The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #308 - Dr. Romie Mushtaq

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Anxiety, ADHD, and insomnia are not three separate diagnoses in stressed out adults. It's all one continuum, and the underlying root causes neural inflammation in the brain.

In the last seven to 10 years, the brain has been rewired because of our brains being constantly connected to digital devices. I need you to treat your work desk like a crime scene. Anything related to work, put a mental yellow tape around it, and you need to be able to step away from all of it and give your brain a break.

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast where we meet the world's top experts to explore the secrets of health, mindset, longevity, and so much more. Are you ready to take charge of your existence and biohack your life? This show is for you. Please keep in mind we're not dispensing medical advice and are not responsible for any outcomes you may experience from implementing the tactics lying here in. So friends, are you ready to join me? Let's do this.

Welcome back to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. Friends, words cannot describe how much I enjoyed today's conversation with Dr. Romy Mushtak. I loved her book, The Busy Brain Cure, and I was blown away about how relevant and personal we got in today's episode.

We dive deep, deep into what happens when we get busy brains which can actually manifest in health conditions as well as in particular ruminating anxiety, ADHD, and or insomnia. Today we really look at how you should be using your brain when it comes to engaging with your work, why you shouldn't be multitasking and switching between lots of things trying to be more productive, and why instead you should actually focus on one thing at a time. We talk about quick shifts for the ultimate productivity hacks, how to break the stimulant sedative cycle, the problems with diet, and the importance of comfort food, yes comfort food, how to consume caffeine for the ultimate benefits without the side effects, the lab slips you should be giving your doctor, and so much more. These show notes for today's conversation will be at melanieavalon.com slash busy brain. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about so definitely check that out.

I can't wait to hear what you guys think definitely let me know in my facebook group if biohackers intermittent fasting plus real foods plus life comment something you learned or something that resonated with you on the pinned post to enter to win something that I love and then check out my instagram find the friday announcement post and again comment there to enter to win something that I love. All right without further ado please enjoy this fabulous conversation with Dr. Romy. Hi friends welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I'm about to have today with a fabulous guest. I am here with Dr. Romy Mushtuk the world as she says knows her as Dr. Romy and Dr. Romy has an incredible book called The Busy Brain Cure the eight-week plan to find focus, tame anxiety, and sleep again and friends I absolutely love this book so first of all Dr.

Melanie Avalon
Romy tells her personal story in the book which I'm sure we will get to and it has some pretty intense health challenges and and life challenges and work challenges regardless there's so much there that I think people will identify with when it comes to facing stress in their life and knowing the difference between what's normal stress versus actual burnout and how you can actually take charge of that and how the root of a lot of what you may be facing actually goes back to this concept of the busy brain and what I really really loved about the book in particular and really identified with was Dr. Romy understands that some people are very busy that they really thrive on being productive and overachievers and doing all the things and when Dr.

Romy was addressing her own struggle with this she wanted to do this without necessarily quote slowing down and the book provides a pathway to how to take charge of your stress get back your health and wellness without having to go to some retreat and not do anything for a month it's very practical so we're gonna dive into things like the role of sleep and diet and hormones and caffeine and sugar and comfort food and and all the things and then how to actually have a protocol to address what you may be dealing with and deal with your busy brain so Dr. Romy thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Ah, Melanie, I am so honored and excited. I am not only bringing myself, I am channeling all the energy of the aunties. I even put on a Indian bright neon red curta for this interview today. And I think the podcasters can hear my loud blouse. And we are here in all of our joy to celebrate being on your podcast.

Woo hoo!

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness. I just adore you already.

This is incredible and I was I was so okay the aunties that you you reference they make quite a few appearances throughout your book and I was trying because I feel like this is like a cultural thing that I Don't quite understand. Can you can you explain more? So I was like, is this like a situation where you're like there's your relatives But they're very present in your life and like yes, what are what are the aunties?

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
You know, I think it's not, I'm from the South Asian culture and we have, I think what in the West can be labeled as not only helicopter parents, but helicopter families. And I'm the daughter of immigrants here and English is my third language.

And I grew up in a small town in Illinois. The aunties are a combination of elder women in our families on my mother and father side, but also women that were in our community. They were other doctor's wives like my mother and they all came from traditional family backgrounds, but all over the world and all different religions. And in a small town of Danville, Illinois, where I grew up, these aunties were like the elders to all the children in the community. And they knew my parents had one success mantra for me. We have one daughter and you will become a doctor. I was the first woman in both sides of the family to go on to college and graduate school. And it was a community effort, but also the aunties represent something else that I want to tackle straight out of the gate and why I think everyone can relate.

I think we've missed the mark a lot psychologically where too many times men and women, but especially women get caught with the voice of judgment. And we send them to say, you need to eat berries, breathe, set boundaries, go do more inner critic work. And that doesn't really help. And what it is is when we have a busy brain, the negative ruminating thoughts, the inner critic turns up as these voices. And throughout the book, the voices of my auntie characterize when you're under chronic stress and have a busy brain, the voice of self judgment, the voice of the inner critic, the voice of judgment towards others. And when you get the audio book, I am narrating this entire book, including the voice of my aunties, or they show up in my keynote lectures and everyone can relate to that wicked voice of judgment that lives inside of all of us.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, okay. I love this so much.

And now half of the shows I read, half I listen to audiobooks, it just depends. It really depends on the timing of the lineup with everything. And I love it when authors narrate their own book. So I'm gonna have to go back and listen to that. Did you enjoy that experience?

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Aunties are so sad today. We put on our gold jewelry for you, Melanie.

We put on a red silk. I narrated all the voices of the aunties. They were very dressed up in the studio and the sound engineers were laughing all the time that we would have to do retake because everybody was laughing at how naughty we can be.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my gosh. I'm so happy right now.

That's amazing. That's amazing. Okay. Okay. And that really helps. I have a really clear picture now of everything. I love what you're saying about the, the judgment piece. And in particular, and I mentioned this in the introduction because I know so like for me, I, I thrive on productivity, I thrive on my to do list and my agenda. And I love it and it really makes me feel alive. And at the same time, I will have self judgment about am I, it's weird. I guess the self, the self judgment I most have around that is am I doing this too much or enjoying this too much? Or should I actually be doing other things?

Should I be taking breaks? I did take your quiz. I took it when I first read the book and then I took it again last night for the, for the busy break here. And like, where are you on the, on the thing? Let me see what my answers were. Actually, what my score was. Hold on. Oh, I'm interested to see. When I was taking it, I was wondering if some of my answers were, were throwing it off and we can talk about this though, because like I do intermittent fasting. And so like someone, the questions was about skipping meals, skipping meals. Yeah.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
I feel like that was throwing it off. Intermittent fasting isn't technically skipping meals.

When it's done consciously, when I work with a lot of executives, I consult in workplace wellness and I'm a keynote speaker, and people, you know this. They're not typically your audience, but they may be in my audience when I share your podcast. They think, oh, I'm going to have a busy day or I'm flying across the country tomorrow and the next day, I'm going to skip a few meals. That's intermittent fasting. You and I both know when you're following an intermittent fasting protocol that is designed for you, your age, your gender, your health issues, that's not skipping a meal. That's altering your nutrition plan. So now if you're intermittent fasting and you're like, well, I normally have my first meal at 11 a.m. and my window ends at 5 or 6 p.m. and you tell me you miss your traditional 11 to 12 p.m. meal, that's skipping a meal for you.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, that completely makes sense. And then some of the other ones, and again, we can get into the details of this, I feel like my circadian rhythm is very different from normal society. So I go to bed very late, I wake up late. And at the same time, it's very consistent and I'm getting, you know, eight or nine hours of sleep, but it's very altered from like normal society. So I'm not going to bed, you know, at 10 o'clock. Okay.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Yeah. You know, we also skew for that because for instance, I'm a chief wellness officer now for a very large hospitality company, Great Wolf Resort. And in hotels and hospitals, we have people working 24 hours a day. So somebody is a second or third shift worker. So what I'm hearing from you is you have the sleeping hours of a second or third shift worker.

