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Today we have an enlightening episode featuring Sachin Patel, 
a visionary in the functional medicine space. In this episode, they delve into a fascinating discussion that challenges traditional healthcare models and advocates for a patient-centered, proactive approach to health.
Dave and Sachin aren’t just talking about staying healthy—they’re diving deep into actionable strategies that can help you transform your life. Sachin shares the principles of functional medicine with real-world applications and success stories, stressing the importance of metabolic health and how only 7% of the U.S. population meets the criteria for being metabolically healthy.
This episode is brimming with vital information, from breathwork techniques that can help shift your state from stress to relaxation, to the transformative power of spending more time outdoors. With their combined knowledge, Dave and Sachin present a compelling case for taking control of your health destiny through preventative and data-driven approaches.
In This Episode
- The transformative benefits of breath work and specific techniques like the 4-7-8 method
- Why functional medicine is crucial for identifying and addressing potential health issues before they become severe
- The significance of proactive health management akin to financial planning
- The enormous health benefits of spending more time outdoors and aligning with natural circadian rhythms
Hey, everyone, welcome to today’s show on wealth strategy Secrets. Today we’re joined by Sachin Patel. Sachin is a father, husband, philanthropist and functional medicine coach. As a speaker, author, breath work facilitator and plant medicine advocate, he believes the doctor of the future is the patient.
Sachin helps others achieve healing through lifestyle changes, breath work and psilocybin. He founded the Living Proof Institute to revolutionize patient centered healthcare and coaches practitioners worldwide through his perfect practice mentorship program.
Committed to transforming healthcare, Sachin dedicates his life to improving it for both patients and practitioners. As you know, health is the foundation to your holistic wealth strategy. And today’s episode is intended to increase your learning around holistic health practices that will optimize your health and learn about hidden blind spots.
If you’ve been enjoying the show, please be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss another episode. And please share it with your friends so that they can accelerate their own journeys. And now for today’s show. Sachin, welcome to the show.
Dave, thank you. Super stoked to be here and excited to have this conversation with you.
Yeah, really grateful to have you on the show, Sashin. And I’ve been looking forward to this discussion. I think it’s just one of those areas similar to wealth, which is that we live in this world where there’s just information overload on health and we’re all stuck in this system which is really kind of based on sick care and it’s based on treating the symptom and kind of what’s wrong with people.
Right? But in this day and age, we want to be proactive about our health and we’re trying to learn different things. So I was really excited to have you come in on the show today and really talk about not only your journey, which is fascinating, but also what you’re doing in your practice to really promote things like functional medicine and what you believe is important in the world of health today. So, Sachin, why don’t we kick things off and just tell us about your journey and how you really got into functional medicine.
Yeah, so the short story is I got into functional medicine starting off as a chiropractor, having a very successful associateship in Cincinnati. And that landed me on the news and as a result of being on the news, we had a whole flood of new patients call our practice. Now, what was interesting, Dave, is the news story was actually about tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow, and all these people called in, and there was only one lady out of all them.
I think it was about 50 people that called in to schedule an appointment. Only one of them had elbow pain, and that was due to arthritis. It wasn’t even due to golfing or, you know, playing tennis. And so I was kind of baffled, scratching my head, wondering why some of the sickest people in our community were now coming to see us. Because we had a very active patient base.
People were coming in with marathoning injuries, performance injuries, you know, things that athletes would get themselves into trouble with, and we would get great results with them. But now we have people with fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue, autoimmune conditions coming in. And at the time, I didn’t have any tools to help them.
But the thing is, neither did their medical doctors and the other practitioners that they were seeking help from because they were still struggling and still suffering. So that kind of prompted me to go a little bit deeper with my education. And that’s when I learned about functional medicine.
And as always, I’m sure you do. The same is when you learn something new, you apply it to yourself first. And I applied the principles of functional medicine for me, mainly. The main two things were cutting out dairy and cutting out gluten, and in doing so, being vegetarian, that those were big components of my diet. But cutting those two things out made a huge difference in my energy levels.
My chronic aches and pains in my joints went away, and my digestive issues, which I didn’t even realize I had until they were gone, completely disappeared. I was sold on my own personal journey, and the transition happened very quickly. So I went a little bit deeper, got some additional lab testing done to quantify the process and measure what was happening inside of me.
