breathing, emotional holding), low back (hip dysfunction, kidney/adrenal stress)
The Five-Step Detective Approach: locate precisely with anatomical landmarks, describe quality (sharp, dull, burning, aching), track patterns and intensity, connect to other systems, investigate emotional context

🔑 Key Insights:

"Pain is a message, not a mistake. Where pain shows up, how it feels, when it appears—all specific signals. We never learned to read that language."

"Responding to all pain the same way is like turning off the fire alarm. Pain has multiple functions requiring different responses."

"You are not the sensation, you are the awareness observing it. Precision creates objectivity and reveals what your body is trying to tell you."

💡 Action Steps:

Practice the 3-minute morning body scan before getting out of bed: locate, describe quality, notice patterns
Use the pause-and-adjust practice during the day: three breaths, activate witness consciousness, adjust behavior based on the message (example: back pain while standing—engage core, adjust posture)
Track patterns in a journal: when pain appears, what makes it worse/better, connections to digestion/sleep/energy, emotional context

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone dealing with chronic pain that doctors can't fully explain, people who've lost interoceptive precision and can only say "my back hurts" vaguely, those responding to all pain by trying to make it stop without investigating the message, or anyone ready to become literate in their own body's language.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

New Course: "Lights On" - 52-week consciousness program (launching next week)
Previous Weekly Call: Witness Consciousness practice
Analog Pain Scales for categorizing pain

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#PainAsTeacher #InteroceptiveAwareness #ChronicPain #PainManagement #MindBodyConnection #WitnessConsciousness #BodyAwareness #HolisticHealth #PainRelief #FunctionalMedicine #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai guides listeners through developing witness consciousness—the ability to observe your thoughts, emotions, and sensations without being consumed by them. Through practical examples and a guided meditation, he demonstrates how cultivating this observer perspective creates the essential space needed for healing, behavior change, and breaking automatic reactive patterns.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The three simultaneous experiences and why most people never develop the witness—that awareness observing both your thoughts and experiences
The tremendous costs of missing the witness: every thought becomes truth, every emotion becomes identity, pain and suffering become synonymous
The Five-Layer Guided Practice: breath as anchor, watching thoughts like clouds, body sensations with specificity, working with emotions through defusion, bringing it all together
Why this matters for healing: separating pain (sensation) from suffering (story), discerning danger signals from discomfort, investigating symptoms without panic

🔑 Key Insights:

"When you believe you ARE your pain or diagnosis, healing becomes impossible. The witness separates pain from suffering—pain is sensation, suffering is the story."

"You're not the clouds, you're the sky. When you get pulled into thought and realize it, that realization IS the witness."

"The witness isn't about detaching from your experience—it's about being spaciously present with it. This creates the freedom to respond consciously rather than react automatically."

💡 Action Steps:

Practice the 4-2-6-2 breathing pattern and ask "Who's breathing? Who is noticing?"—that noticing awareness is the witness
Shift your language: Replace "I am angry" with "I notice anger is present"—this simple change creates observer distance

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone who wakes at 3am consumed by anxious thoughts, people who catastrophize physical pain, those overwhelmed by emotions that hijack behavior, or anyone struggling to sustain difficult practices like meditation.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

New 52-week course launching January (weekly modules)
Reference to Ramana Maharshi and Vedic teachings
100-day gong practices

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#WitnessConsciousness #MetaAwareness #Meditation #MindfulnessHealing #EmotionalResilience #ConsciousLiving #MindBodyHealing #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai delivers a no-holds-barred wake-up call about victim mentality and its devastating impact on your health. Drawing from real cases of people sabotaging their own healing while blaming everyone else, he breaks down the biological prison that victim consciousness creates—from nervous system freeze responses to chronic inflammation—and provides a four-step process to break free, reclaim your power stance, and take radical accountability for your health choices.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The biological cost of victim consciousness: nervous system freeze, cortisol elevation, inflammation, immune dysregulation, and why your body literally believes no solutions are available
How victim mentality narrows awareness to one channel ("what's being done to me"), creating loss of internal guidance and making you blind to open doors
The Four-Step Breaking Pattern: Witness victim language, feel the physical collapse, reclaim power stance (stand, stack spine, breathe), ask "What is my available move right now?"
Why creative power and victim consciousness are mutually exclusive—every moment in victimhood is a moment you're not healing
Real case: Patient with almond sensitivity keeps eating almonds, blames protocols when they fail—the pattern of making worst choices while blaming others
Proprioceptive reprogramming: Your body can't maintain victim state when in power stance

🔑 Key Insights:

"Victim consciousness and creative power are mutually exclusive states. Every moment in victimhood is a moment you're not healing."

"Replace 'Why is this happening to me?' with 'What is my available move right now?' Action breaks the spell of victimhood."

"Your body can't be in victim state when in power stance. Stand up, stack your spine, take a full breath. Proprioceptive reprogramming breaks the spell."

💡 Action Steps:

Take the 24-Hour Victim Language Challenge: Catch yourself using "they made me feel," "I had no choice," or "this always happens to me"
Practice the Four-Step Pattern Break when you notice victim thinking
Read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz for radical accountability
Join the 100-Day Gong Practice: Three Qigong sets daily, fasting cardio, weightlifting

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone stuck in chronic health issues while blaming doctors or circumstances, people who feel righteous in their suffering, or those ready to stop being the victim and become the hero of their own story.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
The Gene Keys (current book study)
Lights On Course (launching Thursday 11am Central)
Life Garden Course
Daton Pi and Five Dragons Qigong

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#VictimMentality #RadicalAccountability #FunctionalMedicine #NervousSystemHealth #SelfHealing #MindBodyConnection #HealthTransformation #PersonalResponsibility #Qigong #ConsciousLiving #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ In this intimate conversation, Dr. Pedram Shojai sits down with Frankko Vivo, a musician and ceremony guide who transformed from a basketball player into a guardian of sacred space. Frankko shares how an 82-year-old violinist named Sol changed his life's trajectory with a single gift, leading him to carve a temple into a Brazilian mountainside over 13 years. Through stories of water infiltrations that forced him to listen to the mountain's wisdom and ceremonies where improvisation trumps performance, Frankko reveals how voice activation, deep breathing, and authentic frequency work can reconnect us to our spiritual power. This is about research as a personal practice, music as a living goddess, and the courage to follow an unconventional calling.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Frankko's Transformation Journey: From basketball scholarship and knee surgery ending athletic dreams to seven years backpacking through Africa, learning six languages, and discovering didgeridoo, guitar, and improvisation
Building a Temple in the Mountains: Finding land in a Brazilian national park, digging rooms into the mountainside, creating a megaphone cone carved into the mountain for natural amplification—crossing rivers and climbing mountains just to reach the site
Listening to the Mountain's Wisdom: How watching the sculpture collapse during a 40-day fast taught him about water infiltrations, permaculture principles forcing their way into cave work, and adapting to the mountain rather than fighting it
Music as a Living Divine Entity: Why music is one of Frankko's greatest teachers, recognizing music as a goddess (not just art), understanding why Krishna, Shiva, and Ganesha all carry instruments, and why singing is worth "three times"—expanding frequency fields
Ceremony as Research (Not Performance): Moving beyond drug-centric views of ceremony, using singing and dancing together as pillars, finding your own strength (not just relying on medicine's strength), activating your power through voice and movement
The Gift from Sol: Meeting an 82-year-old violinist who said "I have to hand you this, I had a dream"—an angel encounter that handed Frankko his life's mission and taught him to face the unknown with courage
Voice Activation for Spiritual Connection: Voice as connection to spirit (not just musical ability), standing in your being through resonant frequency, moving beyond superficial throat breathing to deep air

🔑 Key Insights:

"I'm not a performer, I'm not a showman. This is improvisation—it's research as a personal practice."

"Music is a living goddess. It's one of my greatest teachers. When you recognize music as divine, not just art, everything changes."

"The mountain taught me through collapse. Water infiltrations during my 40-day fast showed me I needed to listen, adapt, and create bigger spaces. Permaculture principles forced their way into the work."

"Ceremony isn't about the medicine—it's about activating your own power through voice and movement. Finding your strength, not just relying on the medicine's strength."

"Sol, an 82-year-old violinist, handed me my life's mission in a dream. She said 'I have to hand you this.' That's how angels work—they hand you your calling with courage to face the unknown."

💡 Action Steps:

Explore voice activation for yourself and your children: Voice connects you to spirit, not just musical ability—practice standing in your being through resonant frequency
Move beyond superficial throat breathing: Access deep air and authentic frequency to reconnect with spiritual power
Consider ceremony as research, not performance: Focus on singing and dancing together, finding your own strength rather than relying solely on external medicine
Support the temple work: Help build the recording studio and retreat house at Frankko's mountain temple in Brazil
Visit the community: Accept Frankko's invitation to experience the temple space and ceremony work in Brazil's national park

🎧 Perfect for: Musicians seeking deeper spiritual connection through their art, ceremony participants wanting to move beyond drug-centric experiences, parents looking for voice activation work for their children, anyone called to unconventional spiritual paths, seekers interested in sacred space creation and temple building, or those feeling the pull to bridge high-velocity urban life with slow, intentional mountain work.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Frankko Vivo's temple and recording studio project: https://templovivo.eco.br/support
The mountain temple in Brazilian national park (retreat house and ceremony space)
Frankko's paintings as "frequency portals"
Crowdfunding campaign for personal recording laboratory

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

Guest: Frankko Vivo - Musician, Ceremony Guide, Temple Builder

#VoiceActivation #SacredSpace #CeremonyWork #SpiritualJourney #MusicAsMedicine #TempleBuilding #Permaculture #BrazilianMountains #FrequencyHealing #AuthenticExpression #SpiritualPractice #ConscioussLiving #SacredMusic #VoiceHealing #UnconventionalPath #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Most people breathe 20,000 times a day, yet modern life has systematically broken this fundamental function. Dr. Pedram Shojai reveals how collapsed posture, chronic stress, mouth breathing, and lost body awareness have created a breathing crisis—leaving us in survival mode with shallow, chest-based breathing that signals constant danger to our nervous systems. In this essential episode, discover the four ways modern life has stolen your breath and why dysfunctional breathing creates cascading physical consequences from chronic anxiety and brain fog to digestive issues, immune dysfunction, and even facial distortions. Dr. Shojai guides you through a practical breathing restoration practice combining postural awareness, nasal breathing, and diaphragmatic techniques that can increase heart rate variability by 15-25% in just weeks.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The Four Ways Modern Life Broke Your Breathing: Collapsed posture (8-12 hours hunched compressing diaphragm), accumulated stress (chronic sympathetic dominance), mouth breathing epidemic (reduces oxygen delivery by up to 20%), and lost interoceptive awareness (breathing 15-20 times/minute instead of optimal 6-8)
The Devastating Physical Consequences: Chronic hyperventilation leading to alkalosis and anxiety, diaphragmatic dysfunction creating digestive and pelvic floor problems, lymphatic stagnation reducing immune function, fascial restrictions causing chronic pain, and facial distortions requiring orthodontics and cosmetic surgery
Why Your Breath is the Master Control Panel: The only part of your autonomic nervous system you can consciously control—bridging conscious and unconscious mind
The Guided Breathing Restoration Practice: Postural setup (stacked spine), nasal breathing technique (engaging nitric oxide production), 4-2-6-2 diaphragmatic pattern (belly → ribs → chest like filling a glass), and expanded multi-awareness practice
The Science Behind Restoration: Heart rate variability increases 15-25% in weeks, improved vagal tone for inflammatory control and emotional regulation, increased oxygen delivery for cellular energy, improved CO2 tolerance reducing anxiety
Becoming a Breath Researcher: Investigation questions for the week—when do you hold your breath, what situations trigger shallow breathing, how does breath change with posture, what's the quality upon waking or before bed
Why Breath is Foundation for Everything: All other practices (qigong, meditation, cold exposure, movement) build upon proper breathing—fix this first

🔑 Key Insights:

"Modern life has systemically stolen your breath through a perfect storm of posture, stress, and environmental factors. Your nervous system thinks you're being chased by a tiger while you're sitting at your dumb desk."

"Your breath is the only part of your autonomic nervous system you can control—it's the bridge between your conscious and unconscious mind. This isn't woo woo. This is just taking back control."

"Mouth breathing bypasses nitric oxide-producing bacteria and reduces oxygen delivery by up to 20%. It's connected to sleep apnea and facial structure changes over time."

"Most people breathe using only 10% of lung capacity while breathing 15-20 times per minute instead of the optimal 6-8 times. Your nervous system thinks you're being chased."

"If you fix your breathing, you fix the foundation of everything else. Ancient technology we've forgotten to use—bring it back."

💡 Action Steps:

Do the Quick Assessment now: Place one hand on chest, one on belly—which moves more when you breathe? Non-judgmental awareness of current pattern
Practice the 4-2-6-2 Pattern: Inhale through nose 4 counts (belly → ribs → chest), pause 2 counts, exhale 6 counts (belly draws in), pause 2 counts—do 5 rounds right now
Become a Breath Researcher this week: Notice when you hold your breath, what situations trigger shallow breathing, how posture affects breath, quality upon waking/before bed
Set up proper posture throughout your day: Sit forward on chair with stacked spine, crown pulling upward, shoulders relaxed down and back, grounded through sit bones
Try the Chinese practice: Keep tongue tip touching roof of mouth while nasal breathing to enhance the practice

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone experiencing chronic anxiety, brain fog, or muscle tension, people stuck in sympathetic dominance who can't access rest-and-digest mode, those with digestive issues or immune dysfunction that might stem from dysfunctional breathing, anyone who's tried meditation or stress management but struggles with the foundation, or people spending 8-12 hours hunched over screens with collapsed posture.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

New 52-module breathing course (launching mid-January)
The Urban Monk Academy Temple Grounds (breathing practices, qigong, meditation)
Gene Keys book and website (genekeys.com) - ongoing book study through late January
CO2 tolerance training and free diving experience in Thailand

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#BreathingCrisis #BreathworkHealing #NervousSystemHealth #DiaphragmaticBreathing #HeartRateVariability #VagalTone #FunctionalMedicine #HolisticHealth #MindBodyConnection #InteroceptiveAwareness #StressResilience #AutonomicNervousSystem #AncientWisdom #ModernWellness #HealthOptimization #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai sits down with integrative medicine physician Dr. Scott Sherr to unpack one of the most overlooked health crises of our time: the sympathetic spiral of doom. When your nervous system gets stuck in fight-or-flight mode, your mitochondria desperately try to produce more energy but lack the resources to sustain it. The result? Plummeting energy, skyrocketing stress, and a body that can't heal itself. Dr. Sherr explains the intricate dance between sympathetic nervous system activation and mitochondrial dysfunction, revealing how this vicious cycle begins and, more importantly, how to break it.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The Sympathetic-Mitochondrial Connection: How chronic fight-or-flight forces mitochondria to produce excessive energy, creating reactive oxygen species (free radicals) until cells trigger "cell danger response" and shut down to protect themselves
The GABA System as the Unsung Hero: Why depression is more likely a GABA deficiency than serotonin deficiency, and how GABA controls the sensory gate (anxious brains: 70,000 thoughts/day becomes 120,000 with anxiety)
The Six Major Drivers of Mitochondrial Dysfunction: Insulin resistance (75% of US adults), chronic sympathetic activation, environmental toxins, infections (COVID, mold, Lyme), medications (birth control, PPIs, metformin), and lack of stimulation
Why GABA supplements often indicate a leaky blood-brain barrier—and how healing gut permeability affects efficacy
The Caffeine Trap: How caffeine blocks adenosine receptors creating the "adenosine crush" and inevitable crash, tolerance, dependence, and the morning headache cycle
Strategic Supplement Support: Nicotinamide GABA (B3-GABA) crosses blood-brain barrier effectively, muscimol from Amanita muscaria for sleep, natural GABA receptor support (CBD, CBG, CBN, kava)
Advanced Interventions Timing: Why hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) can make things WORSE during sympathetic spiral—optimal timing is 3-6 months after baseline optimization
The shocking statistic: 94% of US adults have mitochondrial dysfunction; only 6% are metabolically healthy

🔑 Key Insights:

"The sympathetic spiral of doom is a vicious cycle where stress damages mitochondria, which triggers more stress. It's like revving your car engine in a closed garage—pushing harder just makes things worse."

