GIOSTAR Chicago Explores Holistic Healing with Chopra Global Chief Medical Officer

Shelly Sood 

Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us today we have Dr. Sheila Patel, the Chief Medical Officer for Chopra Global and a board certified family physician. She practiced full spectrum family medicine for 15 years and currently maintains an integrative family medicine practice in Southern California.  Dr. Patel joined the Chopra Center in Carlsbad, California in 2010, as part of the medical team and eventually as medical director.

She speaks at Chopra Global events as well as other national and international Integrative Health conferences and as a lead educator for the Chopra certification programs. She leads the Ayurvedic health training for physicians and staff at partner properties such as CIVANA wellness Resort and Spa and Lake Nona. Mind Body zone.

She also maintains a voluntary clinical position at the University of San Diego Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health. Dr. Patel is also on the clinical research team for the Chopra Foundation, with a commitment to bringing scientific validation to mind body practices. And as the co author of multiple publications on the subject of meditation and Ayurveda. She enjoys the opportunity to bring light to the mechanisms of action of mind-body practices and sharing this knowledge with others.

Dr. Patel believes the best way to achieve wellness is to integrate all of the knowledge available to us from modern conventional medicine, as well as from traditional healing systems. Her hope is that by confirming the benefits of the practices, more people will gain access to these life enhancing techniques and learn how to implement them into their lives for optimal wellbeing. 

Welcome, Dr. Patel. Thanks for joining us. Thanks. I’m happy to be here. Yeah, you have quite a resume. Quite.

Dr. Sheila Patel  

I know, as you were reading it, I was like, Ooh, that’s a mouthful, I can maybe shorten that.

Shelly Sood  

Oh, no, everything you said, I mean, everybody needs to know your background. So it’s fabulous.

Dr. Sheila Patel  

And I’m really, really grateful, I think I have this very unique…I’ve always just had these unique opportunities to be on both sides of…I trained for people out there, I did train in the Western medical model.  So I’m an MD, did residency and board certification in family medicine, which I love. Because I do believe in that continuity of care, which is a little bit disruptive in our modern sort of system, but also prevention.

That’s partly why I went into family medicine: I wanted to help people prevent disease and keep them healthy and happy and really get to know my patients. So I’m really grateful to have had that experience. And I did that for many years.

Dr. Sheila Patel  

But then I started realizing that although modern medicine has many great tools, and we need them, sometimes. But it really wasn’t the end all and be all for healing, and really preventing disease, we can do some things.  But my patients being in primary care as a physician, they would come back to me after being in the hospital. And I had the advantage.

In my medical practice, I was doing full spectrum family medicine. So I was it was really the “birth to death” model: I would deliver babies of my patients and then maybe help people transition if they were in long term care and everything in between the ER inpatient.  So I got to see when people got really sick, all the magic we could do to pull them back the body primarily; which kind of gets into the opportunities I’ve had at Chopra to understand ourselves as more than just a body.

But that was very helpful, or they would come in sick with an infection and we would help them but then they would come back to my to the office after that acute event and say, “how can I not have that happen again?” or all of the different things we deal with still insomnia, anxiety, depression, just  symptoms that don’t have a diagnosis, or “what do I do doctor?” And I didn’t have any answers for them, and I didn’t like that. Because I want to help people relieve their suffering and help them heal. So I went on a journey and that included all of the things that you that you are in my bio. I learned about traditional healing systems because my parents are from India, although I was raised in the States.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

And I knew about Ayurveda—which is the traditional healing system or really medical system that came from India. And so I dove deeper into what did people do before modern medicine because I knew my relatives, many of them were very healthy, lived long, healthy lives.

Dr. Sheila Patel  

People all over the world did and obviously, antibiotics and procedures like certain things really helped people to live. But, I knew there was more. So I went on this journey and moved to California (where I live now), had the opportunity to understand the real foundations of Ayurveda that which is we are by body, mind and spirit, we have experiences in all these different levels.

And there are tools for healing at all of these different levels. So I started learning what are those tools? How do we define ourselves and integrate body, mind and spirit, and was able to do integrative consultations at the Chopra Center, which is – now we don’t have the physical space.  But now I get to do that through webinars and our certifications, and was so so lucky to be part of the Chopra research team, that we collaborated with UCSD and UCSF and many academic centers to really look at what happens…why do we feel better when we meditate or when we have an Ayurvedic lifestyle? Or we do yoga breathing techniques what, what happens, that the outcome is we feel better?

Dr. Sheila Patel  

Yeah, that’s it. I love talking about that. And learning about that in in the last 10 years, the research in this area has exploded. And it really is validating all of the traditional lifestyle practices that Ayurveda and many healing modality traditional healing systems teach? Yeah, so.  So I’ve had the opportunity to do lots of different things. And it’s been great.

Shelly Sood  

Yeah, I mean, Ayurveda we know is the “science of life.” So tell us a little bit more about really what that means.

Dr. Sheila Patel  

Yeah, so the the word “Ayurveda” literally means “life science.” So “ayus” is life, “veda” is wisdom or science, or knowledge. So it’s the knowledge of life. So Ayurveda, that is the system of medicine, really, that describes life. And within that it can describe any life experience that we have. And it’s very similar to the yoga philosophy and yoga traditions where we have these different layers of our existence.

Dr. Sheila Patel  

So we have definitely have the physical body, that’s one layer of our experience. It’s how we interact with things in the world, we have a subtle body or a mind. So we have thoughts, we have our intellect, we have our emotions, they don’t have a form, but we have an experience of thoughts, right, we have an experience of emotions.

And then there’s the causal body or the spiritual body, which is these deeper states of being and having meaning and purpose and feeling a connection to something bigger than just this individual experience.

And these all of these things are very important.  And people can have issues and all of these different layers. And so I just once I started learning Ayurveda that I was, I was just hooked, because it explains all of the life experiences.  So it truly is the science of life. And all of the patients I’d seen over the years where I didn’t have an explanation, it’s like, oh, because this is happening in the energy body, oh, this is happening.

Because they’re not connected to their wholeness or whole self. They’re struggling in the mind, or whatever. And so, that’s one of the things I like about Ayurveda. And also, it’s a lifestyle medicine. So it’s how to live your life, to create health on a daily basis, and to prevent disease and to thrive, and to do all the things that you want to do and that you’re meant to do in this life. And so, yeah, it truly is the science of life.  And it’s a qualitative science, sometimes we use that word science, like it has to be a certain way. So it’s the science of experience and how we experience the world in a qualitative sense – how do things feel, what are the qualities of nature? And how do they show up in us? So it’s very nature based?  And, yeah, I mean, I could talk about Ayurveda all day; at Chopra Global I talk about all of these different things. And I love it. Yeah.