And then I started applying it to my chiropractic patients, and they started seeing amazing results. In fact, now they only wanted to see me for their chronic health challenges. And we were able to turn those around pretty rapidly through lifestyle, through dietary modifications, and then through supplementation, where appropriate. So functional medicine really changed my life first, and then it started changing the lives of the people around me. And then that became my sole focus, because I realized that if I can help people through functional medicine, I don’t have to do it manually, and I can also do it in group settings and also on masks. Because I think a big problem, as you mentioned, is we have a lack of awareness in education. And that’s really 80% of the battle is getting people educated and self aware so that they can take better care of themselves. And then the other 20% is actually working with a practitioner.
80% of the battle is getting people educated and self aware so that they can take better care of themselves and the other 20% is working with the practitioner.
So my philosophy is that the doctor of the future is a patient, and that it’s embarrassingly simple to be healthy when you know what to do. Just like it might seem embarrassingly simple to a mechanic to change the oil on a cardinal. But they’ve done it a thousand times, right? And they’ve been trained in how to do it, so it’s simple for them. And so the same thing applies to human health. You know, the body’s so miraculously amazing, but that also confers that it’s easy to take care of. So now we help people all over the world with their metabolic health. People who want to live healthier, optimize their wellness, and also reverse some of the more chronic metabolic issues that our society faces. In fact, according to recent research, only about 7% of the us population is metabolically healthy and meet the criteria to be metabolically healthy.
So 93% of the people that we’re surrounded with and by don’t have good metabolic health. So this is leading to catastrophic health issues. And the thing with metabolic health is that it spills into so many areas of our life, into brain health, into heart health, into digestive health, into hormonal health, into our energy levels, into our sleep, into our metabolic wellness, such as weight loss. Everything ties back to metabolic health. And when we can improve metabolic function, then we get a global improvement in an individual’s health.
Fascinating. Why don’t we help the audience understand what is functional medicine? Can you define that first?
Yeah, sure. So, functional medicine, from my perspective, is a root cause, personalized and patient centered and participatory approach to health. So we’re always looking for what’s the underlying mechanism that’s causing this. We’re wanting to get to the root cause. We’re wanting the client to participate in the healing process, because what happens when they leave the office is probably more important than what happens in the office. We also want to partner with the client, and we want to make sure that they have the tools and resources to sustain in a healthy lifestyle in the long run, versus being dependent on us, because they’re not addressing the underlying mechanisms that are causing their illness.
Right, and would you also say that in terms of being proactive around your health and health optimization and longevity as part of that as well?
Yeah, absolutely. So our approach is health creation as opposed to disease prevention. And while they might kind of sound the same, they’re very different. When I share an example, such as, if you were to go somewhere new and you were to put into your GPS all the places you didn’t want to go, hoping you’d end up exactly where you want to go, that would be kind of a ridiculous strategy. It would take forever to do that. It’d be very overwhelming. And you never really know if you are where you want to be. But if you put in exactly where you want to go, then it becomes so easy to get where you’re going.
Right and so, just like with our GPS, having that clear vision of where we want to be makes it much easier. And so health creation is the same way. If you want to create health, then you have a singular focus. But if you want to prevent disease, well, there’s over 10,000 different diseases that some, a doctor can diagnose you with. So that is a very overwhelming and impossible task.
Yeah, I really love that around health creation and also your entire concept around, you know, the future of medicine being all around the patient, and what I found really interesting in my journey. And I’m happy to share with listeners, because if I can share some of my stories and examples, hopefully you can get some insights or inspiration. But I’ve been practicing functional medicine for almost 15 years now. But I’m constantly surprised at certain things that show up that I didn’t even know were issues. Right. And I think it’s kind of. Sometimes it’s some of those silent killers that are lurking that we have no idea about. And then one example I can give that actually happened this year was I did an extensive dutch test to really understand my hormones and kind of working with my team at a very granular level.
And one of the things that we found out, I’ve given up pretty much everything. Sashin, you know, pretty focused on my sleep and, you know, exercise and breath work and nutrition. I mean, all of these different things. But I do love my coffee, especially espresso, and identified the fact that I was actually a slow metabolizer of caffeine. Right, so this was really hijacking my cortisol as soon as I woke up in the morning, kind of gave me a little bit of that afternoon crash and things like that, and I had no idea. But through the testing, right. And looking at it from kind of that functional medicine perspective, we identified that and like, that alone boosted my energy by 10%, and I had no idea.
Yeah, you know, that’s the thing. I mean, there’s all these hidden opportunities that are lay dormant inside of us. And if we can identify and find someone that can help us get to the bottom of it, there’s some pretty cool shifts. And imagine doing ten things 10% better, right. What that would mean to your energy, your focus, your contribution, and all the great things that you do in the world. And I know you’re already doing, you know, over the years, you’ve accumulated new habits and tools and strategies to improve your health. So it’s wonderful to see that you’re still unlocking new insights about yourself that can help you.