"GABA deficiency symptoms include anxiety, depression, insomnia, and tremors. Depression is more likely a GABA deficiency than the serotonin deficiency theory we've relied on despite lack of evidence."

"The productivity paradox: doing less with a calmer nervous system produces better results. You can't supplement your way out when you're clamped down in fight-or-flight."

"Sleep is the most leveraged cornerstone habit because it forces brutal awareness in the quiet night. It's where detoxification happens via the glymphatic system."

"Don't believe everything you think—the survival-focused mind lies. The goal is creating an ecosystem of health, not finding a magic bullet."

💡 Action Steps:

Test your GABA system: If GABA supplements help you sleep or reduce anxiety, that's diagnostic information suggesting leaky blood-brain barrier—address gut permeability first
Implement cornerstone sleep habits: Consistent sleep-wake timing (even weekends), dark room, wind-down routine without alcohol, separate beds if needed for quality sleep
Convert glutamate to GABA naturally: Ensure adequate magnesium and B6 (both commonly deficient)—the glutamine-glutamate-GABA pathway requires these co-factors
Use caffeine tactically, not habitually: Recognize the adenosine crush and morning headache trap as signs of tolerance and dependence
Wait 3-6 months after baseline optimization before advanced therapies: Hyperbaric oxygen, methylene blue, red light, and sauna work best AFTER stabilizing sympathetic activation

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone who's "wired but tired," doing more but accomplishing less, stuck in chronic stress with declining energy, struggling with anxiety or insomnia despite trying multiple interventions, experiencing brain fog or mental health issues that might be mitochondrial dysfunction, or dealing with the aftermath of COVID, mold, or Lyme infections.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Dr. Scott Sherr's website: DrScottSherr.com
Health Optimization Medicine and Practice: HOPEhope.org
Troscriptions products: TRO Calm, TRO Zzz, Just Blue (methylene blue), Blue Canine
OneBase Health (technology and software integration)
Book: "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg
Methylene blue dosing: 4-25mg range for mitochondrial support
Natural GABA support: CBD, CBG, CBN, kava, nicotinamide GABA, muscimol

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

Guest: Dr. Scott Sherr - Integrative Medicine Physician, Health Optimization Medicine and Practice (HOMP)

#SympatheticNervousSystem #MitochondrialHealth #ChronicStress #GABASystem #FunctionalMedicine #HealthOptimization #MitochondrialDysfunction #StressManagement #IntegrativeMedicine #BrainHealth #MentalHealth #CellDangerResponse #SleepOptimization #HyperbaricOxygen #MethyleneBlue #GutBrainConnection #LeakyGut #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai addresses one of the most common yet dismissed complaints in modern medicine: chronic fatigue that conventional doctors can't diagnose or explain. He reveals why standard medical tests fail to identify this multi-system breakdown and presents a comprehensive, phased recovery approach spanning 6-24 months. Drawing from his experience treating thousands of patients, Dr. Shojai explains the seven interconnected systems involved in energy production—from mitochondrial function to gut health to nervous system regulation—and why treating just one piece never works. If you've been told "everything looks fine" while feeling bone-deep exhaustion, this roadmap offers the answers conventional medicine can't provide.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The Seven Systems of Energy Production: Mitochondrial function (cellular ATP), HPA axis (stress response), thyroid (metabolic regulation), gut (nutrient absorption), sleep architecture (restoration), inflammation (master disruptor), and nervous system regulation
Why standard medical tests miss the real problem: Testing the wrong things, "normal" lab values (bottom 10% of normal still feels terrible), and conventional medicine's single-system focus
The Four-Phase Recovery Framework with realistic timelines: Phase 1 Stabilization (10-20% improvement by week 4), Phase 2 Foundation Building (30-50% by week 12), Phase 3 Building Capacity (60-80% by week 24), Phase 4 Optimization (months 6-24+)
The Cascade Effect: How chronic stress triggers cortisol dysregulation → poor sleep → inflammation → gut dysfunction → nutrient malabsorption → mitochondrial breakdown → profound fatigue (completing the vicious cycle)
Urban Monk Awareness Training: Using interoception, proprioception, and exteroception to read your energy state with sophistication
Phase 1 Priority Actions: Sleep architecture stabilization, blood sugar regulation (eat within 1 hour of waking, protein every 3-4 hours), inflammatory load reduction, and nervous system support
Critical testing recommendations: Comprehensive thyroid panel (TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3), 4-point salivary cortisol, GI Map, food sensitivity testing, RBC magnesium, vitamin D, B12, organic acid tests

🔑 Key Insights:

"Just because standard tests can't find it doesn't mean it's not real. Chronic fatigue is a multi-system breakdown that conventional medicine isn't designed to see or treat."

"Your body is like a child that's been abused—it's waiting for the next thing to crash it. It doesn't trust you yet after 50 years of being run ragged. Build slowly. Capacity builds at 10% at a time, not 100%."

"Nothing heals without sleep. Sleep architecture is the critical foundation—everything else fails without it."

"Your body knows what's wrong; the question is whether you're listening with enough sophistication."

"The magic word is lifestyle. You cannot rush this process—rushing causes relapse. Recovery requires 6-24 months of systematic work across all seven systems."

💡 Action Steps:

Track daily metrics starting today: Morning energy (1-10), afternoon energy (1-10), sleep quality, digestive function (gas/bloating), brain fog, stress resilience
Implement Phase 1 Priority 1: Stabilize sleep architecture with same sleep-wake time (even weekends), magnesium glycinate 300-400mg before bed, no screens one hour before bed
Phase 1 Priority 2: Blood sugar regulation—eat within one hour of waking (include protein), never go 3-4 hours without eating, protein with every meal
Phase 1 Priority 3: Remove inflammatory triggers—eliminate refined sugar, processed foods, seed oils; trial removal of gluten and dairy for two weeks
Get functional medicine testing: Comprehensive thyroid panel, 4-point salivary cortisol, GI Map, food sensitivity testing (like FIT 176 that revealed Gina's bloating causes)

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone who's been told "everything looks fine" while experiencing bone-deep exhaustion, people who wake up more tired than they went to bed, those dismissed by conventional doctors with normal lab results, anyone experiencing post-exertional malaise or exercise intolerance, or people stuck in the "wired but tired" cycle with cortisol dysregulation.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

FIT 176 (Food Inflammation Test) - revealed Gina's bloating causes
Testing: Comprehensive thyroid panel, 4-point salivary cortisol, GI Map, Oral Biome analysis, gut permeability, organic acid tests
Supplements: Magnesium glycinate (300-400mg), CoQ10 (200-400mg), B-complex (methylated), Alpha lipoic acid (300mg), L-carnitine (500-1000mg), L-glutamine, adaptogens
Recent podcast: Mitochondrial function with Dr. Sherr
Gene Keys book reading (end of January) - information under "monthly book readings"
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gut Check, Gateway to Health

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#ChronicFatigue #FunctionalMedicine #EnergyRecovery #GutHealth #MitochondrialHealth #HolisticHealth #RootCause #Fatigue #HealthOptimization #ThyroidHealth #InflammationReduction #SleepOptimization #HPAAxis #StressManagement #FoodSensitivities #LeakyGut #Microbiome #VagusNerve #ChronicIllness #InvisibleIllness #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Registered dietitian Ashley Koff joins Dr. Pedram Shojai to unpack the truth about GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy. While these drugs mimic hormones our bodies naturally produce, they don't solve the root cause of why our own weight-health hormones aren't functioning properly. Ashley explains how gut health, the vagus nerve, stress, and digestive function all play crucial roles in our body's natural hormone production. She shares her personal journey from childhood obesity to understanding that healing weight health isn't about what you eat or avoid—it's about optimizing your body's operating system.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why GLP-1s are biosimilar hormone replacements that stay active 24/7 (vs. natural hormones working 2-5 minutes)—and why they don't address the root problem
The two key reasons our weight-health hormones aren't working: digestive system damage and inflammatory cascades blocking hormone delivery to receptor sites
The Pizza-Making Framework: Crust (digestion/hydration), Sauce (nutrition), Cheese (lifestyle), Toppings (supplements/medications)—why GLP-1s are great toppings on bad pizza
The 3-Hour Pit Stop Strategy: Moving beyond daily totals to consistent intervals for breathing, bathroom, movement, nutrient-balanced meals, and mental reset
Why protein absorption matters more than protein consumption—and how eating 150g daily with poor digestion creates inflammation, not muscle
Ashley's gastroenterologist insight that changed everything: "It's not what you're eating or not eating—your digestive system doesn't have what it needs"
GLP-1 Activators as alternatives: Amarasate (hops from New Zealand) increases GLP-1 and PYY by 600% naturally while you fix the root cause
The Proton Pump Inhibitor problem: Most people prescribed PPIs actually have LOW acid (not high), creating downstream B12, calcium, and protein breakdown issues

🔑 Key Insights:

"It's not what you're eating or not eating—your digestive system doesn't have what it needs to function." - Ashley's gastroenterologist

"GLP-1s slow digestion and delay gastric emptying for 24 hours. These medications can exacerbate underlying digestive issues. There's no free lunch."

"Every diet focuses on what to eat, missing the underlying operating system. Fix the root cause, and weight loss, energy, and appearance follow naturally."

"On a 1-10 stress scale, digestion shuts down at 7 or above. Even superfoods won't help if you're not absorbing nutrients."

"Protein going into your body doesn't equal protein to muscle. Excess undigested protein causes inflammation—especially when GLP-1s delay gastric emptying."

💡 Action Steps:

Take the sweet taste bud test: Bite into an apple, rate sweetness 1-10—this reveals if you're overusing non-nutritive sweeteners
Assess your hydration: If you drink water and pee within 2 hours, you're a "hose" (not absorbing)—water needs to be absorbed to bring nutrients into cells
Implement the 3-hour pit stop protocol: Every 3 hours do breathing exercises, bathroom break, movement, nutrient-balanced meal (15-40g protein), mental reset
Get comprehensive gut testing before spending $1200/month on GLP-1 shots—testing reveals easily solvable inflammatory problems
Recognize your stress signals: What are your personal indicators? (Ashley's: talking fast, raised shoulders)

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone considering GLP-1 medications like Ozempic or Wegovy, people who've tried every diet without sustainable results, those dealing with decades of food noise and body trauma, anyone spending money on supplements without understanding their digestive system, or those who want to hack their own hormones naturally before turning to medications.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Ashley Koff's book: "Your Best Shot"
Gut testing (discounted for Dr. Shojai's listeners)
Amarasate - GLP-1 activator (hops from New Zealand)
Gateway to Health documentary series

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

Guest: Ashley Koff, RD - Registered Dietitian specializing in weight health and digestive optimization

#GLP1 #Ozempic #Wegovy #GutHealth #WeightLoss #DigestiveHealth #FunctionalMedicine #HormoneHealth #RootCauseHealing #NaturalWeightLoss #Microbiome #IntegrativeHealth #HealthOptimization #SustainableWeightLoss #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ In this transformative episode, Dr. Pedram Shojai addresses the modern energy crisis that leaves so many people chronically depleted. Moving beyond simple fatigue from lack of sleep or overwork, he reveals how we experience systemic energy depletion from thousands of tiny leaks we haven't learned to protect against. Through practical frameworks and actionable strategies, he teaches listeners how to identify what drains their vital energy, recognize energy drains in real time, and implement boundaries that protect their life force. This isn't about becoming selfish or isolated—it's about learning to give from fullness rather than depleting yourself to emptiness.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The Four Categories of Energy Drains: Digital vampires (social media, email, notifications), relational drains (victims, narcissists, boundary pushers), environmental factors (clutter, noise, crowds), and internal leaks (unexpressed emotions, unaligned actions, mental loops)
The Three Types of Sensing to practice daily: Interoception (internal energy state), proprioception (body position and tension), and exteroception (environmental impact)—catching drains in real time
The Three Levels of Boundary Management: Awareness boundaries (internal energy accounting), interpersonal boundaries (the clear no and qualified yes), and environmental boundaries (digital, time, space, social protections)
How to practice "the clear no" with exact phrases that require zero explanation or justification
The 24-hour rule: Never say yes to anything non-urgent immediately—check your calendar and energy capacity first
Why every yes when you mean no betrays yourself and builds resentment (worse for relationships than an honest no)
The relationship audit framework: Five critical questions to identify which connections nourish versus deplete you

🔑 Key Insights:

"Your energy is your life force, and when you protect it, you protect your health, your relationships, your capacity to serve and to be fully alive."

"Every time you say yes when you mean no, you are betraying yourself and you are building resentment towards the other person. That's worse for the relationship than an honest no."

"When someone pushes on your boundary, that's information. People who genuinely care about you will respect your limits. People who only value what you give them will resist your boundaries."

"Your body knows before your mind even rationalizes it. Please learn to trust that."

"Resentful giving helps nobody. Good boundaries make space for aligned, joyful giving."

💡 Action Steps:

Rate your current energy level on 1-10 scale right now—then track how many times you feel noticeable energy drain today
Practice the body check-in before agreeing to anything: Does it feel expansive and aligned (yes) or constricted with dread (no)?
Implement Week 1: Build awareness of what's draining and what's restoring throughout your day
Week 2: Start with ONE boundary—your biggest energy drain—and protect it fiercely
Practice "the clear no" phrases: "I don't have the capacity for that right now" and "That doesn't work for me" (no explanation needed)

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone running on empty by day's end, people-pleasers who say yes when they mean no, highly sensitive people exhausted by environments and relationships, anyone spending more time managing other people's emotions than their own, or those who've forgotten what having energy actually feels like.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

The Sanctuary Course (available in academy)—creating energetically supportive physical environments
Temple Grounds—Qigong and restorative practices
Monthly Reading: "The Gene Keys" (large reference book, review mid-January)
Gut Testing Options: $199 test only, $299 includes Jeff Bland's Gut Healing Masterclass

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#EnergySovereignty #BoundariesForHealth #EnergyManagement #VitalEnergy #HealthyBoundaries #SelfCareIsNotSelfish #EnergyDrains #ConsciousLiving #HolisticHealth #ProtectYourPeace #IntentionalLiving #EmotionalWellness #DigitalDetox #MindfulBoundaries #EnergyHealing #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Are you spending hundreds of dollars a month on supplements you can't even remember why you're taking? Dr. Pedram Shojai exposes how the $50 billion supplement industry has convinced health-conscious people to swallow 20-30 pills daily—creating more confusion and expense than actual health benefits. He reveals the uncomfortable truth: most people are medicating symptoms they don't have, optimizing pathways that aren't broken, and actually creating deficiencies through nutrient competition and over-supplementation.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why taking more supplements doesn't equal better health—and how over-supplementation creates new deficiencies through nutrient competition
The three types of supplement users (Deficiency Corrector, Optimization Chaser, Symptom Medicator) and which trap you're falling into
The Core Three supplements most people actually need: Vitamin D3+K2, Omega-3s, and Magnesium—plus how to test and dose them properly
The Evidence-Based Decision Tree framework: six critical questions to ask before adding any supplement to your regimen
The One-at-a-Time Protocol for actually knowing what works (Weeks 1-2: baseline, Weeks 3-6: add ONE supplement, Week 7: assess)
Why the healthiest people aren't taking the most supplements—they're taking the right ones for specific needs, for appropriate durations, and they know when to stop
Understanding practitioner incentives and business models when receiving supplement recommendations

🔑 Key Insights:

"The healthiest people aren't taking the most supplements. Supplements are tools, not a lifestyle—meant to correct deficiencies temporarily."