Shelly Sood 

Do you feel that traditional medicine has been somewhat limited when it comes to the care of your patients? And in what ways have you seen the limitations?

Dr. Sheila Patel  

Do you mean like, the limitations of the systems themselves?

Shelly Sood  

The limitations of existing traditional medicine, of course, we need traditional medicine are advantages to it when a patient breaks their leg, they go for surgery, when they have a bacterial infection, they get treated. 

But when it comes to some of the chronic conditions that we’re seeing, even at GIOSTAR and everything, we are trying to get kind of to the root of the problem versus and holistically treat the patient versus a band aid or a medication or a patient’s checking their medications and then not knowing what really is causing the symptoms. So that’s what we’re seeing.  So I’d love to see from your angle, how you feel about what insight you have on that?

Dr. Sheila Patel  

Yeah, I mean, that’s exactly what I saw in my practice that it’s great for certain things like modern medicine has the perfect tool. If you think about a toolbox for very particular things that you mentioned, infections, even metabolic or issues where the body’s just gotten really off track, we can push the body to do things in these very powerful ways.  And we need to do that sometimes that’s life saving. But those are only certain tools. And so the limitations are exactly what Ayurveda that gives us these foundational principles of not just getting people out of danger and putting a bandaid on their symptoms.

So you’re just brushing them under the rug. But getting to the root cause of disease is a very basic tenet in Ayurveda: personalizing it. So in medicine, we do the same thing for everyone, you come in with a diagnosis, and here’s the medicine for it, or here’s, you have a problem. Here’s the procedure for it, we don’t look at each individual person.

So Ayurveda that is a personalized approach to health.  And it’s also a core tenet in Ayurveda, which we’re just starting to appreciate in kind of conventional science in medicine is that digestion is key to health. So if you would have said that 10 years ago, even or 20 years ago, people in medicine, or like, they would pooh pooh it, like “what are you talking about?” But in Ayurveda, if your digestion is off, you can’t be healthy.

And so that’s the concept that everything in the whole body is connected, and this is the problem in medicine, as you mentioned, the another limitation, we don’t we treat everyone the same way. So we do one size fits all, which isn’t even true. And we know that people, you just look around and you say what work for that person doesn’t work for me.  So why would our medical system be based on one size fits all right, so that we don’t necessarily try to get to the root cause, like, if you have an autoimmune condition, or inflammation, we just say, okay, suppress the immune system, that works brilliantly in the short term and can really, really help people.

So I always want to emphasize it, me or, Deepak Chopra, we’re definitely not anti medicine. But then what, right, let’s figure out what how you got there, what created the inflammation, what created the problem, and try to get to the root cause. And let’s find out what’s right for you.  And part of that is, again, balancing the digestion, considering when you do a treatment, what’s happening in the rest of the system, and so that’s what we’ve gotten into trouble with pharmaceuticals is we can very powerfully shift the body in a certain direction, but then that’s going to have its own side effects, which is what we see, right?

And so when you understand anytime we give someone a medicine, or an herb, or anything of food, what’s happening in the rest of the system, and if we can predict that it’s probably going to get this out of balance.  So why don’t you also do this, so that this medication doesn’t cause side effects or so that maybe eventually you can get off of it, or whatever. So, those were the limitations, I was coming up again, that’s what led me on.

Shelly Sood 

I think it’s so important also for people to take ownership over their own health. Now, of course, we need our physicians, we need our assistance, our health care system, everything of the sort, but I feel like if people don’t take ownership of their own health, then they’re in trouble.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

Absolutely. And that’s why Ayurveda is….so, again, I can’t say enough about all the pearls that come from Ayurveda is we teach people how to understand what’s happening within themselves and make the best choices for themselves. Because ultimately, we are our best teacher, doctor, we are the only ones who can feel what’s happening, right?

Dr. Sheila Patel  

And if you know what, you’re two things, a lot of things you’re doing are interfering with your health. And you may not even know it so you can stop doing those things. And how do you what do I need to bring in nourishment to heal myself? And so once you teach people, they can take care of a lot of things just by their own knowledge of themselves and connecting that to that mind body, listening to the signs of the body. 

Because the body will tell you if you’re under doing something or if you’re overdoing something, but we ignore the the signals of the body and we keep going, but I have to get that done or, if I don’t do my five miles even though my body is telling me not to. It’s like we have these goals in our mind.  And we totally disconnect from our body and that’s what Ayurveda and yoga which is… some of the practices we teach, not just poses and postures but breathing, and meditation, to really help people connect to their inner wisdom

Shelly Sood  

It’s so important. Absolutely. I mean, I even saw changes with my father. My father is a surgeon, retired surgeon and has Parkinson’s disease, unfortunately. So he’s been suffering for several decades. And he’s been through the ringer. He had Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery, which was a complete failure, had a brain hemorrhage, and has had so many medications thrown at him.  And he’s basically, been lifelong taking those medications forever. So it was only recently that he started looking into what the root cause was, and what was going on with his gut health and everything. And they discovered he’s had lead toxicity for decades.  And it is amazing, because nobody else really discovered that except for somebody who was more skilled in integrative medicine. So I think it’s so important, even if it’s 20 years later, that we’re taking ownership of our own health and trying to make those changes for ourselves.

Dr. Sheila Patel  

Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, that’s getting to the root cause, like, is there some root cause and sometimes we don’t find that and that’s okay, too. But you have to ask, and you have to look for it.  Because many of these things are treatable, before things get too out of balance. Yeah, and unfortunately, in our current systems, some of these things because they’re felt to not be science based, or like, the amount of evidence you need to provide, and I can say this, because we, we’ve done research with, with academics who’ve been in the research field for many, many decades.

And whenever we try to publish a paper, it’s like, there, there is a little bit of a bias, let’s face it, in our systems, and we, they comment at these researchers, we know, like, wow, I’ve had to do many more revisions, or provide much more validation, like, I could just throw them any study I’m doing in my other lab, and they’ll take it.