Do you have a longevity target for yourself?
You know, it’s interesting because, you know, longevity is a hot topic and, you know, the only way to know if you’re doing it right is when you die right. And at that point, it may not be relevant, but I think for me, my focus is, you know, I want to live as long as possible. I want to focus on health span versus just lifespan, and I want to focus on being present. I think the thing that is missing for so many people, especially entrepreneurs, is our attention is so divided and so scattered. And sometimes longevity kind of gives us permission not to be present in this moment because we’re so forward thinking, we’re thinking about the future so much.
And so my message to a lot of people, even the people that I work with, that are focused on health span and living a long, healthy life, is how do you be more present today? Because if we spend 50% of our day and our Yden thoughts are all scattered all over the place, or we’re sitting right next to our family member, not paying attention to them because we’re on our computers or on our phones or mentally, we’re somewhere else, because maybe we have a problem that we’re trying to solve in our business, what’s the point of living longer if that’s the case? I think being present provides us with an immediate opportunity to improve our quality of life. I think that’s really what I love focusing on. To answer your question, I think if I had to pick a number, I think 120 is a nice, round, reasonable number.
But I also know that I can keep all my organs, keep all my body parts in a healthy shape for as long as possible. There’s some new technologies that are already available in certain settings, but will become mainstream and more commercially available in the next five to ten years that will allow us to escape. We’ll get into a point where we have an escape velocity in lifespan where we can actually reverse our aging and essentially slow down or. Or stop the process altogether. It’s pretty. Pretty cool time to be alive.
No, 100%. That’s. That’s really so insightful, Sashin. And, you know, when I wrote my book, came out, I guess about two, two, maybe three years ago now. And in my book, I put my longevity target is 116. And I’ve shared that with our audience and our tribe and since then, I’ve actually upgraded that number to 146 because I thought I was thinking too small. So my number is 146.
But to your point, what I find that’s really fascinating about this number, it’s partly the psychology of all of it, because as an entrepreneur who’s completely driven, what that does is it gives me permission to think that, okay, that huge, lofty goal that I want to get to. I don’t need to get there this year. Maybe I can get there in three years, or I can get there in ten years if it’s a ten year goal or a 25.
I’m thinking in 25 year frameworks, so I can think about bigger things without having maybe some of the pressure to say, I’ve got to get it done today. And what that’s actually done for me as it has really increased my presence for being in the time and place that I am at the time. So that’s been really powerful. And I find a really similar parallel. Right.
To wealth building. Right. Everyone kind of thinks about building wealth and they think about it as some number that you have to have. Right. But if I put $100 million or a billion dollars in your bank account today, how is that going to change your life? Right. What are you going to do differently? How is that going to impact your relationships? How is that going to impact your health? And you’d be surprised that the money doesn’t really do all that many things. And once you hit a point, it’s only going to go so far. So I think, in a similar vein, it’s not really about the number itself.
It’s kind of transforming your mindset and allowing you to live in the present more.
It’s really not about the number of age itself, it’s about transforming your mindset and allowing you to live in the present more.
Yeah. Great point. I love that reframe because it kind of buys you more time to solve some of the big challenges and problems that we’re trying to solve.
Yeah, talk to us about medical, metabolic health. I mean, what are some of the biggest challenges you’re seeing with people today, and what are some of the potential solutions that they could really start addressing?
Yeah, great question. So there’s a few things that are often, very rarely addressed or considered when it comes to metabolic health, and they seem obvious once we point them out, but are very crucial to implement as immediately as you possibly can. So there’s three key things that we focus on with our clients to get their metabolic system working much better.
The first one, which is the fastest to shift, is the breath. So by simply slowing down our breath and preferably, and ideally, breathing in and out through our nose, we actually increase our oxygen delivery to our tissues, and we also increase lifespan, which it’s interesting because our greatest predictor of lifespan is lung capacity. The fastest way to slow down the aging process is to actually slow down your breathing. When we slow down our breathing, our nervous system shifts into a more parasympathetic state. And it’s in that parasympathetic state that our digestion improves, our detoxification improves, our heart rate goes down, our blood pressure goes down, our blood sugar starts to stabilize, our mental faculties improve, because now we’re not in fight or flight anymore.