"You're medicating symptoms you probably don't have, optimizing pathways that aren't broken, and creating deficiencies through over-supplementation."

"Simplicity is the primary medicine. The goal should be fewer supplements over time, not more."

"When you stop managing dozens of bottles and start trusting your body's wisdom, health becomes simpler, cheaper, and more sustainable."

💡 Action Steps:

Audit your current supplements using the decision tree—eliminate everything you can't justify with clear reasoning
Get tested for the core three nutrients: Vitamin D (25-hydroxy), Omega-3 index, and RBC magnesium (not serum)
Stop taking anything you can't identify a clear purpose for—check in with yourself in two weeks to see if you notice any difference
Implement the One-at-a-Time Protocol: never change multiple supplements at once or you won't know what actually helped

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone spending $300-500/month on supplements, biohackers drowning in optimization strategies, health-conscious people overwhelmed by conflicting advice, or anyone who can't remember why they're taking half the pills in their cabinet.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Third-party tested Omega-3 brands: Jeff Bland, Thorne
Testing recommendations: 25-hydroxy vitamin D, Omega-3 index, RBC magnesium, serum B12/methylmalonic acid
Magnesium forms: glycinate (sleep/calming), threonate (brain), citrate (constipation)

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#SupplementOverwhelm #FunctionalMedicine #TestDontGuess #HolisticHealth #BiohackingTruth #NutrientDeficiency #HealthOptimization #SupplementSimplicity #RootCauseHealing #IntegrativeHealth #UrbanMonk #Wellness

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai addresses one of the most pervasive issues in modern wellness: the food fear pandemic. Are you spending 20 minutes reading ingredient labels? Avoiding social situations because you can't control the food? This isn't about real food sensitivities—it's about the crippling anxiety that's turning food into the enemy. Dr. Shojai reveals why the stress of restriction might be more inflammatory than the foods you're worried about, and shares a practical framework for shifting from fear-based eating to body wisdom.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why "healthy eating" becomes obsessive and how to recognize orthorexia patterns
The Four Phases of Restriction Failure—and why you're stuck in phase 4
How over-restriction creates MORE food sensitivities through reduced microbial diversity
The science showing restriction stress can be as inflammatory as the foods themselves
Developing sophisticated interoceptive awareness to distinguish true reactions from anxiety
The 80/20 principle for both nourishment and psychological resilience
Building digestive resilience through variety instead of constant protection
The "Yes Foods" framework that transforms your relationship with eating

🔑 Key Insights:

"Food isn't the enemy. Fear is."

"The stress and anxiety that we create around food might be more inflammatory than the food you were worried about."

"You want a robust, resilient digestive system that can handle a variety of foods, not a fragile system that requires constant protection."

"When you learn to listen, and I mean really listen, with sophisticated interoceptive awareness, you end up becoming your best nutritionist."

💡 Action Steps:

Practice the three-part interoceptive check-in: before, during, and after eating
Shift from asking "Is this allowed?" to "What information does my body need right now?"
Create your personal "Yes Foods" list focusing on what you GET to eat
If recovering from elimination diets, start GI map testing and systematic reintroduction
Build digestive resilience with bitter foods, thorough chewing, and parasympathetic eating states

📚 Resources:

GI Map Analysis for microbiome testing
176-food sensitivity testing
Gut health coaching programs
Google, ChatGPT, Claude for "Yes Foods" recipe inspiration

#FoodAsMedicine #IntuitiveEating #GutHealth #BodyAwareness #MindfulEating #FunctionalMedicine #FoodSensitivities #DigestiveHealth #Orthorexia #FoodFreedom #HealthyEating #WellnessJourney #MicrobiomeHealth #AntiInflammatory #HolisticHealth

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai exposes the invisible thief stealing your peace, presence, and authentic self-worth: social media comparison culture.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why your brain—evolved for tribes of 150—now compares you to billions of curated highlight reels 24/7
The five-step neuroscience behind the comparison spiral (from comparison trigger to deepening spiral)
How chronic "not enoughness" drives anxiety, depression, elevated cortisol, and inflammation
The difference between true inspiration and toxic comparison
Practical protocols: three-breath awareness practice, ruthless curation, and the 100-day digital fast

🔑 Key Insights: "Your insecurity is monetizable. Algorithms are designed to keep you scrolling because attention equals profit."

"Everyone is struggling. Everyone's on a journey. Everyone carefully curates what they share. You're comparing your full reality to everyone else's highlight reel."

"True inspiration elevates and energizes. Comparison depletes and discourages. The test: Do you feel better or worse after closing the app?"

"You don't need to be better than anyone. You just need to be more yourself. Your worth isn't comparative—it's intrinsic."

💡 Action Steps:

Practice the three-breath awareness technique before opening social media
Ruthlessly curate your follows—unfollow anything that triggers inadequacy or makes you feel "less than"
Try the comparison exit protocol: Name what you're feeling, ask what you're afraid it means, redirect to interoception
Daily check-in: What matters to me today? What are my values? What's my body telling me?

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone struggling with social media anxiety, chronic comparison, imposter syndrome, or seeking external validation instead of authentic self-worth.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Stanford's Behavior Clinic (BJ Fogg) - research on Instagram's addictive design
Research linking 3+ hours daily social media use with 3x higher depression rates

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#UrbanMonk #SocialMediaDetox #MentalHealth #SelfWorth #Mindfulness #DigitalWellness #Anxiety #Comparison

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🎙️ Discover why deliberately stressing your body might be one of the most powerful health interventions available—hormesis: the principle that low to moderate doses of stress trigger beneficial adaptations that make you anti-fragile.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

The science behind cold therapy, strategic fasting, and exercise as consciousness-expanding tools
The adaptation cascade: from immediate stress response (minutes) to long-term resilience (months)
Four-week cold therapy progression protocol (300% norepinephrine increase, 250% dopamine boost)
Three-level strategic fasting approach: from time-restricted eating to multi-day fasts
Traffic light system for monitoring your capacity and knowing when you're overdoing it

🔑 Key Insights: "The right stress at the right dose with adequate recovery makes you anti-fragile. Not just resistant to stress, but improved by stress."

"These practices aren't just physically beneficial—they're consciousness-expanding tools disguised as physical challenges. The therapeutic benefit may come from forced engagement of multiple awareness streams simultaneously."

"Comfort doesn't build capacity. Your body is designed to adapt, but only when you give it a reason to."

💡 Action Steps:

Start the four-week cold therapy protocol: Week 1-2 with 30-60 second cold shower endings
Implement time-restricted eating with 12-16 hour fasting windows to build your foundation
Use the traffic light system: Green (stable energy, good sleep) = continue; Yellow (declining energy, irritability) = ease up; Red (chronic fatigue, illness) = take 3-5 days off

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone looking to build resilience, optimize health through strategic stress, or expand consciousness through physical practices. Essential for biohackers and wellness enthusiasts.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Temple Grounds community resources
Urban Book Academy monthly book readings
Upcoming clinical trial with 150 participants (collaboration with Dr. Jeff Bland)
Cold therapy protocol: 50-59°F for 2-10 minutes post-adaptation

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#UrbanMonk #Hormesis #ColdTherapy #Biohacking #IntermittentFasting #HealthOptimization #Resilience #WimHof #AntiFragile

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🎙️ Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT) is emerging as a breakthrough treatment for patients who've exhausted conventional and functional medicine options. Dr. Pedram Shojai talks with Dr. Jason Klop and neuroscientist Dr. Shaina Cahill about how this ancient practice is now backed by modern science and delivering remarkable results.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why FMT works by transplanting an entire healthy ecosystem rather than isolated probiotic strains
Rigorous donor screening process (only 1% of applicants accepted into the program)
Clinical results: 52-week sustained IBS improvements, over 50% ulcerative colitis remission, autism behavioral changes
Proper preparation protocols combining antibiotics with antifungals to create optimal environment
Critical lifestyle factors needed to maintain results long-term (diet, sleep, stress management)

🔑 Key Insights: "FMT transplants ecosystems, not isolated strains. The synergy of complete microbiome communities—bacteria, fungi, metabolites working together—creates lasting change that single probiotics cannot achieve."

"Parkinson's patients show GI issues 10-15 years before diagnosis. The body gives early warning signals through gut symptoms—don't wait until disease is severe."

"For patients who've tried everything and been told they're 'probably crazy' by conventional medicine, FMT offers evidence-based alternative that addresses root causes rather than managing symptoms."

💡 Action Steps:

Complete the FMT candidate questionnaire if you've exhausted conventional options: theurbanmonk.typeform.com/to/AhnnLHTS
Understand the preparation phase: antibiotics + antifungals + bowel prep create optimal environment
Commit to lifestyle changes: diverse prebiotic-rich foods, avoiding toxins, proper sleep, stress management essential for maintaining results

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone suffering from chronic gut conditions (IBS, IBD, Crohn's, SIBO), autoimmune diseases, neurological conditions with gut-brain connections, or those who've been dismissed by conventional medicine.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

FMT candidate questionnaire and consultation with trained PA
Clinical trial with limited spots for comprehensive tracking
GMP licensed facility by Health Canada for manufacturing safety

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, The Art of Stopping Time, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma, Conscious Parenting

#UrbanMonk #GutHealth #FMT #Microbiome #IBS #IBD #CrohnsDisease #GutBrainConnection #ChronicDisease #FunctionalMedicine #Autism #Parkinsons

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🎙️ Dr. Pedram Shojai delivers a transformative guide on developing interoceptive awareness—the ability to sense and interpret your body's internal signals before minor symptoms become major health crises. Using the powerful analogy of a car's check engine light, he reveals why most people ignore their body's warning signs and choose to "tape over" symptoms rather than investigate root causes.

🎯 What You'll Learn:

Why modern culture has systematically disconnected you from your body's intelligence through "no pain, no gain" mentality, stimulant dependence, and symptom suppression
The four-phase warning system: from subtle whispers weeks before crisis to full-blown alarms requiring intervention
Your body's five communication channels: energy patterns, digestive intelligence, inflammatory signaling, nervous system regulation, and hormonal cycles
Three-level framework for reclaiming body awareness: daily 2-minute body scans, weekly pattern recognition, monthly deep-dive investigations
How catching issues at phase one could prevent a health crisis years down the road

🔑 Key Insights: "Your body doesn't send false alarms. Every symptom is information and communication. Most people only pay attention at phase 3-4, but symptom detectives catch issues at phase 1."

"80% of vagal signals travel from body to brain, not the reverse. Your gut feelings and intuitive knowing are physiologically wired through interoceptive networks."

"Nine out of ten people show inflammatory markers before becoming 'sick.' The goal is to nip problems in the bud years before they become a medical crisis."

💡 Action Steps:

Tomorrow morning before touching your phone: 2-minute body scan (energy, sleep quality, gut sensation, mental clarity, emotional state, physical tension, breath quality)
Start a weekly trigger map: when do symptoms appear, what precedes them, what makes them better or worse

🎧 Perfect for: Anyone experiencing chronic low-grade symptoms without clear diagnosis, those seeking to prevent disease rather than manage it, or anyone tired of the "pill for ill" approach to healthcare.

📚 Mentioned Resources:

Dr. Shojai's new book (features extensive interoception content)
Academy programs focused on gut health, oral health, and hormonal health

🌐 Connect with Dr. Shojai:

Website: theurbanmonk.com
Books: The Urban Monk, Inner Alchemy, Focus
Documentaries: Interconnected, Gateway to Health, Trauma

#UrbanMonk #Interoception #BodyAwareness #FunctionalMedicine #DiseasePrevention #VagusNerve #HealthDetective #WellnessWarrior

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In this essential Urban Monk weekly call, Pedram explores the critical distinction between sleep quantity and sleep quality—revealing why many people who log 7-8 hours still wake up exhausted. Drawing from his experience owning sleep labs, he breaks down the architecture of restorative sleep, identifying common saboteurs from blood sugar dysregulation to environmental factors. The discussion provides practical, actionable protocols for optimizing deep sleep and REM cycles, emphasizing that better sleep—not more sleep—is the key to energy, healing, and cognitive performance. Pedram demonstrates how sleep optimization begins the moment you wake up, making it the foundation for every other health practice.

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When Martha Carlin's 44-year-old marathon-running husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2002, she applied her auditor's mindset to examining the evidence behind this "old person's disease." What followed was a remarkable 20+ year journey from studying food toxins to pioneering targeted probiotic therapies. In this episode, Martha shares how she discovered the connection between gut bacteria and Parkinson's symptoms, developed probiotics that significantly improved her husband's condition, and is now working on therapies for Crohn's disease and post-antibiotic gut restoration. She also reveals the hidden dangers of glyphosate, explains why the "magic bullet" approach fails for complex diseases, and discusses the future of microbiome medicine.

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In this poolside conversation, entrepreneur Eric Farewell shares his transformation from a workaholic aviation CEO to a presence-focused coach helping executives escape the trap of their businesses. After building multiple seven-figure companies but sacrificing his health and relationships, Eric's brother's tragic death at 22 became the catalyst for change. Unable to walk due to emotional trauma manifesting physically, he discovered somatic healing, breathwork, and nervous system regulation. Through years of intensive inner work, Eric learned that presence—not productivity—creates true success. He now teaches entrepreneurs how to replace themselves in their businesses (it took 8 people to replace him), build systems that create freedom, and most importantly, heal the childhood programming that drives destructive work patterns. His philosophy: boundaries create presence, presence creates wisdom, and wisdom creates leverage that transforms both business and life.

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In this episode of the Urban Monk Podcast, Dr. Pedram Shojai interviews Mark Fox, a NASA rocket scientist turned inventor who has adapted PEMF (Pulsed Electromagnetic Field) technology for pet health. After discovering the technology 27 years ago when his own dog developed arthritis, Fox has created affordable, portable devices that help pets with anxiety, inflammation, pain, and various health conditions. The conversation explores how this same technology used for humans is proving remarkably effective for dogs, horses, and cats, offering a drug-free alternative for common pet ailments like separation anxiety, arthritis, and stress from fireworks or travel.

🐕 Transform Your Pet's Health Today: Get the same PEMF device Dr. Shojai uses on his dogs - proven to reduce anxiety, ease pain, and improve quality of life. Available at https://resona.health/transform-your-dog-urban/

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Dr. Matt Wilyonson, a former Navy orthopedic surgeon and current Chief Medical Officer of Woobie.io, shares his powerful journey from serving 10+ years in the military to becoming a fierce advocate for veterans navigating the broken VA (Department of Veterans Affairs) disability system. The VA is the U.S. government agency responsible for providing healthcare, benefits, and support to military veterans, but as Dr. Wilyonson reveals, it often fails those it's meant to serve. After witnessing firsthand how hardworking service members were being shortchanged by bureaucratic red tape while serving as a primary care doctor for Marines, Dr. Wilyonson made it his mission to help veterans get the disability benefits they've earned through their military service. In this eye-opening conversation, he exposes how the VA systematically denies or minimizes legitimate service-connected injuries and conditions, discusses the hidden epidemic of veteran mental health struggles, and offers hope through his company's honest, membership-based approach to securing proper disability ratings and compensation.

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Dr. Dennis Hooper, founder of Real Time Laboratories and a pioneer in mycotoxin testing, shares his personal journey from growing up in Nevada's nuclear testing zone to becoming a leading expert in environmental toxicity. After his family and community developed widespread autoimmune diseases from nuclear fallout and mining toxins, Dr. Hooper dedicated his career to understanding and testing for environmental toxins, particularly mycotoxins from mold. He discusses the widespread nature of mold exposure, the importance of proper testing methods, and why treating the whole patient—not just symptoms—is crucial for recovery. Dr. Hooper emphasizes the role of glutathione supplementation and comprehensive environmental testing in helping patients overcome toxin-related illnesses.

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In this enlightening episode of the Urban Monk Podcast, host Pedram Shojai engages with Angelo from Kion to investigate one of the most misunderstood aspects of nutrition: protein. Moving beyond the polarized debates and one-size-fits-all advice, Angelo explains the fundamental science of why protein is literally the building material of your body - not just another energy source like carbs and fats. The conversation addresses the challenges of getting adequate protein as we age, the critical difference between essential and non-essential amino acids, and why traditional approaches to protein often fall short, especially for women over 40.