But I mean, because they’re well done, there are studies, but they were really surprised at some of the pushback on…if you try to get integrative or alternative, now, the term is more integrative.  Because it doesn’t have to be alternative, it doesn’t have to be the other the sort of happy medium, complementing, complementing each other and integrating, but you have to provide even more evidence for these for these practices for it to get into the system.

And that’s the unfortunate thing is people have to sometimes go out of the system, which reduces accessibility, that people can always pay for things. So that’s why I also I’m really passionate about research, and how important that is to translate things into the language of science, so that people can start to have these things accessible to them.

Shelly Sood 
Yeah, absolutely.

Shelly Sood  

Tell me a little bit about the Longevity Experiment that you’re doing with Deepak Chopra.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

Yeah. So Deepak’s interest these days is in health and longevity – like, how do you age, but in a healthy way, and Ayurveda actually, is the foundation for healthy aging, healthy living, longevity.  Because when you’re doing the right thing, every day, you’re actually preventing cellular damage, you’re preventing inflammation, you’re preventing chronic disease. So it’s kind of his passion right now is looking at all of these things and talking to experts in the field.

So with the Longevity Experiment, where we’re attempting, and it’s just started, we’ve started to post some videos, we did our first webinar yesterday, to try to bring out to people, this concept of healthy aging, how to live a long, fruitful, joyful life, using Ayurvedic foundations, but also what is science saying about longevity.

And so, you know, it’s an evolving experiment, so to speak. We want to eventually branch out into getting biomarkers, and maybe doing some citizen science projects where people collect data on themselves and share it, so that we can create a database of essentially healthy living, but, you know, because it’s, we all get older, you know, it’s a fact right.

And, especially speaking as a physician, everyone I know wants to be able to be energetic and not in pain, have a have an alert mind and feel happy and have some meaning as they get older, right? I think anybody would say “no, I don’t want those things.” 

So it’s trying to get tools and practices out to people that revolve around healthy aging and longevity and what that means really, from a spiritual perspective, so just like everything we do, will talk about body mind spirit, as it relates to longevity and hopefully over time, do some science around it.

Shelly Sood  

That’s amazing. That’s excellent.

Shelly Sood  

How about meditation? How does that tie into having a holistic approach to healing?

Dr. Sheila Patel  

So if you really acknowledge this mind body spirit paradigm of who we are – which Ayurveda does…Ayurveda is a consciousness approach to healing.  So the the basic foundation of Ayurveda is that we’re this field of pure potential, we have a physical experience that’s constantly changing, we know that it’s changing over our whole lives, we look different year to year, decade to decade, we feel differently in our body.

So that’s a changing experience, within this field of consciousness and awareness, our mind is constantly changing, we have different thoughts and emotions all the time. All of those things are happening within this field of awareness.

So we can be aware of our body, we can be aware of our thoughts. So if we’re aware of those things, who are we, we’re consciousness, we’re pure awareness. And so meditation is a practice that helps us connect to that pure awareness, pure consciousness within which there’s all the infinite potential.  So meditation is a key practice that we teach.

Because everything else you do is going to be optimized and better when you’re established first, in your pure potential true self.  And we can think about it in different ways. Meditation creates a lot of physical benefit, right? It turns down genes for inflict chronic inflammation which leads to disease. It turns up genes for healthy aging, the brain changes to a more, you know, regulated, emotional regulation, cognitive regulation, etc. Emotionally, we feel better with meditation, but ultimately, it’s a spiritual practice. Because one of my mentors, who was an Ayurvedic physician would say, “health and happiness are a byproduct of enlightened living.”

And so when we meditate, we become enlightened, we start to connect to that deeper self – consciousness.  So the outcome of that is because health is good health and happiness.

And so meditation needs to be a key practice in everyone’s life. And his meditation is really a group of practices, where your present moment awareness, it can be a mantra meditation, which is primarily what we teach, it can be focusing on your breath.  So meditation is just really various practices to quiet and focus the mind.

So again, when we remove all the thoughts, and all the things that are creating activity  and stress in our body, we start to quiet that, then we start to heal at very deep levels.  And so, meditation is part of yoga philosophy, as well. It’s one of the, practices in yoga, which, again, a lot of people think yoga is just the postures, but it’s so much more than that.  And meditation is part of that, and it’s part of what we teach to, and Ayurveda that again, it’s like, “how do you integrate body mind spirit?” So you have to have some spiritual practices and meditations is one of those ways.

Shelly Sood  

So important. I’m a firm believer in meditation, I do it 45 minutes to an hour every single day. And I don’t, if I skip a day, my days thrown off.

Dr. Sheila Patel  

Anything; you we can talk about meditation in so many different ways. Again, a lot of people come into it, because it does reduce inflammation. I mean, I would say probably, primarily people, you know, are anxious, depressed, they’re unfocused. And so we know, there’s many studies, many of what we contributed to this data as well, that it helped us help to reduce anxiety, it does help to reduce depression, it does help to focus and calm the mind and reduce stress, you know, the experiencing stress.

We also sometimes people learn that meditation can help reduce inflammation, so they come into it for physical reasons, you know, they want to calm the body down and reduce inflammation and stress in the body. And many people come into it, you know, purely because like, I was introduced to meditation as a kid; my mom taught us to meditate.  And for us, it was a spiritual practice. And, out of that, I would say, for sure, when I look back on my life, because life got too busy, and I and I stopped meditating.

I was, and these are the things we talked about to like, you’re in flow, like, you’re more in alignment with the flow of nature and the universe, when you’re meditating.

And so people also become more creative, because you’re tapping into your creativity, spontaneous things. Synchronistic events start to happen to align with what you’re you want to manifest.  And so these are all those kind of magical experiences that we what we talk about that sometimes science scoffs at. So we can focus on the epigenetics and the nervous system benefits, but the outcome and the experiences that we’re in more flow, we’re more creative.

And we tap into our compassion and empathy. And we feel more connected to everyone else around us.

Shelly Sood  

And these are, and we become more proactive in our intentions, and our creativity versus reactive to the entire world and what they want from us. So I found those changes in my core focus in my being of what I really want to do versus what is everybody else telling me.

Running a company, there’s just so much stress. So I felt like it was a huge game changer for me. And even from a physical standpoint – I was on blood pressure medication. And that just didn’t work out very well, because I had some side effects. And I started meditating.