And so that 10pm rule fits most of the people globally because their first shift workers, their work or their school day is during the daylight hours. And so what we skew then for a second or third shift worker to your point is what is your working hours? What is your sleeping hours? And so if 1am is your 10pm and it's consistent, then we're okay. But Melanie people like yourself who are routine about sleeping that late and sleeping in every day are rare. What we find is with most people who are working second or third shift, their schedule varies, whether it's a workday or not, whether they had coffee late. So now they're going to stay up till 4am, 5am and skip sleep time and whatever it may be.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah that completely makes sense and I don't know why I can't find the um the results but it said that I was on the on the edge of the

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
edge of busy brain. Okay, it meant you were your score. So let's backtrack for the listeners who may be confused. We will include a link to the show notes.

This is a free quiz to get your brain score. You know, here in the United States, we can't do anything without knowing our credit score. And yet, our brain is our most important tool. And most of us don't think about our brain until someone is diagnosed with dementia in your family. And then you kind of start to think about it. We wanted to give people a scientific tool. This is known as a busy brain test. It's a validated neuropsychology stress test. And there's 20 simple questions in there that help to screen and give you a number of your brain score. And we call it do you have a busy brain? So under a 30 is normal. 31 to 40 is mild neuroinflammation, what we call early stages of busy brain. 41 or above is a busy brain and 60 or above is burnout. And that's how that's categorized. And so the questions cover, if you're under chronic stress or burnout, is it affecting your cognitive health, your memory? Is it affecting your mental health, your mood? Is it affecting your physical health? And that is a great gauge. Because we will break this down when you're under chronic stress and have a busy brain, it affects all aspects of your health and well being.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I love it. And like I said, I will put a link to that in the show notes. And you came up with the quiz and the questions.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
No, no, no. So this is a valid, when we use the term validated neuropsychology test, this was a stress test that was created in the 1970s and validated by psychologists, right? Now, because I'm a professional keynote speaker and consultant in Fortune 500 companies and global organizations, we started to do the research on busy brain in December of 2020 during the global pandemic. And we wrapped up the research with this test in December of 2022. I can't walk into any global corporation and be like, I'm going to give your employees a stress test. And it just wouldn't fly marketing.

So we labeled it the busy brain test. And we got data in 17,000 people during that 24 month period to understand what was chronic stress and burnout in today's modern world doing to our brains, our mental health and our physical health. And then from that, we developed the protocol, which is the eight week protocol that you mentioned in the book and tested that in over a thousand executives. And so this was under research protocol. Now that test is out there for free, we give it in the middle of keynote lectures, but you can imagine that, you know, just this past week, I was with the Children's Hospital officers and I was in Canada for a large financial conference. I can't just walk in and say, let's do a medical stress test. It just wouldn't fly. But when I say, here's your brain score and your stress tests, it's a wake up call to everybody.

Melanie Avalon
Wow. Okay. Incredible. Beyond incredible.

Before we go more into the details of everything, I would love because you talk about your personal story in the book and it's so intense. And I don't know how to pronounce it, but the thing you got, you got, so you got diagnosed with, is it eclasia? Eclasia. Yeah. Eclasia. And what was that condition?

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Acalasia, they still don't really know the root cause of it. It is a abnormal functioning of the way the nervous system wires your food pipe, known as your esophagus, and your stomach and your small intestine. It causes a disruption in the lining. By the time I was diagnosed, I had precancerous lesions.

It is a, at that time, a very rare medical disorder was diagnosed in about one in one million people in the United States. That whole adage of my dad going, you have one in a million, unfortunately, in a bad way. But for most people, Melanie, it's discovered on autopsy. It doesn't really bother people, or they have mild acid reflux at the most. Mine was, I was this high achieving, I mean, mission accomplished from my ancestors. I became a doctor. I loved everything I did. I entered neurology at a time where less than 5% of the brain doctors in the country were women. I was doing cutting edge research on the role of women's hormones in the brain, and epilepsy, and migraines, and loved it. But I was wearing burnout as a badge of honor, like pushing myself to work, 100, 120 hour work weeks, and not taking care of my health, not taking care of my nutrition. I just, nobody had ever taught that to me. And pushing myself to the edge, I didn't recognize, back then, we didn't have the term burnout in the vernacular of the public, let alone the medical lexicon. I was just anxious all the time. I was ashamed. I thought I was the only one suffering. And then the physical chest pain started, and they initially misdiagnosed it as acid reflux because I'm stressed out. And it got to the point, and it's in my TED Talk from now, over a decade ago, I was waking up in the middle of the night choking on my own saliva and vomit and aspirating and getting frequent pneumonia. And that's when it got diagnosed properly, that, wait, this is an acid reflux. Something else is going on. And then they did the biopsies and found the precancerous lesions, and I ended up in emergent surgery. Looking back, they did all the tests. Is this a rare autoimmune disease? No. I used to travel internationally with this infectious disease that I was so young to have this disease and so severe. And we attributed it to, I was so burned out, I had a busy brain, and that chronic stress, we're going to break it down, affected the wiring of my brain, the busy brain center we'll talk about. And it negatively impacted my digestion, and this is what happened to me.

And even to this day, Melanie, when I am not taking care of myself, when I'm pushing myself too hard, I will have that chest pain and difficulty swallowing.

Melanie Avalon
Wow because one in a million is it something that requires a genetic predisposition and then if you're stressed enough it gets activated or could anybody.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Anyone can have it, it's not a genetic disorder. So the moral of the story is, and we will break down when we get into the science of the busy brain is, our brains are wired to control different parts of our brain and our body.

And for me, that pathway of dysfunction is, when I'm not taking care of my brain, it's going to affect my GI system. And for me, particularly, it was the accolade. Now, had I had the tools that you and I are going to talk about her that was in the book and I was following the protocol, I still could have worked as that successful doctor doing research, but following the protocol and the accolade probably would have been diagnosed on autopsy in my, you know, whenever the universe says it's time for me. But instead, I was only 33, 34 years old facing mortality.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, wow. So when that happened, and you talk about this in the book, when you kind of hit rock bottom with everything, you tried a lot of things. Like you went, because it was after that that you went on the meditation retreat, right? Yeah.

Yeah. So where all did you seek answers?

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
I think the most shocking part was waking up in the hospital and the surgeon feeling happy as he should have, and they saved my life. We successfully removed all the lesions. You won't at this point need a second or third surgery, but Melanie, I was laying in the hospital there in Seattle and the cardiothoracic surgery ward going, nothing I've learned in medical school is going to help me now. What am I going to do?

The most dangerous part of all of this was my aunties, my beloved aunties. I went home to my home state of Illinois to recover in my mom and dad's home at that time where I was born and raised, and my aunties were coming to visit, and they said something to me, Melanie. Betta, the lights are on and nobody is home. What happened to our happy little Romi? That was the most dangerous part in all of it.