So our creativity and our focus and all the things that make us a better human being and in a better mood also start to improve. And that can happen by simply doing something. As, you know, it seems almost too simple and too good to be true, but something as simple as slowing down our breath. What I encourage people to do is do something called coherence breathing. And this is where our tongue is placed, at the roof of our mouth, breathing in and out through our nose for a count of six. So if we can really slow down our breath, and the average person breathes about 15 to 20 times a minute, if we can slow down our breath to six in, six out, then we’re breathing about five times a minute. And so that significantly, you know, shifts us into that parasympathetic healing regenerative state, where, again, we are the best version of ourselves. And so that’s one thing that we encourage people to do.
The shifts happen pretty much within minutes. It doesn’t take days or weeks or months to see a difference. The next shift is circadian rhythm. So every animal, insect, and plant and bird on the planet regulates its biology based on the positioning of the sun. So we might wear a watch on our wrist or there might be a clock on the wall. But the way your brain tells time is totally different. The way your brain tells time is based on where the sun is in the sky, as the sun rises and inches its way across the sky. If we were outdoors, what would happen is the brain would recognize that change in position and start activating different organ systems in the body.
So if you look at your biological clock, there’s different activities that are taking place in the body based on what time it is. And because nowadays we spend so much time indoors, we have these misguided circadian cues. And these cues then create a misappropriate secretion of different hormones and activities in the body. So one thing I encourage people to do is download an app. It’s really simple and easy to use. It’s called circadian. And what circadian does is it gives you gentle nudges and reminders throughout the day to get outside. When we get outside, we increased vitamin D production.
Of course, we get fresh air. We inhale the microbiome of nature. So if you’re able to get outside and in nature, big bonus there. If we’re able to touch a tree, we get free electrons, which means free energy for our body as well. When we get outside the sun, even if it’s cloudy outside the sun is orders of magnitude brighter than what indoor light would be. And nowadays, because we’re more and more likely to be exposed to CFL or LED bulbs because they save energy, most buildings are outfitted with them, we are actually missing important wavelengths of light. So when you’re outdoors, the reason the sun feels warm, it’s because it’s also emitting infrared light. Infrared light is typically not present in indoor lighting because that’s what actually produces heat.
So if you put your hand near a CFL bulb or an LED bulb, you’ll notice there’s very little heat, almost no heat coming off of the bulb. And that’s because there’s no infrared light in that bulb. And infrared light penetrates our skin and actually starts structuring the water inside of our bodies. And when we structure the water inside of our bodies, we are better at making energy. Our body acts as a battery, and we also help decrease blood pressure naturally. So there’s a lot of things that happened when we get outside periodically. In fact, I spend whenever possible. If it’s not raining and if it’s not winter, then I actually literally work from outside.
So I’ll spend about seven or 8 hours a day outdoors, simply taking a little desk and putting it outdoors and working from there. And so that is one way that we can regulate our hormones in our body much more impact-fully and effectively. So three big places that people can start that are really simple. One is learning how to slow down their breath. And of course, there’s a variety of different breathing techniques that we teach our clients. You know, there’s different ways to breathe for different activities. But if we can go six in, six out, that’s going to be our baseline breathing. And then the second thing is circadian biology.
And then the third thing is sleep. So if we can emphasize rest and recovery, that also helps improve metabolic function, because here’s the thing. We heal, repair, restore, regenerate the most when we are sleeping. And unfortunately, nowadays, sleep has become, especially for entrepreneurs, you know, sleep has become, you know, something that we might be needing more of. And I know there’s a big movement nowadays for people to get more rest and to emphasize a proper rest and recovery. You know, Jeff Bezos talks about this every day. He’s focused on making three good decisions. And he says that the best way to set himself up for making three good decisions is to get a good night’s rest.
And one framework for people to shift is that rest isn’t sleep isn’t the end of today when we go to sleep, it’s the start of tomorrow. So if we just rewire our brain to start thinking that, that, hey, tomorrow starts tonight, then we double down on sleep as a behavior modification. And what we encourage people to do is get something like an aura ring, and aura ring is a sleep tracking device that gives us key insights and short feedback loops on how we’re doing.
It measures our respiratory rate, our HRv, which is a proxy for the health of our nervous system. It also tells us how much we’re moving and how active we are. And it’ll also track our sleep and our stages of sleep, so we can see how well we’re recovering. When we outfit our clients with an oura ring, what we generally find is that people are active at certain times of the day, like when they go to the gym or go for a run, but then they’re sedentary for the rest of the day.
So moving throughout the day is vital. That’s also going to be crucial for better sleep. If we can move outdoors, then we also increase the production of certain neurotransmitters, like serotonin, for example, which later on in the evening turns into melatonin in the presence of darkness. So our exposure to outdoor time, our exposure to the right wavelengths of light, and the right time of lighting also plays a huge role in our quality of sleep as well.