I took Arjuna (I’m sure you know, Arjuna, for cardiac health) was well then, you know, it was a game changer. My systolic and diastolic went to normal.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

Yeah, amazing, I think, again, people sometimes underestimate the power of these practices, you know, and then combining exactly, and Ayurveda that it’s like, there’s no one magic bullet. Even though you can study meditation, or you can study an herb and say, “Ooh, it did this,” or sometimes the study will say, oh, there was no difference in outcome, but because I really was meant to be a lifestyle.

Dr. Sheila Patel  

So when you do the herbs, and you’re meditating, and you’re doing some breathing every day, and you’re doing this, it’s synergistic. And then you start to see these powerful outcomes. You know, sometimes again, this is a challenge in science that’s very reductionist; it’s like, let’s look at that one thing and find that magic bullet.

But, and sometimes, again, even with herbs and things, there are some powerful studies that show it can really, you know, have this particular effect.  But several of the studies on a lot of researchers that are looking at whole systems science is how do you look at the synergistic effects of multiple things? And how that affects your health. So like for you, again, taking an herb and meditating has a synergy to have some major transformation, you know, it sounds like…

Shelly Sood  

Yeah, absolutely.

Shelly Sood  

Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned personalized medicine. So with Ayurveda, can you explain to the audience and everybody what “dosha” is; what what does that mean, in terms of personalized medicine?

Dr. Sheila Patel

Yeah, so, Ayurveda, of all the health systems has just this…you see aspects of this in Chinese medicine as well, but Ayurveda really has extremely descriptive, specific descriptions of mind body types. And a term for that is dosha, or our mind body constitution, the mind body energies, and the the terms are vata, pitha, kapha.

All those words are Sanskrit words, just like you know, we use Latin and in medicine, sometimes people get a little like “oooh…” when you start using other languages. But when you understand the term vata, it represents qualities, as I mentioned, qualities of nature, movement. So, there’s different qualities that come from the elements that they make that make up these doshas. So space, air, fire, water, earth, are terms that represent qualities of nature.

And we all have space, air, fire, water, earth in the qualities of nature within us. But we have more of some than others.  And so when we say vata, we’re seeing people that have more of the qualities of space and air, which is cold, dry, mobile, quick movement, it represents like movement and the wind. And in nature, you know, that’s cooling and drying, it’s, you know, and fast. So, as a person of thought that person is someone who’s like hypermetabolic, they’re naturally thin and light, their mind is, you know, going even faster than everyone else’s.

So we can call that “hyperactive,” you know, they’re moving around, they can sit still, et cetera.

Pitha is the is primarily fire and water as well. So what does that mean? The qualities hot, penetrating sharp, with the water component, a little moist, oily, acidic, you know, and again, if you think about light and fire, when you focus it, it’s, it’s like a laser, right? So it can be sharp.

And so as a person pitha types have like more of a medium build in their body a little more muscular, they have strong digestion. Whereas Vata people can be a little irregular, like the wind, you know, they can have a lot of digestive issues, pick those up strong digestion, they’re very focused, they’re goal oriented, they’re, you know, their speech is even different. It’s very focused and direct their natural leaders, they have a strong kind of confidence.

So we might call them like, Type A’s, right? We have that terminology.

Kapha is Earth in water. So what do we think about with earth and water, it’s a little heavier, softer, slower, stable. So that’s how Kapha people are, I’m I happen to be primarily Kapha. So they may be a little bit have to do things a little more methodically and slower. But very…they can sit for a while. They’re very calm and content, they don’t need to be doing 10 million different things. They’re very loyal and caring.

So people, they’re good listeners. So people, you know, sometimes the people they go to with their troubles or Kapha types, you know, because they just listen, and you know, so we have all of these qualities within us.

But we usually have more of one or two than the others.

And so, in an Ayurveda that assessment, and when people assess themselves, like we have a quiz online at chopra.com, where you answer certain questions about yourself. And then what you find is you have one or two of those doshas that are predominant in your nature, but we still have all of them.

And that will predict what your natural talents and abilities are, and also what your tendencies toward disease will be.  And so when you understand like, for me, I understand I’m a Kapha so I naturally, you know, again Kaphas tend to be a little bit more so sturdy, you know, more soft tissue a little bit heavier, and slower.

So, in Ayurveda there to stay balanced on a daily basis, I have to make sure I intentionally move every morning, by eat light foods, I support my digestion with some spices. And that can be different for each person. I’m trying to bring in creativity and lightness and other ways in my life. So it keeps me balanced.

For a vata type, it might be very different for them, because they already have a lot of movement, we may say, Okay, now you need to slow down and do some breathing to calm the nervous system, you want to eat warm, moist, heavier foods to keep you in balance.

So that you don’t get disease. Vatas typically need to take some sort of herb or spice to balance, their digestion. So etc, it goes on and on. But the key is that we all have all of these qualities within us.  But we come into the world, and it’s determined at conception with certain tendencies. And that’s what these doshas describe. And so I have found, it’s so helpful when I layer that on top of even what I do in western medicine, when I see somebody and I can understand, okay, this person’s primary dosha is this, how I communicate with them, the practices that I offer them, even sometimes the medications I might choose, are going to depend on what’s right for them.  And so it’s extremely helpful.

And then, as we were talking about earlier, when a person understands themselves on a daily basis, they can choose what’s best for themselves to stay healthy. So they don’t have to outsource, you know, their health to other people.

Shelly Sood

Yeah, that’s so important. Absolutely. Yeah. And this is our experience, you know, when you talk to people, it’s like, you know, when you look at your friends and your siblings, are you all the same? does the same thing work for, for that person? Is it? Everybody knows that?

Shelly Sood

So tell me a little bit about gene expression, and how this really ties in to the holistic approach and preventing diseases down the road.

Dr. Sheila Patel  

Yeah, so it’s a really interesting sort of science of epigenetics that’s kind of blossomed in the last 10 or 15 years that we understand we have genes, you know, you get half your genes from your mom, half your genes from your dad, and you’re not going to necessarily change that.

Now, with technology moving forward, we may be able to clip genes in and out. But those are the genes you got, that’s going to determine whether you have black hair, brown eyes, blue eyes, you know, the shape of your nose, etc. So you’re not going to change your genes.

But what people didn’t realize decades ago that we know now is there more like little switches, they can be turned on, just like a light switch, they can be turned off, and they’re actually dimmer switches, they can be turned up, like maybe I want a little bit of this, I don’t want it all the way on, they can be turned down.