Visit getkion.com/urbanmonk for 20% off

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In this enlightening episode of the Urban Monk Podcast, host Pedram Shojai engages with Dr. Srini Pillay, a psychiatrist, brain researcher, and author, to investigate the intersection of artificial intelligence, human consciousness, and the concept of living with vitality in an increasingly dynamic world. The conversation addresses the challenges of navigating the uncertainties associated with the AI revolution through curiosity rather than fear, the risks of delegating our emotional experiences to technology, and the potential shortcomings of the current longevity movement. Dr. Pillay shares valuable insights derived from his research on the "unfocused mind," the significance of agency in the evolution of consciousness, and the notion that true vitality, defined as more than the mere absence of illness, should be an essential objective.

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When rocket scientist Mark Fox started experiencing debilitating anxiety around blood pressure measurements that haunted him for 40 years, he never imagined he'd become a pioneer in nervous system healing technology. In this groundbreaking conversation with Dr. Pedram Shojai, Mark reveals how his skepticism transformed into innovation as he developed the Vaguvibe - a pendant that increases heart rate variability by up to 50% in just 30 minutes.

From teachers reporting dramatic improvements in students' attention without medication changes to trauma survivors finding peace after decades of suffering, this episode exposes why Big Pharma has zero interest in cheap solutions that actually work. Mark shares the latest third-party lab data proving that vagus nerve stimulation isn't just alternative medicine - it's the future of healthcare that puts healing power back in patients' hands for less than the cost of a monthly prescription.

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When conventional wisdom tells us the sun is our enemy, Nadine Artemis stands as a beacon of truth, challenging decades of fear-based programming about sun exposure. Broadcasting from her stunning lakeside property in Ontario, Canada, Nadine dismantles the modern myth that sunlight is dangerous and reveals how our ancestors understood something we've forgotten: the sun is essential medicine for optimal health.

From the Nobel Prize-winning heliotherapy practices of 1902 to modern understanding of vitamin D receptors and mitochondrial function, this eye-opening conversation with Dr. Pedram Shojai explores how proper sun exposure can transform your health, mood, and vitality. Nadine shares practical protocols for safely building up your sun tolerance, the critical importance of circadian light exposure, and why those expensive chemical sunscreens and fake tans might be doing more harm than good than we ever imagined.

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In this compelling conversation, Dr. Sandi Scheinbaum, founder of the Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach Institute, joins Pedram to discuss the transformative power of health coaching in our broken healthcare system. With over 50 years in the field and 5,000+ coaches trained worldwide, Dr. Sandi shares her journey from special education teacher to clinical psychologist to pioneering health coach educator.

The discussion explores how health coaching addresses the critical gaps in modern healthcare—from the loss of bedside manner to the rush of 7-minute appointments—by empowering individuals to take charge of their own health journey. Dr. Sandi reveals innovative approaches including whole-systems thinking, group coaching models, and the art of asking the right questions rather than prescribing one-size-fits-all solutions.

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Dr. Aly Cohen, integrative rheumatologist and author of "Detoxify," reveals the shocking truth about modern toxic exposure: we're surrounded by over 95,000 synthetic chemicals that didn't exist 75 years ago, yet medical schools don't teach doctors about their health impacts. From air fresheners and personal care products to canned foods and cleaning supplies, these everyday items are contributing to autoimmune diseases, hormone disruption, chronic fatigue, and even early puberty in children.

Rather than preaching doom and gloom, Dr. Cohen offers her practical "Four A's" framework for navigating environmental health without perfectionism or judgment. She shares real patient success stories, addresses the social challenges of living "clean" in a toxic world, and provides actionable strategies for high-impact changes that won't break the bank. This conversation is essential for anyone wondering why they don't feel well despite doing "all the right things" - the answer might be hiding in plain sight in your daily routine.

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Dr. Ken Brown, a practicing gastroenterologist and researcher, joins host Pedram Shojai for an in-depth conversation about the evolution of gut health medicine. From his groundbreaking work with Dr. Mark Pimentel on SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth) to his discovery of polyphenols that reduce methane-producing bacteria, Dr. Brown shares insights from 25 years of clinical practice. The discussion covers the limitations of traditional scopes, the challenges of medical research funding, and why sleep, stress management, and whole foods form the foundation of gut health—before any supplements enter the picture.

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When Stephen Ezell's newborn son broke out in a horrific rash from toxic laundry detergent, it set him on an 18-year mission that would transform him from a restaurant owner into one of America's leading non-toxic product manufacturers. In this eye-opening conversation with Dr. Pedram Shojai, Ezell reveals the shocking truth about household chemicals lurking in our homes - from the 200+ toxic compounds found in newborn umbilical cord blood to the disturbing reality that 82% of consumers equate "clean" with artificial scent rather than actual cleanliness.

Ezell shares the wild journey of building Truly Free from three people mixing soap with a concrete mixer to serving over 500,000 families, while exposing the unregulated chemical industry that prioritizes profits over public health. He breaks down the most dangerous household products (hint: it's not what you think), debunks greenwashing tactics, and explains why the EU bans over 12,000 chemicals while the US only bans 14.

This conversation is a wake-up call for parents and anyone concerned about the toxic burden in their homes, offering practical solutions and hope for a cleaner, healthier future.

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What happens when a successful surgeon realizes the medical system that made him wealthy is slowly killing him? Dr. Darshan Shah was living the American dream—performing hundreds of surgeries, owning multiple surgical centers, and earning top dollar. But at 42, he was 50 pounds overweight, battling six different diseases, and taking 15 pharmaceutical drugs daily.

Then came the moment that changed everything: holding a donut in a hospital lounge while reading about his 50% chance of dying before his newborn son turned 20.

In this eye-opening conversation, Dr. Shah reveals how he completely transformed his health in just 8 months using functional medicine principles, lost 40 pounds, got off nearly all medications, and discovered what he calls "vitality"—the energy to wake up ready to attack each day.

But this isn't just a personal transformation story. Dr. Shah went on to create Next Health, reimagining what healthcare could look like by building what he calls "the Apple Store of health"—beautiful, inspiring spaces where people can optimize their biology before disease strikes.

This episode dives deep into the broken healthcare system that profits from keeping you sick, the five pillars of true health (including the overlooked fifth pillar of toxin elimination), and emerging quantum biology that could revolutionize how we think about human potential.

If you're tired of being told there's "a pill for that" and ready to discover what 1.0 version of yourself could feel like, this conversation will show you the way.

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Join Dr. Pedram Shojai as he interviews Mark, a former NASA rocket scientist, about the fascinating world of Pulsed Electromagnetic Field (PEMF) therapy. This eye-opening conversation explores how a small, affordable device is helping people with chronic health issues when traditional medicine falls short. Mark shares his journey from skeptic to advocate after witnessing remarkable results with PTSD, anxiety, Lyme disease, and more. Learn about the science behind electromagnetic frequencies, how they influence cellular health, and why this technology—once suppressed by pharmaceutical interests—is experiencing a renaissance. This episode bridges the gap between ancient healing practices and modern science, offering hope for those seeking alternative approaches to wellness without the hyperbolic claims common in the energy medicine space.

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In this enlightening podcast, the host speaks with Dr. Rob Silverman, a chiropractor who expanded into functional medicine after discovering the profound connection between gut health and overall wellness. Dr. Silverman shares how he initially focused on musculoskeletal issues but found that many patients' chronic pain and inflammation stemmed from gut problems.

The conversation explores several key topics:

The critical importance of gut health as "the epicenter of health" with 80% of immune cells located there
How leaky gut (increased intestinal permeability) allows undigested food particles and pathogens to enter the bloodstream
The role of zonulin and occludin proteins in regulating gut barrier function
Why food sensitivities can cause symptoms up to 72 hours after consumption, making them difficult to identify
The benefits of modern testing over traditional elimination diets for identifying food triggers
How common substances like glyphosate, processed seed oils, and NSAIDs damage gut barrier integrity
Practical advice for making better food choices, including eating organic when possible

Dr. Silverman emphasizes the importance of "testing, not guessing" to create personalized treatment protocols, particularly through food sensitivity tests and gut permeability panels that provide crucial baseline information for addressing chronic inflammation and health issues.

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In this insightful episode of the Urban Monk Podcast, Dr. Pedram Shojai explores the critical concept of neuroception—our nervous system's automatic detection of safety and threat—and how it fundamentally impacts our health, happiness, and ability to thrive.

Dr. Shojai breaks down the science behind Dr. Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory, explaining how our subconscious continuously scans for environmental cues of safety or danger, triggering different responses in our autonomic nervous system. When we don't feel safe, our body can't properly heal, digest, or function optimally—regardless of how many supplements, green smoothies, or wellness practices we incorporate.

Learn how to recognize safety signals in your environment, relationships, and within yourself, while discovering practical techniques to counteract stress responses: peripheral vision exercises, diaphragmatic breathing, calf stretching, and tongue positioning. Dr. Shojai also offers valuable advice on creating sanctuary spaces, minimizing exposure to negative news cycles, and making intentional choices about your environment to support your nervous system.

Whether you're dealing with chronic stress, healing from trauma, or simply navigating our increasingly chaotic world, this episode provides essential insights for recalibrating your neuroception and creating the conditions for genuine wellbeing. As Dr. Shojai emphasizes, it's time to "stop cutting yourself" with harmful inputs and start actively cultivating the safety signals your body and mind need to flourish.

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At 30 years old, former Marine Kevin Ellis received shocking news: he had osteoporosis, a condition most associate with elderly women. Facing a medical system offering only medication and the grim prediction of inevitable fractures, Kevin refused to accept this fate.

In this eye-opening conversation, Kevin reveals how he transformed his diagnosis by uncovering the true causes of bone loss and building a protocol that not only reversed his own osteoporosis but has now helped thousands reclaim their skeletal health.

Discover why the standard medical approach to bone health is dangerously incomplete, how your gut health directly impacts your bone strength, and why the exercises you're doing might be completely ineffective for building bone density. Kevin shares the specific nutrients, movements, and testing protocols that can dramatically change your bone health trajectory—regardless of your age or current diagnosis.

Whether you're in your 30s or your 70s, this episode provides actionable strategies to build a stronger skeletal foundation that will carry you through decades of vibrant, active living. Don't miss this powerful conversation that challenges everything you thought you knew about building unbreakable bones.

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Bob Rountree is a legend in the functional medicine space and it's important to hear how he's living.

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Why do we self sabotage? Why do we avoid pain so readily?

How can we change the way we go about things to be less avoidant and come back to life?

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Nick Pineault is known as the EMF Guy. I brought him to have a sane and sober discussion aroudn a topic that has a lot of sillyness around it. Listen to this!

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It's a process but do you know how?

You have to feel it to heal it but there are ways to make it flow better.

Let's discuss.

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We were all excited about the microbiome and remain so but my thining around testing the gut has changed and I'm seeing better results doing it this way...

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Is the flouride in the water really killing our spiritual awareness? Is it numbing our senses. I dug into the research and here's what I found out about the pineal gland.

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Good health starts in your kitchen and it needs to be taught to the kids NOW...they won't have any good habits if they don't start at home with you and then they're doomed to a life of drugs and disease.

Katie teaches us how to turn this around.

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Science and the woo- a marriage at last. My guest is a smart doctor who's been following the science on quantum biology and she shares how cool it's all become!

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Dr Jeff Bland started this revolution and he's a sane, sober voice in a world that's increasingly filled with unqualified health "experts." It's important to hear what he has to say and how he see health and the wellness inductry.

Let's go.

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Dr Nicole Beurkens saw the limits of talk therapy so she went and learned nutriton. The place where they meet is a powerful junction of health and healing for us.

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Forget about trying to fix a broken medical model, let's build a new health one that has clean foundations and thinks about life in a more meaningful way. Ari Whitten joins Dr Shojai in a powerful discussion about healthcare and how we may be doing things differently.

Check out www.theurbanmonk.com for more goodness.

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It turns out we need each-other. Coming together for meals is the single most powerful health and longevity practice you can add to your life according to my guest Shawn Stevenson.

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The science is here. We can now acurately track biological age with specific testing and are learning about the interventions that can actually REVERSE AGE. Ryan smith is the founder of the lab that's in the trenches doing the work. They just finished a huge study with Harvard and Yale and, after crunching the data, he visited with Dr Shojai.

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Alexander Linn is saving lives by helping people keep their homes safe. Are you at risk of losing your health or your wealth?

Dr Pedram Shojai explores the world of wellness in one's home with an innovator and founder of Shipshape.ai.

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Dr Shojai dives into the science to inner perception and how we need to feel safe for our bodies to heal, recover and thrive.

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Pedram is joined by Dr Sara Szar (formerly Gottfried) in a super fun reunion of "The Health Bridge" which was a show they cohosted for several years which was often the top health podcast on the charts.

They talk about the toxic bro culture of biohackers and how that advice is often terrible for women of any age. They talk about SAFETY as a prerequistive for healing and much much more. Enjoy this super fun reunion!

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform and check out the Urban Monk Academy here.

With Andy Tanner Andy is a renowned paper assets expert, successful business owner and investor known for his ability to teach key techniques for stock options investing. He serves as a coach to Rich Dad’s Stock Success System trainers and as the Rich Dad Advisor for Paper Assets.

As a highly sought after educator, Andy has taught tens of thousands of investors and entrepreneurs around the world. He often speaks to students at the request of Robert Kiyosaki, showing how paper assets fit into the Rich Dad system of investing.

In 2008, Andy was key in helping develop and launch Rich Dad’s Stock Success System, which teaches investors advanced technical trading techniques to profit from bull and bear markets.

Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform and check out the Urban Monk Academy here.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform and check out the Urban Monk Academy here.

With Ryan Bentley Ryan Bentley, MD, DC, is a board-certified family physician and chiropractor with Vitalis Health in Holland, Michigan. He is a graduate of University of Indiana-Bloomington. He earned an addtional undergraduate degree and his doctor of chiropractic from National University of Health Sciences. He earned his medical degree from University of Science Arts and Technology. He completed his family medicine residency with Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine.

Dr. Bentley's clinical and research interests include preventative, lifestyle, and regenerative medicine.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform and check out the Urban Monk Academy here.

With Zach Cahn Dr. Zachari Cahn holds a Masters degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine from the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine, the top rated accredited Chinese Medical School in the US and Doctorates from the Pacific College of Health & Sciences . With over 6 years of training and 20 years practicing researched based natural compounds, acupuncture, herbs, nutrition, massage, western clinical diagnosis and pharmacology (drug/herb interaction), he is among the premiere provider of alternative healthcare in Asheville.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform and check out the Urban Monk Academy here.

With Christian Drapeau Christian Drapeau is one of the leading Stem Cell scientists today. He is one of America’s best known advocates for Adult Stem Cell research and the health applications of Adult Stem Cell science. He gained recognition when his breakthrough theory gained widespread interest across the scientific and medical communities. He has been advocating for years that the role of Adult Stem Cells in the body is nothing less than its natural healing system.

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With Dr Pedram Shojai NY Times Best Selling author and film maker. Taoist Abbot and Qigong master. Husband and dad. I’m here to help you find your way and be healthy and happy. I don’t want to be your guru…just someone who’ll help point the way. If you’re looking for a real person who’s done the work, I’m your guy. I can light the path and walk along it with you but can’t walk for you.

Welcome to a special solo episode of The Urban Monk Podcast. Today we're diving deep into a crucial topic: how your mood influences the outcomes in your life. This episode is part of a new series where we'll be exploring key focus areas in depth.

Expect more of these concentrated, impactful discussions in the future as we delve into the science and practice of personal transformation. Let's begin our exploration of how changing your mood can truly change your life.

Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform and check out the Urban Monk Academy here.