Okay, so I just want to clarify. How do you use an outdoor office in Toronto?
Well, you know, that’s the thing. So I soak it up as much as I can. When the weather is nice and then the winter, I have to kind of pull myself indoors. But I do travel quite a bit, as I’m sure you do as well. So if I’m traveling, I try to, you know, spend as much time outdoors if I’m going south and it’s sunny, just to kind of keep my vitamin D levels up.
Now, when we get outdoor sun exposure, what we want to make sure we’re doing is we’re exposing, exposing as much of our skin as possible. So it, you know, a lot of times we might just expose our face and maybe our arms, but we actually want to expose, if we can, our chest for men and especially our abdomen. So, believe it or not, there are special genes that are triggered.
One gene is called POMC, that’s triggered when we’re exposed to sunlight. What this gene does is it activates the appropriate release of adrenal hormones. It also releases endorphins. It releases compounds to enhance our mood and our focus. So we’re literally meant to be addicted to being outside, believe it or not. And then it also helps us make more melanocytes. And melanocytes are basically what help produce melanin. Melanin is what produces our tan.
And the more melanin we have, the more energy we can draw from the sun. So melanin is a very interesting, it’s a very interesting structure because it acts like a semiconductor in our body. So very powerful things happen when we’re exposed to sunlight and certain genes are activated. So the highest concentration of sunlight should be focused on our abdomen if we can help it. That’s why we call our abdomen the solar plexus. It’s no coincidence. And then the other region is the back of our legs. So if we can get the back of our legs exposed to sunlight.
So just laying on your stomach for a few minutes, that’s also going to help activate that gene as well. So with proper sunlight exposure, you can reduce cravings, you can properly support your adrenal glands. You can reduce pain, and you can also improve the quality of your sleep. You can increase your vitamin D production, which has a multitude of benefits in the body. So there’s so many benefits of just simply being outside. And what we call these are pleomorphic inputs, which means that a single input, a single activity, activates thousands of processes in the body. So you’re not just doing one thing, you’re doing one thing, but you’re getting so many other benefits in the body.
And how do you suggest for people in this day and age that it’s all virtual? Right. Tons of Zoom calls and things like that. We’re on computer. We’re always on some type of device that’s emitting EMF, and we’re on it all the time, which you can sometimes be chained to, and you lose that mobility, or you’re not able to get outside. Do you have any hacks or anything for people to maybe it’s, you know, exercise, snacks during the day or some kind of mobility hacks that you have?
Yeah. So I’ll give you an example. Many of us might be owners of our organization. So one of the things that we implemented in our company, we used to have a, we have a standing meeting every Monday at 10:00 a.m. with the whole team. And now what we do is we make it a walking meeting. So it’s still on Zoom. So if somebody needs to share their screen, they can.
They can pop on their computer if they need to, but I’m walking the whole time, so, you know, and the rest of my team, you know, 80% to 90% of them are walking the entire time during the meeting. So we’re able to kind of get the meeting done, and so culturally, we want to encourage that. And then if I have a call with a client and I don’t need to share my screen, I mean, they already know what I look like at this point, then I’ll ask them, you know, as a courtesy, hey, is it okay if I go for a walk? And in fact, I’ll tell them that I’m actually more creative when I’m in nature?
So I think you’ll get more value out of this call as well. And they like that, too. A lot of times, unless the client needs to see something on your screen, they also would likely prefer to not be staring at the screen and get back to phone calls. So I think there’s just asking for permission, but then also sharing with your client the benefit to them and then internally creating it as a culture.
You might also want to bake in, like you said, outdoor break time, so that you can get outside and get some fresh air, get some sunlight, breathe in the microbiome of nature. If you’re in nature, and it’s a great way to just build that into your schedule, if you can.
Absolutely. One of the things I found fascinating, too, in my journey in functional medicine is that it can be overwhelming. You start listening to some of these podcasts or start digging into some of the information. There’s a supplement for everything under the sun. There’s new products, there’s all kinds of different stuff.
But I’ve really tried to follow more of a data driven approach. Right. To say, like, okay, is this actually doing anything? And the three things that Sasha and you pointed out, I think were so valuable, but just to share with people my experience with that, it’s absolutely amazing.
I have so Sunday we do. Cycling is my big sport that I do for cardio, and really to be outside, it’s so dynamic, actually riding a bike. I’m in nature. Right, you’re moving. It’s good for your eyesight. I mean, there’s so many different things. Not to mention you get two and aerobic, anaerobic type work.