And so and DNA or gene switches are inside every cell our DNA, it’s a very, it’s a living molecule. It’s not like a textbook where you see it, and it’s just so you know, it’s moving, it’s folding, it’s shaping.

So even the genes that are going to be transcribed or expressed. Based on our lifestyle choices and our thoughts and everything, sometimes the shape of the DNA will even change, you know, the chromosomes. So gene, this will be for us to gene expression, what genes are being expressed, which ones are being turned on, turned off, turned up turned down.

And in the science of lifestyle medicine, as we’re realizing how important our lifestyle is, for gene expression, every choice we make is communicating with our genes and telling them which ones we want turned on which ones we want turned off.

And so if we’re in stress mode, the genes that have to do with survival, in which is inflammation, like when we cut ourselves if we need to heal, or if bacteria or viruses under our system, we need this activation of inflammation to heal, but then it needs to turn off, right. And so when the invader is gone, or you know, after that acute healing process is done, our genes should know that okay, now it’s turned to turn time to turn off those genes.

Dr. Sheila Patel  

Unfortunately, with modern stressors and the fact that everyone’s go go go, we don’t teach tools for turning off the stress response. People end up in these expressions of chronic long term inflammation. We never tell our genes to turn down the inflammation.

So how are they going to know right? It thinks our body thinks that we’re constantly in a state of survival. When we do breathing practices, even some of the Ayurvedic massage practices when we meditate, what happens is the opposite the genes for survival get not turned off just turned down a little bit.

If there was a fire, we would still be able to to run out of the building and heal ourselves and you know, clot wounds, but they’re turned down, because we don’t really need them in the moment and all of the genes for energy production for insulin regulation, for long term health and longevity for building tissues, like stem cells and healing mechanisms in the body and the mind.  The so the brain is told, okay, now we can turn down the stress parts, we can turn on the, you know, higher evolved parts of the brain, that’s what’s happening. So we can actually heal.

And this is basically sympathetic, parasympathetic nervous system. And we can shape all of that, you know. So that’s, again, this gene expression concept, the foods we eat foods can turn on or off or up or down different genes. And we have so much control over that.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

Now, there are some genes that people get that are fixed, and will more than likely lead to a disease. But that’s only 5% 5%. Yeah, I was just gonna say that.

Yeah, other 95% We can even have a gene for a certain type of cancer, like more propensity, or we can have a gene for a certain disease, but some of them are modifiable, where we can turn that down, and actually prevent that disease. And a lot of disease related genes are in that category of gene expression, you know, there are, again, 5%, were even with all of our practices and things that’s going to express itself.  But you know,

Shelly Sood

So some of the studies out there, how are they seeing this with regards to gene expression? Are they welcoming the concept that only 5% really have these diseases and whatnot, or activated in our genes? Or are they more so reluctant to accept that kind of science?

Dr. Sheila Patel 

I think nowadays, it’s like, you can’t deny it, right.  And this is the benefit till molecular biology and like, lab, you know, like that science, at these deeper levels is, here it is, this is how the body works, it’s almost undeniable. The problem is educating.

And even I’ll say, with physicians, like if you talk to some physicians, they may not know anything about gene expression. We went to medical school, 20 years ago, I know these medicines, you know, we’ll do this.   And so that’s what I you know, because, again, sometimes we have to step out of the conventional system to learn these things.

But I am seeing more and more and more in our top, you know, like, more common journals that physicians will read, that they’re starting to talk about lifestyle medicine, and using food as medicine, it’s starting to creep in, in those contexts, you see a lot of stuff published about exercise and how that reduces inflammation.

So exercising the right amount, too much can actually create inflammation, but too little also creates inflammation.  But getting a good moderate amount of exercise on a regular basis actually does the same thing. You can turn down inflammatory genes and, you know, reduce inflammation.

Dr. Sheila Patel

So I’m starting to see things like that in the medical literature. And, but it’s, again, with these very concrete practices that, that physicians are comfortable with, like exercise and you know, food. But it’s slow, it’s slow, like, yeah, there’s resistance, there’s resistance to change anytime, right?

Any system, you try to change, you’re going to meet some resistance…

Shelly Sood

Creatures of habit, you know, and physicians, like you said, they have been trained in traditional medicine, and that is what they know. And, you know, there’s a tremendous amount of validity to what they’ve learned, of course, but there’s more to learn.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

And I think this is the problem.  Yeah, with many things in our world. Like there’s such a polarity, you know, and so I’m always trying to say like, Hey, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. No one’s saying not no one and this is the problem sometimes people are out there saying Western medicines bad they’re killing you etc.

And so of course the natural reaction is defense right?  Physicians are like, You mean I’m helping people. You guys are the crazy ones…

41:35: can you please make the transition between these two pieces of dialogue more gradual? Make the earlier clip fade out and the newer one fade in.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

So what I tried to do is bring people together, because there are people on one side who may be “I think your blood pressure is really high right now just start this medicine. It doesn’t have to be forever,” but they’re like, “no, no, I don’t want anything.”

And they’re trying lifestyle practices, but until they until the body really adjust, you know, sometimes you do need medications, you know, and and sometimes people need them even long term and that’s okay.

As long as you’re acknowledging, okay, if I do need this long term, and it could potentially cause these side effects, what else can I do to prevent those side effects? You know, so it’s, it’s like trying not to be polarizing, like, it’s this or this.

Now, it’s both, you know, so, yeah,

Shelly Sood 

There’s definitely that separation and that mindset, you know, with us, we see it a lot with regenerative medicine. And, you know, we tell patients how helpful stem cells are with regenerative medicine and treatments for these chronic diseases.

But at the same time, there has to be some holistic approach as well as traditional medicine with medications, we don’t tell patients go get off your medications tomorrow. No, we don’t. Right. So there’s that balance, it’s really, really important. Absolutely.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

Yes, exactly.  Yeah, and what’s right for, again, what’s right for one person won’t be right for everyone, every, some people, in their, how they want to treat themselves, you could treat the same condition for two different people differently. Because they need to feel comfortable with what they’re doing is in alignment with how they want to deal with their health.

Shelly Sood

So let’s talk a little bit about our belief systems, and the evolution of what we go through in our childhood, and how that really can impact long term health and, you know, potentially activating you know, some of these genes for these diseases.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

Yeah, I mean, I think, just like everything, we’re very conditioned by what we learn in childhood and our whole lives, but especially during childhood, so I see a lot of patients who say, “Oh, yeah, my grandma, she used to give me this when I was sick, or my mom or whoever.”