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With Dr Pedram Shojai NY Times Best Selling author and film maker. Taoist Abbot and Qigong master. Husband and dad. I’m here to help you find your way and be healthy and happy. I don’t want to be your guru…just someone who’ll help point the way. If you’re looking for a real person who’s done the work, I’m your guy. I can light the path and walk along it with you but can’t walk for you.

Welcome to a special solo episode of our podcast. Today, we're diving deep into a crucial topic that affects many of our lives: people-pleasing and setting healthy boundaries. This focused, in-depth exploration is part of our new format, where we'll be dedicating entire episodes to key issues that matter to you.

Expect more of these concentrated, insightful discussions in the future as we tackle important subjects one by one. Now, let's jump into today's topic with Dr. Pedram Shojai, the Urban Monk, as he shares valuable insights on breaking free from people-pleasing tendencies.

Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform and check out the Urban Monk Academy here.

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With Dr Pedram Shojai NY Times Best Selling author and film maker. Taoist Abbot and Qigong master. Husband and dad. I’m here to help you find your way and be healthy and happy. I don’t want to be your guru…just someone who’ll help point the way. If you’re looking for a real person who’s done the work, I’m your guy. I can light the path and walk along it with you but can’t walk for you.

Welcome to another episode of the Urban Monk Podcast! In this solo episode, I delve deep into a crucial topic that affects us all: sleep. This focused, in-depth exploration is part of a new format we're introducing, where we'll be dedicating entire episodes to key areas of health and wellness.

In the coming weeks and months, you can expect more of these solo deep dives, each concentrating on a specific subject that's vital to your overall well-being. These episodes are designed to provide you with comprehensive insights and practical strategies you can implement in your daily life.

So sit back, relax, and get ready to gain valuable knowledge on how to prep for deep, restorative sleep.

https://series.theurbanmonk.com/deep-sleep-solution/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Dr Sharon Stills Dr. Sharon Stills is a Naturopathic Medical Doctor providing comprehensive health care, therapeutic and diagnostic services to patients worldwide. She combines her conventional medical training, data-driven science, cutting-edge diagnostic tools and a deep knowledge of natural healing to effectively identify and treat health concerns ranging from allergies to end stage cancer, and everything in between.

Dr. Stills is a 2001 graduate of SCNM (The Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine) in Tempe, Arizona, one of the nation’s foremost accredited medical schools. She specializes in European Biological Medicine –having trained extensively with Dr. Thomas Rau formerly of the Paracelsus Clinic in Switzerland. She was chosen to lecture alongside him as part of the Paracelsus Academy. In addition, she is also extremely well-versed in pro-aging therapies and Bio-identical Hormone Replacement. She is well known for her successful involvement with patients dealing with a Cancer Diagnosis – both early and advanced stage – and has been featured in many Oncology Summits based on her experience and knowledge of the subject. Dr. Stills travels the world seeking out the best of Natural Medicine options and bringing them back to the US.

Drawing from a wide variety of traditions and healing foundations, including Naturopathic, Bio-Regulatory, Functional, Homeopathic, TCM and Ayurveda, she has been successful in providing answers and healing pathways to her patients when others have failed.

Some of Dr. Stills’ favorite healing modalities include the use of isopathic and complex homeopathic remedies, bioidentical hormone replacement, live cell therapeutics, targeted use of vitamins and herbs along with the therapeutic use of color, breathwork and sound frequencies.

Dr. Stills has a passion for her profession and that drives her to embrace opportunities to lead, participate and contribute her vast knowledge and expertise.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Ryan Blaser Ryan Blaser is the accomplished Founder and CEO of Test My Home, an environmental company dedicated to improving people's health and wellbeing. As a functional medicine doctor for your home, Ryan uses his expertise in building biology and healthy home consulting to identify and address toxic sources that could be impacting your health. Ryan's extensive educational background in electrical engineering, environmental toxicology, and electromagnetic radiation, combined with years of experience in industries such as mold remediation, construction, and nuclear waste cleanup, has given him a deep understanding of the relationship between humans and their built environment.

After a personal wellness journey, Ryan founded Test My Home to help others achieve optimal health. He personally experienced the detrimental effects of mold exposure and lead inhalation, which caused unusual and serious health symptoms like fatigue, weight loss, and brain fog. After unsuccessful attempts with conventional doctors, Ryan took the initiative to investigate his home environment and found the source of his health issues.

He cured himself and is now sharing his knowledge and experience with the world. What makes Ryan stand out is his genuine care for people and his commitment to finding real solutions. Whether you are seeking answers or simply peace of mind, Test My Home is the perfect solution. Ryan's expertise will change your life

Listen to the episode on Spotify here or on your favorite podcast platform.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Warren Phillips Warren Phillips, M.S., the Non-Toxic Dad, is a social movement that educates individuals to choose a non-toxic lifestyle. A passionate and energetic individual, he lives by his words and works tirelessly to educate the world about avoiding and removing toxins. Non-Toxic Dad has reached and impacted over 100,000 million people in the last year. During the first 9 + years of his career, Warren worked as a published scientist and Environmental Consultant, cleaning and evaluating chemical and heavy metal impacts on human health and the environment. This work exposed him to these toxins, and he eventually fell ill with an “unexplainable illness.” The symptoms, including chronic pain, weight gain, and anxiety, were so severe that he struggled to find a reason to live. But he refused to give up on himself. After exploring alternative and natural methods of heavy metal detoxification, dietary changes, cellular support, and restoring his health, Warren became ignited with a passion for helping others facing similar challenges. For the past 18+ years, Warren has empowered health practitioners, health experts and the public through education, podcasts, and events. Now living in Utah with his wife and three young daughters, he is grateful for his family’s support as he continues this mission to help others choose a non-toxic lifestyle.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Dr Joel Warsh Joel Warsh is a Board-Certified Pediatrician in Los Angeles, California who specializes in Parenting, Wellness and Integrative Medicine. He grew up in Toronto, Canada and completed degrees in Kinesiology, Psychology and Epidemiology and Community Health before earning his medical degree from Thomas Jefferson Medical College. He completed his Pediatric Medicine training at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) and worked in private practice in Beverly Hills before founding his current practice, Integrative Pediatrics and Medicine Studio City, in 2018.

Dr. Gator has published research in peer-reviewed journals on topics including childhood injuries, obesity and physical activity.

He has been featured in numerous documentaries, films, summits, podcasts and articles including CBS, Fox, LA Parent, Washington Post, MindBodyGreen, and many others.

He is also the founder of the Parenting Masterclass Platform Raising Amazing which can be found at RaisingAmazingPlus.com

Dr. Joel Gator may be best known for his popular Instagram DrJoelGator where he offers weekly parenting and integrative pediatric support.

He is a consultant for high-profile brands in the health and wellness space.

Dr. Gator is married to Sarah Intelligator, an attorney, whose Holistic Divorce and Family Law practice is located in Beverly Hills. For almost 20 years, she has taught yoga throughout Los Angeles. Dr. Joel was given the nickname, Dr. Gator, by his peers after marrying Sarah Intelligator (yes that is her real last name) and the nickname stuck.

Dr. Gator is an avid athlete, foodie and traveler.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Gabby Reece Gabrielle Reece is not only a volleyball legend, but an inspirational health and fitness leader, podcast host, corporate speaker, New York Times bestselling author, wife, and mother. The former professional beach volleyball player and Nike’s first female spokeswoman is the definition of both athleticism and beauty. Gabby is a force to be reckoned with in the gym and on a microphone. She is the host of her podcast The Gabby Reece Show.

Gabby has become a force in the health and fitness category with and #1 in Mental Health in just 2 years. She interviews leading health, wellness, sport, psychology, and business experts to share their most valuable and actionable information to her audience. Together with her husband big wave surf pioneer and entrepreneur Laird Hamilton, they run health food company Laird Superfood along with many many other entities.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Deborah Kagan Deborah Kagan is an author and mentor with years of practice being a turned-on woman. She supports entrepreneurs, small business owners, consultants, creatives and the career-oriented to tap into their innate power and connect with their mojo – a source of true self-esteem.

Her methods combine over 25 years of experience in personal development, metaphysical studies, and embodiment practices. She is the author of Find Your ME Spot: 52 Ways to Reclaim Your Confidence, Feel Good in Your Own Skin and Live a Turned On Life and creator of the Rock Your Mojo™ Programs. She is also the host of The Real Undressed Podcast. Deborah’s upcoming book Undressed: An Invitation to Claim Your Erotic Nature (Urano World) will be released on October 24, 2023. Featuring real-life, candid stories from Deborah’s past personal sexual and relationship experiences, Undressed demonstrates the profound personal journey of discovering one’s erotic nature and awakening sexually. Undressed rips the bandage off the stigma of the turned-on woman, inviting readers to become erotically alive.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

About Elliot Roe Elliot Roe is a leading mindset and performance coach, celebrated for elevating the mental game in poker. With a foundation in hypnotherapy, Elliot has developed 'Primed Mind,' an app acclaimed for helping players achieve peak performance.

His expertise is not limited to poker; he also advises high performers across various disciplines, from UFC fighters & Olympians, to CEOs, Founders, and Hedge Fund Managers.

Elliot's holistic approach to mindset and performance has positioned him as a pivotal figure for those seeking to conquer stress, enhance focus, and master the emotional complexities inherent to high-stakes decision-making, both on and off the felt. Learn more at ElliotRoe.com.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

About Jeff Krasno Jeff is the co-founder and CEO of Commune, a masterclass platform for personal and societal well-being. He hosts the Commune podcast, interviewing a wide variety of luminaries from Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson to Matthew McConaughey and Gabor Maté. Jeff pens a personal weekly essay titled “Commusings” that explores spirituality, wellness and culture and is distributed to over one million subscribers every Sunday. Jeff is the creator of Good Stress, a collection of wellness protocols that he developed to reverse his diabetes, lose 60 pounds and reclaim his health at age 50.

Good Stress is available as on-line course and is being developed into a book and TV series. Jeff and his better three-quarters, Schuyler Grant, operate Commune Topanga, a 10-acre wellness center and production lab where they host regular retreats together featuring yoga, cold plunging, sauna bathing, lectures and story-telling. Jeff attended The Hotchkiss School and received his BA in 1993 from Columbia University. In 2008, Jeff co-created the concept for Wanderlust, a series of large-scale events combining yoga & wellness with the arts. Wanderlust became the world’s most recognized wellness events brand with 65 events in 20 countries. Jeff served as co-CEO for eight years. Jeff serves on the board of Pure Edge, a non-profit organization dedicated to integrating yoga and mindfulness curriculum into the public school system.

Jeff is a contributor to the Huffington Post and Fast Company. His first book, eponymously named, Wanderlust, debuted in May 2015 on Rodale and has sold more than 50,000 copies worldwide. He also curated the Wanderlust cookbook, Find Your True Fork which came out in July 2017. In 2016, he was selected by Oprah Winfrey to be part of the SuperSoul100 as one of the nation’s leading entrepreneurs. Jeff & Schuyler have three beautiful daughters, Phoebe, Lolli and Micah. They currently live in Los Angeles, California.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

About Claire and James Davis

Claire and James Davis are the husband and wife team behind the multi-award winning wellbeing company The Midlife Mentors, which gives men and women over 40 the body, mind and lifestyle tools they need to live their best life.

The couple also have a successful midlife health podcast; The Midlife Mentors (top 1.5% in global charts), run luxury retreats in Ibiza and Marbella and are regular media commentators, having been featured in The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Observer & Conde Nast Traveller to name but a few.

The couple’s science based approach, leveraging their backgrounds and qualifications in psychology, coaching, hormones, nutrition, personal training, stress management, menopause and NLP, empowers individuals to regain control and make positive, lasting change.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

About Elaine Glass Elaine Glass, a visionary author and highly experienced Master Life Coach, is renowned for her transformative retreats tailored for women navigating intricate midlife transitions. Her book, GET QUIET, will empower you to get back to feeling like yourself again! Elaine's path has been marked by significant leaps of faith. Understanding the profound impact of connection and compassion, she realized that true transformation occurs when people feel genuinely acknowledged and understood. Driven by a profound sense of purpose, Elaine’s mission is helping people live their BEST life.

Her unique approach, known as "The Get Quiet Way," is a roadmap to discovering your inner treasures and bringing them fully up to the surface and out into the world. She encourages you to be who you truly want to be, feel good again in your own skin, and realize your positive influence on your family and the world. Elaine's deepest commitments serve as more than just inspiration, they serve as a catalyst for action. She inspires and encourages people to dive deep within, acknowledge their truths, and lead a life that is unapologetically authentic. Her journey exemplifies that it is never too late to pivot, find your voice, and make a meaningful impact on the world.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Dr Dave Rabin Dr. David Rabin, MD, PhD, a board-certified psychiatrist and neuroscientist, is the co-founder & Chief Medical Officer at Apollo Neuroscience, the first scientifically-validated wearable technology to improve heart rate variability, focus, relaxation, and access to meditative states by delivering gentle vibrations to the body.

In addition to his clinical psychiatry practice, Dr. Rabin is also the Executive Director of The Board of Medicine, and a psychedelic clinical researcher currently evaluating the mechanism of psychedelic medicines in treatment-resistant mental illnesses.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Kristin Kirkpatrick

Kristin Kirkpatrick, RD, MS, author of Skinny Liver and upcoming book, Regenerative Health Kristin Kirkpatrick is a best-selling author, an experienced presenter, and an award-winning Dietitian. She is the President of KAK, Consulting, LLC, a dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic Dept of Department of Wellness & Preventive Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, and a Senior Fellow at the Meadows Behavioral Healthcare in Wickenburg, Arizona.

Kristin is also a contributing writer for TODAY.com, Eating Well Magazine, Costco Connection, and Cleveland Clinic Essentials and has appeared on both local and national shows such as the TODAY show, NBC Nightly News, Fox Business, Bloomberg TV, and the Dr. Oz show. Kristin is also a Nutrition Expert with the NBC affiliate for Denver, Colorado. In January 2017, Kristin published her first book, Skinny Liver: A Proven Program to Prevent and Reverse the New Silent Epidemic—Fatty Liver Disease. In February 2024 Kristin will release her second book, Regenerative Health: Discover Your Metabolic Type and Renew Your Liver for Life.

Kristin has over 25 years of experience in health management. She holds an M.S. in Health Promotion Management from American University in Washington, D.C., and a B.A. in Political Science from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She is licensed as a Registered Dietitian in the state of Ohio. In May 2012, Kristin received the Ohio Outstanding Dietetic Educator of the year award and, in 2013, received alumni of the year from her high school, Gilmour Academy.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Dr. Jeff Bland Dr. Jeffrey Bland, World-Renowned Nutritional Medicine Expert , “father of Functional Medicine”, and founder of Big Bold Health, a company on a mission to transform the way people think about one of nature’s greatest innovations — the immune system. Through Big Bold Health, Jeffrey is advocating for the power of Immuno-Rejuvenation to enhance immunity at a global level, often through the rediscovery of ancient food crops and superfoods. To get there, Jeffrey is building a network of small farms and suppliers throughout the US that take a clear stance on regenerative agriculture, environmental stewardship, and planetary health.

Jeffrey’s career in health spans more than 40 years. A nutritional biochemist by training, he began in academia as a university professor. Jeffrey then spent three decades in the natural products industry, working alongside other pioneers. A lifelong educator, Jeffrey has traveled the world many times over in his role as the “father of functional medicine.” In 1991, he and his wife, Susan, founded The Institute for Functional Medicine.

In 2012, Jeffrey founded another educational nonprofit called the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute. Jeffrey is the author of The Disease Delusion: Conquering the Causes of Chronic Illness for a Healthier, Longer, and Happier Life, as well as countless additional books and research papers.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Dave Asprey Dave Asprey is an award-winning entrepreneur and tech innovator known around the world as, "The Father of Biohacking." He's a multi-New York Times and national bestselling author of Game Changers, Head Strong, The Bulletproof Diet, and Smarter Not Harder, the creator of Bulletproof Coffee, and the host of the Webby Award-winning #1 rated health show, The Human Upgrade Podcast (formerly Bulletproof Radio). Dave is the founder and CEO of Upgrade Labs, the first franchise of biohacking gyms, and Danger Coffee, his mineralized, mold-free coffee.