But my Sunday ride, we usually, it’s pretty intense, 55 miles ride, and people are racing, and it’s really exhilarating. But I’ll come back, and my heart rate has been up to, like 190. And so it’s really hard to kind of lower my body. To your point, what’s just so incredible is I can really peek out my heart rate, and then I’ll do breath work afterwards. And then I meditate on a pemf mat or grounding mat, and I literally take my aura data and I show my wife, like, my. I’m completely stressed for my body is in a state of stress for three, like 4 hours. And then after that session, I’m completely restored. It drops, like, right off of a cliff.
And it’s just amazing to see the data. So you can actually show that you are changing that metabolic state right through that breath work and through those things. So I’ve found that to be really powerful, seeing the data behind it. This isn’t just stuff that you’re making up and it’s woo woo, right?
Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I’ll say is what I love about breath is that it’s one of the fastest ways to shift our physical state and our emotional state. And what I found is that it’s also really powerful at shifting our spiritual state as well. So this past weekend, I hosted a breath work at an event for 80 healthcare practitioners. And I’ve been doing this every year for the last few years, and it tends to be a very popular event. In fact, people were spilling out into the hallway, and we took them on a 60 minutes breath work journey. And just to see the emotions that were being released, you know, the toxicity that was being released, the repressed challenges that were being released, the forgiveness that was being, you know, that was taking place for oneself was. Was quite remarkable.
So breathing is really, like, I could talk for breathing for hours and hours and hours, and it would still be just scratching the surface of what’s possible with our breath. It’s a really, really very overlooked, very accessible, and, of course, very affordable modality that’s that, you know, I’m trying to bring more awareness to.
Yeah and with that, I mean, what would you recommend for people? I mean, you talked about, you know, really slowering, slowing your breath rate. Right, by breathing in with the roof, the tongue on the roof of your mouth. Right. Any other types of techniques that you like or give us an example of just during a. During a day. Right.
Is this, should people be doing a breath work, like, after their workout, in the middle of the day, at the end of the day, or how have you found, really the best approach?
Yeah, great question. So the way we breathe consciously really depends on what we’re trying to accomplish. So if somebody wants more energy in the morning. Or even in the afternoon and they don’t want to drink coffee, they can do a breathing technique called bellow’s breath. And so bellows breath is really simple. You may have, if you’ve ever been to any of Tony Robbins events, they do it there. And so, basically, you’re literally throwing your hands up in the air, and you’re inhaling sharply. And then as you bring your hands down, you’re exhaling sharply.
And you would do this 30 times, pause for about 30 seconds, and then do it 30 times. Pause for 30 seconds and do it 30 times again. So you would do three rounds of it, and by the end of it, if you put your hand on your chest, you’re going to feel your heart rate’s increased, your blood pressure has increased. Because what we’ve done is we’ve increased the production of adrenaline in the body by breathing that way. See, the body uses the breath to change its state. And so because we use the breath unconsciously, we can also use the breath consciously. So I can control how I breathe. Right.
But if I forget about breathing, my body does it without my awareness. So when we override the breath manually, we get to choose what we want our body to do. So just like I can raise my blood pressure, I can raise my resting heart rate, I can raise my production of adrenaline and noradrenaline and energize myself. I can do the opposite. So I can slow down my breath, specifically by lengthening my exhales. So, breathing in for, let’s say, a count of four to six, and then breathing out for a count of eight to ten, by lengthening the exhale, I’m telling my body I’m safe. I’m telling my body that I can rest, I can relax, and I can be present to the situation that I’m in or the space that I’m in. And I’m sending, by sending a message of safety to my body, it’s activating the parasympathetic nervous system.
So one breathing technique that is very powerful, you may have heard of it, it’s called a physiologic sigh. And it’s actually been shown to be more powerful than meditation. And it’s so simple, we can, we can walk through it right now. This is where you’d sit up in a comfortable position. You can do this laying down or sitting up. And then once you’re in that position, what you would do is you would essentially have, you would hold your breath at the very top. So you would take a breath into your belly, into your lungs, and into the top of your throat, hold it, and just pause. And when you feel, whenever you feel called and ready, you would let it out with an, with an audible exhale, so it would sound and look like this.
And you will let the air out enough. You don’t push the air out. You don’t force it out. You just let your diaphragm go into a neutral, relaxed position. And then you repeat that anywhere from three to ten times, depending on, you know, how stressed out you are and how calm you want to feel. And this is a great way to shift you from a sympathetic state into a parasympathetic state. So this would be a great exercise for you to use after your strenuous exercising to shift your body into that more relaxed state. And then, you know, I also encourage people to use breath while they’re sleeping or while they’re trying to fall asleep.