And so you’re a little bit more open, and you learn that versus people who, you know, who’ve never seen people in their family accessing different ways of healing, a lot of different cultural groups we see have traditional healing, that, that they’ll do first, like home remedies or things, all cultures had that, you know, oh, you have cramps, or you have a headache, take this tea, or let’s rub this on your temples, or whatever it was.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

So when people see that, and you know, growing up, I think, they realize there are other ways to heal, they may be more open, I see that when I deal with patients, and I say, oh, yeah, you know, did your grandma ever do anything? You know, or how did she treat that?  They’re like, Oh, yeah, she used to tell me these, these teas are good for this, stomach cramps, etc.

And also how you think about the world, right? If you grow up thinking, oh, there’s something bigger, whatever it is, then that you’re a little bit more open, you know, to to understanding the world in a little different way.

Foods, obviously, diet and nutrition is huge, you know, because that’s how we learn to eat from the time, we get our first you know, food from our parents. And so a lot of, I would say ethnic foods or, you know, culturally diverse foods already have integrated in them, like these concepts of varieties of different tastes, spices, and herbs within the food and the right amounts to help us digest that food.  And, you know, it tends to be healthier than kind of the people who are raised in the, in the standard American diet, the sad diet of refined carbs, lots of meat, very little vegetable, etc.

So, sometimes it’s unwinding those habits that we’ve learned and even the conditioning. And again, that’s not to say the especially with food, there’s many, many different ways to eat and each person is different.  Some people can eat a certain way and stay very healthy because and other people may not be able to.

So I think on these paths, you have to do a lot of unwinding of habits that people learn when they were kids and, and the conditioning.

 Dr. Sheila Patel

And then also, you know, childhood experiences, you know, trauma is huge. And that can carry through into you know, we, we bring that with us into adulthood. So as far as emotional well being to you, you know, you have to sometimes look back to childhood to see what people learned emotionally, what they learned about how to take care of their bodies.

Shelly Sood

Yeah, no, absolutely, you know that that happened with us, you know, my husband had a very difficult childhood.  And so it had great impacts on his mental health and his mental well being. And we went through a lot of struggles as a result.

And you know, he’s been able to come full circle, because of not just traditional medicine, but also taking his health in his own hands. And, you know, doing the meditation and doing the foot baths and taking the extra vitamins or whatever he needs to do, because it’s such a personalized thing. Yeah.  So you know, and that’s just been a game changer.

And, you know, that’s why we came to the Chopra wellness retreat as well, because we wanted to take it to that next level.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

And science is showing us there’s so much research on epigenetics, getting back to that of childhood trauma.  And epigenetics, one of the biggest predictors of early mortality, like early death, chronic disease is intra uterine like if a mom was stressed for childhood trauma and stress, it’s one of the biggest predictors of one of the researchers we worked with one of our studies, was a Nobel Laureate.

So we worked with her lab to study telomerase, which is an enzyme that helps to lengthen telomeres, which are the like the little caps on the end of the DNA.

And so this is their life research that they do. And there are things that shorten those telomeres.  And if they get so short, that eventually, the DNA starts to unwind and be damaged, then the cells die, and we can get disease.

And it’s a marker of aging, also, you know, and so the longer the telomeres, and we can add to it, and we can take away, we can shorten and lengthen them.  And again, it’s an active living process. The longer your telomeres the more of a it’s a marker for help, you know, healthy and longer aging.

And again, one of the major influences on telomere length, and genetic expression is childhood, what happened in our childhood.  But the beautiful thing, when we understand ourselves as this constantly changing and moldable experience is that, you know, much is probably your husband has learned, is what I do now, it’s doesn’t mean those changes are permanent, you know, in my life, whether it’s how I think about things, or whether it’s how my genes are expressing themselves.

Shelly Sood 

Yeah, absolutely. I think that is so important to look way back when and dissect the childhood and understand where our traumas are, and have that ability to look within ourselves now.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

And again, look it within ourselves, at ourselves, and at the others in our lives with compassion, right? Because chances are, they had trauma, and they had trauma, and there’s like a whole field of generational trauma that’s being researched. And we know that sometimes we’re carrying trauma of our ancestors within our genetic expression.

And so, again, a lot of this and we’re learning now isn’t about blame, or, but it’s about becoming aware, and having awareness of how you were raised has an effect on what’s happening now. And that, you know, you can change that. And again, you can look at that experience with compassion and empathy and not blame or anger. Sometimes we have to move through those emotions.

You don’t want to ignore those emotions.  And that’s part of what we teach to is you want to let that arise, but then let it go, you know, let it come up, whatever’s coming up and then shift into more of these, you know, healthier perspectives and emotions.

Shelly Sood

Yeah, absolutely.

Shelly Sood

So let’s talk about neuroplasticity.

You know, a lot of people out there today that I’ve even talked to feel like neuroplasticity forms really, when you’re a child and then there’s nothing beyond that. And when I say neuroplasticity, of course, I mean, in terms of how our neural pathways are firing how our neurons are firing within our pathways in our brain. Do you feel that that is the case?  Or do you feel that there’s an evolution with neuroplasticity with regards to…do we have the capability to change it? Do we have the power to rewire those neurons appropriately? What are your thoughts?

Dr. Sheila Patel 

100% Yes. So things that are less the more and more and more solid something is we can still change that but it becomes a little more challenging.  So again, like for people when it comes to the brain and neuroplasticity, like if you have a part of your brain that’s been removed or didn’t develop say, You know what, I see people like this or know people stories.

It’s not like…sometimes you can, you can create new sort of matter there, but only to a certain degree, you know, but what’s what’s there, you can, you can absolutely create new neurons, we know that we’ve seen that in studies with meditation of like, increasing the size and the gray matter of certain areas of the brain, because we’re constantly, we can make any new cells in the body that are there, or that we have the potential to…

Sheila 

Liver cells, heart cells, we know, you know, like, after heart attacks, you know, there’s remodeling, there’s new new muscle that can be created and connections.

Again, sometimes if there’s been extreme damage, you can’t get it back to what it was physically. But you can rewire things in the same thing in the brain. So you can create new gray matter, you can also create new neural connections. That’s just like unplugging and plugging back in again, you know, like in the wall, we can do that with what neurons and how efficiently and create actually new neurons to make neural connections that don’t exist.