Over the last two decades Dave has worked with world-renowned doctors, researchers, scientists, and global mavericks to uncover the latest, most innovative methods, techniques and products for enhancing mental and physical performance. Dave has personally spent over $2 million taking control of his own biology – pushing the bounds of human possibility all in the name of science evolution and revolution.

The creator of the Bulletproof diet and innovator of Bulletproof Coffee, Collagen Protein supplements and many more advances in commercial wellness products, Dave’s mission is to empower the entire globe with information and knowledge that unlocks the Super Human in everyone at any age. The proof of these advancements are better sleep, energy, and expanded capacity for all.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Dr Patrick Porter Patrick K. Porter, Ph.D. is an award-winning author, educator, consultant, entrepreneur, and speaker. With 20 years of experience operating the largest self-help franchise in the world, he has become a highly sought-after expert within the personal improvement industry, having sold over 3 million of his self-help products worldwide.

Dr. Porter has been on the cutting edge of brainwave entrainment technology for 32 years. His team was voted the “Best New Health App” at 2019 Consumer Electronic Show. His newest brain-training platform, BrainTap, is distinctively designed to activate the brain’s neuroplasticity. The BrainTap headset uses light & sound technology in combination with Dr. Porter’s proprietary guided visualization audio-sessions to help people achieve brain fitness, overcome stress, lose weight, stop smoking, manage pain, accelerate learning, enjoy superb sleep and make any number of lifestyle improvements.

He is the author of the award-winning bestseller, Awaken the Genius, Mind Technology for the 21st Century, Discover the Language of the Mind, Thrive in Overdrive, How to Navigate Your Overloaded Lifestyle, among others.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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Meet Sarah Intelligator Sarah is the author of “Live, Laugh, Find True Love: A Step-By-Step Guide to Dating and Finding a Meaningful Relationship, By a Divorce Attorney”.

Raised by a mother who has practiced Family Law for almost thirty years, and still practices, Sarah feels as though she has been exposed to the issues Family Law practitioners encounter on a daily basis, her entire life.

Sarah graduated from UCLA, cum laude, with a Bachelor of Arts, in English. She received a Juris Doctorate, from Southwestern Law School, in Los Angeles.

In her first year of law school, Sarah earned the coveted title of First Place Oralist in Southwestern Law School’s Intramural Moot Court Competition. Not only was this achievement a product of her extreme diligence and dedication, but also a testament to her strong skills as an advocate. Through this experience, Sarah learned that she truly had a passion for litigation.

In addition, while attending Southwestern Law School, in Los Angeles, Sarah clerked for the District Attorney, which provided her with a solid Criminal Law background as well.

Practicing exclusively Family Law since 2008, Sarah worked for the Law Offices of Rosaline L. Zukerman, APC, for five years, prior to opening her own practice.

Sarah recognizes that Family Law litigation is highly emotional and deeply personal, and she is dedicated to striking that delicate balance between zealous advocacy and empathy. The practice of Family Law is unique. Family Law litigants transcend any socio-economic, race or gender classifications. Divorce, domestic violence, and issues concerning child custody affect everyone equally. Sarah appreciates that her clients are people, who, for the most part, have never been involved in any litigation, going through what is, arguably, the most difficult time in their lives–often being asked to support two households on an income that previously supported only one. To that end, it is important to Sarah to keep her rates reasonable, as compared to other Family Law practitioners, in order to make legal representation as accessible as possible.

Sarah has also been a yoga instructor since 2000. Sarah incorporates her experience as an instructor into her lawyering style. Teaching has enabled Sarah to maintain calm even under the most rigorous of pressures. It has provided her with the invaluable opportunity to command the respect and attention of any group of individuals she addresses, and it is her nurturing nature that gravitated her, both, to teaching and to the practice of, specifically, Family Law.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Dr Steven Gundry Dr. Steven Gundry MD, Heart Surgeon, New York Times Bestseller, Host of The Dr. Gundry Podcast.

Dr. Steven Gundry is one of the world’s top cardiothoracic surgeons and a pioneer in nutrition. He hosts top-rated health show, The Dr. Gundry Podcast, is the Founder and Director of The International Heart and Lung Institute Center for Restorative Medicine, and founder of Gundry MD, a line of wellness products and supplements.

After a distinguished surgical career as a professor and chairman of cardiothoracic surgery at Loma Linda University, Dr. Gundry changed his focus to curing modern diseases via dietary changes. He is the author of New York Times bestsellers The Plant Paradox, The Plant Paradox Cookbook, The Plant Paradox Quick & Easy, and The Longevity Paradox, along with national bestsellers The Plant Paradox Family Cookbook, The Energy Paradox, Dr. Gundry’s Diet Evolution, and Unlocking the Keto Code, and has had more than 300 articles published in peer-reviewed journals on using diet and supplements to eliminate heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease, and multiple other diseases. He will also be releasing his next book Gut Check: Unleash the Power of Your Microbiome to Reverse Disease and Transform Your Mental, Physical, and Emotional Health on January 9, 2024.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Meet Dr Dale Bredesen Dale Bredesen, MD, received his undergraduate degree from Caltech and his medical degree from Duke University. He served as resident and chief resident in neurology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and as postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Professor Stanley Prusiner. He was a faculty member at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1989 to 1994 and was then recruited by the Burnham Institute to direct the Program on Aging. In 1998, he became the founding president and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and adjunct professor at UCSF. From 2013 to 2023, he returned to UCLA as a professor and director of the Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research. He is currently Senior Director of the world’s first precision medicine program for neurodegenerative diseases, which is at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute.

The Bredesen Laboratory studies basic mechanisms underlying the neurodegenerative process and the translation of this knowledge into effective therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions, which has led to the publication of over 200 research papers. He was the principal investigator for the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at UCLA. He established the ADDN (Alzheimer’s Drug Development Network) with Dr. Varghese John in 2008, leading to the identification of new classes of therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease. His group has developed a new approach to the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, the MEND protocol, and this approach has led to the first description of a reversal of symptoms in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and early Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Bredesen is the author of two New York Times bestsellers: The End of Alzheimer's: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline and The End of Alzheimer's Program.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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Meet Katie Katie Silcox, M.A. is the New York Times Best-Selling author of the book Healthy, Happy, Sexy - Ayurveda Wisdom for Modern Women and the upcoming new book - Glow-Worthy. She is the founder of The Shakti School, a premier online certification school for women-centered holistic wellness. She holds a Masters degree in Ayurvedic Medicine, is a member of the National Ayurvedic Medicine Association and is currently pursuing depth studies in Jungian Psychology. Her platform focuses on the convergence of ancient holistic medicine, functional medicine science and heart-centered spirituality. In her former life, she has been a researcher in Artificial Intelligence, a cover model for Yoga Journal magazine in Russia and the owner of a beach bar in Spain.

All of the Ayurveda School information can be found on this page: https://theshaktischool.com/ayurveda-school/ And listeners may use the discount code pod100 to receive $100 off any tuition option.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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Meet Jaiya Award-Winning Somatic Sexologist, Author of Your Blueprint for Pleasure, Star of Netflix's Sex, Love & goop Jaiya is an award-winning Somatic Sexologist, Author, Founder/Creator of The Erotic Blueprint Breakthrough™ and Star of Netflix's Sex, Love & goop. For over three decades, Jaiya has been immersed in the study of turn-ons, ancient erotic rituals, tantric sex, mastery of sensual touch, pure erotic play, kinky dynamics, and the biology and psychology of attraction and sexual fulfillment. She works with all kinds of bodies and sexual orientations, and through observation and clinical research, she discovered the Erotic Blueprint™, a map of arousal that reveals one’s specific erotic language and patterning and helps create a path forward to greater sexual fulfillment. She recently released her fourth book, Your Blueprint for Pleasure, which outlines the Erotic Blueprints. Instagram: @MissJaiya Website: https://missjaiya.com/ Link to book: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Blueprint-Pleasure-Awaken_and-Fulfill_Your/dp/145495003X Link to Erotic Blueprint quiz: https://theblueprintbreakthrough.com/

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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Meet Jeff Hays Jeff Hays, an award winning filmmaker, author, and television producer since the early nineties, gained national attention with Fahrenhype 9/11 (2004), a response to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. He followed that with On Native Soil (2006). Narrated by Kevin Costner and Hilary Swank, the documentary focused on the perspective of surviving family members of 9/11 victims and their efforts to create the 9/11 Commission. The film was acquired by LionsGate and NBC and was short-listed for an Academy Award. Hays produced a yearlong television series for Lifetime Television, and then returned to documentary film with Doctored (2012), and Bought (2014).

In 2017, Jeff partnered with Dr. Patrick Gentempo to create Revealed Films. Together they have released many multi-part series covering subjects including health and nutrition, medical issues, wealth-building, religious and political topics. (Money Revealed, Vaccines Revealed, Crypto Revealed, End Game, GMOs Revealed, etc.) Revealed Films launches 5-6 series each year adding to the rich stream of information they’ve produced in the past. Revealed recently released a series on the use of psychedelics in therapy, Psychedelics Revealed, and has completed a new series on addiction. Revealed Films was acquired by Genius Group, an NYSE listed company on October 4th, 2022. Hays and Gentempo will continue to run the company for the next 3 years. In addition to the Revealed projects, Jeff Hays Films was the Executive Producer for The Fix, a documentary series based on Johann Hari’s NY Times bestseller, Chasing the Scream, which was made into both an Academy Award-nominated film and an eight-part TV series presented by Samuel L. Jackson.

JHF has acquired the rights to three other books to produce via film: the NY Times bestseller Lost Connections by Johann Hari, The Bad One by Erin Tyler, and The Real Anthony Fauci by Bobby Kennedy, Jr. Additionally, JHF produced a series with Adam Carolla on resilience and another on happiness with Ben Greenfield, and completed The Millionaire Within Her with Kristi Frank. In 2021, JHF produced Amy Redford’s new narrative film, What Goes Around, which had its world premier at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022, and was sold to IFC. In September of 2022 Hays completed his newest documentary, The United States vs. Andre Norman, to be released in 2023. This film covers the poverty to prison pipeline for people of color in the US through the amazing story of Andre Norman. The covid lockdowns of 2020 provided ample time to finish two books. The first on entrepreneurship, The Entrepreneurial Brain, which has been acquired by Harper Collins and will be released in October of 2023. The second book, on spirituality called Love and Drugs; Tripping past Trauma into Joy, will be released in 2024.

Jeff resides in the mountains of Utah and works out of Jeff Hays Films’ soundstage and studio in Midvale, Utah. Together with his beloved wife Dori, he has eleven children and many grandchildren.

Find the full episode transcript and additional info here: https://theurbanmonk.com/the-brain-of-an-entrepreneur-is-different-with-guest-jeff-hays/

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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Meet Dr Nicole Beurkens Dr. Nicole Beurkens’ career has spanned many areas of human development, health, and wellness. While she has served in diverse roles of licensed psychologist, teacher, consultant, board-certified nutritionist, researcher, and advisor, her guiding principle has always been the same - provide people with information and tools that empower them to become the best version of themselves. Nicole’s advanced degrees in education, psychology, and nutrition have allowed her the opportunity to support children and adults in a wide variety of inpatient and outpatient settings, including her own award-winning clinic. She’s partnered with companies and brands to reach people around the globe with the innovative research, strategies, and products that get to the root of their challenges, and help them feel and function better.

Now she is proud to be leading the team at Berkeley Life as CEO, to bring the life-changing power of nitric oxide to the forefront of medicine, mental health, and people’s everyday lives. This represents the continued evolution of her mission to show the world that with the right foundations in place every human being has the capacity to thrive.

Find the full episode transcript and additional info here: https://theurbanmonk.com/nitric-oxide-and-your-health-with-dr-nicole-beurkens/

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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Meet Dr Gary Richter Dr. Gary Richter, DVM, is a distinguished veterinarian, author of newly launched books Longevity for Dogs and Longevity for Cats, international bestselling author of The Ultimate Pet Health Guide, founder of Ultimate Pet Nutrition. Dr. Richter is certified in veterinary acupuncture, as well as veterinary chiropractic. Dr. Richter understands the benefits of both conventional and holistic treatment methods. His professional goal is to provide a center where pets can receive effective holistic and regenerative therapies in conjunction with the highest quality of western medical care. He also places great emphasis on the well-being of the pet owner, knowing that a sick pet can cause great strain and strong emotions. He instills this understanding in his staff and works to ensure that both pet and owner are treated with the utmost care and respect.

Dr. Richter’s professional interests are the integration of holistic and general practice veterinary medicine, regenerative medicine, and educating professionals and pet owners on the benefits of integrative care. Dr. Richter is a past-president of the Alameda County Veterinary Medical.

Find the full episode transcript and additional info here: https://theurbanmonk.com/the-holistic-healthy-pet-lowdown-with-dr-gary-richter/

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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Meet Dr Gina

Dr. Gina Nick is a world-renowned Naturopathic Physician, Researcher, and Formulator based in Newport Beach, California. With a dedication to holistic wellness, she’s known for her expertise in treating a wide range of health concerns, from autoimmune diseases to addiction recovery, anxiety, and more.

After graduation from medical school, she became the Director of Research for a leading supplement company, earning the company billions. She’s since held the roles of Executive Healthcare Consultant to Local and Government Agencies and President Emeritus of the California Naturopathic Doctors Association. As the Founder and Director of Healthbridge in Newport Beach, California, her practice was awarded “Top Medical Practice 2017,” a testament to her commitment to excellence.

As a published author, entrepreneur, and certified yoga instructor, Dr. Gina is a multifaceted professional with a passion for improving the lives of others. With her unwavering commitment to nurturing health naturally, she’s not just your typical medical professional. Dr. Gina is a nurturing soul, a devoted mom, and an advocate for holistic well-being. She’s licensed in both California and Hawaii and is excited to share her journey with you…

Learn More

Get The Pixie Sticks

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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Dr. Kavita Desai, Pharm. D., Revivele Founder As an accomplished hospital-based pharmacist and the founder of the women’s health platform Revivele, Dr. Kavita Desai, Pharm. D. spent 13 years as a clinical pharmacist before pivoting to focus on preventative women’s healthcare. She established Revivele with a mission to fill the gap in women’s healthcare, and also wrote the book “Lady Parts: Putting Women's Health Back Into Women's Hands” (February 16, 2023), a handbook that empowers women to take control of their health through easy-to-follow tips and foundational knowledge. She was inspired to make a difference in this category when her mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, which was originally misdiagnosed as menopause. She currently uses her clinical skills to focus on brain health, disease prevention and how chronic illnesses affect women. Originally from Ontario, Canada, she earned her Doctorate in Pharmacy from Ohio Northern University in 2001. As an expert on women’s health, brain health and pharmacology, she has been featured on many national and regional broadcast health news segments. About Dr. Desai: https://www.revivele.com/about/

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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About Peter Hoppenfeld. Peter Hoppenfeld is widely recognized as the “go to” attorney and advisor in the representation of direct marketers, speakers, authors, information marketers, “thought leaders,” entrepreneurs and domestic and international training companies and their founders in all aspects of their legal and business affairs. Peter is a seasoned transactional, commercial attorney with direct marketing, internet marketing, distribution, licensing, marketing, branding and operational expertise. On a daily basis, Peter helps authors, speakers, entrepreneurs, business owners and thought leaders create effective marketing, merchandising and expansion strategies. His mission is to rapidly, smartly and strategically grow people’s businesses, reach and revenues. Peter’s been described as “a lawyer who understands marketing and a marketer who happens to be a lawyer”.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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Alex Howard is Founder & Chairman of The Optimum Health Clinic(OHC), one of the world’s leading integrative medicine clinics. With a team of 25 full time practitioners supporting thousands of patients in 50+ countries, the OHC team integrates a therapeutic coaching approach with functional nutrition.