So breathing technique that we use is called a four, seven, eight breath, where you breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, and then exhale gently for 8 seconds. And by doing this again, we’re slowing down the exhale because you’re breathing in for a total of four. And then you’re exhaling for a total of 15 or holding and exhaling for a total of 15. So your nervous system, again feels safe, it’s starting to calm down, and your body’s going to shift into a parasympathetic state. Ready for bedtime. So those are three simple techniques that people can use.
Excellent. Really appreciate that, Sashin. I’d really like to go back to this blind spot topic and really, really impress upon the audience the power of this. And agAin, one of the reasons I’m just so passionate about this. Number one, I identified about seven years ago some blockage in my carotid artery by doing a CIMT scan, which, again, is something most people don’t even know what it is that doctors, you have to pay for it out of your own pocket. You have to ask for it.
But since I was doing functionality medicine, my doctor had recommended it, and I’ve been an athlete my entire life, would have had no idea that I actually had some plaque buildup in my arteries over the years. And as a consequence, I’ve been able to proactively try and mitigate that, which I’m still working on right now.
But I think that’s just so powerful and one of my great friends, I just found out recently, has also completely stopped a potentially life threatening disease in his body by being proactive, using functional medicine to identify something that was brewing that he had absolutely no idea of.
Again, we talk about wealth, and you think about someone like Steve Jobs, who had all the wealth in the world, but he really couldn’t buy himself one more day, powerful. This really is. this is how important this really is. So can you share with us a little bit about really uncovering some of those blind spots and how functional medicine does that? And what should people be looking for?
Yeah, that’s a great question. So, you know, a big thing that we tend to focus on is comprehensive lab testing. So, you know, when you go to your doctor, they might only run a handful of tests, looking at some of the more basic lab profiles, and not even doing a comprehensive cardiovascular profile or hormonal profile. So it really starts with taking a good history, understanding what the client’s goals are, and then we look at. We’d like to look at genetics just to see what the predispositions might be for somebody. And your genes don’t necessarily tell us what diseases you have, but they tell us what the propensities might be and the areas that we might need to pay closer attention to, and then we want to look at their actual state. Right. So if I think of a car, if I’m working on repairing a car, in this case, an analogy for a human.
I’d want to know what model that car is, right. So if you call and you want to get an oil change, chances are they’re going to probably ask you what kind of car you drive. But if you don’t know what kind of car you drive, then it’s hard for them to know what oil to use, right? Or what air filter or oil filter to use, for example. And so we need to know the model. And that’s why genetics can be very helpful, because once you do genetic testing, you really only have to do it once. And that’s a test that actually becomes more valuable over time. And when you know the genes of the individual, it’s kind of like knowing what model car somebody’s driving. It helps us understand, you know, are they an suv? Are they a station wagon, are they a sedan? Are they a coupe? You know, what model are they? Because then that determines what type of tires they need, what type of oil they need, what the maintenance schedule is going to be, or what the potential problems might be, right.
Vehicles have certain, you know, deficiencies that we might be well aware of in advance, right? So I know that, for example, I used to have a 1998 Honda Accord when I was in university, and that car was known to have transmission issues. So if I called the mechanic, they would already know when I told them what car it was, what the potential problems of that vehicle would be. So genetics can be a really good tool, and then the other great tool can be a comprehensive laboratory analysis. Again, you know, a history will tell us what specifically a person needs. But if you’re going to cast a broad net, there’s a great resource that was just recently developed. It’s called function health, and function health looks at over 100 blood markers. And for only dollar 499, you can get two tests a year to kind of track your progress over time. And now you have a better kind of assessment of what’s going on below the surface that may be asymptomatic.
And just like a bucket doesn’t really cause a problem until it’s overflowing. And it’s just that one last drop that causes it to overflow. Many diseases and dysfunctions take place the same way is that they can be brewing and accumulating over time. Just like a clogged artery, for example, it could be continuing to get. Get more and more sclerosed. And as a result, you can have a 95% blockage and still be walking around. And then as soon as it jumps up to 100, then obviously there is a problem. So imaging can also be very valuable as well.
So you had the CIMT test. I had that done, as well just earlier this year in January, and it was great to see where I was at as well. I’m 46, and I had the CIMT score of a 24 year old. So, you know, sometimes the negative test is also very beneficial because it tells us, “hey, like, what I’m doing is working, so keep doing it, and it can.