So it’s a very active process that we have a lot of control over.  And meditation, again, recent studies, for at least a decade, if not more, they have studies that you can increase gray matter. Now they’re starting to have studies that you can increase these neural connections and like white matter, you know, that have to do with like, again, these connections between neurons.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

So that science is out there, that’s proving 100%, we have the ability to create this neuroplasticity, again, to what degree is always…that sometimes there’s statistically speaking, there’s like, probability, and there’s, you know, possibility. So there’s always possibility, but sometimes when there’s, in, you know, extreme settings, or again, that those 5% of the time, when it’s a little bit more challenging, but, you know, for the vast majority, we’re, we’re constantly doing that

And it’s our thoughts, it’s our experiences, it’s who we’re connecting to, you know, who we have around us.

That’s why the Buddhist traditions, you know, right company, you know, like, who you surround yourself with, is very important, because we’re actually influencing each other’s, you know, neural connections as well.

And so, it’s a fascinating area of study, and I’m looking forward to what we learn in the future. But, you know, again, I think if people look at the science, there’s no way to deny the fact that we can influence that, you know, the neural connections and neuroplasticity.

Shelly Sood

Are you seeing epigenetics really catch on in the field?  Or where is it at right now?

Dr. Sheila Patel 

You know, this is one of the issues in medicine again, people get stuck in the way we’ve done things. It’s starting to show up in our in the journals and everything. But if you talk to like, you know, a lot of doctors they’re like, and I’ve been there and you get burned out, the system is running people ragged, and even, pre COVID.

Burnout, just staying up on medicine takes so much time, so even physicians who would be relatively open, they’re like, “I just don’t have time to read all that stuff and stay up on it.”

So yes, and no; there are plenty of physicians I talked to that have would have not don’t know any of this. There are others that are like, “Yeah, I know that things are different than how we learned them 20 years ago, but I just don’t have time to keep up on it.”

So I think those are the challenges. For me, it’s, it’s slow to change. I think the knowledge is very, is out there in like scientific communities – PhDs and people that are like, doing the science.  But again, to translate that, and that’s this whole field of translational science, how do you translate that into the clinical setting?

So far, it’s, I think, last I read, it was taking 15 to 20 years, when you have some basic science knowledge to translate that into, into clinical care.  And so people in the translational science world are trying to narrow that and say, okay, when we learn something, you know, in the scientific communities, then we should be able to implement that within five years in a clinical space. And so it’s slow translating.

Shelly Sood

Yeah, absolutely.

Shelly Sood

Yeah, absolutely. So tell me a little bit about what you would tell somebody who’s just trying to get their feet wet and start out and try to meditate or try to really embrace Ayurvedic treatments. Where would you have them start? Because that’s always a question. Nobody knows where to go.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

Yeah. So, you know, that is one of the niches that we try to serve at Chopra. It’s like, Hey, start your journey with us, we can start small and you can go all the way up to the highest, you know, awakenings with Deepak and some of our Silent retreats and things like that.

But I think the best way is, is to, first of all, make, have the intention and make a commitment that this is really important to you, right? Like, we have a coaching program.  So we talk about behavior change, and how to create new habits that starts with that intention.

And then you have compassion, you know, because it doesn’t change overnight, and you can’t like, say, Oh, I tried and I failed. So no, forget it, you know, that’s just part of the process. It’s like learning to ride a bike. If we all gave up after the first time we fell, nobody would be writing but you know, each day is new.

And then pick the things that are easiest to start with, like things that don’t take a lot of time things that you can do easily. Because change takes effort, it takes mental effort, it takes it feels even a two minute practice, like doing neti pot, you know, where you rinse your nose, which is a very, really great practice, it takes two minutes.

But the effort, when you’re first starting to do something feels like it takes forever, right. And until you get it down, it might take longer to figure out how to cook a healthy meal in the beginning.  But then once it becomes your habit, it’s like you don’t even think about it, just like everything, and it’s just, you know, happens easily and effortlessly.

So each of the pillars, whether it’s sleep, or nutrition, or movement, or whatever it is, I tell people start with something easy.  And like let’s say breathing, I teach people just breathe in for five seconds, breathe out for five seconds, and do that five minutes in the morning and five minutes at night. That’s a total commitment of 10 minutes of your day.

But such a powerful practice, or meditate, you know, and there’s apps galore now, in most of them, including our Chopra meditation, and well being app has like five minute meditations that are guided where you just listen to someone all the way.

Our app has our full on 30 to 40 minute meditations, where a lot of it is just silence and repeating a mantra.  But you can start out with our dailies, you know their little five to 10 minute meditations and make it routine, then that’s just what you do every day

Dr. Sheila Patel 

When it comes to eating, pick one spice every week, or whenever you go to the grocery store that you’re going to stock in your cabinet.

And then over time, start incorporating that, you know, start with turmeric, you know, put a little eighth of a teaspoon into your, you know, stir fry or soup, or you know, mix it into your steamed veggies or whatever. Then the next time add this and add this and add this.

So start slow.  And don’t feel you know, don’t feel if you can’t do everything at once that you shouldn’t do anything. And just keep adding practices. And that’s what people notice over time.  Like a lot of our teachers and students that are going through our certification programs. They’re learning the practices, they’re starting to integrate them into their own lives.

But they start out with one, then over time, they’ll add a second and a third. And then over time, you have a pretty healthy like your Vedic lifestyle going on. And you’re meditating, you know, daily, in doing some breathing. I mean, breathing is one of the easiest things to do.  And you can shift your nervous system dramatically with just 10 minutes a day, you know. So scroll 10 minutes less on your Instagram or your Facebook or, you know, whatever, you’re looking at 10 minutes and do some breathing, you know, and that goes a long way.

Shelly Sood

So somebody who has anxiety or trouble sleeping, what would you say they should do.

So my again, my favorite favorite practice is breathing.  So and there’s so much science around how slowing the breath and this they’ve been talking about in the yoga tradition for millennia. When we slow the breath and calm the breath, we slow and calm the mind.

They’re connected. So we can breathe, you don’t even have to think about breathing. It’s an automatic function. But we’re usually breathing a little bit fast. And then a little bit of…we learn to do that because of stress.  We never turn the light switch off. So we’re constantly going a little bit, keeping ourselves in survival mode all the time a little bit.

So when you breathe, and that leads to anxiety it leads to overreact to is this going to happen? Is that going to happen?  You know, and now you can’t sleep you can’t have deep sleep because your body is saying I might have to wake up to every sound of them could be an invader, you know, you know so this is the biologically why we have the stress response.