Alex is creator of the Therapeutic Coaching methodology, and since March 2020, has been documenting his therapeutic work with real life patients via his In Therapy with Alex Howard YouTube series. In the last few years, Alex has created some of the largest online conferences in the health and mind–body markets; including the world leading Trauma Super Conference. Alex’s online conferences have been attended by over a million people. Alex has published academic research in publications such as the British Medical Journal Open and Psychology and Health, and is the author of the books Why Me? and Decode Your Fatigue. Alex’s latest book, It’s Not Your Fault – Why childhood trauma shapes you and how to break free is out now.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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About Dr. Margaret Christensen. An Institute for Functional Medicine faculty member for 12 years, Dr. Christensen first became interested in functional medicine 15 years ago when trying to solve the riddle of her and her family’s complex health challenges-- unbeknownst to her at the time were consequences of severe toxic mold exposure. She became intimately familiar with Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, Autoimmune, Hormonal, Neurological and Psychiatric consequences of unrecognized Biotoxin illness. A board-certified OB-GYN for 23 years, her initial boutique Functional Medicine practice has grown into The Carpathia Collaborative, a large multidisciplinary, FM Practice based in Dallas and covering the full spectrum of complex chronic disease. The practice provides 360 degree functional lifestyle and nutritional medicine and includes an onsite teaching kitchen, yoga studio and education library that also serves as the site for community-learning events. Dr. Christensen is passionate about educating her clients and colleagues about root cause, whole-systems medicine!

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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Anna Cabeca, DO, OBGYN, FACOG, is triple-board certified and a fellow of gynecology and obstetrics, integrative medicine, and anti-aging and regenerative medicine. She has special certifications in functional medicine, sexual health, and bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. She is known for her work using natural alternatives and traditional healing modalities for managing menopause successfully. She is the creator of the highly acclaimed virtual transformation programs Women’s Restorative Health, Sexual CPR, and Magic Menopause. The creator of the alkaline superfoods drink Mighty Maca Plus and the vulvar anti-aging cream Julva, she has been interviewed by all major television networks and has been featured in InStyle, HuffPost, and Mind Body Green. She lives on Saint Simons Island, Georgia, with her four daughters and her dog, Sandy.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Try this free course from The Urban Monk https://theurbanmonk.com/reboot Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

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Amish Shah was on top of the world and then he wasn't. It turns out, health and wealth don't always go hand in hand. When you lose your health, it's bad. Let's take a ride on this journey and see how Amish found his way back and learn from his experience.

Discover nature’s secret code to lifelong health & happiness:

https://theurbanmonk.com/naturallaw/

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

____

Izabella Wentz, Pharm.D.

https://mybook.to/adrenalprotocol

Izabella Wentz, PharmD, FASCP, is an internationally acclaimed thyroid specialist and a licensedpharmacist who has dedicated her career to addressing the root causes of autoimmune thyroid disease after beingdiagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in 2009.

She is the author of three books on Hashimoto’s: Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis Lifestyle Interventions for Finding and Treating the Root Cause, Hashimoto’s Food Pharmacology,and Hashimoto’s Protocol, which became a #1 New York Timesbestseller. Dr. Wentz currently lives in Austin and Los Angeles with her husband, Michael, and their son, Dimitry.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

___ Jill Carnahan, MD

https://readunexpected.com/ Known as ‘Your Functional Medicine Expert®’ Dr. Jill Carnahan has been featured in People magazine, Shape, Parade, Forbes, MindBodyGreen, First for Women, Townsend Newsletter, and The Huffington Post as well as seen on NBC News and Health segments with Joan Lunden. She is a prominent global keynote speaker and a prolific writer sharing her knowledge on stage and podcasts.

With over a decade of producing popular content, her articles can be found in journals, newsletters, books, and social media posts!

She is the Medical Director of Flatiron Functional Medicine, a widely sought-after practice with a broad range of clinical services including functional medicine protocols, nutritional consultations, chiropractic therapy, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, and massage therapy that attracts A-list celebrities and athletes.

A survivor of breast cancer, Crohn’s disease, and mold toxicity, she routinely treats patients who come to her for solutions to their medical mysteries that haven’t been solved.

Her YouTube channel and podcast features interviews with the healthcare world’s most respected names in medicine, science, and functional medicine. She co-authored the Personalized and Precision Integrative Cardiovascular Medicine Textbook and is set to release her prescriptive memoir through Forefront Publishing in 2023.

People relate to Dr. Jill’s science-backed opinions delivered with authenticity, love and humor. She is known for inspiring her audience to thrive even in the midst of difficulties.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

In this episode, Pedram and Chris discuss the ins and outs of functional medicine. How can you enhance your lifestyle with the right supplemments and treatments without paying millions at a time? What solutions exist that won't require you to bend over backwards for relief? Learn more in this episode with Chris Kresser!

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

In this episode, Pedram discusses his thoughts on sleep patterns and revisits his own experience with the ups and downs of sleeping. How can you achieve more consistent sleep? How can you reach deeper sleep? And what tricks can you add to your arsenal that will allow for a much improved and healthier lifestyle?

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bPOSSIBLE podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

In this episode, Pedram and Warren discuss the flaws in so many supplements that are common today and what the differences are between suplements that have a positive impact on your health and those that can be damaging. They also explain how to avoid toxic chemicals, whether they're in the air you're breathing or the food you're eating.

You can visit https://truecellularformulas.com/

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

Pedram and Greg sit down to discuss how you can make changes to encourage your brain to work better for you. They also dive deeper into the specifics of energy and how the brain and energy are connected. Learn more about these interesting connections and the link between neuroscience and energy at Neurohacker Collective.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

In this episode, Pedram talks with Ari Whitten about the ways that we can use energy to positively impact our lives and health. They discuss a wide range of forms of energy along with how each form can develop and the ways in which it can change your life for the better.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

In this episode, Pedram talks with Dr. Greg Eckel about longevity and how the most recent advancements in eastern medicines can improve peoples' lives in the West. What strategies can you pursue to lessen your pain, improve upon your illness, or simply live a happier and longer life? You can continue to learn about these topics at bpossible.com.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

In this episode, Pedram Answers Your Questions, Dr. Pedram Shojai responds to questions centered around gut health, the current state of Western Medicine, telehealth, and other interesting topics. Make sure to visit bPOSSIBLE.com for more info and advice from Dr. Pedram Shojai and many other renowned doctors and scientists!

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

In this episode, The Children with Dr. Nicole Beurkens, Pedram and Nicole discuss how modern developments in alternative medicine can directly impact the health of your children. They take a deeper dive into specific medicines and healing routes that might help children focus better in schools, avoid long-term health issues, and get on a better track towards a healhy adulthood.

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

In this episode, Quantum Biology with Catherine Clinton, Pedram and Catherine analyze how quantum biology has exploded to the forefront of modern medicine. What treatments now how substantial evidence that might've been doubted in the past? How are ancient indigenous medical practices re-emerging as essential perspectives on our health? What can you be focusing on if you want to live a healthier lifestyle? Join Dr. Pedram Shojai and Dr. Catherine Clinton in this episode of the bPOSSIBLE podcast!

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The Urban Monk podcast with Dr Pedram Shojai.

https://www.theurbanmonk.com/

Health, wellness, and personal development media in a new steaming service that's designed to help you live your best life. Pedram Shojai is the Urban Monk. He is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a Taoist Priest, a Qi Gong Master, film maker, author, and Kung Fu world traveler. He invites you to join in the conversation exploring what it means to live with balance in the 21st century.

In this episode, Gut Health with Kiran Krishnan from Microbiome Labs, Pedram and Kiran discuss the evolution of our perception of the microbiome and how the microbiome is currently viewed in science and society. What new science and treatments are emerging that could improve your health and lifestyle? What small changes can you make in the ways you eat, sleep, and go about your day that can greatly impact the health of your microbiome?

Discover Microbiome Labs

https://get.bpossible.com/microbiome/

https://get.bpossible.com/microbiome-tgr/

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What has been the crisis here in the West, where articles are constantly written about the dogmatic American work ethic? We don’t know why we’re doing what we’re doing. We’re just responding to our basest impulses – gotta eat, gotta pay bills, gotta avoid bad feelings, gotta up the dopamine. And until we know why we’re doing what we’re doing – chasing jobs or quitting them – nothing’s going to change. Jonathan Fields is obsessed with this problem. As a writer, his primary curiosity is what gets people up in the morning… and what makes them keep getting up when times get hard. Tune in and learn about your own sparketype so you can change your entire relationship to work.

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What does your brain have in common with a fungal network? Well, have you ever seen both? They look quite a bit alike... Often, neurologists frustrated at the stalemate we've reached as regards healing people are the first to research alternative methods – anything from psychedelics to bio feedback and even the physiological power of soothing. Listen to Dr. David Rabin tell me what he discovered about diverting resources away from survival and straight into recovery...

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Trying to get whole after a traumatic experience can feel like a lesson in acronyms – NLP, EMDR, CBT, etc. One method deserves to be better understood. You’ve likely seen videos of powerful physical reactions as people release the trauma their nervous systems have been holding onto. This is somatic experiencing. And Karlee Holden is a dedicated practitioner. She grew up well-versed in NLP and the language of healing. But later in life, it simply wasn’t enough to heal her. So she searched, and she foun

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Ann Louise Gittleman, who is 71 years young (though you’d never know it to hear about how she spends her days), fell into the world of detoxifying 40 years ago. The woman who became her mentor was 84 when they met; she lived to be 106. She taught Ann everything she knew about longevity and sparked in her a powerful urge to grow stronger as the years advance. Now, her life is lived in the service of unearthing cutting-edge resources that dismantle the myth of aging. We’re living longer, but we’re not necessarily living healthier. That’s where the term radical longevity comes from. The future is here, and Ann’s at the helm.

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Imagine if “joining the family business” meant partnering with your father to make groundbreaking microbiome research and gut solutions available to the masses twenty years before mainstream medicine gets hold of them. For Afif Ghannoum, that’s exactly what happened. His dad, Dr. Mahmoud Ghannoum, was one of the first major medical minds to study the microbiology of the oral biome… and then, in time, the GI biome. His discoveries have led to breakthrough after breakthrough, especially as regards a very important consideration: The presence of fungi in the gut and its interaction with the bacterial community.

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There's no punchline here – just a frank, honest, and loving discussion about the unconventional paths Rabbi Doniel Katz and I took to achieve and sustain enlightenment. Across disciplines, religions, practices, and ideologies, there’s something we all have in common that makes us more alike than it makes us different. We build and rebuild our spiritual hygiene every single day. The work and the discipline and the years of studying create an energy field around all of us that binds us to a shared purpose – to find true integration, and train the muscles that got us there to remember how to do it again and again and again.

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Whole body vibration isn't a new idea, but the advancement of the technology recently might as well have reinvented the wheel. My good friend Perry Cammisa has been helping me rehab an injury through PM&R with the power of vibrational therapy, and if you didn't know that was a possibility... you need to hear this. This tech can be traced back to Russian astronauts innovating ways to reintegrate back into Earth's gravity-laden environment. Actually, even farther than that, but we'll get there. Ultimately? We're talking about bone mass and why it's so important to your WHOLE body health.

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In 2019, former bodybuilder Aaron Alexander published his book all about the eponymous method he developed himself: "The Align Method: 5 Movement Principles for a Stronger Body, Sharper Mind, and Stress-Proof Life." He thinks our bodies speak more than one language – and depending on how connected you are to its pain and joy, you may not be able to understand what it’s telling you. And then how will you know when you’re aligned and when you’re not? How will you read the signal? Alignment isn’t just a yoga buzzword – it means a lot more than that, and it’s informed by more than how advanced your practice is. Tune in as we talk about compensatory practices (both Western and not, male and not), the importance of heightened senses to our nervous system, why nutrition means more than diet, the two biggest factors in miscommunication, and so much more.

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How long is it going to take for the emotional tectonic plates of society to shift from grounding in foundation and tradition to exploring lofty ideals and leading with imagination? Who did ancient cultures believe they were worshipping when they looked to the heavens for advice? How do we respond to good times, to chaos, to tough times? How did our ancestors? These are the kinds of questions that keep Dr. Rachelle Dixon busy in her practice and in her personal development. We got to dig into how astrology can be used as an optimization tool to guide us towards our best lives, even if you choose not to believe in it. She's spent her life as a doctor, healer, and educator trying to instill belief in one's own intuition into those she works with – and the stars are often a historical and contemporary source of wisdom from which to draw. Pedram and Rachelle wax astrological about where we've been, where we are, and how we can prepare for where we're going.

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If your first reaction to drinking the olive oil in your cabinet is to check the date or gag, you're probably using olive oil as distant from a fresh olive oil harvest as the tea in your cupboards are from Chinese botanicals. T.J. Robinson, former chef and professional olive oil tester and judge, had such a revelation upon tasting his first fresh olive oil that he not only never went back... But he started a Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club that sources from four different seasonal harvests per year in order to deliver perfectly aged olive oil made from the highest quality olives that can be certifiably found. He talks me through a taste-testing of his latest batch, debunking all sorts of myths about the health benefits, cooking uses, and grocery store varieties of olive oil along the way.

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Ron and Johanna Melchiore have been living off the grid for decades, but what does it mean to go off the grid? How disconnected must one be? Ron and Johanna join Pedram Shojai and discuss their experience in having their own chunk of wilderness. What was it like getting started? How did they build their home? How do they get food? How do they collect water for cooking, drinking, and bathing? And what do they do during the winters? Pedram asks about the freedom of having the land work for you but also the potential dangers of being isolated. Becoming an independent homesteader does not mean fully disconnecting from society, but what complications could still arise? Is this something anyone can do?

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"Plants often look like what they're for," Evan Cohen tells Pedram Shojai. For many of us who have lived in urban environments all of our lives, this can be a difficult concept to grasp. This week's guest to The Urban Monk Podcast discusses the benefits of how plants in certain cases can have obvious benefits just based on what they look. How can we determine the energetic signature of plants and how can we harness their essence to benefit our health?

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We don't need to tell you, but 2020 has been quite the wild ride! With so much going on from the US Presidential election to the pandemic to wild weather events such as wildfires and hurricanes, it's hard to just focus! Attention is being pulled in every direction. Social media is even monetizing attention! So how do we get our focus back to ourselves? Pedram Shojai here on The Urban Monk Podcast wanted to take a moment to discuss the importance of drawing attention back to yourself. With how media can divert our attention to things that may not be affecting us in the moment, it can be hard to focus on your own needs. What is important to you? What goals do you have? And what are you doing to reach those goals? Pedram gives some tips based on his studies with Chinese Medicine on how you can make yourself your own main focus again.

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Everyone is exhausted! We all run into walls. We have trouble waking up in the morning and we go for the cup of coffee or tea to pick us up, but by the afternoon we crash. We do we continue to ride these waves of highs and lows of energy? Why do so many of us suffer from chronic fatigue? The usual suspects of stress and lack of sleep are obvious, but what if there was more to it? Is it the food we eat? The lack of exercise? Could it be unchecked mold building up in our homes?

Do we have to drastically change our lives to live a life full of energy? Or are the minor changes and shifts we can make that add up to leave chronic fatigue behind?

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Kawasaki Disease is a condition that causes inflammation in the walls of some blood vessels in the body. It's most common in infants and young children. Recently there have been cases of a Kawasaki-like disease associated with COVID-19 appearing. What does the early research show? Pedram Shojai invites pediatrician Dr. Pejman Katiraei back to give a ground-level view of what he's currently seeing. Is this emergence of Kawasaki Disease a concern for parents? On top of everything else to worry about during the pandemic, how can we best protect children from this potential illness? This video is part of our new course, Raising Healthy Kids, part of the Urban Monk Academy. Try it free for 2 weeks: https://secure.theurbanmonk.com/academy/raising-healthy-kids

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News used to be just the facts. But nowadays media has become highly charged, fear-based grabs for ratings. While it's important to be an informed citizens, sometimes the dour news can be extremely detrimental to our own outlook on the world while adding undue stress into our lives. Guest John Biffar, founder and president of PeaceVision, has a different approach. John through PeaceVision produces original video aiming to be free of negativity, politics, and violence while showcasing paths towards positive change. How is John able to bring to light stories of positivity in a society of click-bait headlines? How does John hope to provide people with actionable ways to achieve more peace in their own lives? How can we be conscious of the media we consume and how that affects our own lives in the era of coronavirus and COVID-19?