The lights were on and nobody was home. I really want to double click on that for all of your listeners because that may be you if you're avoiding your gaze in the mirror when you brush your teeth in the morning, or that could be someone you love. They're avoiding eye contact with you. They look at you and it's just the soulless feeling. That is the person, no matter how well they're doing in their career, whatever they're posting in social media, do not leave that person's side. Tell them that you're there and you care for them and that they're not alone.

I think that was the first moment that I realized the answers are not in the places I was taught to look. This was 15 years ago. I am older than you and a lot of our audience members, but I was handed a cassette tape with mantras and meditations on it. I know this sounds like so next level basic right now, but back then there wasn't YouTube, there wasn't a watch to remind us to pause, there weren't meditation apps. I started to listen and I was slowly lifted not only out of the darkness, Melanie, but out of the chest pain.

I didn't need all those awful narcotic pain medications. I was curious. The next old school thing I did was I went to the public library in that town and I looked for books. What was this meditation? What was mindfulness? These books were so spiritual and they didn't seem like they were meant for me. I was like, I'm not the spiritual of a person. I'm not sitting in a temple in a faraway land. I'm trying to recover and I'm a single woman at this time and I have to go back to work and pay a mortgage. That started me on a journey around the world to learn mindfulness, meditation, breathwork, Ayurveda, yoga, anything reiki, anything any global healer could give me that I thought I was using to heal my mind, body and spirit and somewhere along the way.

You read this in chapter five to nine, the guides that came along to help me heal. There was that aha moment of, oh my God. I've been practicing neurology and psychiatry in a deficient manner. There's so much more we can do to get to the root cause of illness.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
That's when I went back to study integrative medicine and now the story is here I am today. The protocol that took me maybe eight years to heal myself and to research and implement in other one-to-one patients, I was like, we've got to be able to scale this.

That I can take this into companies and heal teams and the public.

Melanie Avalon
I love this. And what I really appreciated about that part of your journey is the nuance of it, because I think a lot of people will look to things like mindfulness and meditation and think all of the answers are there.

And maybe for some people, maybe it is, like for some maybe for some people with health conditions and stress and burnout, that's all they need and that fixes them. From reading your book, I got the sense that it was highly revolutionary for you and you know, changed your perspective and set you on this journey. And at the same time, it wasn't enough, like for you, like the meditation wasn't enough.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
You know, thank you. I think of all the podcast interviews I've done since this book was launched, Melanie, a year ago. You just summarized that so eloquently.

When we talk about everyday stress, that's acute stress. When the stress is ongoing in our lives, whether it's personal or professional, it goes into chronic stress and burnout. And that's the time we need tools for our mind and our body and our spirit. Don't fall prey to the social media influencers that says, do this one thing and it'll all go away. And what the busy brain test does, and then the lab slip that we have in chapter 16, which is life saving for so many people, what that does is it shows you like, hey, Romy, Melanie, you've been under chronic stress, the airport traffic control tower of your brain, which you have a savvy audience, your hypothalamus and the seat of your circadian rhythm is linked to every organ system. There is neuro inflammation that will go somewhere else in your body and we need to heal whatever the long-term effects were of your chronic stress and burnout. And so sure, in milder cases of chronic stress, a meditation mindfulness practice alone may be beneficial or help, but most people, we need to look what's going on with their hormones, what's going on with inflammation, their sleep cycle, how they're fueling themselves and the role of technology in our lives. And that's the shift protocol right there.

Melanie Avalon
Wow, I love it. And just while we're not dismantling but discussing the meditation part of it, one part of the book, a sentence about it that I really, really appreciated was you talked about how people think when they have a busy brain that they need to turn their brain off.

And you say something really powerful about how like the brain cannot be turned off. Like if it's turned off, we're dead. Basically, this whole idea of

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
How can I turn off my mind or my monkey mind? I would say a monkey mind is a normal state of mind where if you're still, there are thoughts that are any emotions that are all over.

A busy brain is something very different. A busy brain is the triad of symptoms of illuminating anxiety, like constant worrying. It is inability to focus or adult onset ADHD and difficulty falling asleep due to raising thoughts or waking up in the middle of the night hijacked with those thoughts. That is very different. People say, well, meditate and turn your brain off like it's an on-off switch. Then high achieving professionals that I work with, athletes, executives, are like, I can't shut off my brain. I'm like, you don't need to. The only way that our brain is actually quieted down or powered down is if you're under general anesthesia or if you're dead and unconscious. We're conscious being and the brain is constantly processing thoughts on a conscious and subconscious level. It's that, is it to a place that it is a busy brain and so negative that it is driving structural and functional changes in your body and having a negative effect on your hormonal health, on your digestion, on your respiration, gut health, all of the things?

Melanie Avalon
Those three things, the ruminating anxiety, the ADHD, and the hijack sleep, do you think those all arose historically when we started experiencing this at the same time? Or are some of them more an artifact of even more recent society?

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Great question, so I'm gonna break them down one by one. The busy brain term, when we looked at those 17,000 people, these were the most common symptoms. And in traditional neurology and psychiatry, people are given what we call an either or diagnosis, which is, oh, you have anxiety. Here, take this anti-anxiety med, you have insomnia, oh, you have ADHD, take that medicine. And what we got wrong in traditional neurology and psychiatry is anxiety, ADHD, and insomnia are not three separate diagnoses in stressed out adults.

And this is adults only, not children. I wanna be very clear that it's all one continuum and the underlying root causes neuroinflammation in the brain under chronic stress that happens in the hypothalamus and disrupts our circadian rhythm. So that's number one, they're all related, true, true, unrelated. Now, what I break down in chapter nine of the book is, rather shocking, and even more since the book was published and we submitted the research is, we know in the last seven to 10 years, the brain has been rewired because of our brains being constantly connected to digital devices. And today, the multi-screen or multi-digital device use that we have, think about it. How many of you are binge watching something on Netflix or Hulu right now? And while you're watching it on your smart TV or laptop, you're also on your phone looking at TikToks or Googling something else. And that's, or even at work, you're sitting in front of multiple screens and multiple browser windows open. And so that is, when I first entered neurology in the 1990s, there was no such thing as adult onset ADHD. Now it is a part of the traditional medical literature because of our digital device use.

And so, yes, it has evolved because of the way society has evolved. And I'm also a realist. We're all successful professionals and we can't do it without our digital devices. So we've got to find a way to succeed without stressing ourselves out.

Melanie Avalon
I thought movie theaters would be, I actually thought they would go away after the pandemic. I'm glad they didn't.

I often reflect on how going to a movie theater is probably the only time I actually watch a movie without, you know, looking at some other screen or something else, which is

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Which is kind of crazy. I just had this aha moment with you. What if if the first step we did for everyone listening to this podcast is say, I'm not going to be my old fashioned Indian artist going, oh, hi, all the digital devices, take out the cassette tape layer. That's not going to work.

What if if we told everyone, could you go see a movie and report back to Melanie or even if you're going to do it at home? Only watch a TV show or a movie on your smart TV and put away the laptop and phone and just focus on that. What do you think of that? That would be a great way to train the brain.

Melanie Avalon
I love it. We could single-handedly like re-instore the movie theater. Movie theaters, right? Yes.

Interestingly, I'm surprised actually they haven't done a campaign like this. That would actually potentially work for them. Girl.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
We need to go find the marketing agencies that are behind the movies. Regal, Regal, there you go.