It can validate and verify that we’re on the right track, or it can help us identify, like I did in your case.” Wow. I didn’t know this, right? So my wife and I, even though we eat the same food, had radically different scores, and she was kind of bummed out because she was just a couple of years younger than her age, and I was like, you know, two decades younger than my, you know, than my actual age.
But. And, like, that’s not fair. We eat the same food like we do all. We do so many of the same things, but we’re individuals as well, right? So some people may have a higher propensity. So her mom, for example, in her in her mid fifties, had a heart attack. And so there is a genetic predisposition there that we need to be mindful of. And so, you know, we can find out additional things from specific imaging. And if somebody’s concerned, you know, they can also do full body MRIS.
Now, for about $3,000, you can get a full body MRI done. You can do a gallery test, which screens for different types of cancers. For less than $1,000, you can screen for a variety of different cancers if there’s a cancer history. So, yeah, there’s. There’s lots that we can do that, you know, your typical conventional practitioner isn’t going to look for because they’re waiting until you have a disease. That’s when they can roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty when you meet a certain criteria. But I know many of us aren’t waiting to meet that criteria. Right.
It’s like, I kind of think of, like, seeing a functional medicine doctor or practitioner or coach, like seeing a financial advisor, and I think of seeing a doctor or a surgeon. Like seeing a bankruptcy attorney.
Yeah.
Right? It’s like, you know, you should have. Like, it’s like you should have done something a long time ago, right? And had you had the foresight or the insight or the fortitude to kind of look into things earlier, then you’d be having a conversation with an advisor who’s helping you build and grow wealth instead of working with somebody who’s helping you recover or file for bankruptcy, as an example.
Yeah, I appreciate that. If you could give just one piece of advice to the audience about how they could really start to be proactive with their health and improve their health, what would it be?
Great question. So I would say in the hierarchy of health, we talked about the three things, the three fastest ways to shift our health. I would say spending more time outdoors, if somebody can. If you just had one thing to focus on, it would be, how do I spend more time outdoors? Because there’s so many important signaling, so much important signaling that takes place. And I find that the majority of people are spending way too much time indoors. People are eating well, they’re exercising, they’re doing all of the things, they’re checking off a lot of the boxes. But as soon as we get to, are you spending enough time, time outdoors? Then that’s when most people don’t pass them there. You know, they don’t pass the muster there.
So getting outside more. The other thing is breath, as I mentioned. And the third thing would be sleep. I mean, these are the things that I find that are often, very often overlooked. And it’s almost because they’re so simple. But when you understand how these simple inputs can make such a profound difference, it becomes easy, affordable, accessible, and instantaneous. Like, you don’t have to buy anything to do those things. Right? You don’t need to have an aura ring to focus on sleep.
It can measure your sleep, but you don’t need one to emphasize sleep as part of your practice.
No sage advice and it’s why I moved to Florida a couple years ago. There’s actually a ton of Canadians around here. There were certainly the benefits of no state taxes and getting rid of winter, but I’ve increased my outdoor time easily by 50% by moving down here, which has really been amazing.
So I’m a testament to that one as well. But, gosh, really appreciate all the wisdom that you’ve provided today, Sachin, and your time, and really helping people, I think, understand how to be proactive around your health, how to improve your metabolic health, things that you can start doing today, to start to create positive habits. Because, you know, I just. I love your initial statement, too, that, you know, the future of medicine is really around the patient.
You know, you’re in control of your own health, right? So you better take charge and start, you know, doing some of these things or, you know, like you say you’re going to end up in a bankruptcy proceeding, you know, with a doctor, and then they’re, you know, it’s kind of too late at that point. You’re just trying to mitigate, you know, the actual issue. So this has been incredible insightful, and I hope the audience really enjoys this. And now is the time, right now is the time to start taking control of your health because it is your biggest asset. If you don’t have health, you don’t have anything. Right. It is really foundational to our lives.
Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to share. And we’re just scratching the surface of the surface, which I hope people understand as well, you know, here’s to health, happiness and wholeness. To everyone for life.
Yeah, 100% and so if people would like to learn more about your coaching, some of your programs, what you’re doing either with superhuman academy or functional medicine coaching academy, what is the best place for people to connect with you?
Yeah, thanks for asking. So if they want to learn more about our metabolic programs, they can go to metabolic reset, and if they want to learn more about our practice in general, they can go to becomeproof.com and we’re happy to answer any questions that people have. We’re happy to be in service of them and, you know, improve their metabolic health and wellness.
Awesome. Thanks so much, Sachin.
My pleasure. Thank you.
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