So I tell people it’s like turning all the lights on in your house.  And when you leave on vacation, you leave them on all on, we would never do that you turn them all off, because you want to save energy or whatever, right not cause a problem.

So it’s the same thing with us, because all of life’s activity turns us on and gets us activated, we need a light switch to turn off, and that’s breathing. So it’s the most immediate and probably the easiest. And because people can say, Oh, I can’t meditate, I tried. And we have ways of navigating that we have ways of making it easy for people. Of course, everyone can meditate because quiet mind in silence is our natural state.

But nobody can see I can’t breathe, right, because we’re doing it all the time. All you’re doing is you’re adjusting your breath, you’re consciously slowing down your breath, but nobody can say I can’t breathe. Well, I mean, outside emergency.

Dr. Sheila Patel

So you know, and simple breathing techniques, like, breathe in for five seconds, breathe out for five seconds, it slows down the breath to five to seven breaths a minute, which is that switch, it switches us into relaxation mode. It calms the mind.

So for people with anxiety, it slows down all those thoughts that are going on, before bed, especially if you’re laying there and you do breathing.  Your focus is on your breath, your mind goes off into a thought. As soon as you notice that you just bring yourself back to your breath. So it’s like you’re learning to let go of thoughts.

But you need that anchor. And so that’s another reason that doing breathing right before bed is helpful. And then it’s also as you slow down your breath, you’re calming your nervous system and activating our natural mechanisms to sleep, we have them you know, we just do just turned off because of life activity. And so that’s my favorite practice.

And I’ll add my daughter who tends to be a little bit she’s Vata; those Vatas have a lot of anxiety, although because all of us have all the doshas any of us can have anxiety. It’s my go to for that. And my daughter, I taught her breathing in middle school and high school and I said do this before tests. She went off to college. With all that change, she actually struggled a little bit in the beginning.  And I would just start reading do your you’re doing your breathing.

Now she’s 23. And she’s still you know, is that kind of really, you know, has trouble sleeping sometimes still doing it? Yes, she does every day. And I I 100% believe and she does to that if she didn’t have that tool, she would be in much worse shape.  And she’ll often tell me, “Mom, that’s the best thing you ever taught me.” And yeah, so it works.

Shelly Sood

Yeah, yeah, I’m pushing my kids into meditation. So we do it every night at dinner. So my little 7 year old is sitting there doing it and 14 year old as well as my older 18 year old. So they’re doing it it’s a little bit of a nudge

Dr. Sheila Patel

yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think it’s great to start as kids because you learn the habit, and then it’s just there forever, you know.  So yeah, modeling as parents with your own practices and encouraging them, but also with parents, they say, model it, encourage them, but don’t force, you know, because then they exist, and they go the other way.

Shelly Sood

You know, there’s that balance with children. We want the best for them, but we cannot force them.

Dr. Sheila Patel

Yeah, exactly.   But if you model it and you teach them the tools, they always have that in their toolbox, and they will go back to it. You know, I hear this over and over from parents, like, you know, when they’re teenagers are like, oh, yeah, I kind of meditate now and again, but as they get older, they’re like, Yeah, I meditate.  You taught me and that’s a tool they will always have.

Shelly Sood

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much. It was a pleasure having you.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

Well, and thank you for everything you do. You know, helping people heal.

Shelly Sood

And yeah, yeah, it’s wonderful.  We’re so excited to see everything that you’re doing with the Chopra Foundation, and all the amazing research you’re doing with Deepak and everything. And, you know, we thoroughly enjoy the wellness retreat. So I would highly, highly recommend it to anyone out there. I think that is a great starting point.

I definitely think that you should put yourself out there a little bit. Baby steps are very important, but at the same time, if they can do a wellness retreat, I think it can be a game changer.  

Dr. Sheila

You know, a lot of people I talked to they said the same thing. Yeah. There’s so many people who are like, Oh, I didn’t know if I should come get it up. But then they end up coming. They’re like, Oh my gosh, I’m so glad I came in immersion. And this is when we had our perfect health program.

We have many programs that we have partnership again at the CIVANA, you mentioned at the beginning, you can immerse yourself in these Ayurvedic teachings, do meditation yoga every day really get solid in the understandings and the practice, learn your dosha.

Then you go back into your life with this new awareness and it can be a game changer, life changer.  And it has been, you know, I’ve been with this Chopra space and company for 12 years now. And we hear these stories over and over and we hear oh my gosh, thank you guys for saving my life. You know, and as a physician, I never thought I would hear that being in the wellness space.  But you know, I heard that a lot in medicine, but it’s, it saves people’s lives, you know, so absolutely.

And that’s what we offer the, you know, immersive retreat experiences, which are absolutely transformational, all the way to like, you know, I would encourage people to connect to our  articles on chopra.com, the Chopra Instagram account. If you’re on Instagram, I do an IG live once a month, and it’s saved in the IG TV feed at Chopra.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

And so I talk about all of these different concepts.  My next one coming up, I believe, next week, Wednesday, at noon Pacific is I’m interviewing a doctor, he’s an integrative gastroenterologist, he does precision medicine, checks people’s genes, but also integrates a lot of other things. So, you know, we have some fun conversations on Instagram, we have a Clubhouse, you know, our social team is great.

And then we have our app, which we’re putting more and more Ayurveda that content, but tons of meditations. And yeah, just, you know, take your first step, whatever is right for you. And I can definitely say it Chopra, like we are, we are there to meet people where they’re at and take them on the rest of their journey for them or with them I should say not for.

And that’s the beauty again of like, that’s why I love what we do. It’s not just here, learn this practice, and it’s like awakening to this this whole, you know, experience of by body mind spirit, and, and we can help people along that journey.

Dr. Sheila Patel

Yeah. And so I look forward to seeing you again.  Yeah, and thank you for having me.

Shelly Sood

Absolutely. Thank you so much. And just continue all the great work you do for everybody out there. And I’m sure it’s so gratifying. Thank you so much.

Dr. Sheila Patel 

And I get to meet amazing people, you know, like yourselves and yeah, all of the guests that come people are pretty amazing. And sharing stories and creating community is very important as well. So we have a great community.

Shelly Sood

Absolutely. Thank you Dr. Sheila Patel.

Dr. Sheila Patel

Okay, bye bye.