Melanie Avalon
Oh man, that's amazing. Okay, this is actually a huge question that I've had for a long time, because I'm thinking right now. So the way I do it with the multiple screens is when I'm prepping actually these shows, because it takes hours and hours like organizing my notes, and I get a lot of joy. I really do from organizing the notes while playing something in the background.

And then I judge myself because I know I probably should be just doing the notes or just watching the TV. My two questions there are one, can you perceive that it is a habit that's working for you, but it's actually working against you? Or could it maybe be both? Like, is it a little bit more nuanced?

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
What do you have going on in the background I just want to ask that clarifying question before you get to question number two what's in the background.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, so right now it's the only there's only one reality TV show I watch. I don't know why I'm obsessed with Love is Blind, but I am. Love is Blind.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you because we all have that one reality show. We're ashamed to admit we're watching. For me, it's The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, yes, exactly. So, never love as flying comes on. Everything stops and that's what we're watching, but I'm almost done with that.

So next, I really want to watch the next season of White Lotus. So it's typically like TV shows, movies.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
So, you know, what we learned in week four of the protocol, I talk about the brain pause. And how can you improve your ability to focus?

What you're describing is, unfortunately, the myth that was taught in the 1990s and early 2000s that in order to be productive or a good employee or successful, you had to multitask. And what is happening here is your easily distractibility. So you need something comfortable or joyful in the background, even though your podcast notes are joyful. But when it is conversations that will be happening on any reality TV show or anything you watch, it's actually shown that it's going to take your brain three to nine times longer to do a physical or mental task. And that you're more likely to make mistakes and not retain information. And so in the busy brain cure book, we actually call it quick shifts, the ability to do one power task and give it intense focus for anywhere from 60 seconds to 15 minutes, because people think answering these two emails are going to take 15 minutes. But when that's the only browser window open and the only thing you're doing, people can get it done in 60 seconds.

Melanie Avalon
I love this and I want to talk a little bit more.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
people ask me anything because I can tell you what works to have on in the background as well.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. Yeah. Okay. So what, because what I've noticed is, because I'm always like any given day, there's so many tasks, there's so many emails, there's so many projects, so much to do, but I love doing it. So there's that.

I know, so like a lot of what I do, I know I can't have on, like I can't be watching anything at the same time. No way. Some things I can have music on, but even some things I can't like just nothing. But then some things like when like I said, working on organizing my notes, which takes, well, it goes faster now with AI, which has been a game changer. But it's like I make a conscious decision. Actually, this is a really good example. So every now and then I'm really scrambling with finishing up those notes. And when that happens, I can't watch anything because I know I do it faster without watching anything. And so I still make the conscious decision in my life, the majority of the time to do it while watching something because I know I'm sacrificing maybe time to completion, but I enjoy it more because we've got that, that show playing.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Yeah. So I think you just answered your own question. There are tasks all of us have to do, whether we're employed or an entrepreneur, that don't give us as much joy as watching a favorite TV show or movie or listening to music. And we want to make the experience more pleasant.

But you already just answered it yourself. You know you're not working as fast. I think the question for me always in productivity is, do you need to do that task or can you delegate it to someone else? And to your point, can AI help you delegate it? It is really the idea. The second thing that can be helpful, and we talk about when people tell me meditation was not helping my busy brain, we looked at the power of sound healing and music therapy with this. And so that instead of voices in the background of a known TV show, movie, whatever it is, or unknown, or a podcast even in the background that you like is also a distracting conversation. Instead of that, putting on the binaural beats music or sound healing music and doing that task. Because now there is actual music that will drive a sustained dopamine and serotonin, the happy hormones and the focus hormones, rather than the fake dopamine of binge watching something. And this goes back to my homework for you. Could you sit down and watch an episode of Love is Blind? Or we're on season three when we record this podcast of White Lotus, which is absolutely phenomenal. I'm so excited to start it. Could you watch it without doing anything else? And could you put blocks of time for your podcast note prep in your calendar? Time how long it takes you to do it without anything on in the background and then block those times off and put on sound healing instead. And then use watching an episode of Love is Blind or White Lotus as a reward for that block of doing that podcast note organizing.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, I just had an epiphany because, okay, so my mental dialogue while you were saying that was because when you first said block out, you know, a time to watch White Lotus. So my thought, and I know this is me being defensive, my first thought is, well, I don't have time to do that.

But then I'm thinking because you just said, well, you just said though, like time myself doing my notes while watching something and then time myself not watching something. It probably would turn out that it would be the same amount of time to do the notes while watching something compared to do the notes and by themselves and then watch something by itself. It might be the same amount of time or even less.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
really last. If you rewind back what you just said in editing, you're going to hear yourself admitting that it took you longer to do the notes while you had a TV show on in the background. And so you're just going to do that, but you're going to do it with the sound healing music. And maybe it'll be more pleasant for you.

It'll definitely go by faster. And what I'm all about doing when we have a busy brain and focus is key, is those power blocks of quick shift focus. And so if it's not the entire note organizing of the podcast episode, break it down in the five steps and do even step one of those five steps. And then the brain starts getting a dopamine hide like, Oh, I didn't think I could and I did it. I'm three step four, five. And then it just becomes wrote or honestly, as entrepreneurs, it becomes something you realize, like, I can delegate this out with AI to another team member. So either you're going to do it and do it in a focus block, or you're going to delegate it to someone that's the rule of thumb with busy brain.

Melanie Avalon
And also, what's interesting, I would imagine, so with that exercise that we just came up with where I'm separating the work from the watching of a TV show, I would imagine people, if they're doing similar things, would struggle more with one versus the other. Like, I think for me personally, so I really do love what I'm doing. So even if I'm doing the notes without watching something, I'll still enjoy it.

I think the hardest part for me would be watching an episode of TV at home where I didn't like pay and lock myself in a movie theater room and just watch it. Because going back to what you were saying at the beginning about, it's what you said at the beginning about the self judgment, I would judge myself as being lazy.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
I see the aunties are coming to your brain. My apologies that my aunties are affecting your brain too.

Oh, hi. You're not being a good, productive entrepreneur. You're sitting and watching a TV show. Like no, that is the busy brain in order. Like look, the opening lines of my book, I didn't want anyone to write the foreword to the book. It needed to be my voice to the reader of exactly what I told myself. This book is written for type A unapologetic success driven professionals who don't want to be told to slow down or don't have the luxury to slow down. You and I are busy people. I don't like to call it busy. I like to call it productive. I run my own company. I speak on stages around the world and I'm a C-suite executive in a company as a chief wellness officer. I do those things because I allow my brain a break to do things that give me joy, that are mindful, that create a sustained dopamine rather than the fake dopamine high. So sure, scheduling time to watch a favorite movie or series once in a while, but not binge watching over and over. Then you're fueling the neuroinflammation and busy brain, but that ability to just do that one thing, read a book, go out, be with friends and not be working. I think that is the paradigm we need to switch for both entrepreneurs and founders and as well as busy executives who are like, they may be out with their family and they're checking work text messages and emails. They just can't unplug. Let's heal the guilt and say, time block something that gives you joy.

Melanie Avalon
I think for me, so I do that consciously, that's why I mentioned earlier when we were offline that I love going to theater and so I love going to theater because that's what that does for me because it locks me in a room with no phones, I get to experience a show, usually with somebody, so it hits all those things for me and I have no guilt surrounding it.