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As the COVID-19 pandemic continues many people are looking to whatever they can to take preventative measures against the coronavirus risk. Washing hands and sanitizing surfaces are great steps, surely, but what about other over the counter remedies? Dr. Elroy Vojdani and Dr. Pejman Katiraei join Pedram Shojai on this episode of The Urban Monk Podcast to discuss how certain measures might actually be more damaging to the gut and the gastrointestinal tract that might work against the immune system. What is happening in the gut and the immune system when we are infected with COVID-19 or other viruses? Why does infection affect some with terrible symptoms while others are asymptomatic? How is the mucosal immune system a front line defense and how can we bolster its effectiveness through lifestyle? Is the conventional traditional medical model able to study viral infections from a holistic perspective?

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The pandemic of COVID-19 has changed the world and how we all interact with one another. But for many of us this pandemic has also affected our jobs, our schools, our livelihoods. While it is important to remain safe and follow social distancing guidelines, how must we change our mindsets on how we earn an income? Pedram Shojai invites Robert Kiyosaki to The Urban Monk Podcast. Robert is the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He discusses how we must think about cashflow and the system many of us find ourselves trapped in. That is the system that has now broken during a pandemic. How can we leave the rat race to become financially independent and prepare for the next economic downturn?

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2020 is off to a wild start! The world is chaotic. How do we find a calm respite while balancing work, children, dinner, and errands that take over our lives? Pedram discusses how he uses qi gong to still the chaos of the world.

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Marijuana and its various forms are getting a second look from both the general public and the medical community. The scientific community is diving deep into research of CBD and its potential various medical applications to heal but without the psychoactive effects. What is the new research on the healing properties of CBD? Pedram Shojai welcomes guest Leonard Leinow to discuss how CBD can help patients heal.

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Contemporary life provides us with infinite opportunities. We can immerse ourselves in the vast, enticing world of digital media. But living in this 24/7 hyper-reality comes at a steep cost: left unchecked, it poses serious risks to our physical and mental health, relationships, and even the ability to control our thoughts. David Perlmutter, MD joins Pedram Shojai on The Urban Monk Podcast to discuss how the culture around us can affect us. Based on the latest science, Dr. Perlmutter reveals the mental hijacking that undermines each and every one of us, and presents the tools necessary to think more clearly, make better decisions, strengthen bonds with others, and develop healthier habits.

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Stem cells were once controversial due to their method of acquisition but the research has advanced and there are new ways to gather stem cells. The benefits of using stem cells to heal are great and Pedram Shojai himself has been using stem cells to help heal a previous hip injury of his under the supervision of this week's guest, Dr. Harry Adelson! How do stem cells work and where are doctors now getting them from? What is the success rate and what can someone using stem cells reasonably expect?

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Flint, Michigan was only the tip of the iceberg. From big cities and suburbs to the rural heartland, chemicals linked to cancer, heart disease, obesity, birth defects, and lowered IQ routinely spill from our taps. Many are to blame: the EPA, Congress, a bipartisan coalition of powerful governors and mayors, chemical companies, and drinking water utilities—even NASA and the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the bottled water industry has been fanning our fears about tap water, but bottled water is often no safer. So then what is the solution? Pedram Shojai welcomes author Seth M. Siegel back onto The Urban Monk Podcast to discuss the current state of drinking water how to ensure the water coming out of your tap is safe to drink.

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When you invest your money in either the banks or on Wall St. have you ever considered what your money is actually doing? What impact does your money have when you put it into a savings account or a retirement fund? Is your money going towards companies that you would want to do business with? And how can you tell if a company is actually doing good, not just on a financial sheet, but for the world and its environment? Martin Whittaker, founding CEO of JUST Capital, takes out the guesswork when trying to find ethical places to invest your money. He joins Pedram Shojai on The Urban Monk podcast to discuss the current state of finance and how that is impacting the world at large.

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Toxins are everywhere and they're difficult to avoid. Even when we try our best we may still be exposed to harmful toxics that affect our health and wellbeing. What sort of toxins are we being exposed to regularly and how do they affect us? Pedram Shojai welcomes Urban Monk Podcast regular Tom Malterre back to the show to discuss the ongoing research into endocrine disrupters that mess with our lives.

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Are women showing off their full authentic selves? Traits labeled as "feminine" such as sensitivity, intuition, or feeling emotional were once disparaged as weaknesses and both men and women were encouraged to shut down these aspects of their personalities. Author Amy Stanton challenges old and outdated perceptions that feminine traits are weaknesses and the book The Feminine Revolution revisits those characteristics to show how they are powerful assets that should be embraced rather than maligned. It argues that feminine traits have been mischaracterized as weak, fragile, diminutive, and embittered for too long, and offers a call to arms to redeem them as the superpowers and gifts that they are.

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Many people enjoy a glass of wine whether it be with dinner or just a way to unwind after a long day at work, but have you ever thought about what's actually in your wine? Wine doesn't actually list the ingredients on the bottle. Well Todd White of Dry Farm Wines joins Pedram Shojai on The Urban Monk Podcast to discuss exactly why that is. Todd also talks about the process in which wine is mass produced and the troubling toxins that may actually be the cause of some headaches associated with wine. What does it take to remove the wine of these toxins? What is the end result for the taste and flavor of the wine?

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You may have heard (often) to fire up your metabolism in order to lose weight, but what really does that mean? How are we able to control our metabolism? Dr. Alan Christianson suggests we should focus on our livers to better serve our body. How does the liver control the fat being stored in our bodies? How can we work better to lose extra inches off our bellies? What role does the liver play in suppressing metabolism?

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The Urban Monk is back after a hiatus from the podcast. Pedram Shojai has been busy all year filming a new docu-series on the microbiome titled Interconnected! Here he takes some time to sit and just talk about the experience of filming the series and what he learned and the many experts he was able to interview. No guest in this episode, just Pedram at the wheel driving solo.

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Dr. Tom O'Bryan is no stranger to The Urban Monk and he returns to talk about what it takes to restore cognitive function. We've all experienced that brain fog where we can't remember where we put our keys or can't connect the name to the face or forgotten birthdays. What causes our brain to slow down and what can be done to bring it back to optimal operation? Dr. Tom O'Bryan has a step-by-step plan to bring our brains back to tip-top shape so that we can live our best lives!

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There's a lot of information when it comes to dieting. Things to eat, things not to eat, things to eat at a certain time, times to not eat, how long to eat, how much to eat, eating as much as you want, restricting how much you want to eat, tricking yourself into not wanting to eat, what the hell are we supposed to do? Cassie Bjork comes onto the podcast this week to talk it out with Pedram about all the diets that are circulating around. Paleo, keto, Atkins, what are all of these and which one is right for each person? How can a person even know?

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Aimee Raupp is an acupuncturist and herbalist who has worked with scores of women through various issues. Through her experience in the clinic she has come up with a roadmap to heal from autoimmune disease. She transitioned from helping women with poor fertility outlooks to working with patients on a more spiritual and emotional level. How can one attune one's behavior to better serve your own body?

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How important is a morning routine? How can what we do in the morning affect the rest of our day? Benjamin Spall has written about this very topic and joins Pedram Shojai to deeply examine the common habits people get into when they wake up. Think about what you do when you wake up. The very first thing. Do you take a moment to appreciate perhaps your spouse? Or are you reaching for the phone to see who's emailed you in the last 8 hours? What affect could this have on our day to day lives? How do we break routines and add in new ones? What positive routines can we fold into our mornings?

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Microbes are life forms that are too small to see without a microscope. There are microbes in the soil, in the atmosphere, and even inside every one of us. How do these microbes live? How do they behave? What are they doing inside each and every person and do they affect the person as a whole? Author Eugenia Bone joins Pedram on The Urban Monk to discuss the fascinating micro-world.

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Many of us try to do everything we can to stay healthy, but at times it can be overwhelming. Thankfully, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee through his years of experiences as a doctor has worked out four key components to keep focus upon if we want to prevent disease: food, relaxation, sleep, and movement. By focusing on little changes, the multitude of little changes can add up to big results that will make all aspects of life better. What is the best way to incorporate these four pillars into our everyday lives?

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Technology in all of its forms is becoming more prevalent in our every day lives. From mobile phones to tablets and video games and social media, it's quite pervasive. For developed adults, we've come to adapt, but how does it affect the development of a child? Pedram talks with psychologist Richard Freed about the studied effects of technology on the developing brain. How much is too much? Is there an acceptable amount of screen time at all for younger children? How can a parent best control the amount of time their children spends in front of the television or holding a tablet?

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This week's episode of The Urban Monk is extra special as guest Emily Fletcher was able to actually visit with Pedram and record with him in his own dining room! Emily was a performer on Broadway stages for ten years which is one of the high forms of insanity. She would wake up and head to a theater sometimes not knowing what role she would be performing that evening. In such a high-stress environment, what made her finally settle down to try meditation? Did she have any pre-conceived notions about meditation? How does she make time for meditation in our current world of deadlines and meetings and conferences?

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At the age of 22, Leo Galland's son, Christopher, passed away. He was a brain-damaged special needs child who was able to provide uncanny insights. Though Christopher is gone, to Leo his wisdom and presence remains. What is it to feel someone's presence after they've passed away? What is the spirit? How can we feel the spirit of a loved one? How can we connect with our own?

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Many of us understand the importance of diet when it comes to health. Sure, eating the right food is important if we want to maintain a healthy weight, but what other effects does food have? Max Lugavere has come to know the power of food very well. His mother was displaying symptoms of Alzheimer's disease but they never made any connections that the foods she was eating may have been worsening the disease. What connections was Max seeing between what his mother was eating and what symptoms were being displayed by his mother? Were changes made that resulted in a different health outlook?

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Prion diseases are very rare. There are on average only about 300 reported cases in the U.S. every year. Because of its rarity it can be difficult to diagnose. Dr. Greg Eckel is very aware of the topic because his wife has been inflicted with a prion disease. It's been a very scary struggle for him and his family as she struggles with this incurable disease. What are prion diseases specifically? What causes them? What symptoms exist?

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Water is essential to life as we know it. Not only do we need it to survive, we also use water for so many other things such as agriculture, food preparation, and showering. For many of us, we take the water that comes from our taps for granted, but where exactly is that water coming from? What sort of infrastructure is required to deliver endless gallons of water to millions of people?

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The earth's population is above 7.6 billion people. That's a lot of people who need to eat. Fishing is an especially large industry, but it's wreaking havoc for certain natural ecosystems and habitats. Some species are being fished in the tens of millions each year. Is there a better way? Bren Smith is a former fisherman who understood he was involved in a highly destructive industry. He then began working with a large salmon farm, but found it was essentially the same destruction. He began searching for a more sustainable way to fish and farm which led him to develop 3D ocean farms. What are 3D ocean farms? What sort of seafood is Bren able to farm? What are the benefits of 3D ocean farms versus traditional seafood farms?

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Diets are hard. Not even in the weight loss sense, but just in the general idea of the general foods a person should eat to be generally healthy. We're told that fats make us fat, but then someone else comes along to say that fats actually help to lose weight. Salt is bad, but someone else says it's fine. Gluten will mess you up, but someone else says, "Maybe in moderation you'll survive." What is it?? Dr. Mark Hyman joins Pedram Shojai on The Urban Monk to discuss the confusing, confounding, conflicting messages regarding what to eat. Who should we listen to? What do all the various food studies mean? What the heck should we eat?

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There's a lot going on in the world and it's easy to believe we won't be able to make a difference, especially at the individual level. It's easy to think we're alone in our feelings, but what if there was actually a community that was as passionate as we are? Fiona Hazell and Emelie Ekblad had a chance meeting that led them to create MAD. What were their individual journeys and experiences through various conditions that led them to madness? How did Emelie and Fiona meet? What about their meeting led them to forming MAD? What are they hoping to accomplish? How are they forming a new community to work together to resolve the big issues they see around the world?

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Autonomous cars hold a lot of promise. Imagine if we could reduce or even fully eliminate automobile accidents due to road rage, drunk driving, or distracted drivers. Imagine if rush hour traffic was no more! Imagine the time you could get back to nap, read, or talk more intently with someone on the phone if you didn't have to drive! These are some of the various promises made by the concept of a self-driving car, but how realistic are these promises? On this episode Pedram Shojai welcomes Eric Noble from The Car Lab to discuss the advancements auto-makers have been able to make and how much further we still have to go before we get a fully autonomous car that allows us to take a heavy duty nap on the road. What are the technological limitations? Are we sure we'll be able to overcome these barriers? What sort of time frame can we expect before everyone is able to afford a self-driving car? Are there legal barriers to self-driving cars? How long before we can expect everyone to have a driverless car?

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Dieting sucks. Let's just be honest about that. Holidays, birthdays, and even just a Friday night out with friends means we are all often surrounded by tempting foods that are not perhaps the best for our midsections. How can we easily navigate the endless food options that always appear in front of us at the worst times? For Robyn Youkilis, she understands this struggle. She also recently had her first child and had to re-shift her thinking as she set realistic goals in returning to her normal pre-baby weight. Regarding the struggle of losing weight, sometimes people can become hard on themselves if the results aren't immediate. How can we push back against this mentality of wanting and needing quick weight loss?

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How do we know something is safe? From lotion to food to soap and shampoo, we interact with so many different items in a single day. Who is checking that these items are safe? Amy Ziff was a journalist living in Silicon Valley who asked these questions when twins were having allergic reaction to otherwise normal items such as pillows and diapers. She had an older child who did not have any sort of reaction to these items. What was happening with her younger children? What chemicals were going into household items? Are these all listed on packages? If not, how did Amy figure out what was contained in various items? Even when doing the research, how are we able to filter what is truth and based in science rather than a blogger's speculation?

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After a little hiatus The Urban Monk podcast is back with new episodes! Starting off 2018, we have Scott Stabile joining Pedram Shojai. Scott is the author of Big Love: The Power of Living with a Wide-Open Heart. It's really easy to focus on the negative aspects of our lives and the world at large, but what happens if we choose to focus exclusively on the kindness and love? Scott insists that change can lead to endless good. Scott didn't have it easy either. His parents were murdered when he was fourteen. His brother later died of a heroin overdose. After that Scott joined a cult that dominated his life for thirteen years before he took the steps to walk away. How was he able to face these struggles and emerge on the other side with endless love for not only himself, but the world around him?

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Many suffer from fatigue. Despite making lifestyle changes regarding diet and schedules some people are still plagued with fatigue. Could it be exhausted adrenal glands that are unable to produce adequate amounts of hormones that are leading to fatigue? This is a hotly debated topic in the medical community. To some there is an easy correlation between symptoms and diagnosis, but what is the real research? Ari Whitten looked into the concept of "adrenal fatigue" to see what research existed. What did he find? What data exists? Does adrenal fatigue really exist? How can data be cherry-picked to back a pre-determined argument? Are there possibly other reasons for chronic fatigue? What other factors might exist that leads to a person fatigue?

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The co-founder of Runa, Tyler Gage, stops by the studio to discuss with Pedram how he started his company. A graduate of Brown University, what made him leave behind his suburban life to go explore the Amazon rainforest with indigenous elders at the age of 20? Runa, according to Inc Magazine, has become one of the 500 fastest growing companies in the US. How has Tyler been able to expand his the company so quickly? How does Runa's mission statement help better the Amazon rainforest while still allowing growth and expansion in a consumer economy?

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