There's something about if I were to do something for pleasure when I'm at home by myself, I would just have a lot of guilt because I could be working, that's why, because I could be working at home.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
We talk about this with companies and individuals is I need you to treat your work desk like a crime scene, you know, and and just CSI Atlanta at your desk and your laptop, your screens, anything related to work, your book, any image of your podcast is put a mental yellow tape around it, and you need to be able to step away from all of it. And give your brain a break typically the medical research and scientific research shows about five minutes every 60 minutes and you'll be more productive and get more done and that there needs to be a boundary between. Your space for work in your space for physical rest, emotional rest, spiritual rest, psychological rest and social rest and they need to be separated. Otherwise, we're on the path to busy brain, chronic stress and burnout, even in a job we love.

That is the difference between Romy prior to surgery, doing a job she loved and the Romy of today as a entrepreneur and founder. You know, is separating the two. Now let's have some Romy real talk. We all have deadlines and programs were rolling out and periods where we're in a sprint, but that sprint can't be every day. You can't be sprinting through a marathon. That's not healthy.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, this is this is so incredible. Basically, I'm asking you to biohack your rest.

I've always been really, really fascinated with the multitasking. If I didn't know anything about multitasking or the brain, and I was just told to logically ponder the concept of multitasking, and what did I think as far as was it good or bad for the brain, I think I would have theorized that it's good for the brain because it's like exercise. So I've always been really fascinated that multitasking seems to not be good to the brain and that we didn't evolve for it to be a good thing or a skill. I guess we would have had to evolve like a second brain.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
I don't think it's about evolution or the ability of the brain not to adapt. I think the brain is phenomenal at adapting, but what it did was fuel this current environment where we lack the ability to pay attention or sustained attention.

What that created in the multitasking was what we call that fake dopamine high that makes people continuously swipe on social media, click on a shopping cart, wanting to gamble something, wanting to go stress it out of the pantry more. That fake dopamine high is what multitasking is, is that my dopamine peaks and it goes down. So I think, oh, I'm going to stop doing this task of sending an email and click over to Slack and see if a team member needs me. And from Slack, I'm going to go back to posting something on Instagram and going into the DMs and, oh, from Instagram, I'm going to go over to TikTok and it goes on and on. That's not multitasking. That's easy distractibility and poor productivity.

So I think people are distracted, can't focus or have adult onset ADHD and mislabel it as multitasking.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I know one for me, it's a similar concept, not quite the same thing, but it is something that you mentioned in your book, like the difference between checking stuff off of a to-do list versus, you know, focusing and getting a project done. I know for me, I live and die by my to-do list and my calendar and my agenda. It does keep me sane and it does help me do all the things.

And I have to be super aware that I don't just add things to the list to cross them off. Like I know I get dopamine hits from crossing things off. So I have to be like, very careful with that.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
There's one thing to be organized, right? My chief of staff, my EA, we color block, color code my calendar, and the whole team knows that color coding. I'm proud of it.

I have my daily to-do lists. That's productivity, right? But what happens when we have a busy brain? We tend to put too many things on our daily to-do list, and we're not focused. I'm going to use being an entrepreneur as an example on what is the most important thing I need to tackle that has the highest ROI on business. Instead, we're jumping from one creative, fear-based thing to another like, oh, Dr. Romy and Melanie have a podcast. I should start a podcast. Let me start researching the podcast. Oops. I haven't posted anything on LinkedIn and Instagram today. Oh, whoops. I was supposed to answer that email. Oh, wait. I'm supposed to be working on a sales page for my website. That's not multitasking. That's not being a productive entrepreneur. That's busy brain.

But when you heal a busy brain, I right now know, as you and I are recording this podcast, my quarter one sprint was launching our corporate wellness program for Great Wolf Resort. All of my tasks, focus tasks were around that. Now Q2, it's rebuilding and continuing to grow our speaking pipeline. I have daily tasks for other jobs and other things, but my major focus tasks are around that. Now I have a organized to-do list, number one. Number two, it is easy to look at something and say, do I have to do this or can I delegate it? That's what happens when we don't have a busy brain and we brain shift. Now we are highly functioning, successful business owners, founders, entrepreneurs, without stressing ourselves out.

Melanie Avalon
I love this I've I think I've recently fallen into something that. Is a photo catalyst for productivity but really it's a crutch and it's not a good thing like I've fallen into so I use a physical calendar is your calendar physical or is it electronic.

Or we're both.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Both, I have an electronic calendar and then I use something called the Passion Planner just to write my to-do lists in and because I love having different color pens and writing things.

Melanie Avalon
I love that you named it, you know people love their planners when they know like the name like mine's the law of attraction planner and I'm like all about it.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
See? I love it. And I didn't name mine the Passion Planner. It's a wonderful company, you know?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, same, same, same with the law of attraction one, mm-hmm. Exactly.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
You know we love it when when it's yeah. Yeah, you know

Melanie Avalon
when you can name. I just love my planner.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
It's like my emotional support animal. And when I'm traveling with carry-on bags only, my passion planner is big and heavy and it won't fit with my laptop and some of my own tech.

And so I feel lost when I'm not traveling with it.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, same. Same. I travel with mine. My apartment got four years ago, but I got broken into and they took my computer, my TV, all the things, but they didn't take my planner. And I was like, if they had taken my planner, I don't know what I would have done.

Yeah. But the habit I've fallen into recently, probably a few months ago, and I've got to get out of it. I've fallen into a habit with sticky notes because basically I have everything in my planner, so I don't need to be rewriting it on a sticky note to cross it off the sticky note, but I keep doing that. And so now there's sticky notes everywhere and I like crossing them off, but I'm like, Melanie, just leave it on the planner. You don't have to rewrite it somewhere else to cross it off.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
What I'm hearing is we call this concept in the book, you have multiple browser windows open on your computer and your brain. Melanie has multiple browsers open, windows open on her brain and with your sticky notes, right? And so it's just making me wonder like, you know, then that's when I want someone to do the busy brain test and you said your score, you think is above a 31. And I wanna take a look at that.

And then, you know, for someone like you that already has a foundation of a very balanced lifestyle with your sleep, your bio hacking, your nutrition, there's room always to optimize things. And we're gonna jump into that protocol with that. But when I hear that, I think immediately, I think of the lab slips that I alluded to earlier. And I specifically in women wanna screen for methylation disorders like the MTHFR genetic deficiency. And I wanna screen for a full thyroid panel and take a look at what's going on because when we're under chronic stress and then hearing these little nuance things and people think I just need another Instagram tip to fix this, my brain as an integrative medicine doctor goes, I wanna look at your brain and hormonal chemistry underneath and see, is there something that's slightly out of balance that we fix that would now give you back your sense of control in your brain and not give the power to the sticky notes.

Melanie Avalon
Every time i do it i'm like when did i start doing this and i i think i identify that oh i can i can get the double of the dopamine by rewriting my miniature to do this right here on a sticky note and i can cross it off and i get all this dopamine hit, but then there's like sticky notes everywhere and then i have to cross reference did i cross it off of the original calendar so like literally it's just adding it's just adding.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
So that's that part of the busy brain of the difficulty focusing and the inattentiveness. And thank you for sharing so vulnerably because so many people listening can relate to that right now.

And you know, the aunties in your brain, anybody's brain is going to make you think, I'm not a productive entrepreneur, I'm, you know, just seeking another dopamine hit. Yes, that's true. But the idea is, is what can we do to heal that?

Melanie Avalon
Mm hmm. So the things you mentioned, I know I'm homozygous for MTHFR. And then for I am on compounded thyroid medication. So that's always been something I've been dealing with.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
And so there you go. I mean, I didn't even know this about Melanie and people are like, Dr. Romy may have known this before. Literally, it's just, it's that simple.

And so yeah, it would be, let's look at the full thyroid panel as just something just need to be optimized as you know, something between the zinc and magnesium and nutrients that may be affecting it. You know, you mentioned earlier, you're into intermittent fasting. You've had other experts on your podcast before and you can link their show notes, but there is not just one intermittent fasting protocol for everyone. It is very different for women and men, different of women of childbearing age, different if you have PC West thyroid or perimenopause or menopause. So, you know, those are the little biohacks and adjustments that need to be made.

Melanie Avalon
May I share one last habit that I know I do that I struggle with you share?

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
all you want. I mean, thank you for being so candid and vulnerable. And I just hope you and I are being of service to even one listener, then we've made impact in this conversation.

Melanie Avalon
No, of course, this is so exciting. It's really exciting to see how your because your work was so enlightening and helpful. And I can see how it really specifically relates to everybody's, you know, specific conditions. So the last thing, this is something I do that I wrestle with mentally, because I do genuinely I think if I had to like, go on a debate team and debate for why I do this habit, I don't know, I have a lot of reasons for why you do it. So I'll be curious your thoughts.

So in the book, you talk about the role of, you know, evening and morning rituals and all and everything that you're doing, we can we can talk more about that and sleep and everything. And one of the things you say not to do and so many people say not to do, and I agree, even though I am doing this little thing, is when you wake up not immediately checking like your phone or something like that. I am not a morning person. And I find that if I if the first thing I do is check my phone, that it wakes me up, it gives me a dopamine hit seeing what emails came. Like, I feel like it's a good thing for me.

I've wondered about this for a long time, because I know, I don't know anybody who would say that that's a good thing that I do that. But I find it was

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
wakes me up. What if we just take away the self-judgment voice of something is good or bad and we just recognize you're doing something to help you cope?

And I think you just said something very interesting here towards the end of this interview and you started the interview with something of, I sleep late and I wake up late. And then the first thing I would assess is, are you really honoring your circadian rhythm if you're waking up tired and in a low dopamine state? And so in my peak performance lectures for companies, I talk about the mistake of biohackers and peak performance and leadership athletes, et cetera, which is this fake dopamine high versus a sustained dopamine that you get from meditation, exercise, regular healthy sex, all of those things. And you're already telling me that in order to get through your work day, you need constant bursts of dopamine. You have to have a TV show on while you're doing a task. You are putting sticky notes up in addition to your planner, in addition to your calendar to cross something off dopamine. What it's telling me is, is could we look at your neuro chemistries and hormones throughout the day, including what's happening in the morning is when someone is honoring a full night of restful sleep, we should have naturally a normal level of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins in the morning when we wake up, you already know enough to know, hey, my dopamine levels may be a little low. What can I do for an easy hit? What if I said there are other activities we can do when you're in a hypo aroused, a low arousal dopamine state in the morning? Because what happens when you pick up a phone and you're looking at something related to work, it's increasing your stress hormone levels and it's only setting you up for a busy brain the rest of the day.

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. It's that stress hormone that I'm looking for because it like I said, it does wake me up more

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Yeah. And so the question really is, is take the busy brain test. I'm really curious for you to get your full labs and just to see what's going on with everything. When I hear, one is I'm wondering if it's really serving you to stay up so late and sleep in so late. It's meaning you're fighting maybe some of your natural biochemistry. Is that one thing we need to rethink?

The second thing is when I hear any woman is fatigued in the morning, despite getting a full night's sleep, because you're going to say, Dr. Romy, this is my circadian rhythm pattern. I should be sleeping in and getting a late start of the morning. Great. But when you're not feeling energized, then again, I want to re-look at your thyroid panels. I want to look for iron deficiency anemia and other markers of inflammation. I really want to see what's going on from a biochemical level. And the third thing is, is could we come up with another two things to do in the morning that would peak your dopamine that don't involve your phone?

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm. You didn't notice either in the past. I I had very severe anemia not not currently, but It's not good to the past. I had to be hospitalized for it.

So yeah, this is all so fascinating So it is

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
is it really ties into kind of what we've been talking about is when we're under chronic stress or burnout, it can reset all the biochemical hormonal systems in our brain and our body. These labs need to be checked.

Even if they were checked a year ago, if something is changing and you're still struggling, like Melanie has been so vulnerable with me. Thank you on the podcast. I think the first thing I would want you to do, sister, is go get the labs and send me the results. If I need to have a chat with your healthcare provider, I'm happy to do so. I think that's where I would want to look to see what it is that's going on.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. I love this.

It's interesting because I had a, I don't know if you know, Dr. Anna Lemke, she wrote Dopamine Nation. That was a really intriguing conversation. It was a while ago now, but we talked about whether or not a person's addiction to dopamine from like productivity and work related things. Like was that a bad thing or not? And she, and like maybe that's like the one thing that is actually self-serving or like not, doesn't have a negative effect.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Yeah, it does when it's first thing in the morning. What science shows about the healthiest and the most successful and happy and people and peak performers is the first 20 to 30 minutes from when you open your eyes in the bed will set you up for emotional resilience and stress management the rest of the day.

Something instead of that is could we pick music that revs you up because you're low energy state, so we need high energy music. People who wake up in a hyper aroused dopamine state like, oh my God, am I going to get through my day? We need sound healing mantra music for them as an example in the morning, right? That's an example. I would want you to do slow stretches in bed, spinal stretches, like the yoga poses for the spine to start integrating your brain and your body together and gently waking yourself up. That's an example of things to do. It's just that first 20 to 30 minutes and it is one of the quickest bio hacks I've given to executives who tell me their days are transformed because they just spent 20 to 30 minutes doing something other than work related. Then to your point in dopamine nation, you and I are the same. A big part of who I am is defined by my work, my mission, the impact I have. Tasks range from just okay to absolutely joyful to do, but I have boundaries on my brain of when I'm going to, what I'm going to do, when I'm going to do it, and what I'm going to delegate. That's what keeps me successful today without burning out, and I do this while flying to one to four cities a week.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, you've got the travel skills that that's insane. That's amazing. But if

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
it's this rigidity, right? And I know I'm human.

I will wake up somewhere. I'll look at my phone going, Oh my God, I'm in West Coast, East Coast. What do I need to do? Where's my schedule? And I know later in the day when I'm hitting that dopamine high or I need more caffeine than I know I like it views. I'm like, it's because I didn't set my day out for a success. So it's a, what can feel like a rigid discipline of what can I replace with my phone in the morning? So I'll ask you, what is some good theater music that would rev you up in the morning or a movie soundtrack that you'll love?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, there's lots probably with the theater. It's probably whatever I most recently saw because it'll be you know in my brain Or it'll be like i'll be really into it.

I'm actually seeing a show tomorrow, but it's not a rev up show. So It's a kind of a debbie downer

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
But any music that touches you, that moves your soul and your body, whether it's slow or fast, listen to it in the morning instead.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. Okay.

I do love, one of the other little habits I do every morning is because I do intermittent fasting and I eat in the evening, I run the dishwasher at night. So in the morning, well, afternoon. And when I'm up for the next day, I love to listen to music actually and like unload the dishwasher and clean the kitchen. So I like doing that a lot. There you go.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
So I would do that instead of looking at your phone and your emails and unloading the dishwasher and cleaning the kitchen is a common one because it's a sense of accomplishment and that is a sustained dopamine high. That's a healthy dopamine high because it's energetically and spiritually cleaning your space and it's a form of exercise and it's creating focus and you're doing it with music.

Now, if somebody says, good God, washing dishes, unloading, loading the dishwasher is painful, then please don't do it. You and I are the same. Washing dishes is relaxing. I will tell you, a chore I hate doing is ironing or steaming clothes. So I wouldn't do that in the morning. That's going to agitate me.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, I love this. Yeah, that's something I've noticed about myself.

I actually I really like doing most like chore related things because you're accomplishing something and you're moving around to do it. So it's exercise and

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
What if if we said this is your transition period in the morning is going to involve music and a chore and then your I'm cutting work time off and I'm going to go relax on the sofa and watch whatever series I'm watching or knit or do something relaxing, you're going to find another chore to transition away from your computer.

Melanie Avalon
Mm-hmm as a transition chore in between hmm. I like that.

I like that a lot Speaking of the kitchen and for listeners friends. I know we talked a lot about this aspect of busy brain There's so much more in the book that we haven't even remotely touched on So everybody go get the book now the busy brain cure You do talk about the role of diet in the book and we talked about this offline. I Loved hearing your perspective on comfort food.

So what is the complicated relationship of diet being? important for addressing our Busy brain from so the health the physical health of a diet the nutrition aspect and also this idea of comfort food and maybe how It can possibly be helpful as well

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
When you have a busy brain, we gave an eight-step, eight-week protocol in the book, and the first four weeks are around restoring sleep insanity, and weeks five to eight, or steps five to eight in the protocol, are about boosting daytime energy and focus. I created a book and a program where diet is a four-letter curse word. It is the one time I got a standing ovation in the middle of the keynote address with the American Counseling and Psychology Association when I said this, that diets are the single most harmful contributor to mental health in the West. This rigidity of having to follow a diet, the, okay, I did it, I measured out, and I stayed gluten-soy, dairy-free, or I'm paleo, or I'm vegan, and I did this, and you're bad because you're not vegan, or whatever the judgment is, it's very harmful to our mental health, and it can be more harmful to our gut health than we realize.

Then remember, also, I'm a chief wellness officer, and I want everyone in a company to feel like they belong. The diet system has made us so judgmental of one another. What I wanted to break down the foundation so that no matter what someone's nutrition plan is, they can have fuel for their brain and their bodies and heal burnout, and that meant stopping stress eating.

Stress eating is another fake dopamine high. I need to comfort myself, so I'm going to go and grab whatever in the pantry that's typically carbohydrates, fried food, salty food, sweet food, savory, right? Potato chips, cookies. People know what their stress food is, wine, cheese. Comfort food is something very different. Comfort food is the food that is tied to a core memory of joy. In the book, I talk about my maternal grandmother, my nani's lamb biryani. It is tied to so many beautiful childhood and family memories. We all have a food from childhood, from our ancestry, a religious holiday, a faraway land or place we travel to, that typically is tied to sharing a meal with others.

That is with joy. I want you to schedule that one to two times a week. We found in our eight week protocol when we were running this with teams, people were actually maintaining or losing weight, losing belly bloating, and feeling happy when they had that. In simple terms, if it is your child's birthday this weekend and you are having pizza and cupcakes and ice cream, don't let your child see you making a face over sugar and carbs and passing on diet trauma to a young child. Enjoy the core memory of joy with your child's birthday.

The way we biohack this for busy brain and burnout was if you're going to eat a food that creates a spike in your blood sugar, high glycemic carbs, white sugar, white flour, white potatoes, white rice, you get the idea, have it, but then no caffeine for one hour before or after. If you are having a beverage or food with caffeine in it, nothing with it that spikes your blood sugar, so no croissant, donut, cake, pasta, whatever it is with that. We found that alone would improve focus, reduce frazzle, and fuel energy.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Then the second system was adding one to two servings of healthy fat with every meal. This is something so simple that people can do.

When you have an on-the-go busy lifestyle like me, I can't do intermittent fasting just because I travel so much and my business schedule varies of when I'm sharing meals in a business setting or personal setting, getting back out there on the dating field, this is what I follow. That's how I do what I do and keep fueled.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. You said you're getting back out there in the dating field? Yes.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
That is my hope, my hope as I've given the last decade of my life to this excellence of researching the busy brain cure, building this business of keynote speaking and workplace wellness consulting, and my hope is for a second chance at love.

Melanie Avalon
oh my goodness i love it we'll have to talk more i'm actually currently working on a dating app and it revolves around dietary choices so like connecting over food oh my god

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Can can we have a can we have a comfort food section?

Melanie Avalon
Oh, for sure. So that's going to be, so it's not just, you know, specific diets, it is that paleo, keto, all the things, but then it's also people who like comfort food or food lovers.

So it's, we want to make it super, super broad.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
I love this and so I don't want people to think like comfort food like Lambriani or Chicken and waffles if that's a favorite comfort food or lobster mac and cheese that you eat this every day It's one to two meals a week and then the rest of the time, you know, follow Some version of an anti-inflammatory diet.

So you just listed several of them Melanie whether someone is eating Mediterranean Paleo keto I tend to lean towards a plant forward or pescatarian gluten-free diet Like one nutrition plan doesn't fit all people it, you know, I will say this is an integrative medicine doctor We look at you as a whole person. We look at your spiritual beliefs We look at what health issues are going on and craft something according to your lifestyle

Melanie Avalon
It's awesome. And speaking to that, I think this speaks to the importance of it.

When we were doing research for the app, we found some research on they did like a poll of the top first date options and all four of them involved some form of food or drink. So clearly, connecting with people. Yeah, it was like getting dinner, getting drinks, coffee. Number four was like, something weird that I agree with like, go to not weird, I'm not judging. It's something I've never done. It was like going on a picnic or something. Okay, but I kind of find that romantic. Oh my gosh. Yeah, for a first date. I just I didn't know people were doing that. Oh, yeah.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Yeah, for first date, I didn't know either. But girl, this may be why I'm single. Maybe I need to put seeking a picnic partner on the date.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, man. So yeah, so it just speaks to how important, you know, there's clearly something very important with social bonding and our mental and emotional health with food. Like, it's very clearly related.

So I love that you understand this and appreciate this and support this and also understand and appreciate the role of the actual diet all the rest of the time and not diet, four-letter word, the food people are eating. Yeah.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
your nutrition plan, right? And yeah, there's so much in this world today that divides us and that further fuels a busy brain.

Don't let food choices divide us. Instead, allow food to bring us together.

Melanie Avalon
Amazing and with the caffeine do you find do you find that is a an aid for people a does it hinder people more do they struggle with it i know we're talking about how not combining it with sugar and the timing of it's really important is the actual amount something that needs to be addressed for people.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
It's not the actual amount typically, it's the quality of caffeine. So we really prefer caffeine in a natural source. So it's coming from coffee, ideally organic coffee if possible, matcha, green tea, cacao, compared to the synthetic caffeine that's often found in canned energy drinks. So I would say that's number one, is the source of caffeine is more important.

And then the timing of the caffeine. So earlier in your day is ideal for your circadian rhythm and neuroinflammation. As you're starting to use caffeine later in the day as a crutch, it should be a sign of, wait a minute, am I in chronic stress burnout busy brain? That my energy levels are low during the day. Again, that goes back to chapter 16, take the brain shift lab slip, they're separate from females and males, and get things checked out.

Melanie Avalon
And just a clarification about the morning, I think was there something in the book about actually not having it right when you wake up because you already have a cortisol? For more.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Most people, ideal state is to avoid caffeine for the first 60 to 90 minutes when you wake up. However, when people wake up low dopamine state, they do need that rush, right? So when you are in a, when I would say you've healed busy brain and burnout and you wake up focused and ready to start your day, wait that 60 to 90 minutes.

So where this really plays in is for my athletes or people that go to gym first thing in the morning, I asked them to avoid their pre-workout drink if it has caffeine. It's peak performance for your brain and muscle, believe it or not, and muscle strength and endurance and cardio. It's ideal to avoid it and then wait to take it because otherwise you are creating a cortisol spike in the morning that is in excess of where we want it when you're having caffeine and it's stimulating the adrenal glands.

But that is for the rare peak performance person from most people. Like you said, we all have the mornings, like you're saying, where you wake up and you're really slow to go and you need that dopamine hit, I would rather someone have caffeine in the morning than start on their social media, their phones or their work emails.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, and then on the flip side, what do you see with people winding down with alcohol or wine or?

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Oh man, now I'm going to sound like a judgmental auntie. So in the book, I call it the stimulant sedative cycle. When you have a busy brain and neuroinflammation, you need excessive amounts of caffeine or stimulant like ADHD drug to keep you going through the day. And then it's got you so ripped up and anxious you need something to calm you down or take the edge off at night.

So that can be a sedative like alcohol or a prescription sleeping pill like Xanax or Valium. And that is just creating this fake chemical high that's fueling anxiety all day. You're getting a sedative that's temporarily making you feel better. But the rebound anxiety that is coming once the sleeping pill or the alcohol wears off is just going to make the busy brain worse the next day. So you're stuck in what I call the stimulant sedative cycle and the busy brain cures meant to break that. You and I are not meant to be high achievers by being caffeinated all day and being sedated by alcohol or a prescription medications at night. There's a natural way to do it and give me eight weeks in this plan and you will have success without stressing yourself out.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it's so interesting. I actually did a year where I had no caffeine or alcohol because I wanted to see if I was more productive, if I was happier. And my experience was I realized the caffeine I didn't really need. So I didn't really bring it back.

I have a sip of coffee every morning, literally like a sip. I think it's more of just a ritual. But I realized I was happier with my wine. So I was like, I'm bringing it back. But it has to be like organic, low alcohol. I can't do conventional.

It was really telling for me.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
For you, and you enjoy wine, I feel like people I know who tell me they enjoy a little bit of wine, they're not doing it to medicate, to forget their work day, or to cope with a partner, or cope with being a parent. They're doing it because they enjoy a glass of wine, or the taste of a cocktail with food, and it's something you don't need to get through your day or get back to bed.

And I love that you try to year without both. I would have quit one and then the other, instead of both at the same time, because, you know, I wonder, you know, no judgment, you know, enjoy drinking wine, beer, a cocktail, whatever your listeners are. But you're telling me now, you're sleeping late, you're waking up fatigued. You're needing that dopamine high. I'm wondering if the lasting effects of inflammation from the brain are disrupting your circadian rhythm and creating a little fatigue and with the MTHFR deficiency, even more so, even if you're taking your extra vitamin B complex and all of that.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I used to be so fatigued. It was horrible, definitely like chronic, I like CFS chronic fatigue syndrome.

Now it's like, I just don't like getting up in the morning, but once I do my stuff, then I'm like good, but it's not, I definitely, I would love to be, it would be nice to wake up energetic. It would just naturally, that would be an experience.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
That's not something that people have every day, but when you heal busy brain, you do wake up 80% of your mornings energized and ready to go. You could be energized and have an honest reaction of, Oh God, I've got this meeting today. That's going to be challenging with a boss. Oh, I have to remember PTA meeting, you know, you may have things that are weighing you down, but you're still able to function in your day and not be crippled by busy brain or fatigue.

That's the difference.

Melanie Avalon
Well, I think listeners can tell why I so adore your work and everything that you're doing. And again, so listeners, if you get the busy brain cured, there's, well, A, it goes through Dr. Romy's story and the science of all this, more of the details with everything. And then there's very actionable steps people can follow so they can actually do this, you know, eight week reset. And like you were saying, there's the lab slip for your doctor, just so many resources. So thank you.

Was this your first book?

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
my first book. Thank you. And it was five years in research and writing. You know, you've hear me allude this, that it's original research and original protocol. And it's now out in nine languages and globally USA Today, Wall Street Journal bestseller.

And really, a year into the book launch now when you and I are doing this interview, the most important thing is the lives that are being saved, the impact. And I can't state this enough, we didn't get to this point. But I want to end with this one thing, because I know we've been talking forever, Melanie, and thank you for being vulnerable. I was just giving a keynote lecture and someone said, I read your book, I got it the week I had a miscarriage. And I went and did the labs and found out that I had a dangerously abnormal thyroid condition. And I took the book to the doctor. And you know, she's on treatment. And she came up to me at the conference I was just speaking at this week, and she is now six months pregnant, and her thyroid managed. And all she had thought at the point when she had the miscarriage a year ago, was I'm burned out. And that's why I couldn't sustain a healthy pregnancy. And that is how powerful the brain body connection can be. It is the brain shift or the difference between you judging yourself that I'm just burned out tired when I wake up fatigued to actually being able to succeed without stressing yourself out.

Melanie Avalon
That is beyond incredible, that's amazing. Well, I'm just so, so grateful for everything that you're doing.

We'll put links to everything in the show notes. And the last question that I ask every single guest on this show, and it's just because I, so important, the role of mindset in everything. So what is something that you're grateful for? Oh.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Thank you for asking this. I think I see it in the opening page of my book.

I am so thankful for all of my life's teachers from my aunties and my teachers in public school where I grew up in a small town in Illinois to the teachers in my medical training, to the employees that I serve today as chief wellness officer who are my teachers and life's teachers. I just, I wouldn't be who I am today without that teaching and mentorship.

Melanie Avalon
Well, thank you so much, Dr. Romy. I know this interview was a long time coming. And I so enjoyed this conversation.

I'm just I was just smiling throughout all of it. And you are changing so many lives. Listeners, get the busy brain cure now. Are there any links that you want to put out there for people to best follow your work, get the book, all the things.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
You know, I think you've been so gracious, Melanie. It's been an honor talking to you and meeting your community through your podcast.

And just start with the busy brain test. Get your brain score, and follow the rest.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And if you're ever in Atlanta, please let me know. We'll have to do a double date, a double date.

Dr. Romie Mushtaq
Thank you for holding that intention for me. My aunties are looking down from heaven blessing you.

Melanie Avalon
now, you know? We'll manifest it or if I'm in Chicago. Thank you and we'll have comfort food. I love it. Yes. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Thank you, you too. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. For more information and resources, you can check out my book, What Win Wine, as well as my supplement line, Avalon X. Please visit MelanieAvalon.com to learn more about today's guest and always feel free to contact me at contact at MelanieAvalon.com and always remember, you got this.